No Touchy

Passage: Colossians 2:20-23

The Big Idea

The third pitfall to real spirituality is humanism dressed up as religion: “By my own effort and self-denial I can become more spiritual.” Strict rules like “don’t touch, don’t taste, don’t handle” look wise, but they have no power against the flesh. Real change comes from having died and risen with Christ, and from responding to His love with love.

Three Pitfalls

Paul is warning us about things that will ruin your spiritual life, and showing how we’re safe from them only when we cling to Jesus.

  1. Legalism: follow these rules to become more spiritual. But those things were shadows, and the real thing is Jesus.
  2. Weird spirituality: you need some extra experience or feeling to be truly spiritual. But you’re complete in Jesus.
  3. Humanism: by my effort I can become better and more spiritual. It’s all up to me. How much I can deny myself. How much I can sacrifice. Especially how well I can avoid bad things, or things I’ve decided are bad. That will really show how spiritual I am.

Humanism can be hard to spot, because it often takes really religious forms, like asceticism.

Asceticism is the idea that spirituality comes from giving up physical pleasures and personal desires, practicing strict self-denial as a spiritual discipline.

Legalism and asceticism don’t make anyone more like Christ, who is the very picture of real spirituality and perfect righteousness. These kinds of religiosity can look impressive on the outside, but they fail to cleanse the heart, and so they fail to free us from the sin nature we inherited from Adam. They tend to produce self-righteousness, pride and hypocrisy, attitudes God especially hates.

Jesus saved some of His harshest words for the legalists of His day. He told them they were like whitewashed tombs: beautiful on the outside, but full of dead men’s bones inside. They looked righteous to people, but inside they were full of hypocrisy and lawlessness (Matthew 23:27-28).

(There are three kinds of people I can’t stand: people who can’t count, and hypocrites.)

The Text (Colossians 2:20-23)

If you died with Christ to the basic principles of the world, Paul asks, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world, submitting to rules like “Don’t touch! Don’t taste! Don’t handle!”? Those rules are about things that perish as they’re used, and they’re based on human commands and teachings. They do have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-made religion, false humility and harsh treatment of the body. But they have no value at all against the indulgence of the flesh.

You Died with Christ

This is the truth of the gospel. You died with Christ.

This is the great work Jesus did on the cross. He died, and we died with Him. The old sinful life we inherited from Adam died there. And this becomes true for us the moment we first believe and trust in Jesus alone.

Paul said he had been crucified with Christ. It was no longer he who lived, but Christ living in him. And the life he now lived, he lived by faith in the Son of God who loved him and gave Himself for him (Galatians 2:20).

  • My old life was simply what I inherited from Adam.
  • The gospel gives me a new life: Jesus living inside me.
  • It replaces the old life, because the old life was put to death on the cross.

What does that mean for me? Our old self was crucified with Him so the body of sin would be done away with, and we would no longer be slaves to sin (Romans 6:6). Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires (Galatians 5:24).

God’s solution to our sin nature was to kill it on the cross. That’s what Jesus did. He broke sin’s power. In other words, He changed our nature.

  • Before Jesus: slaves to sin. No way out. No escape from its power.
  • After Jesus: free from the penalty of all sin. Free from its power. Free to do God’s will instead of our sinful will.

This is the greatest truth of the gospel. Jesus takes our sin and shame and replaces them with love.

Now we really are growing in righteousness. Really serving God. Really changing. But all because of love. He loved us and freely gave us grace, so we simply respond to His love with love. We serve Him, follow Him, adore Him and worship Him as we should, because we love Him.

What’s the difference? Do you want your spouse to honor you, spend time with you and stay faithful to you because they have to? Or because they love to?

Dead to the World’s Principles

You died with Christ to the basic principles of the world. That’s the way the world generally works:

  • You get out what you put in.
  • You get what you deserve.
  • Law-based logic.
  • You don’t deserve love; you have to earn it.

The gospel has removed us from that whole way of doing things, through the death of Jesus and our shared death with Him.

“Don’t Touch, Don’t Taste, Don’t Handle”

The pitfall is thinking that by yourself, in your own effort, you can become more spiritual by avoiding whatever people say to avoid.

  • Don’t touch: stay away from X.
  • Don’t taste: don’t partake in X.
  • Don’t handle: don’t play with X.

These rules aren’t life-giving. That’s not where spiritual life comes from.

Does that mean we can indulge in any sin we want? No. That isn’t where spiritual life comes from either.

Two examples from history

Anthony of Egypt, often called the father of Christian monasticism, reportedly never changed his clothes or washed his feet.

Simeon the Stylite went further. In the fifth century, he spent more than thirty-five years living on top of a tall pillar, believing that exposing his body to the elements and withdrawing from the world was the path to holiness.

And today the same idea shows up everywhere: get people to reform, sign pledges, put themselves under rules, deprive the body, and surely their bad tendencies will fade and they’ll become godlike, little by little.

A French psychologist named Émile Coué famously taught people to repeat, “Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better.” Thousands have believed it. But no amount of self-control or self-inflicted suffering can change the fleshly mind.

Five Ways Humanism Fails (Colossians 2:23)

Humanism is concerned with the outside, with what people can produce on their own. God says it’s pointless. Paul shows five ways it fails.

1. It only has an appearance of wisdom

You look like a better person if you do this or don’t do that. It looks like a better way to live: don’t drink, don’t hang out there. I’m not saying you should. I’m saying that if you turn it into a rule, you’ve missed the whole life of love God has planned for you.

Do everything out of love. That’s the true wisdom of Christ, not the appearance of wisdom people come up with and imitate. God takes away the rules and replaces them with love. Don’t ask, “What rules must I follow?” Ask, “What’s the most loving thing I can do?” with love for God and others in your heart.

2. It’s self-made religion

God did away with the Law as a way to Him and replaced it with the New Covenant of grace. When we think and act like humanists, we’re trying to go back. God doesn’t command these rules. He commands all people everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30) and believe the gospel (Mark 1:15).

3. It’s false humility

Humanism looks nice. “Look how badly they want to be spiritual! Look what they’re putting themselves through!” But who gets the credit? Man. Hu-man-ism. Makes sense.

4. It’s harsh treatment of the body

“Only a truly spiritual person could say no to something that feels good or comfortable.” Wrong. Bad people do that kind of thing all the time. So do hypocrites and religious people.

5. It has no value against the flesh

None. These rules can’t make anyone more spiritual. They actually make us more fleshly, because they give the flesh something to brag about. “I kept the rules! I deserve credit. I deserve attention. I deserve grace!” But that isn’t how grace works.

These rules give a false sense of security and spirituality. The flesh can’t be starved into submission, and it can’t be improved by subjecting it to rules, whether human or divine. But as we walk in the Spirit and fill our minds with the risen Christ, we’re set free from the fleshly desires that wage war against the soul (1 Peter 2:11).

How Does Grace Work?

  • Humility.
  • Faith.
  • God gives everything else.

God unites us to Jesus and gives us His heart and mind.

So what does life look like when we humble ourselves and trust Jesus? Peter says that since Christ suffered in the flesh, we should arm ourselves with the same attitude. We no longer live the rest of our time for human passions, but for the will of God. We’ve spent enough of our past doing what unbelievers love to do: sensuality, lust, drunkenness, wild parties and idolatry. And now our old friends are surprised we don’t join them anymore (1 Peter 4:1-4).

When we’re united to Jesus through His death, we’re given His heart and mind. We follow Him by nature. We start to have a distaste for sin. We begin to hate anything that breaks the Father’s heart.

Grace Takeaway

You can’t white-knuckle your way into holiness. Rules about what not to touch only feed the flesh’s pride. But you died with Christ and were raised with Him. As you rest in His love and respond with love, He changes your desires from the inside out.

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