Shadows, Angels, and the Head Text: Colossians 2:16-19
Introduction: The Sufficiency of Christ
In our study of Colossians, we have seen Paul laboring to establish one central, unshakable truth: the absolute and total sufficiency of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Colossian church was being troubled by a very sophisticated, very spiritual-sounding heresy. It was a blend of Jewish legalism, pagan mysticism, and worldly philosophy. It was, in short, a religion that offered Christ-plus. You need Christ, plus our special diet. You need Christ, plus our calendar. You need Christ, plus our mystical experiences and angel worship. It was a beguiling and enticing message, as all such messages are.
Paul’s response is not to haggle over the details. He does not offer a counter-diet or a better liturgical calendar. His response is to declare that Christ is not the first step in a long line of spiritual upgrades. He is the whole thing. In Him dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and we are complete in Him. To add anything to Christ is not to supplement Him, but to insult Him. It is to say He is not enough.
This is not a dusty, first-century problem. The Colossian heresy is alive and well. It is the native religion of the human heart. We are inveterate tinkerers, always trying to add our own little improvements to the finished work of God. We want to add our moral performance, our dietary strictness, our political savvy, or our ecstatic experiences to the cross of Christ, as though that perfect sacrifice needed our help. Paul here provides us with a series of sharp warnings. He tells us what to look out for, so that we are not taken captive by these plausible-sounding arguments that would cheat us out of our prize, which is Christ Himself.
The Text
Therefore, no one is to judge you in food and drink, or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day, things which are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, going into detail about visions he has seen, being puffed up for nothing by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.
(Colossians 2:16-19 LSB)
Don't Be Judged by Shadows (vv. 16-17)
Paul begins with a declaration of liberty, rooted in the "therefore" that points back to Christ's triumphant work on the cross.
"Therefore, no one is to judge you in food and drink, or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day, things which are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ." (Colossians 2:16-17)
Because Christ has disarmed the rulers and authorities and triumphed over them at the cross, because He has canceled the record of debt that stood against us by nailing it to that cross, therefore, you are free. This is the logic of the gospel. Our liberty is not a vague feeling; it is an objective reality purchased by blood. And this liberty has immediate, practical consequences.
No one has the right to act as your spiritual umpire in these matters. The Judaizers in Colossae were trying to impose the old covenant dietary laws and the ceremonial calendar on these Gentile believers. They were judging them, condemning them, for not keeping the old rules. Paul sweeps it all aside. Food and drink, festivals, new moons, Sabbaths, all of it. This is a radical statement. He is not saying these things were bad. He is saying they have been fulfilled. They have served their purpose.
He gives the reason in verse 17. These things were "a shadow of what is to come." A shadow is not nothing; it is a real outline cast by a real object. But you would be a fool to embrace the shadow when the object itself is standing right in front of you. The entire ceremonial law of the Old Testament was a complex system of shadows, all pointing forward, all casting a Christ-shaped shadow across the centuries. The sacrifices pointed to His sacrifice. The priesthood pointed to His priesthood. And the calendar, the holy days, pointed to His work.
This includes the Sabbath. The seventh-day Sabbath was a shadow. It was a sign of the old creation order and the deliverance from Egypt. But Christ is the Lord of the Sabbath. In His resurrection on the first day of the week, He inaugurated the new creation. We now celebrate the Lord's Day, the first day, not as a grim duty but as a joyful celebration of the substance. We rest in His finished work. To go back to the seventh-day Sabbath is to prefer the shadow. It is to turn your back on the risen Christ to stare at the empty tomb.
The substance, the reality, the solid thing that cast the shadow, is Christ. He is the true food and drink. He is the true festival. He is our rest. Christian liberty is not about being free to do whatever we want. It is about being free from the shadows so that we can embrace the substance. Legalism is the attempt to earn God's favor by meticulously observing the shadows. True liberty is resting in the fact that in Christ, the substance, we already have God's favor completely and eternally.
Don't Be Cheated by Mystics (v. 18)
The second warning moves from external regulations to internal, subjective experiences.
"Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, going into detail about visions he has seen, being puffed up for nothing by his fleshly mind," (Colossians 2:18 LSB)
The danger here is being "defrauded of your prize." The prize is Christ. The false teachers were offering something that looked like a higher, more advanced form of spirituality, but it was actually a counterfeit that would cheat the Colossians out of the real thing. This is how all false religion works. It offers a substitute for Christ that looks spiritual but is, at its root, demonic.
What did this counterfeit spirituality look like? First, it involved "delighting in self-abasement." This is a false humility. It is a rigorous asceticism, a harsh treatment of the body, that appears pious but is actually a source of pride. It is the man who makes a great show of his fasting. It is humility as a performance. True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less, because you are thinking of Christ more. This false humility is entirely self-occupied.
Second, it involved the "worship of the angels." The false teachers were likely claiming that God was too transcendent, too holy, to be approached directly. So they promoted angels as intermediaries. This is a classic feature of Gnosticism and other mystery religions. But the Bible is clear: there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim. 2:5). To worship angels is idolatry, and it is a direct assault on the unique, all-sufficient mediatorial work of Christ.
Third, this was all based on private, mystical experiences: "going into detail about visions he has seen." The authority for this teaching was not the objective, public revelation of God in Scripture, but the subjective, private visions of the false teacher. This is always a danger sign. When someone bases their authority on "what God showed me," rather than "what God has said in His Word," you are on very shaky ground. This leads to an elite, gnostic class of "visionaries" who have the secret knowledge, and everyone else is dependent on them.
And what is the root of all this? It is a "fleshly mind." Despite all the talk of visions and humility and angels, it is not spiritual at all. It is carnal. And it results in being "puffed up for nothing." The man who delights in his humility is proud of his humility. The man who boasts of his visions is arrogant. It is a spirituality of the flesh, which produces nothing but hot air and arrogance.
Hold Fast to the Head (v. 19)
Paul concludes by identifying the central, fatal error of this entire system. It is a failure of connection.
"and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God." (Colossians 2:19 LSB)
Here is the diagnosis. The problem with the legalists and the mystics is that they have let go of Christ. He is the Head of the body, the church. All life, all nourishment, all direction, all growth comes from Him. The picture is of a human body. For the body to be healthy and grow, it must be vitally connected to the head. The head sends the signals, provides the direction. The body receives its nourishment and is held together because of its connection to the head.
The false teachers had, in effect, decapitated the church. They were offering a spirituality that was disconnected from the source of life. A body without a head is a corpse. And a church that is not holding fast to Christ is a dead or dying institution, no matter how much religious activity is going on.
Notice that true spiritual growth is "a growth that is from God." It is not something we manufacture through our own efforts, our own diets, or our own visions. It is something we receive as we hold fast to the Head. The "joints and ligaments" are the means by which this life is transmitted, the structures of fellowship, teaching, and worship within the church. But these are only effective as they connect the body to the Head.
When we cling to Christ, we are knit together with one another in love. Our unity comes from our shared connection to Him. When we let go of Christ to pursue shadows or visions, the body begins to fall apart. The Colossian heresy, for all its apparent sophistication, was simply a distraction from Christ. And any distraction from Christ, no matter how pious it sounds, is deadly.
Conclusion: Christ is All
The warnings here are intensely practical for us. The temptation to supplement Christ is perennial. Some try to add political activism, believing that Christ plus the right political party will save us. Some try to add moralism, believing that Christ plus a rigorous set of personal standards will make them acceptable. Some try to add mysticism, believing that Christ plus their personal spiritual experiences will bring them closer to God.
But Paul’s message is relentlessly simple. You are complete in Him. You don't need Christ-plus anything. You just need Christ. The shadows of the old covenant have fled because the substance has come. The counterfeit spirituality of visions and man-made humility is a dead-end because the true Head is present with His body.
Our task is not to seek out new and exciting spiritualities. Our task is to hold fast to the Head. It is to sink our roots down deep into the Christ who has already been revealed to us in the gospel. True spiritual growth is not found in ascetic rigors or mystical flights of fancy. It is found in the steady, daily, faithful clinging to the all-sufficient Savior, Jesus Christ. He is the Head, and all growth is from God, through Him. Let us not be cheated out of our prize.