Philosophy or Christ?

What he's saying is there is no higher truth, there is no nobler knowledge, there is no greater insight, there is no superior revelation, no matter what they claim. And against the enticing claim that a higher wisdom was offered by this new teaching, he emphasized that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in Christ. Welcome to Grace To You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. It's been said your enemy is the one who's out to destroy you, no matter which side he's officially on. Well, you can be sure there are people who claim to be on your side, on God's side, but the fact is they're enemies of Christ, embracing and teaching dangerous doctrine. To find out how to spot these enemies of the faith, and how to deal with them and their false teaching, stay here as John MacArthur continues his current study on the blessings that are yours if you're a Christian. Blessings that come from being complete in Christ. That's the title of our series, Complete in Christ. And with that, let's get to the lesson.

Here's John. Colossians chapter 2, verses 8 through 10 in our study. Colossians chapter 2, verses 8 through 10.

Really, this is just the first part of a look at verses 8 through 15, which should be taken as a composite. We might title our discussion, Philosophy or Christ, because really that's what Paul is dealing with in this passage. The word philosophy, which appears in verse 8, beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy. The word philosophy is from two Greek words, phileo and sophia.

Phileo means to love and sophia means wisdom. Philosophy is the love of wisdom. And throughout all of history, man has pursued this fascination with wisdom.

And that is simply an etymological meaning of the word, the love of wisdom. But philosophy itself really boils down to the effort of man to determine the ultimate causes in the earth and the universe. The effort of man to determine ultimate causes. Throughout all the history of the world, man has pursued an understanding of what caused what is and why it is what it is and where it's going and what its intent and purpose is. Man has sought to explain the reasons for existence, the purpose of living, all of the phenomena of the universe is really one great mystery that man has tried to solve. There have been many, many solutions offered by many, many different philosophers. There have been tens of thousands of philosophers and a different philosophy for every one of those as well as millions upon millions of homespun philosophies and philosophers. Everybody with his own explanation of the universe. I remember when I was in college, one of the most frustrating and depressing experiences I ever had was a course I took in European philosophy.

And some of the solutions that people came up with were absolutely unbelievable. And no two of them ever agreed. Most philosophers deny the existence of God. Those philosophers who do allow for the existence of God usually allow for his existence only as a general cause, perhaps in a deistic fashion that somewhere back there someplace, sometime God kind of spun it all out. But most of them deny the existence of God altogether and try to explain everything in the universe in terms of their own rational thinking patterns.

Very hopeless. 1 Corinthians chapter 2 and verse 9, I hath not seen. You can't discover truth by empiricism nor ear heard. Neither have entered in the heart of man. You can't discover truth by rationalism. The things that God has prepared for them that love him. But God has revealed them unto us by his Spirit.

The Spirit is the one who searches the deep things of God. Science, that's empiricism. Philosophy, that's rationalism. According to 1 Corinthians 2, 9, neither of them will ever discover ultimate truth. No wonder Bertrand Russell, at the end of his life, 90 years of age, the vast majority of his life, at least 70 of those years being spent as a philosopher, his last words were, philosophy has proved a washout to me.

That's a long washout, 90 years. Thomas Hobbes, the famous English atheistic philosopher who fostered materialistic psychology in what is called utilitarian morality, when he was drawing near his death, said this, I'm about to take a leap into the dark. I shall be glad to find a hole to creep out of this world. End quote. So it goes with philosophers.

So it goes with people who want to eliminate God and then in their own minds, by their own human effort, attempt to discover truth. Now the city of Colossae had its philosophers. The city of Colossae had its Hobbes, its Humes, its other philosophers.

As every society does, famous ones and backyard ones. And the little assembly of believers, the church at Colossae was in danger of being captured by them, of being corrupted by them, of being infiltrated by them, of being duped by them. Now remember a little of the background about Colossae. It was a little town. It was a little town in the midst of the Lycus Valley.

The Lycus Valley was so named for the Lycus River. It was approximately 100 miles from Ephesus, located in Asia Minor. And in that lovely little valley were three cities. Colossae, Hierapolis, and the most famous because of the indication in Revelation, the city of Laodicea. Those three little cities occupied that territory. Now one of those three, the city of Colossae, had a church. As far as we know, so did Laodicea and perhaps Hierapolis as well.

But it was a typical pagan city in that it was occupied by Greeks, Romans, and a population of Jewish people who had left their land. Now Paul had been in Ephesus for three years. During the time in which he was in Ephesus, he was instrumental in founding the church at Ephesus and the other churches in Asia Minor.

And all of those churches mentioned in Revelation 2 and 3 are in Asia Minor and most likely all of them were founded during that three-year period, as well as some other churches, namely Colossae. And what probably happened was that while Paul was ministering in Ephesus, a man came there by the name of Epaphras. And Epaphras was one to Jesus Christ under the ministry of the Apostle Paul.

He's mentioned in chapter 4, verse 12. He was one to Christ by the Apostle Paul. He returned to Colossae and became the founder of the Colossian Assembly.

Now, six years have gone by since the church at Colossae was begun. Paul has finished his three years in Ephesus. After that he spent a winter in Greece from which he wrote perhaps Romans and Corinthians. Then he returned to Jerusalem. When he got there with his offering to give the poor saints in Jerusalem, it turned out that he was arrested. He was then taken to Caesarea and he was left in prison there. When his imprisonment was completed, he was brought to Rome to await his trial.

That's what happened during those six years. And we pick the story up now as he's already in Rome, awaiting his trial. Epaphras visits him in Rome. And Epaphras unburdens his heart about the Colossian situation and Paul sends him back with this letter to try to help straighten it out. Now, basically what Epaphras told him apparently was mostly good, because there aren't any really serious critical defections occurring in the congregation. Rather, there is warning lest that should occur. And the letter is mostly about warning them relative to letting any false teaching, false philosophy, infiltrate their congregation.

Colossae had its false teachers, every place does. It had its philosophers with their human wisdom loitering at the doorstep of the church, ready to enter in and vie for control and Paul simply warns them about it. Now this is always to be expected. It is always to be expected that the church in every city, in every culture, in every country, in every century will have to fight to hold its doctrinal purity. It will have to fight to keep its spiritual equilibrium.

It will have to defend itself against errorists and maintain the truth, always, because Satan will always endeavor to topple the church and drop it down to the level of false doctrine. And that's Paul's great concern and that becomes the heart of the letter to the Colossians. Now, as we come to chapter 2 verse 8, we come to what is frankly the heart of the epistle. This is the heart of the epistle. Really from chapter 2 verse 8 through verse 23, that one section there, Paul gives the main message of this letter to the Colossians.

Because here he deals directly with the false teaching that is on the border of the church that is possibly to threaten the church in Colossians. Now just to give you an overview of the book, Paul has already confirmed the truth relating to Christ in the great doctrinal section. Chapter 1 verse 15 through chapter 2 verse 7 is the doctrinal section. It presents the great doctrine of Jesus Christ and salvation. The first 14 verses are introductory. The great doctrinal section is 1.15 to 2.7. The practical section is 3.1, chapter 3 verse 1, he moves into the practical, clear to the end, chapter 4 verse 6, really, and then some personal words closing out. So you have a doctrinal section at the beginning naming Christ and clarifying who He is and what salvation is. You have a practical section dealing with what should characterize the lives of the Colossians and all believers. Now in the middle of that, you have what I could possibly call a polemical section. Polemic means a dispute. Here is the argument of the book. Here is the dispute. Here is the dialogue of Paul who says, now let me get at this issue. I've talked about Christ, I've talked about salvation, I'll talk about your practical life, but let me attack those false teachers. And he does it in the heart of the letter. And that's where we are.

Now we're going to notice something interesting. There are four aspects to the false teaching that threatens the Colossians. We have a very hard time incidentally putting this heresy together because Paul never names it officially.

He only flirts around the borders of it and it's hard for us to crystallize just exactly what it is. But this we do know. It had four elements. One, it had the element of philosophy according to verse 8 through 15 and that's what he talks about in 8 to 15.

That whole section deals with this whole problem of human philosophy. Secondly, it had in it an element of legalism. You might say number one was humanism, number two was legalism. Verses 16 and 17 are relative to legalism. Thirdly, it had an element of mysticism.

In verses 18 and 19 it talks about a rather mystical worshiping of angels. And fourthly, it had an element of asceticism, a monastic kind of thing, a false kind of humility and withdrawing from normal patterns of life like some kind of recluse or monk. So here is a conglomeration of human philosophy, legalism, mysticism and asceticism.

And in my little computer, all that goes in and clicks out the word Essenes. And they were a community of Jews who seemed to fit these patterns. Now that may be the case. Perhaps it was a form of that Jewish sect.

Perhaps it was just a coincidentally similar series of things that really embody all of the possible kind of heresies that you could imagine. Now, Paul has already called the Colossians to maintain pure allegiance to Jesus Christ in verses 1 to 7. He says, I have great conflict for you and I want you to hang on to Christ and the truth about Christ and Him are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. He's made this great positive statement. I want you to hold on to Christ. I want you to commit yourself with pure allegiance to Him. And now He moves away from the positive to the negative and here's what I want you to avoid.

Chapter 2 verses 8 to 23. Here is the polemic, here is the argument. Now false teachers were claiming, as they have been continually claiming in the early years of the church, to have a superior knowledge and they continue to do that even today. They come along and say, well we know what you don't know.

We have a system that is higher than yours. We have knowledge and insights beyond yours, a higher truer system than Christians have. And from the time of the New Testament they always came along and said we have a superior gnosis, the word for knowledge. We have a higher knowledge. We have a higher revelation. We have a higher apprehension of God's truth.

And so Paul in this section counter attacks that. And what he's saying is there is no higher truth. There is no nobler knowledge. There is no greater insight. There is no superior revelation.

No matter what they claim and against the enticing claim that a higher wisdom was offered by this new teaching, he emphasized that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in Christ. Against the doctrine of eons, the doctrine of the series of emanations, intermediate spirit beings through which the divine essence was distributed until it finally reached man in a deluded form. Paul sets forth Christ as the only single embodiment of the fullness of God, chapter 2 verse 9. There aren't a whole lot of eons and angel beings between us and God through which God filters his personality.

There's only one representation of God in human terms and that is Jesus Christ. Against the idea that those spirit intermediaries should be worshiped by men who must approach God through them, Paul shows they are nothing but demons who have been conquered by Christ. And he says in verse 15, he has spoiled the principalities and the powers. Against the idea of self-denying asceticism and false humility, Paul shows that we are no longer attached to any fleshly thing since we have come to know Christ. We have moved into a spiritual dimension and fleshly abstinence have little significance.

Now I think that I'm just giving you some overviews. I think it is important for us to see here an excellent example of how you deal with heresy. And as you look at what Paul is doing here, he's lambasting these four areas of heresy, all coming at the Colossian assembly, whether in one form or multiple forms, we're not sure. But you'll notice it is not a matter of bitter denunciation of the heresy. He doesn't name the heresy and then tear it apart piece by piece by piece.

He doesn't do that. It is not a detailed discussion of the false teaching. It is not a fiery blast at the heresy. The thing that he does all the way through here as he deals with heresy is positively affirm the truth. He just positively affirms the truth again and again and again and again. One commentator says this, when he now reaches the very heart of his letter, the apostle dwells so eloquently upon the deity of Christ and the dignity and completeness of believers that the reader is left in some uncertainty as to the exact system of error against which the Colossians were to be on their guard.

I think the point is obvious. If you know the truth, any system of error is going to collapse in the face of the truth. And so it's vital that Paul present the truth. Now, these four things Paul will be dealing with, philosophy, legalism, asceticism, and mysticism. Now, as we look at verses 8 to 15, we see a simple contrast.

Let me just give you two points and we'll just look at them simply. Captured by philosophy as opposed to complete in Christ. And this is the story of every man. Because every man is either captured by human philosophy or he is complete in Christ, that's all.

Pretty simple. A man either becomes a victim of human wisdom, human reason, human logic, or he becomes complete in Christ. That's the choice of every human being. You will choose man's wisdom or God's. First of all, notice verse 8, captured by philosophy.

Let's see what happens. Beware, lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. Now, Paul is warning them and he's saying this essentially. Beware, lest those of you who were rescued out of the domain of darkness and have already been translated into the kingdom of the Son of God's love should be carried off like captives and enslaved again.

It's similar to Galatians 5. Don't be entangled again in the yoke of bondage. For freedom, Christ has set you free. Don't get tangled again in the yoke of bondage. Don't go back to a former human system.

Legalism in Galatians here. Don't go back to a former human system, human philosophy or wisdom. So the warning is introduced by a call to vigilance in its present tense. Continually being beware, a constant watchfulness, lest we be led astray. Be continually being aware.

It never lets up. The church is always under siege by false teachers. Our Lord warned us, going back to Matthew chapter 7, verse 15, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Matthew 16 and verse 6, Jesus says, take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. The leaven of the Pharisees, what is that?

Legalism. Beware of those false philosophies. Paul warned also the 20th chapter of Acts, 29th verse, in speaking to those who were the Ephesian elders, I know this, and after my departure grievous wolves will enter among you, not sparing the flock of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them. Therefore, watch.

Therefore, watch. The Apostle Paul in Philippians 3, 2, beware of dogs. Beware of evil workers.

Beware of the concision, the mutilation party, those who want to circumcise. Peter warned as well. 2 Peter chapter 3, isn't it, verse 17, beware lest you being led away with the error of the wicked fall from your own steadfastness. Jesus said, beware. Paul said, beware. Peter said, beware, and it behooves us to hear the echo. Beware.

There will ever be an effort to woo you away from the truth. You say, well, what am I supposed to beware of? Look at verse 8 again. Lest any man spoil you. Now that's an interesting verb. That is a very rare verb.

There is an interesting combination. It's a combination word. The word ago is there, and ago means to carry off or to carry away, ago. The word sule is there. That's interesting because that word means booty, not baby booty, but booty that you take in a robbery or booty that you take in a war or whatever.

And the word simply means to carry off booty. It was used in later non-biblical Greek writing to speak of kidnapping, plundering a house, or raping a maiden. He's saying, don't let anybody kidnap you. Don't let anybody plunder your treasury of truth.

Don't let anybody rape you with their falsity. 2 Timothy 3, 6, in the latter days, it says, There are those who creep into houses and lead captive silly women laden with sins led away with various lusts. Same idea exactly. Leading somebody away captive.

And the word can be used of a slave dealer who carries away the people of a conquered nation to sell them as slaves. There's real danger that somebody's going to carry you away, make you pray, make you a captive, lead you off like a war prisoner. And that's the thing Paul is warning them against.

Beware. Father, it's my prayer that somehow you might speak to that struggling heart, that one life that is hanging in the balances between making a decision relative to being captured by philosophy or complete in Christ. I just pray that your Holy Spirit will minister to them, motivate them, convict them, that no one would leave with a commitment to human wisdom.

No one would leave trusting in logic, trusting in education, trusting in the most brilliant of philosophies. But that they would know that only in the word of God is their truth and only in the Christ of God is their completeness. Do your work, Father, in their hearts and in all our hearts. If we already are complete in you, make us thankful and help us to live our lives to the level of that perfection that pleases you. In Jesus' name, amen.

So what are the limitations of human wisdom? John MacArthur, chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, answered that question today as he continued his series, Complete in Christ, here on Grace to You. Now, friend, if you're thankful for lessons like the one you've just heard, these broadcasts are helping you learn and love and apply God's word. John has a reminder for you that relates to the station you're listening to right now. Well, that's right, Phil, and we need all of our listeners who appreciate the ministry that the station has and the partnership they have with us to let them know.

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