The Worthlessness and Worldliness of Human Regulations

from a 1997 sermon on Colossians 2:20-23

"If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations- 21 "Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch" 22 (referring to things that all perish as they are used)- according to human precepts and teachings? 23 These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion [KJV: will worship] and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

An austere disciplined denial of all earthly pleasure is not the way to live the Christian life. It is the way to live the gnostic life and it looks impressive for a while, but it is not the Christian life. Lightfoot describes in this way the ascetic discipline of the gnostics that fails to touch the springs of action. "By their fatal transference of the abode of sin from the human heart within to the material world without, they had incapacitated themselves from finding the true antidote."