Colossians Chapter 2 verse 20 Holy Bible
If ye died with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, do ye subject yourselves to ordinances,
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If you were made free, by your death with Christ, from the rules of the world, why do you put yourselves under the authority of orders
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If ye have died with Christ from the elements of the world, why as [if] alive in [the] world do ye subject yourselves to ordinances?
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Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances,
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If you died with Christ from the elements of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to ordinances,
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If, then, ye did die with the Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances?
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Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerses 20-23. - The apostle's fourth and last warning is directed against ascetic rules of life. Verse 20. - If ye died with Christ from the rudiments of the world (vers. 8, 10-13; Colossians 3:3; Romans 6:1-11; Romans 7:1-6; 2 Corinthians 5:14-17). "Therefore" is struck out by the Revisers on the best authority. It would imply a logical dependence of this verse upon the last, which does not exist. This warning, like those of vers. 16, 18, looks back to the previous section, and especially to vers. 8, 10, 12. It is a new application of St. Paul's fundamental principle of the union of the Christian with Christ in his death and resurrection (see notes, vers. 11, 12). Accepting the death of Christ as supplying the means of his redemption (Colossians 1:14, 22), and the law of his future life (Philippians 3:10; 2 Corinthians 5:14, 15; Galatians 2:20), the Christian breaks with and becomes dead (to and) from all other, former religious principles; which appear to him now but childish, tentative gropings after and preparations for what is given him in Christ (comp. Galatians 2:19; Galatians 3:24; Galatians 4:2, 3; Romans 7:6). On "rudiments," see note, ver. 8. There these "rudiments of the world" appear as general ("philosophical") principles of religion, intrinsically false and empty; here they are moral rules of life, mean and worthless substitutes for "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus." (For the Pauline idiom, "died from (so as to be separate, or free from)," comp. Romans 7:2, 6; Acts 13:39.) Why, as (men) living in (the) world, are you made subject to decrees (Galatians 4:9; Galatians 5:1; Galatians 6:14; 2 Corinthians 5:17). To adopt the rules of the new teachers is to return to the worldly, pre-Christian type of religion which the Christian had once for all abandoned (Galatians 4:9). "World" bears the emphasis rather than "living" ("having one's principle of life:" comp. 1 Timothy 5:6; Luke 12:15). Standing without the article, it signifies "the world as such," in its natural character and attainments, without Christ (ver. 8; Ephesians 2:12; 1 Corinthians 1:21). Δογματίζεσθε (the verb only here in the New Testament) is passive rather than middle in voice (Winer, p. 326; see Meyer in loc.); literally, why are yon being dogmatized, overridden with decrees? Compare "spell" (ver. 8), "judge" (ver. 16), for the domineering spirit of the false teacher. The "dogmas" or "decrees" of ver. 14 (see note) are those of the Divine Law; these are of human imposition (vers. 8, 22), which their authors, however, seem to put upon a level with the former. In each case the decree is an external enforcement, not an inner principle of life.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(20-23) In this and the succeeding section, St. Paul, starting from the idea of union with the Head, draws out the practical consequences of partaking of the death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ. In virtue of the former participation, he exhorts them to be dead to the law of outward ordinances; in virtue of the latter, to have a life hid with Christ in God.(20) If ye be dead with Christ.--The whole idea of the death with Christ and resurrection with Him is summed up by St. Paul in Romans 6:3-9, in direct connection (as also here, see Colossians 2:12) with the entrance upon Christian life in baptism, "We are buried with Him by baptism unto death . . . we are dead with Christ . . . we are planted together in the likeness of His death . . . that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we also should walk in newness of life . . . planted together in the likeness of His resurrection . . . alive to God through Jesus Christ our Lord." The death with Christ is a death unto "the life of the flesh." But this may be (as in Romans 6:1-2; Romans 6:6-7; Romans 6:11) "the life of sin"; or it may be the outward and visible life "of the world." The latter is the sense to be taken here. This outward life is under "ordinances" (see Colossians 2:1), under the "rudiments of the world" (see Colossians 2:8), or, generally, "under law." Of such a life St. Paul says (in Galatians 2:19), "I through the Law died to the Law, that I might live unto God." There (Galatians 4:9), as here, he brands as unspiritual the subjection to the "weak and beggarly elements" of mere ordinances. Of course it is clear that in their place such ordinances have their value, both as means to an end, and as symbols of an inner reality of self-devotion. The true teaching as to these is found in our Lord's declaration to the Pharisees as to spiritual things and outward ordinances, "These things (the spiritual things) ought ye to have done, and not to leave the others (the outward observances) undone" (Matthew 23:23). In later times St. Paul declared with Judicial calmness, "The Law is good if a man use it lawfully" (1Timothy 1:8). But to exalt these things to the first place was a fatal superstition, which, both in its earlier and later phases, he denounces unsparingly. . . .
