Colossians 2:18 - Exposition

Let no one defraud you of your prize ( Colossians 1:5 , Colossians 1:23 ; Colossians 3:15 ; Philippians 3:14 ; Ga:7; 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 ; 2 Timothy 4:7 , 2 Timothy 4:8 ; James 1:12 ; 1 Peter 5:4 ; Revelation 2:10 ; Revelation 3:11 ). These eight words represent but three in the Greek. (On καταβραβεύω , see Meyer's elaborate note.) βραβούω is used again in Colossians 3:15 (see note), meaning primarily" to act as βραβεύς ," arbiter of the prize in the public games; βραβεῖον , the prize, is also figuratively used in Phip Colossians 3:14 , and literally in 1 Corinthians 9:24 , and is synonymous with the "crown" of other passages. κατὰ gives the verb a hostile sense; and the present tense, as in 1 Corinthians 9:4 , 1 Corinthians 9:8 , 1 Corinthians 9:16 , 1 Corinthians 9:20 , implies a continued attempt. Let no one be acting the umpire against you, is the literal sense. The errorist condemns the Colossian Christian for his neglect of Jewish observances ( 1 Corinthians 9:16 ), and warns him that in his present state he will miss the heavenly prize, "the hope" he had supposed to be "in store for him in heaven" ( 1 Corinthians 9:5 : comp. notes on Colossians 1:5 and Colossians 3:15 ; also Ephesians 1:13 , Ephesians 1:14 ). Delighting in lowliness of mind and worship of the angels ( 1 Corinthians 9:23 ; Revelation 19:10 ; Revelation 22:8 , Revelation 22:9 ; 13:17 , 13:18 ). By these means the false teacher impressed his disciples. His angel worship commended itself as the mark of a devout and humble mind, reverent towards the unseen powers above us, and made purely Christian worship seem insufficient. "Delighting in" is the rendering of θέλων ἐν given by Bengel, Hofmann, Lightfoot, Klopper, and is preferable to that of Meyer and Ellicott, who, with several Greek interpreters, supply the sense of the previous verb "desiring (to do so) in lowliness etc.; and to that followed in the Revisers' margin,which puts a sort of adverbial sense on θέλων —"of his mere will, by humility," etc. This latter rendering underlies the paraphrastic" voluntary humility" of the A.V., and agrees with the common interpretation of ἐθελοθρησκεία in 1 Corinthians 9:23 (see note). θέλων ἐν is, no doubt, a marked Hebraism, and St. Paul's language is "singularly free from Hebraisms" (compare, however, the use of εἰδέναι to know, in 1 Thessalonians 5:12 ; the similar εὐδοκέω ἐν is well established, 1 Corinthians 10:5 ; 2 Corinthians 12:10 ; 2 Thessalonians 2:12 ). This very idiom is frequently used in the LXX , and occurs in the 'Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs,' a Christian writing, of the second century. The apostle may surely be allowed occasionally to have used a Hebraistic phrase, especially when so convenient and expressive as this. Westcott and Hort, with scrupulous purism, mark the reading on this account as doubtful. ταπεινοφροσύνη ("lowliness of mind"), a word, perhaps, compounded by St. Paul himself (see Trench's 'Synonyms'), is almost confined to the Epistles of this group. This quality is ascribed ironically to the false teacher (compare the "puffed up" of the next clause, and for similar irony see 1 Corinthians 8:1 , 1 Corinthians 8:2 ; Galatians 4:17 ). θρησκεία is "outward worship" or "devotion:" comp. note on 1 Corinthians 9:23 ; elsewhere in New Testament only in Acts 26:5 and James 1:26 , James 1:27 (see Trench's 'Synonyms'). "Worship of the angels" is that paid to the angels; not "offered by them," as Luther and Hofmann interpret, supposing that the errorists pretended to imitate the worship of heaven. 'Investigating (or, dwelling on ) the things which he hath seen'! vainly—being puffed up by 'the reason' of his flesh ( 2 Corinthians 12:1-21 :l, 7; 1 Corinthians 8:1 ; 1 Timothy 6:3-5 ; 2 Peter 2:18 ; Jud 2 Peter 1:16 ). For ἐμβατεύων , we adopt the sense which it bears in 2 Macc. 2:30; in Philo, 'On the Planting of Noah,' § 19. and in patristic and later Greek generally, viz. "to search into," "examine," "discuss" (see Suicer's 'Thesaurus'). The rendering "proceeding" or "dwelling on," though near the radical sense of the word ("to step on" or "in"), wants lexical support. The same may be said of the rendering "intruding into," which suits the Received reading, "which he hath not seen." The "not" of the relative clause is wanting in nearly all our eldest and best witnesses, and is cancelled by the Revisers, with Tregelles, Tischendorf, Lightfoot, Westcott and Hort, etc. Its appearance in two different forms ( οὐχ and μὴ ) in the documents that present it, makes it still more certain that it is a copyist's insertion. The common reading gives, after all, an unsatisfactory sense; it is not likely the apostle would blame the errorist simply for entering into things beyond his sight. Meyer, after Steiger and Huther, gives the best explanation of "which he hath seen," supposing the writer to allude ironically to pretended visions of angels or of the spiritual world, by which the false teacher sought to impose on the Colossians. This view is suggested by Tertullian in the passage cited under verse 16. Such visions would be suitable for the purpose of the errorist, and congenial to the Phrygian temperament, with its tendency to mysticism and ecstasy. If the false teacher were accustomed to say with an imposing air, "I have seen, ah! I have seen!" in referring to his revelations, the apostle's allusion would be obvious and telling. The language of 2 Corinthians 12:1 (R.V.) suggests a similar reliance on supernatural visions on the part of the apostle's earlier opponents. This pretentious visionary is, however, a "philosopher" and a "reasoner" first of all ( 2 Corinthians 12:4 , 2 Corinthians 12:8 ). Accordingly he investigates what he has seen; inquires into the import of his visions, rationally develops their principles, and deduces their consequences. So far, the apostle continues in the ironical vein in which the first words of the verse are written, setting forth the pretensions of his opponent in his own terms, his irony "restraining itself till, after the word ἐμβατεύων , the indignation of truth breaks forth from it" (Steiger) in the caustic and decisive "vainly." εἰκῆ qualifies the foregoing participle more suitably than the following. Thus it signifies "idly," "to no purpose," as everywhere else in St. Paul ( Romans 13:4 ; 1 Corinthians 15:2 ; Galatians 3:4 ; Galatians 4:11 ); not "without cause," as joined to φυσιούμενος ("puffed up"), whose 'force it could only weaken. "Vainly" stigmatizes the futility, "puffed up" the conceit, and "by the reason of his flesh" the low and sensuous origin of these vaunted revelations and of the high-flown theosophy which they were used to support.. The "reason" ( νοῦς ) is, in Greek philosophy, the philosophical faculty, the power of supersensible intuition; and in Plato and Philo, the organ of the higher, mystical knowledge of Divine things (see Philo, 'Who is Heir of Divine Things?' §§ 13, 20, and passim ) . The Colossian "philosopher" ( 2 Corinthians 12:8 ) would, we may imagine, speak of himself as "borne aloft" in his visions "by heavenly reason," "lifted high in angelical communion," or the like. Hence the apostle's sarcasm, "Exalted are they? say rather, inflated: lifted high by Divine reason? nay, but swollen high by the reason of their flesh." Some such allusion to the language of the errorists best accounts for the paradoxical νοῦς τῆς σαρκός (see Lightfoot); contrast with Romans 7:25 , and compare the disparaging reference to διανοία , Colossians 1:21 (note). Difficult as this passage is, we hesitate to follow Lightfoot, and Westcott and Herr, who have given their weighty sanction to the perilous remedy of conjectural emendations; the latter editors for the second Lime in this verse, and again in Colossians 1:23 . The line of interpretation here adopted is advocated in the Expositor, first series, vol. 11. pp. 385-398.