4
The seriousness of the heresy at Colossae is evident from Paul's warning in 2:8-9,
"Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the
tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not after Christ. For
in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." The word translated "cheat"
(
) means "to carry off as spoil." J. B. Lightfoot correctly describes
the situation:
The Colossians had been rescued from the bondage of darkness; they had
been transferred to the kingdom of light; they had been settled there as
free citizens (i.12, 13); and now there was danger that they should fall into
a state worse than their former slavery, that they should be carried off as
so much booty.
2
Thus, the believers at Colossae were in dangerous peril spiritually because of false
teachers who denied the deity of Christ.
John dealt with another attack on the person of Christ in his first epistle. 1 John 4:2-3
reads:
By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus
Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not
confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is
the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now
already in the world.
The belief that matter is inherently evil caused some to deny Christ's deity and others to
deny Christ's humanity. This was also an attack on the work of Christ. Christ could have
not actually died for our sins if He were not a real man.
In Galatians, Paul was primarily concerned with the work of Christ. In the book he
refuted the Judaizers who denied the sufficiency of Christ's atoning work by teaching that
2
St. Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon (rpt., 1879, Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing
House), 178.