person and redeeming work of Christ, were in danger, if not of losing their salvation, of losing their reward for continued faith fulness (2 :8 ). f. —They had to know Christ was all—2:9 They were complete (“made full”) in Him (2 :10 ). They need ed nothing more. Their search for truth and life had come to a final, determinative end when t h e y found the Son of God as their Saviour. g. —They were to live in Him— 2:6 They were to continue to walk 4n Him (2 :6 ) without straying into the bypaths and detours of human thought. They were to re main rooted (2 :7 ), grounded, re joicing in Christ. They were to hold fast the Head of the church, receive their strength from Him, and grow in happy fellowship to gether in Him (2 :19 ). h. —False asceticism was a grave danger—2:1917, 20—3:4 The Bible teaches explicitly that believers are in the world but not o f the world (John 17:11, 16). They are a separate people. ( Study Rom. 12 :2 ; James 4 :4 ; I John 2:15-17). Be perfectly clear about this. There can be no compromise with the world system, which is the devil’s dominion and the arena of lust and pride. The Christian is to keep himself pure, to refrain from questionable conduct, to adorn the gospel, to maintain high standards of honest, integri ty and virtue. The Holy Spirit is his Ally in the attainment of these worthy ends. But this does not mean that he has put himself un der bondage to undue, unbiblical asceticism. This is the second threat Paul now exposes. i. —The contents of false asceti cism—2 :i6 The Colossians were in danger of overemphasizing their relation ship to material externalities, food
and drink (2 :1 6 ); and to the ob servation of days of worship (2: 16). They were beginning to sub jest themselves to a form of in ordinate legalism, or proud nega tivism. The glory of their liberty in Christ was beclouded by “the commandments and doctrines of men” (2 :22 ), prohibitions not de creed in Scripture but advocated by men who loved ostentation and popular applause. The objects the believers were not to touch, taste or handle (2 :21) were not for bidden by the Lord but by men. j.—The extremities of false as ceticism—2:23 The exponents of this hyper- moralism were apparently teach ing the abuse of the body, the mistreatment of the flesh (2 :23 ). Paul declares that while such artificial self-infliction of pain might exhibit human will-power and discipline, actually it was nei-
Dr. Samuel H. Sutherland (center), Biola presi dent, looks over camera equipment belonging to the United States Information Agency. A crew from the USIA recently visited the Biola Campus to shoot the story of Alfred Ndegwa (standing at the right of Dr. Sutherland) who came to Biola from Kenya Colony, Africa. He plans to train as a medical missionary doctor and return to his own people. His story was so interesting that the USIA is making a film of it to be shown by American embassies around the world.
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