Colossians 2: The Paper in Verse 14 Gets Nailed Up

Verse 14 of Colossians 2 has Christ doing three things to one piece of paper. He blots it out, he takes it out of the way, and he nails it to his cross. The paper is "the handwriting of ordinances that was against us," and Paul describes it with a verb for each stage, as if he wanted nobody to think it had just been misplaced.

I thought about that paper in April, when I took a borrowed tile saw back to my neighbor Brent. Brent is a general contractor and he trades me time in my shop for help on his own projects, and on the bare stud beside his garage door he keeps a running tally in carpenter's pencil. Hash marks, in bundles of five, with my initial over one column and his over the other. I owed him eleven hours. I hadn't known there was a tally until I stood there holding the saw and he reached past me, dragged the heel of his hand down the stud, and left a gray smear where the marks had been. I started to say something and he told me not to make it weird.

That's as close as I can get to verse 14. The chapter has more to say than I do, so I'll leave Brent there.

What is the handwriting in verse 14?

The Greek word behind "handwriting" was, as far as I can tell, an ordinary one for a signed note of debt. An IOU in the debtor's own hand. That fits how Paul builds the sentence. Verse 13 sets the scene with people "dead in your sins" and then says God has "forgiven you all trespasses," and verse 14 explains how the forgiving was done with the paperwork.

Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;

Colossians 2:14

Paul says the note was "against us" and then, a few words later, "contrary to us." The same debt described twice, and neither time kindly. Paul isn't soft about what the law was to the people holding it.

The part Latter-day Saints should slow down for is "ordinances." We use that word for baptism and the sacrament, and two verses earlier Paul has just called baptism a burial and a rising with Christ (verse 12), which he plainly counts as good. So the ordinances in verse 14 can't be every ritual there is. The Book of Mormon uses the word the way Paul seems to here. Abinadi tells King Noah's priests that God gave Israel "a law of performances and of ordinances, a law which they were to observe strictly from day to day, to keep them in remembrance of God and their duty towards him" and then adds that "all these things were types of things to come" (Mosiah 13:30-31). Abinadi says the law was meant to point somewhere. Paul says the paper's been dealt with. I'd say they're describing the same event from two ends.

The note doesn't quietly vanish either. Taking it "out of the way" and nailing it up puts it somewhere people can see it, cancelled.

Yesterday's post was on Colossians 1 and why it doesn't end at verse 20, and chapter 2 is where Paul says what the long run-up was for.

Is Paul saying the Sabbath doesn't matter?

People quote verse 16 when they want to skip something, so here it is with the verse after it.

Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.

Colossians 2:16-17

Read it slowly and the verb is "judge." Whether a Colossian should keep a Sabbath isn't the question Paul answers. His question is whether the person next to them gets to grade it, and the list runs along the calendar in a way that's easy to miss: meat and drink daily, the new moon monthly, the sabbath weekly, the holyday yearly. Somebody had a whole system of timekeeping and was using it to measure other people.

Hebrews 10:1 uses the same picture when it says "the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things." A shadow tells you roughly what shape is standing behind it. You can't eat at one or live in one.

The food laws I covered on Sunday in Leviticus 11 are the "meat" in that list, and the Colossians were being judged over them.

None of this lets me off the Sabbath, because the Doctrine and Covenants gives it a footing of its own. D&C 59:9-10 says "that thou mayest more fully keep thyself unspotted from the world, thou shalt go to the house of prayer and offer up thy sacraments upon my holy day, for verily this is a day appointed unto you to rest from your labors, and to pay thy devotions unto the Most High." That has a purpose written into it, and it says nothing about what to say to a neighbor who mows on Sunday. Colossians 2:16 covers the neighbor.

What's wrong with "touch not, taste not, handle not"?

Verses 21 and 22 sit in parentheses, and that's the clue: Paul is quoting somebody else's rule, "Touch not, taste not, handle not," and then remarking that the things in question "all are to perish with the using." Food gets eaten and cloth wears out. A rule about not handling stuff is a rule about what will be gone by next year anyway, and he calls the whole set "the commandments and doctrines of men."

That's uncomfortable for us, because we own a taste-not rule. The Word of Wisdom introduces itself as sent "not by commandment or constraint" and "adapted to the capacity of the weak and the weakest of all saints" (D&C 89:2-3), which reads like somebody who had seen how fast a good standard can harden into a club.

I wouldn't claim Paul had the Word of Wisdom in mind, and I wouldn't claim he'd object to it. What verse 23 says about rules like that is that they have "a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body," and that they aren't "in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh." The last clause of that verse gets away from me, so I'll leave it. The first half I follow fine. Such rules look wise and feel humble, and they have no power over the appetite they claim to restrain.

The test Paul offers is in verse 19, a few lines earlier. The false teacher is "not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God." A rule is fine if it keeps you attached to what feeds you. It goes wrong when you use it to rank yourself above somebody, and the rule itself looks identical either way.

What about philosophy in verse 8?

Verse 8 gets quoted as if Paul had a grudge against thinking. "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ." In 1611 "spoil" meant to rob, so the picture is somebody walking off with you. The warning turns on its last words, "and not after Christ."

Five verses earlier he says that in Christ "are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (verse 3). If Paul wanted people to stop learning things he picked an odd way to say it. The objection is to a replacement. Someone offers a cleverer account of how to reach God, with angels in it and a list of fasts and a feeling of being in on something (verse 18 has "worshipping of angels" and "those things which he hath not seen"), and it sounds so much better than the plain version that people stop going back to the plain version.

Paul never names these teachers. What you can piece together from verses 8, 16 and 18 is Jewish observance mixed with a kind of mysticism, and that's all the chapter gives.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Colossians 2:14 mean the law of Moses is finished?

For the ceremonial part, yes, and Latter-day Saints have never argued otherwise. Abinadi told the priests that the time would come when it would "no more be expedient to keep the law of Moses" (Mosiah 13:27), and also that salvation didn't come by the law alone (verse 28). The Ten Commandments aren't what's nailed up. Paul's list in verses 16 and 17 is calendar and menu, and he doesn't mention murder or theft once.

Why does verse 9 say "bodily"?

Paul sets a body against shadows, and a shadow has no body. Latter-day Saints tend to hear verse 9 as a plain statement that Christ has one, and I'm comfortable with that, though Paul's argument in context is only that the fulness is located in Christ and not in angels or in secret knowledge.

Is verse 8 a warning against studying philosophy?

No. The warning is about being carried off by it, and what decides that is the phrase "not after Christ." Put verse 3 beside it and the chapter is plainly in favor of knowing things.

Who were the false teachers at Colossae?

Paul never says. The chapter gives you three marks to work from: a philosophy that borrowed from the world (verse 8), observances of food and holy days (verse 16), and a humility that included angel worship (verse 18). Anybody who gives you a firmer name than that is guessing.

What I'm doing next

I quoted D&C 59:9-10 from the middle of the section, which is a bad habit, so this week I'm reading all of section 59 from the top, and then Colossians 3 when it comes around.

— D.