He Has Completed It ALL - Colossians 1-2

 Colossians 2:16-19 (ESV)

Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.

Mankind has never invented a religious approach to a god and/or after-life without it including stipulations on their performance.  In fact, the more elaborate the requirements to perform, the promise of great reward.  The deeper the commitment the higher the achievement in the life to come.  In the church in Colossae there was no exception to this thought.   Although Paul had established the church on the basis of Christ’s finished work, false teachers had joined the body and was leading it astray to a set of requirements and observations that would qualify them for God’s approval.   He starts the book off reminding them that they are reconciled by Christ’s work, not their own efforts:

Colossians 1:21-23 (ESV)

And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.

We were reconciled by “His body” to be made “holy and blameless.”   But, as we can read in the above text there were those in this church who were trying to put requirements on them to observe certain days, certain festivals, certain eating requirements which would qualify them for heaven.   Paul wants them to be reminded that Christ is the Head of the Body and it is through Him they grow.  He tells them it is “from God” that we grow.  Yes, we must demonstrate our faith.  But, it is not the demonstration that makes us holy, it is His work in us that produces holiness and that holiness then flows from our being.   We must not allow others to pass judgement on our performance when the performance has already been accomplished by Christ’s work.   He has completed it ALL!!