It’s Not About the Rules!

It’s not about the rules. Yet, ironically, as followers of Christ we can sometimes, perhaps even often, slip into thinking that it is.

As we continue in our series in Colossians, we have come to Colossians 2:16-23, where Paul, in a variety of ways, drives home this fundamental point about Christian living: it’s not about the rules.

In fact, Paul provides, I believe, at least five reasons why continuing on in Christ and as a Christian is not all about the rules.

1. Rules aren’t the point, they’re only pointers. “Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ” (2:16-17). Shadows. That’s what rules and regulations and even laws and commandments are (see Hebrews 10:1). A fit metaphor, because shadows, not only are not the reality themselves, but they point to the reality. And in this case, the reality to which diet and days points is Christ himself.
2. Rules tend to cut off connection from the true source of growth. This is Paul’s point in 2:18-19: “Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize. Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen, and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions.” As a result, then, Paul says in the next verse: “He has lost connection with the Head” (2:19), the only true source of growth.
3. Rules don’t cause growth, God does. Paul says just this very thing at the end of 2:19: “He has lost connection with the Head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.” Did you hear that? “As God causes it to grow.” Here we find an axiom or first principle of the Christian life and Christian living: God causes growth! Rules don’t cause growth. Regulations don’t cause growth. The Law doesn’t cause growth. Only God causes growth.
4. Rules are for a world believers have left behind. This fourth reason why continuing in Christ and growing as a Christian isn’t all about rules is perhaps the most subtle, and yet the most profound. Listen carefully, then, to what Paul says in 2:20-22: “Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: ‘Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!’ These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings.” If you are a Christian, you have died to that realm called the “world,” where rules and regulations reign supreme. Yet the reality to which the rules point is now realized in the transformation you experience because of the gospel and grace of God. 
5. Rules can’t ultimately restrain an unruly heart. Paul’s pretty blunt and straightforward here. And his point is right there in the final verse of this passage: “Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence” (2:23).

But what, then, does it mean to live as a Christian, in this world, yet as though it were not all about the rules? It means, first of all, to let the rules be the rules – and not something they’re not! That is, let the rules in your life or even in the word of God be, not the reality upon which we feed, but (to change the metaphor) the guard rails that keep us from ourselves. “Thou shalt not covet” is a guard rail to protect us from ourselves and others. But it’s not life-transforming; only the presence and person and work of Christ is!

Which leads to a second point. Living as a Christian as though it were not all about the rules means, positively speaking, living like it’s all about Christ. Because it is!

But what does this look like in your life, in your home, in our church? In your life, it means relying upon the grace of God to affect the change you so desire rather than upon your own discipline and striving. In your home, it means pointing your spouse or your children to Christ and his authority, rather than to you and yours. In our church, it means being a place for the broken, not a place for the pious. It means checking the gavel and the umpire’s uniform and the sergeant’s whistle at the Information Desk in the Portico before you seek to “judge” (2:16) or “disqualify” (2:18) or call others to “submit” to your rules and regulations (2:20-21).

What, in short, does it mean to live a life that’s not all about the rules, but all about Christ? It means, as we’ll see in the weeks ahead, to live a life with your heart set on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God; it means to live a life with your mind set on things above, not on earthly things. “For you died,” as Paul says, “and your life is now hidden with Christ in God” (3:3).