Colossians 2:8

"Beware lest any man spoil you". It means "make a prey of you". It is like a captured animal, unable to move where it would normally move, taken out of its own surroundings. And all through philosophy and empty deceit — there is nothing in it at all.

Nothing captures intellectual people more easily than the philosophy of the world's teachers, because it is so hard to follow and so involved. It stands for the highest flights of human thought and imagination. But here Paul joins it to "vain" or "empty" deceit. That shows us clearly what it really is as God sees it.

The first of these is philosophy and vain deceit. As we understand it, this is philosophy that is nothing but empty deceit. It has to be described that way. It comes from man's mind. Human reason shapes it into a system. Its aim is to corrupt the revelation God has been pleased to give by His Spirit in His inspired Word. It is Rationalism, pure and simple, judging everything by its own idea of what suits man. So sinful man would sit in judgment on the thoughts of God!

Faith rejects philosophy, not only as a rival but as an ally. It rests on God's Word alone. It takes that Word as absolute and as the only authority.

Tradition may be described as teaching handed down by word of mouth. It may come from God… teaching handed down before the word of God was complete. Or it may come from man, like the tradition of the elders of Israel. The Lord condemned that tradition strongly. He said it overturned the commandments of God… In Colossians 2:8 it is the mere teaching of the moralists, and much of that has survived to this day. What man sets up, man holds on to most tightly.

The rudiments or elements of the world are every subtle principle and motive that comes from the world, apart from God. They take in everything that makes up the spirit and character of the world, whether religious or not.

Here, I take it, we have the mixing of natural man's philosophy with religious man's tradition. At first sight these two look far apart, but they are not so in the end… Nothing shows an active spirit of evil at work in the world more than the way he draws up and combines these two armies, which on the outside look like enemies… They may look completely hostile to each other. In fact both are hostile only to the truth.

The apostle now names certain traps the believers faced. They were opposed to full Christian teaching, and ruinous to souls: philosophy (verse 8), teaching that pressed the Jewish law (verse 16), and Gnostic speculations (verse 18). The test that detects each of them is the teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ. Apply that test, and the evil is exposed.

Our reasoning powers do not detect evil doctrine, since false doctrine always enlists them on its side. Its harmful character may not show at first. Yet a God-fearing soul refuses it, because it is not "as it is written" — "not according to Christ."

Then, as if he did not want us to dwell too long on the evil, he points us at once to the Divine Source of all good… He sweeps aside every rival and sets us in the presence of Christ, the all-sufficient One… Here then is the great antidote! The fullness of the Infinite One dwells in Him in whom we are complete.