Charles Ellicott Commentary Colossians 2:18

"Let no man rob you of your prize by a voluntary humility and worshipping of the angels, dwelling in the things which he hath seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind," — Colossians 2:18 (ASV)

Beguile you of your reward.—The original is a word used, almost technically, for an unfair judgment in the stadium, robbing the victor of his prize. The prize here (as in 1 Corinthians 9:24; Philippians 3:14) is the heavenly reward of the Christian course. In St. Paul’s exhortation there seems to be a reference back to Colossians 2:16. There he says, “Let no man arrogate judgment over you;” here, “Let no man use that arrogated judgment so as to cheat you of your prize. There is one Judge, who has right and who is righteous; look to Him alone.”

In a voluntary humility and worship.—This rendering seems virtually correct, though other renderings are proposed. The original is, willing in humility and worship, and the phrase “willing in” is often used in the LXX for “delighting in.” Other translations are here possible, though not without some harshness. But the true sense is shown beyond all doubt to be that given in our version, by the words used below to describe the same process, will-worship and humility.

In this passage alone in the New Testament, humility is spoken of with something of the condemnation accorded to it in heathen morality. The reason for this is obvious and instructive. Humility is a grace, of which the very essence is unconsciousness, and which, being itself negative, cannot live, except by resting on some more positive quality, such as faith or love. Whenever it is consciously cultivated and delighted in, it loses all its grace; it becomes either unreal, the pride that apes humility, or it turns to abject slavishness and meanness. Of such depravations Church history is unhappily full.

Worshipping of angels.—This is closely connected with the voluntary humility above. The link of connection is supplied by the notice in the ancient interpreters, of the early growth of that unhappy idea, which has always lain at the root of saint-worship and angel-worship in the Church—“that we must be brought near by angels and not by Christ, for that was too high a thing for us” (Chrysostom). With this passage it is obvious to connect the emphasis laid on the absolute superiority of our Lord to all angels, who are but ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to them who are heirs of salvation; and the prohibition of angel-worship in Revelation 22:9, See thou do it not; for I am thy fellow-servant . . . worship God.

It might seem strange that on the rigid monotheism of Judaism this incongruous creature-worship should have been engrafted. But here also the link is easily supplied. The worship of the angels of which the Essenic system bore traces, was excused on the ground that the Law had been given through the ministration of angels (Galatians 3:19), and that the tutelary guardianship of angels had been revealed in the later prophecy .

For this reason it was held that angels might be worshipped, probably with the same subtle distinctions between this and that kind of worship with which we are familiar in the ordinary pleas for the veneration of saints. It has been noticed that in the Council of Laodicea, held in the fourth century, several canons were passed against Judaizing, and that in close connection with these it was forbidden “to leave the Church of God and go away to invoke angels”; and we are told by Theodoret (in the next century) that “oratories to St. Michael (the ‘prince’ of the Jewish people) were still to be seen.” The “angels” in this half-Jewish system held the same intermediate position between the Divine and the human which in the ordinary Gnostic theories was held by the less personal Æons, or supposed emanations from the Godhead.

Intruding into those things which he hath not seen.—

1. There is a remarkable division here, both of MSS. and ancient versions and commentators, as to the insertion or omission of the negative. But the balance of MS. authority is against the negative, and certainly it is easier to suppose it to have been inserted with a view to make an easier sense, than to have been omitted if it had been originally there.
2. The general meaning, however, of the passage is tolerably clear, and, curiously enough, little affected by either alternative. It certainly refers to pretensions to supernatural knowledge by which (just as in 1 Corinthians 8:1) the mind is said to be puffed up. We note that, even in true visions of heavenly things, there was danger lest the mind should be exalted above measure (2 Corinthians 12:7).

Now the knowledge here pretended to is that favourite knowledge, claimed by Jewish and Christian mystics, of the secrets of the heavenly places and especially of the grades and functions of the hierarchy of heaven. St. Paul brands it as belonging to the mind, not of the spirit, but of the flesh; for indeed it was really superstitions, resting not on faith, but on supposed visions and supernatural manifestations.

It intruded (or, according to another rendering, it took its stand) upon the secrets of a region which it said that it had seen, but which, in truth, it had not seen. If we omit the negative, the Apostle is quoting its claims; if we insert it, he is denying their justice.