Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Colossians 2:20

"If ye died with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, do ye subject yourselves to ordinances," — Colossians 2:20 (ASV)

When one becomes a Christian, one’s connection with the world of legal and ascetic ordinances is severed. Asceticism, then, is not in keeping with the nature and circumstances of the new life in Christ. Believers at the time of their conversion have “died” to all the rules and requirements of asceticism. In the mention of dying and rising (3:1) with Christ, there may be an allusion to Christian baptism . However, baptism only pictures the death of believers to an old way of life and their rising to a new life; the actual change is effected when they are joined to Christ by faith.

As they enter into fellowship with Christ, they are delivered from “the basic principles of this world.” “Basic principles” has the same ambiguity that marks it elsewhere . It can be understood as referring to the supernatural powers of evil, but the passage also yields an acceptable meaning if it is interpreted as in the NIV. At any rate, to order life by ascetic rules is to revert to an inferior state supposedly abandoned at the time of conversion. To die to “the basic principles of this world” is to have all connections with them severed, to be done with them, to be liberated from their authority once for all. “Submit to its rules” (GK 1505) recalls v.14, where reference was made to the canceling out of the bond of ordinances against us. The Christian must not permit life to become a round of rules again.