Paul criticized such ones for practicing “self-imposed worship” (v. 23). What are these ones like? They are, in reality, engaged in self-imposed worship. The expression self-imposed worship can be translated as “worship of the will.” Paul said that these ordinances were a form of worship. They involve a worship of the will, not a worship of the Lord. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit (John 4:24). These ones, however, have no worship in spirit. They exercise their will to rule over themselves. Their religion is the religion of their will. The self-imposed worship spoken of by Paul is the religion of the will. This religion is produced by the will. Those who practice such worship say, “I will not eat; I will not touch; I will not listen; and I will not speak.” Everything they do involves “I will.” They exercise their will to practice their kind of worship.
Please bear in mind that this is not the Christian way. The Christian way is to contact God with the spirit. What distinguishes us from others is not a strong will that suppresses the lusts, but a strong spirit that touches God’s grace. Our worship is our spirit touching the Spirit of God. The worship of ascetics is a suppression of lusts with the will. One is absolutely of God, while the other is totally of man. Self-imposed worship is a religion of the will.
“Such things indeed have a reputation of...lowliness” (Col. 2:23). Such people show humility even toward themselves. They appear to be quite humble. There are many things which they will not touch, handle, hear, or see. It appears as if they are very humble. However, this humility comes from one’s self. It is unnatural, artificial, and self-imposed; it is not spiritual humility which comes in a spontaneous way.
What is their attitude toward themselves? It involves “severe treatment of the body” (v. 23). They care neither for eating nor for clothing their own bodies. They restrict their physical senses from seeing, touching, hearing, or handling anything. This is nothing but a “severe treatment of the body.”
Ascetics believe that the body is evil. This teaching spread from Greece to India and then to China. The Chinese are not as extreme as the Indians and certainly not as extreme as some Greeks were. While not all Greeks were extreme, one school of Greek ascetics spread their teachings to India and later to China. They taught that the body is the root of all evil, and that if a man is freed from his body, he can be freed from sin. This is a fundamental concept of Buddhism concerning the “elements of the world.” Buddhism reckons the body to be the root of all sin and that one can be freed from sin as soon as he is freed from the body. Since the body produces so many sins, they believe that one should afflict the body in the hope that the sufferings will reduce the sins. They think that it is right for the body to suffer; they think that it is right to deprive the body of every enjoyment; and they think that the more the body suffers, the better it is, because once it suffers, it will be free from sin. This is the result of the human religion of the will—“severe treatment of the body.”
What does a believer think of all these things? Paul said, “Such things...are not of any value against the indulgence of the flesh” (v. 23). If a man thinks that he can suppress his own lusts by doing all these things, he is hoping for the impossible. This is because the Lord Jesus has already made the best provision on the cross for us. He has crucified our flesh with all of its passions and lusts on the cross. Today we stand under the cross and lay hold of its accomplished work to deal with the lusts of our flesh. This kind of dealing is different from the human way of dealing with one’s lust. We deal with our flesh by acknowledging the reality of the cross of the Lord Jesus.
Please bear in mind that just as man receives forgiveness of sins through the shedding of blood by the Lord Jesus, man is freed from his own lusts through His cross. The Lord’s work includes both the shedding of blood as well as the application of the cross. We must see that after the shedding of blood by the Lord Jesus and the receiving of the cross, one must be baptized immediately. We ask to be buried because the Lord has crucified us. The Lord says that we are dead, and our response is baptism. We say, “Let me be buried.” The Lord says that He has crucified us and that we no longer live. We respond by saying, “I do not doubt the fact of my death. Now I ask to be buried.” Baptism is our recognition and acknowledgment of the Lord’s death. If we still practice asceticism, it means that we are not standing in the position of death.