Counterfeit Spirituality - Part 5 - A Warning Against Asceticism

Paul deals with the error of asceticism in Colossians 2:20-23. An ascetic is someone who lives a life of rigorous self-denial. In addition to legalism and mysticism these false teachers were attempting to gain righteousness through self-denial. Asceticism means you permit life to again become nothing but a bunch of rules. It is a completely self-centered approach to both salvation and spirituality.
Paul begins by affirming what is true: “Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of the world, why as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: ‘Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch’?” (2:20-21). The expression “basic principles of the world” occurs in Colossians 2:8, 20 and Galatians 4:3. In Colossians 2:8 the immediate context speaks of “the tradition of men”, the term “world” indicates “mankind alienated from the life of God”. These are the ABC’s or the rudiments of worldly men. Paul is saying if you see the implications of faith in Christ, in all His fullness and adequacy, you will die to these rudiments. You will throw them away with all their ideas about circumcision, feasts, food and drink, angel-worship as any means of spirituality or attainment of salvation. The truth is that you have died with Christ and you were raised with Christ from the dead (2:12), and you have broken with all ABC, basic ideas of men that bases their hope upon anything apart from Christ and the fullness of Him in salvation, "For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form" (2:9). Why submit to a series of dont's as if by adding enough negatives you would ever obtain a positive. Victory over sin is not based in your own self-confidence or in sheer avoidance. Paul says in verse 22 that these rules are not the commands of God rather they are the inventions of men. Think of all the Christian material on diets, like the Ezekiel Diet, all the embracing of Old Testament Dietary Laws, Christian's observing the Sabbath, etc. There is no spiritual value in keeping the commandments and teachings of men. Verse 23 tells us "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". This verse says that asceticism might make a person look spiritual but it only serves to gratify their flesh. There is only one thing that can control the animal within us and that is the power of the indwelling Christ. Legalism and Asceticism have no value in “restraining sensual indulgence”. If anything they bring out the worst in us instead of the best.