Colossians 2:16-17 is one of those examples of deep and often confusing Pauline thought that tends to be greatly abused, as are the rest of the scriptures, by those possessed of a gnostic bias. A comparison of two different translations is instructive. The AENT (Aramaic-English New Testament, translated from the Peshitta), reads these verses as follows: “Let no (pagan) therefore judge you about food and drink, or about the distinctions of festivals aand new moons and Shabbats which were shadows of the things then future; but the body of Masiyach. However, the NKJV reads as follows: “So let no one judge you in food or drink, or regarding a festival [feast day] or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance [body] is of Christ.”

Comparing these two translations and the way they are interpreted is an interesting picture in one of the faces of gnosticism. The AENT clearly shows that it is believers, and not the heathen, who have the right to judge the believer on how they are keeping the biblical laws on eating and drinking and the observance of biblical festivals, new moons, and the Sabbath. The NKJV can mean the same thing, but is usually understood as saying that those laws in the “Old Testament” about eating and drinking and keeping the Sabbath and Holy Days aren’t really important because they were only shadows. The real substance is Christ. This is a false understanding, but a lamentably common one.

What went wrong? There are really two types of Gnosticism, just as there are two types of Satanic approaches to authority (including the authority of scripture). These are what may be termed the ascetic and the antinomian appraoches. The ascetic believes that because the flesh is temporary, evil, and weak, that the body must be punished and that anything that is enjoyable or fun is sin. The libertine, on the other hand, believes that because the flesh is meaningless and unimportant that anything can be done and enjoyed, any sin one desires, because the flesh is completely irrelevant and only the immoral soul/spirit is important anyway. Both of these approaches are mistaken, and both exhibit that characteristic Greek approach of pitting the spirit against the body, the substance against the shadow, instead of recognizing how in God these elements work in harmony and that our obedience in the flesh teaches us spiritual virtue that we will practice for all time, long after we have cast off the tents of our physical bodies in the resurrection to eternal life.

I could speculate at length, though I would prefer not to, as to why these two characteristic mistakes are made by gnostic thought, which is at its bottom the theology of demons. It is my suspicion, though, that demons are jealous of the joys of the flesh—such as marriage and eating and drinking—and wish to corrupt (or deprecate) them, depending on their approach. The two types of gnosticism are essentially corruptions of the same type. Asceticism denies the worth of the body, considering it trash, and considers only the spirit as being worth anything. This is the approach that the demon who cannot enjoy the pleasures of the flesh takes, by denying that that which one cannot enjoy is worth anything anyway. Libertinism (or epicurianism) on the other hand denies that what one does in the flesh is of any importance because only what is spiritual is lasting or valuable. In essence, both types of gnosticism deny the importance of the flesh, though one tends to punish the flesh as evil and one tends to indulge in the flesh as being of no importance. But God created the physical and called it good (see Genesis 1:4, 10, 13, 18, 21, 25, 31), —and to call evil what God calls good is to make one’s self the judge and the adversary of God.

Why is this error made by so many people, to call evil what God made to be good? For one, it is not always easy to discern the original goodness of God’s creation beyond the corruption and evil and suffering that has resulted from the widespread sin and evil of mankind. In a sense, what the demons have done is encourage mankind to sin and mar and corrupt what God made good, and then to turn around and insult God for making a bunch of junk after it has been destroyed, without humans being the wiser that it was not junk before it was ruined. We see this approach, for example, in the sin of Amnon against his half-sister Tamar, where he lusted after her, raped her, and then considered her junk after he had “ruined” her (see 2 Samuel 13:1-22), and it is a characteristically demonic approach to God’s creation, including humanity. Likewise, even those who suffer from the sins of others may be tempted to call their wounded and defiled bodies junk, even if (especially if) they hate what was done to them, not realizing that what was created was good, and that what was ruined by the sins of mankind will be restored by a loving God. There is no need to insult the creation (which, by implication, insults its Creator) to correctly put judgment upon those who have harmed it and spoiled it.

Ultimately, the physical is the shadow, the spirtiual the substance or “ultimate” reality. The physical was created as a temporary replica of the spiritual, for the moral development of beings who were created in the image and likeness of God as His own replicas, to learn how to develop godly character and grow in grace and knowledge before changing, like caterpillers change into butterflies, or tadpoles change into frogs, both of these animals transforming into something far more beautiful. Just because the caterpiller or the tadpole is the “first stage” of life, and the butterfly or frog is the ultimate form does not mean that we insult the caterpiller or tadpole as worthless and pointless. The point of the caterpiller or tadpole is to turn into something else. So is the purpose of mankind—as we too are larvae, we ought not to either waste our time here in corruption, thus making it impossible for us to transform into what is holy and eternal, nor ought we to depracate or attack our physical bodies as worthless, which makes it impossible to see the bigger picture we are a part of.

As physical beings with a spiritual destiny, we learn spiritual truths through physical obedience, through our attitudes to physical things like food and drink, time, property, sex, and the physical world around us. Just because what we see, and what we are, is temporary does not mean that it is worthless. Quite the contrary. We carry with us our character forever, and our character is forged in these small hours that we dwell on the earth with other human beings who, like us, have the divine spark within us, all longing for the world that is to come while making the best of the world we know here and now. Let us therefore cast aside all unprofitable attitudes that mock or insult the physical, or physical obedience, because it is temporary. Let us rather build within ourselves eternally lasting noble character so that we may be complete and mature, and grow into our incorruptible bodies and minds as the children of our heavenly Father and the younger brothers and sisters of our King, Lord, and Savior, Jesus Christ. For there will be time enough to enjoy the pleasures of eternal life—let us make our time here as larvae as worthwhile as possible, something that can only be done if we understand the true relationship between the shadow and the substance, between the physical and the spiritual, between what is and what is to come.