How to Conquer the Spiritual Coronavirus: the Colossian Heresy (Part 1)

Last updated on: May 23, 2020 at 12:48 pm by Paul Louis Metzger

How to Conquer the Spiritual Coronavirus: the Colossian Heresy (Part 1) 2020-05-23T12:48:17-07:00 Paul Louis Metzger

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

3D reconstruction of the thin multislice CT, covering human heart and lungs; Semnic, November 10, 2015; Creative Commons 4.0

The Apostle Paul was under house arrest, while the Colossian Church was in danger of cardiac arrest. The Colossian Heresy was ravaging this Christian community. Paul sets out to conquer the Colossian Heresy, which was like a spiritual or religious form of the Coronavirus.

What was the Colossian Heresy? It appears to have involved a form of esoteric mystical ascent mixed with a diabolical brand of ascetism. It was taking the Colossian Church’s breath away, like the fluid that fills the lungs with the Coronavirus and that can cause lasting damage. Whether accurate or not, it has been likened to merkabah mysticism, which appeared to involve the notion that, to enter God’s fullness, one has to proceed by means of mystical ascent involving ascetic practices, even while passing through the domains of those malevolent angels who ruled the planets and cosmos. In the effort not to offend this angelic host, some devotees may have tried to placate these fallen angels by worshiping them and abusing their own bodies (Colossians 2:18 appears to convey a similar idea). On this view, only the spiritually elite could attain to the divine fullness.[1]

However conceived, the Church in Colossae could not breathe as a result of contracting the Colossian Heresy. These Christians needed to fill their lungs with the air or wind of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. But instead, they were filling their hearts, minds and imaginations with religious fluid that would do permanent damage to their souls, even kill them.

It was like a severe form of pneumonia associated with the Coronavirus. According to John Hopkins Medicine, the pneumonia associated with COVID-19 can seize control of both lungs. If it progresses, it can lead to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), which can lead to death. Even those who recover from ARDS and rebound from the Coronavirus “may have lasting pulmonary scarring.” It is also worth noting here that according to Scientific American, some who contract the virus are experiencing heart damage and dying of cardiac arrest.

Now imagine contracting the Coronavirus and having to walk to the hospital, climbing stairs to the top floor to get admitted, paying up front to get seen by the doctor, finding the doctor to be menacing with no bedside manner and no respirator in sight, then telling you to pay more before further help would be provided. All the while, the grasping for your breath grows worse. The Colossian Church endured something similar in the spiritual realm.

Paul seeks to conquer this virus by capturing the church’s imagination and calling them to breathe in Christ. Paul presents Jesus as the physician of the soul who does house calls, who has a phenomenal bedside manner, who pays the bill for us so we can be seen. Who would you rather be seen by? Jesus or the Colossian Heresy’s elemental spirits or demons who parade in white, who are supposed to be mediators of the Law—the spiritual equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath, but who manipulate the Law and abuse it and us to their own ends?

So how does Paul encourage the Colossian Church to respond? What was/is the cure for the virus? According to Paul, the cure involves taking seriously the fact that all the fullness of deity is in bodily form in Jesus, and that they have been given fullness in Jesus Christ: “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him” (Colossians 2:9-10; ESV). The fullness is not beyond them in the ethereal domain, which includes the aeons, principalities, and powers of the ‘angelic’ dominions. No, it is close to home, in our midst, as Jesus is incarnate, or as Paul writes, “in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Colossians 2:9; ESV). The cure involves setting our minds on things above, where the incarnate Jesus—who had dwelt on earth in our midst—is seated at the right hand of God. Our lives are hidden in Jesus (See Colossians 3:1-3).

We must take seriously the fact that we do not attain sufficient spiritual understanding through some private education associated with an esoretic, mystical school of thought. According to that tradition, only the religious elite can access the curriculum to create the spiritual equivalent of a vaccine to guard “members only” from the virus that would ravage our souls so that we cannot breathe. In contrast to this perspective, the once hidden and true mystery has been disclosed to God’s people (Colossians 1:26). The formerly hidden mystery is revealed in Christ in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and understanding. Jesus is the revealed mystery. He alone provides the code to the cure for the virus that keeps us from breathing spiritually and relationally. We now have eternal access to Jesus’ curriculum and his relational vaccine. Rather than access to the formula for the cure being denied or hidden from us, our lives are hidden in Christ, in whom “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3; ESV). We have immediate access to Christ Jesus through faith. As Luther writes in The Freedom of a Christian, we ascend to Christ by faith in God’s promise (not by works) through the Spirit who pours God’s active love into our hearts. In turn, we descend to our neighbors in faithful, active love for them.[2]

Look no further than Jesus, who descended to us from heaven and who through God’s outpoured love in the Spirit creates faith and lifts us up to his throne by faith. We can trust him. He does house calls and has a great bedside manner. He is the master physician of the soul. He does not put upon us demands to pay some insurmountable bill that would bankrupt us, unlike the demonic principalities and powers. As the one in whom the fullness of deity dwells bodily, he is the head over all authority in the heavenly and earthly realms (See Colossians 2:10).

Jesus has taken upon himself the responsibility to pay the bill we owe and died to the law’s late payment demands. He has exposed as fake those elemental principles or spiritual/angelic principles whose practices are fraudulent (Colossians 2:13-15). Given that we find fullness in him, we need not fear them. We need not seek to appease these spirit principles or fallen angels (Galatians 2:8, 20; 3:19). We need only find our fullness of breath and life by breathing in him. Jesus who is the fullness of deity in the flesh and in whom we find fullness has paid our debt in full. So do not listen to the voices in your head and heart that would tell you to pay up, and those spirits who fill your lungs with fluid until you choke to death. Know who Jesus is, what he has done for you, and who you are in him through God’s Spirit. We close with these words about what Jesus has done for us:

In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him (Colossians 2:11-15; ESV).

In the second post on this theme of how to conquer the spiritual equivalent of the Coronavirus, we will reflect upon how these spirit principles manifest themselves today and how we are to respond and guard against contracting—or set about recovering from—this spiritual respiratory disease known as the Colossian Heresy today.

_______________

[1]For more on the subject of the Colossian Heresy, as well as merkabah mysticism, see F.F. Bruce, The Epistles to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to the Ephesians, The New International Commentary on the New Testament, 2nd. Ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984), pages 18-20, 23-24; see also F. F. Bruce, Paul: Apostle of the Free Spirit (Milton Keynes, UK: Paternoster, 1977), pages 413-414.

[2]See “The Freedom of a Christian,” in Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, ed. Timothy F. Lull (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989), page 623.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

May 16, 2020

Holistic Health—Building Resilience in Troubled Times

Next Post

May 23, 2020 Health Risks to Business and Faith

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month June 2025 April 2025 March 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz