Which all are unto destruction by the very use, according to the precepts and doctrines of men.
α εστιν παντα εις φθοραν τη αποχρησει κατα τα ενταλματα και διδασκαλιας των ανθρωπων
12 Church Fathers comment on this verse
"Which all perish with use." He shamed the arrogance of many and added, "according to the commandments and teaching of men." What are you saying? If you are speaking of the law, then from a certain time even it is a human teaching. Paul said this either because they distorted the law, or because he is alluding to the teaching of the Hellenes. Everything, he says, is a human teaching.
These are not divine instructions, but human decrees. What then? Is the law not God's teaching? It existed when its time was present, but now it no longer exists, because its time has been fulfilled. Or he speaks this way because the Jewish elders distorted it, establishing traditions besides the law, as Christ also says in the Gospel. Or he is alluding to the teachings of the Hellenes.
For all this is a work of corruption, since it has grown old, decomposed, and decayed. These are commandments and teachings not of God, but of men.
“Why,” it is said, “as though living in the world, do you submit to ordinances: Do not touch, do not handle, do not taste what perishes through its very use?” (Col 2:20 and following).
Indeed, what is harmful should not be among the pure. Therefore cease caring for the flesh and the world.
In general, we often err in sight and, under other circumstances, see more than actually exists. We also err in hearing. If we do not wish to err, let us examine not what appears to us, but what does not appear.
For when does our soul not go astray? When does it reach the throne of truth? Is it not when it is separated from the body itself, and is neither deceived nor mocked by it?
For it is mocked by the sight of the eyes and the hearing of the ears. Therefore it casts them away and leaves them behind.
For this reason the Apostle cries out: “Do not touch” (2 Cor 6:17), “do not handle,” “do not taste.” All this leads to corruption, and in corruption is what serves the pampering of the body.
Therefore, knowing what he saw or heard in Paradise, he cried out, saying: Why do you still reason exactly like those who live by this world and set rules?
“Do not touch,” “do not handle,” “do not taste” all that leads to corruption; cf. 2 Cor 6:17. He wanted us to be “in the form of this world,” but not in possessing and using it.
Thus we should use this world as though not using it (1 Cor 7:29), as strangers (Heb 11:13), not as inhabitants. We should walk as though in the “form of the age,” not in its desire.
Then, by prompt discernment, we may overcome the very form of this world.
"Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle," things "which all perish with use, according to the commandments and teachings of men." In Baptism you were buried together with Christ and became dead to the law. Why, then, do you tolerate those who teach such things among you? Why do you think that some foods are lawful and others unlawful, while failing to consider that nothing in them is permanent? For everything is turned into corruption. By "commandments" and "teachings" the Apostle did not mean the law, but their untimely teaching.
Chastity, therefore, is not yet a virtue unless it has been inspired by love for God. Blessed Paul already says of those who hate marriage: "In the latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, through the hypocrisy of liars, whose own conscience is seared, forbidding marriage and commanding abstinence from foods which God created" (1 Tim 4:1-3). He also says, "Let no one deceive you by self-imposed humility and severity to the body" (Col 2:18, 23).
"Which all perish with use." Most often these words are referred to the forbidden foods. The meaning of the Apostle's words is then presented as follows: why do you submit to new rules concerning food and such things, which are not eternal but disappear in their very use? Yet these words may be understood more consistently in another way: the abuse of the above-mentioned prohibitions leads those who practice them to destruction (2 Pet 2:12; Gal 6:8).
In connection with what precedes, verses 18-19, and what follows, verse 23, these words of the Apostle are a rebuke of a self-willed “worship.”
It was not founded on the word of God or on the commandments of the Church. On the one hand, it rejected the significance of Christ’s merits and denied Christ’s accomplished bringing of mankind to God (1 Pet 3:18).
On the other hand, it placed hope in the help of angels and in the exhausting of the body, as though the body were an evil principle standing as a barrier between the human spirit and the heavenly spirits.
Returning his readers to the true path of faith, the Apostle speaks as though saying this. All your hope must be in Christ.
Worldly things and fleshly conditions cannot save you, and for you they do not exist as means of salvation, since “you died to the elements of the world.”
Therefore do not rely on observing rules of abstinence, “Do not touch, do not taste,” as though this by itself could save you and unite you with heaven.
We Orthodox Christians, when we keep fasts, do not ascribe to them the saving power that is found only in Christ’s merits.
We use fasting as a means to be conformed to Christ, to be crucified with Him, and to portray Him in our life.
The worth of fasting depends entirely on the feelings with which it is joined and on the beliefs it expresses. If it is joined to hypocrisy, pride, or denial of the necessity of Christ’s merits, as here, then it is plainly sinful and subject to condemnation.
But if it expresses the desire to live one life with Christ, “always carrying in the body the death of the Lord Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body” (2 Cor 4:10), then such fasting deserves high praise.
That is, one end awaits all substances used for food: corruption. What foolishness it is, then, to ascribe some mysterious importance to these trifles.
“According to the commandments and teachings of men.” That is, all the prescriptions of the Colossian speculators concerning foods are no more than human inventions, having not the slightest significance for the Colossian Christians.
“These words should be joined with dogmatizesthe: why do you allow yourselves to be instructed with such dogmas, which are human inventions?
Even Jewish ordinances, insofar as they were burdened with various rabbinic additions, had already been changed from God’s commandments into human commandments.
But more directly the Apostle had in view the superstitions of the Greeks and of certain theosophists” (Bishop Theophan).
Concluding his doctrinal instructions, the Apostle again warns the Colossians against assigning false significance, in the work of drawing near to God, to a vainly wise abstinence.
Such abstinence disorders health, deprives one of the ability to fulfill duties, and leads to exhaustion. With special force he turns them away from servile reverence for the materials of nature.
It was as though these materials had some mysterious influence on drawing near to God or being distanced from Him.
According to John Chrysostom, the Apostle then mocks the heretics. “See,” he says, “how the Apostle mocks them: Do not touch, nor taste. Those speculators, when interpreting this, pretended that acting so was something great.”
“A word, having the appearance of wisdom, but not power, and therefore not truth. Hence one will turn away from him who has only the word of wisdom.
For someone may seem pious, modest, and a despiser of the body, but in reality he is not such.”
“The Apostle’s thought here is the same as the Savior’s when He teaches that it is not what enters the mouth, but what comes out of the heart, that defiles a man.
He instructs them: do not attach importance to these trifles. Do not rely on them. Direct all attention to the ordering of the heart and its dispositions.
Already for this reason one should turn away from these speculators. Still more, one should do so because their lessons are not from God, but human inventions.
Those wise men constructed their faith and invented for it a special order of worship. Our Khlysts also have their own service. They go to church too, but their own service is sweeter to them because it is self-willed.
The same thing is beginning to appear among the spiritists. Only they relate not to God, but to spirits, or more correctly, to demons.
Something similar could have existed among those wise men and their disciples.”
“Perhaps they also tormented themselves in some way. In itself, not sparing the body, in prudent measure and for holy purposes, is not blameworthy but praiseworthy.
‘Those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh’ (Gal 5:24). If the Apostle speaks of it reproachfully here, then surely this is because, besides the misshapen form in which it appeared, it was bad in its direction and spirit.
It was also mixed with superstitions. God, having created the body, did not assign it to the soul as an enemy, but as a co-worker.
Yet they treat it as an enemy. They torment it and do not feed it” (Bishop Theophan).
He presents the reasons why one should not listen to such lessons. The first is the insignificance of the things they concern. The second is that this is not God’s commandment, but human teaching.
The insignificance of the things is this: what material thing is firm and constant? Everything flows. Take food: what happens to it? “It is transformed into filth” (blessed Theodoret).
“These things perish through use.” “Putting to shame the arrogance of the dogmatists there, that is, the false teachers, the Apostle says that all this is nothing great.
It ends in corruption in those who use it. Having decayed in the belly, it is then cast out into the privy (Mt 15:17).
Thus, for the soul, in itself, there is neither benefit nor harm in it” (blessed Theophylact).
The Apostle’s thought here is the same as the Savior’s when He taught that it is not what enters the mouth, but what comes out of the heart, that defiles a man (Mt 15:11).
He instructs them: do not attach importance to these trifles, and do not rely on them. Direct all attention to the ordering of the heart and its dispositions.
They are firm and have eternal value, while all this is petty vanity. For this reason alone one should turn away from these speculators.
Still more, one should do so because their lessons are not from God, but are human inventions. You received teaching from God, and you should not open your ears to these newcomers.
Their teaching is formed “according to the commandments and teachings of men.” These words should be joined with dogmatizesthe: why do you allow yourselves to be instructed with such dogmas, which are human inventions?
Even Jewish ordinances, insofar as they were burdened with various rabbinic additions, had already been changed from God’s commandments into human commandments.
But more directly the Apostle had in view the superstitions of the Greeks, or of certain theosophists.
The Apostle is not rejecting the law or Moses, as though Moses had established the prohibition of certain foods out of angelic superstition. For he affirms that Moses received the law from God (cf. Gal 3:19). Therefore, this teaching, as Paul says, is "according to the commandments and teachings of men." He ascribed it to those who did not hold fast to the Head, that is, to Him in Whom all things are regarded as called back to their beginning, including the distinction of foods.
Passages read together with this verse.
Greek text, 14 words with lemma, transliteration and Strong’s number. Tap to expand.
THEOSIS