Colossians and Philemon (MACNTC) by John MacArthur

Author:John MacArthur [MacArthur, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780802407610
Amazon: 0802407617
Barnesnoble: 0802407617
Publisher: Moody Publishers
Published: 1992-11-09T16:00:00+00:00

In Revelation 5:11-12, John writes, “I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders; and the number of them was myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, ‘Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.’”

When John tried to worship an angel, he was rebuked for doing so: “I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said to me, ‘Do not do that; I am a fellow servant of yours and your brethren who hold the testimony of Jesus; worship God’” (Rev. 19:10; cf. Rev. 22:9).

In addition to practicing false humility and worshiping angels, the false teachers were taking their stand on visions they had seen. Like many heretics and cultists down through the ages, they claimed support for their aberrant teachings in visions they had supposedly seen. Some of the worst excesses in the modern-day charismatic movement are derived from such visions. There is no need for extrabiblical revelation through visions, because “God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son” (Heb. 1:1-2, italics added).

Paul warns the Colossians not to be intimidated by the false teachers’ claims. Far from being the spiritual elite they thought themselves to be, they were inflated without cause by their fleshly minds. Being guilty of gross spiritual pride, they were devoid of the Holy Spirit. Having gone beyond the teaching of Christ (cf. 2 John 9), they were not holding fast to the head, that is, Christ (cf. Col. 1:18). He is the One from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God. Spiritual growth comes from union with Christ. Jesus says in John 15:4-5, “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing.”

There is a tendency in human nature to move from objectivity to subjectivity—to shift the focus from Christ to experience. This has always intimidated weak believers and threatened the church.

Today this brand of mysticism is most commonly seen in the charismatic movement—where Scripture is a distant second in importance to visions and revelations.

When such intimidation came from the sixteenth-century mystical charismatics of Martin Luther’s day, the great Reformer was very firm with them, clinging to biblical revelation and the centrality and sufficiency of Christ. In particular, the followers of Thomas Münzer and the radical Anabaptists gave great prominence to the work and gifts of the Spirit—and to mystical knowledge. Their cry, expressing their supra-biblical experience, was “The Spirit, the Spirit!” Luther replied, “I will not follow where their spirit leads.

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