Saturday, September 19, 2009
Asceticism and the Christian Life
(Colossians 2:14-23)
Religious people sometimes seek to augment their religious experience with asceticism—austerity and self-denial. In religious circles, asceticism typically becomes showy, legalistic, and Pharisaical. In their day, the Pharisees were the ultimate public ascetics, demonstrating their self-discipline and austere living in order to impress the people. Jesus soundly condemned their hypocrisy (Luke 20:47).
The early church was plagued by religious asceticism coming from different quarters. Jewish believers, for example, tended to insist upon maintaining certain ceremonial and dietary requirements of the Old Testament. Paul repeatedly condemned their asceticism as contrary to the Gospel (14-17). Jesus nailed the law to His cross; Christians should not seek to pull it down!
As previously mentioned, the Gnostics too practiced asceticism—a denial of the supposedly evil flesh and an exaltation of things “spiritual.” Their emphasis on the “spiritual” led to worshipping angles in place of Christ (18, 19). Gnostics, then, easily joined with Jewish believers to emphasize ascetic regulations—“touch not; taste not; handle not” (21)—in an attempt to deny the flesh. Many, impressed by their sheer will-power, joined in the heresy (23); and so, the cult of asceticism was poised to take center stage.
Of course the problem is obvious: ascetic, legalistic practices tend to replace Christ as the focus. Self-denial and discipline tend to overwhelm simple faith, and the saving Gospel gets lost to an austere form of works-based religion.
