Colossians 2:22 Commentary and Bible Study

What are the things that you are not to eat and you are not to touch and you are not to handle? Paul answers, and it is almost a piece of sarcasm: ‘Which are all to perish with the using;)’ How does anybody think you can be saved by not touching certain things, articles that are consumable? When we are saved, we don’t want to touch sin, but you don’t come along and say, ‘Oh, I think a lizard may have fallen into that wooden bowl; I mustn’t touch it or I will be defiled.’ A wooden bowl is something that is going to impermanent; it is going to grow old and one day it is going to fall and crack and have to be thrown away. Do you think not touching things that are consumable and breakable is going to save your soul? So, Paul puts that in to wake people up to the foolishness of superstitious ritual. ‘Which are all to perish with the using.’ Even before the Day of Judgement they are going to just get worn out as you use them. Is avoiding touching such a thing going to save you? ‘… after the commandments and doctrines of men?’ A religion which people have invented – a inferior way of worship which men have invented and dared to put in place of God’s true way of worship. What a sad thing it is how much man-made religions have in common with Jewish ritualism!