Colossians2chapter 2

The teaching Paul opposes is described only through his rebuttals, so its exact shape is uncertain. What shows through is a mixture: Jewish elements such as circumcision, food laws, festivals, new moons and Sabbaths, together with ascetic severity to the body, claims about visions, and some kind of veneration of angels. Scholars debate how these fitted together, and honesty requires saying so.

What is clear is the sales pitch: you have Christ, but you need this as well. Paul's answer is that in Christ the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and they have been filled in him — there is no remainder to supply.

The image of the cancelled debt is precise. A cheirographon was a handwritten certificate of indebtedness, signed by the debtor as an acknowledgment of what he owed. Paul says the record standing against us was set aside, nailed to the cross — a debt note publicly cancelled by being fixed up where everyone could see it discharged.

The chapter ends with another triumph procession: the rulers and authorities disarmed, put to open shame, led in a victory parade. In a teaching that treated those powers as forces to be appeased, showing them as the defeated captives was the whole argument in one picture.

Paul also notes dryly that such regulations — do not handle, do not taste, do not touch — have an appearance of wisdom and severity to the body but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.