Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations—
Parallel translations
- WEB If you died with Christ from the elements of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to ordinances,
- KJV Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances,
- BSB If you have died with Christ to the spiritual forces of the world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its regulations:
- NASB If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as,
- NLT You have died with Christ, and he has set you free from the spiritual powers of this world. So why do you keep on following the rules of the world, such as,
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Since they died with Christ to the world's elementary principles, why submit to its rules? Union with Christ frees them from such bondage.
Overview
Believers 'died with Christ from the elements of the world,' breaking with its religious systems of merit and regulation. Paul therefore asks why they live 'as though living in the world,' bound by 'ordinances.' Their death and new life in Christ make a return to rule-keeping inconsistent with the gospel.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 18
- Col 2:8Be careful that you don’t let anyone rob you through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the elements of the world, and not after Christ.
- Col 2:14wiping out the handwriting in ordinances which was against us; and he has taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross;
- Gal 4:3So we also, when we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental principles of the world.
- Col 2:16Let no one therefore judge you in eating, or in drinking, or with respect to a feast day or a new moon or a Sabbath day,
- Rom 7:4–6Therefore, my brothers, you also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you would be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead, that we might produce fruit to God.
- Heb 13:9Don’t be carried away by various and strange teachings, for it is good that the heart be established by grace, not by food, through which those who were so occupied were not benefited.
- 1 Jn 5:19We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.
- Gal 4:9–12But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, why do you turn back again to the weak and miserable elemental principles, to which you desire to be in bondage all over again?
- Gal 2:19–20For I, through the law, died to the law, that I might live to God.
- 1 Pet 4:1–3Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind; for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin;
- 2 Cor 10:3For though we walk in the flesh, we don’t wage war according to the flesh;
- Jas 4:4You adulterers and adulteresses, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
- John 17:14–16I have given them your word. The world hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
- John 15:19If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, since I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
- Eph 2:15having abolished in his flesh the hostility, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man of the two, making peace;
- Gal 6:14But far be it from me to boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
- Rom 6:2–11May it never be! We who died to sin, how could we live in it any longer?
- Col 3:3For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
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Original language
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