Neville Goddard on Colossians 2:16-23 - Mystical Bible Interpretation

Read Colossians 2 in context

Scripture Focus

16Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:

17Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.

18Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,

19And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God.

20Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances,

21(Touch not; taste not; handle not;

22Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men?

23Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.

Colossians 2:16-23

Biblical Context

Paul warns that outward rules about foods, holy days, and self-denial are only shadows. The real life is the body of Christ, held together by the Head, not by human commands.

Neville's Inner Vision

Colossians 2 presents the inner drama: the world of rules—the meats, the days, the castigations—are shadows projected by a mind chasing control. You are not a body defined by what you eat or what you count as holy; you are the I AM, the Head by whom the whole body is nourished. When you identify with the Head, the 'church' of your life is knit together by awareness, and growth comes as a natural increase in God’s life. The attempts at voluntary humility and angel-worship are tricks of a fleshly mind, trying to impress by outward acts. They belong to a rudimentary system that perishes with use. If you accept death to those worldly rudiments, you cease to be ruled by them; you will live in the present reality, a body in which every joint and sinew is fed by the one Life. So do not seek to enforce commandments outside; instead return to the one interior law—Be still, aware, and held by the Head—and watch your world reorder itself according to the truth that you are already Christ’s.

Practice This Now

Close your eyes, declare, 'I am the Head,' and feel the life of Christ flowing through your body. Revise any sense of being judged by rules by resting in awareness.