If ye are dead. He had previously said, that the ordinances were fastened to the cross of Christ. (Colossians 2:14.) He now employs another figure of speech -- that we are dead to them, as he teaches us elsewhere, that we are dead to the law, and the law, on the other hand, to us. (Galatians 2:19.) The term death means abrogation, [1] but it is more expressive and more emphatic, (kai emphatikoteron.) He says, therefore, that the Colossians, have nothing to do with ordinances. Why? Because they have died with Christ to ordinances; that is, after they died with Christ by regeneration, they were, through his kindness, set free from ordinances, that they may not belong to them any more. Hence he concludes that they are by no means bound by the ordinances, which the false apostles endeavored to impose upon them.

Footnotes

1 - "Et abolissement;" -- "And abolishment."

Wherefore - In view of all that has been said. If it be true that you are really dead to the world, why do you act as if you still lived under the principles of the world?
If ye be dead with Christ - If you are dead to the world in virtue of his death. The apostle here, as elsewhere, speaks of a very close union with Christ. We died with him; that is, such was the efficacy of his death, and such is our union with him, that we became dead also to the world; Notes, Romans 6:2, note, 4, note, 8, note, 11, note.
From the rudiments of the world - Margin, "elements." The elements or principles which are of a worldly nature, and which reign among worldly men; see the notes at Galatians 4:3.
Why, as though living in the world - Why do you allow them to influence you, as though you were living and acting under those worldly principles? They ought no more to do it, than the things of this world influence those who are in their graves.
Are ye subject to ordinances - The rites and ceremonies of the Jewish religion; see the notes at Galatians 5:1-4.

If ye be dead with Christ - See the notes on Romans 6:3, Romans 6:5 (note).
From the rudiments of the world - Ye have renounced all hope of salvation from the observance of Jewish rites and ceremonies, which were only rudiments, first elements, or the alphabet, out of which the whole science of Christianity was composed. We have often seen that the world and this world signify the Jewish dispensation, or the rites, ceremonies, and services performed under it.
Why, as though living in the world - Why, as if ye were still under the same dispensation from which you have been already freed, are ye subject to its ordinances, performing them as if expecting salvation from this performance?

(20) Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, (e) as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances,
(20) Now last of all he fights against the second type of corruptions, that is to say, against mere superstitions, invented by men, which partly deceive the simplicity of some with their craftiness, and partly with their foolish superstitions and to be laughed at: as when godliness, remission of sins, or any such like virtue, is put in some certain type of meat, and such like things, which the inventors of such rites themselves do not understand, because indeed it is not there. And he uses an argument taken of comparison. If by the death of Christ who established a new covenant with his blood, you are delivered from those external rites with which it pleased the Lord to prepare the world, as it were by certain rudiments, to that full knowledge of true religion, why would you be burdened with traditions, I know not what, as though you were citizens of this world, that is to say, as though you depended upon this life, and earthly things? Now this is the reason why before verse eight he followed another order than he does in the refutation: because he shows by this what degrees false religions came into the world, that is, beginning first by curious speculations of the wise, after which in process of time succeeded gross superstition, against which mischiefs the Lord set at length that service of the Law, which some abused in like sort. But in the refutation he began with the abolishing of the Law service, that he might show by comparison, that those false services ought much more to be taken away.
(e) As though your felicity stood in these earthly things, and the kingdom of God was not rather spiritual.

Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ,.... Or "seeing ye are dead with Christ"; for these words do not signify any doubt about it, but suppose it, and press what is taken for granted. They were dead with Christ by virtue of union to him; they being one with him, and considered in him as their head and representative, died in him, and with him; they were crucified with him, as they are said to be buried with him, and risen with him; they were dead with him, by having communion with him in his death; they partook of the benefits of it, as redemption, pardon, justification, and reconciliation; and they were planted together with him in the likeness of his death, not merely partakers of his sufferings, or suffered with him, and were conformable unto his death, by undergoing such like things as he did, but as he died unto sin, and lived unto God, so did they; and through the virtue and efficacy of his death were dead to sin, so as that it was not imputed to them, so as to be freed and discharged from it, that it could not damn and destroy them; yea, so as that itself was crucified with him, and destroyed by him: and also to the law, to the moral law; not but that they lived according to it, as in the hands of Christ, in their walk and conversation, but did not seek for life, righteousness, and salvation by it; they were dead unto it as to justification by it, and even to obedience to it in a rigorous and compulsive way; and to all its terrors and threatenings, being moved to a regard to it from a principle of love to Christ; and to all its accusations and charges, its curses and condemnation, and as a ministration of death, fearing neither a corporeal, nor an eternal one: they were dead also to the ceremonial law, and were free
from the rudiments, or "elements"
of the world: the ordinances of a worldly sanctuary, the rites and ceremonies of the world, or state of the Jews, in opposition to, and distinction from, the Gospel dispensation, or times of the Messiah, called, and that by them, , "the world to come": these were like letters to a language, or like the grammar, which contains the rudiments of it; these were the first principles of the oracles of God, which led to Christ, and had their accomplishment and end in him; and so believers were dead unto them, and delivered from them, as they were also to the world, the Jewish state, and were entered into the world to come; and even to this present evil world, and to the men and things of it, being by Christ crucified to it, and that to them: upon all which the apostle thus reasons,
why, as though living in the world; since ye are dead unto it, and from the rudiments of it, why should ye be as though ye lived in it? his meaning is not, that they should not live in the world, nor among the men of it, for then they must needs go out of the world; saints may live in the world, though they are not of it, and among the inhabitants of it, though they do not belong to them, but to another and better country: nor does he suggest, that they lived according to the course of the world, as they did in their unregenerate state; but what he seems to blame them for, and reason with them about, was, that they acted as if they sought for life and righteousness in the rudiments of the world, or by their obedience to ceremonial rites, or human inventions: for he adds,
are ye subject to ordinances? not civil and political ones, which are for the better and more orderly government of kingdoms, states, and cities, for these the saints ought to be subject to, both for the Lord's sake, and conscience sake; nor Gospel ordinances, as baptism, and the Lord's supper, for such all believers ought to submit unto; but either legal ones, the weak and beggarly elements, the yoke of bondage, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, the handwriting of ordinances, which some were desirous of conforming to; or rather the ordinances and appointments of the Jewish fathers, the traditions of the elders, their constitutions and decrees, which are collected together, and make up their Misna, or oral law; and so the argument is from the one to the other, from the greater to the less, that if they were delivered by Christ from the burdensome rites of the ceremonial law, which were originally appointed by God, it must be great weakness in them to be subject to the ordinances of men; or both the institutions of the ceremonial law, and the decrees of the Jewish doctors about them, which were devised by them, and added to them, and imposed as necessary to be observed, may be intended; of which the apostle gives some particulars in Colossians 2:21.

Wherefore--The oldest manuscripts omit "Wherefore."
if ye be dead--Greek, "if ye died (so as to be freed) from," &c. (compare Romans 6:2; Romans 7:2-3; Galatians 2:19).
rudiments of the world-- (Colossians 2:8). Carnal, outward, worldly, legal ordinances.
as though living--as though you were not dead to the world like your crucified Lord, into whose death ye were buried (Galatians 6:14; 1-Peter 4:1-2).
are ye subject to ordinances--By do ye submit to be made subject to ordinances? Referring to Colossians 2:14 : you are again being made subject to "ordinances," the "handwriting" of which had been "blotted out" (Colossians 2:14).

Wherefore. Ye died with Christ, died to the world, and to its rudiments, or fleshly ordinances. See note on Colossians 2:8 and Colossians 2:12. Why, then, as though belonging to the world, should you be subject to obsolete Jewish ordinances?
Touch not, etc. Why are you subject to prohibitions of food and drink which command you to "touch not?" etc.
Which all are to perish. The prohibition applies to "things all of which perishing in the using;" i. e., to food and drink.
After the commandments. These ordinances, whether Jewish traditions, or those of ascetics, are dependent upon the commands and teachings of men.
Which things. The doctrines just condemned.
Have a show of wisdom. But only a show.
In will-worship. Self-imposed, arbitrary worship.
And humility. Ostentatious humility.
And severity to the body. By starving it and refusing proper food. This implies that these teachers demanded mortifications of the flesh, such as have been always commended in the Romish church.
But are not of any value. They have no efficacy in overcoming the lusts of the flesh. In the first verse of the next chapter we are told the only way of overcoming the flesh. In this chapter can be discovered traces of the ascetic spirit which a few centuries later became so dominant in the church. It is well to note that it is placed under the condemnation of the Holy Spirit.

Therefore - The inference begun, Colossians 2:16; is continued. A new inference follows, Colossians 3:1. If ye are dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world - That is, If ye are dead with Christ, and so freed from them, why receive ye ordinances - Which Christ hath not enjoined, from which he hath made you free.