(Col. 2:10), to have 'spoiled' principalities and powers by His cross (Col.

2:15), and reveals that these spiritual foes, by subjecting the believer to

the dominion of obsolete 'rudiments' or 'elements', were out to rob them of

their reward (Col. 2:18).

'Paul has a remarkable range of imagery with which to describe the

exposure of the tyrants who had so long held humanity in bondage.  In

an almost untranslatable sentence in 2 Corinthians he declares that the

old covenant, the transient dispensation of death and condemnation,

which embodies a measure of divine glory, has been "deglorified" by

reason of the superlative glory of the new covenant in Christ (2 Cor.

3:10).  In the light of this glory the powers now appear as "weak and

beggarly elemental spirits" (Gal 4:9).  Like a Roman emperor, entering

the capital in triumphal procession with a train of discredited enemies

behind the chariot, Christ has made an exhibition of the powers,

celebrating a public triumph over them (Col. 2:15).  These extravagant

terms do not mean that Paul had any illusions about the strength of the

spiritual forces with which he and his fellow Christians must yet do

battle.  But they do mean that Paul had seen the principalities and

powers for the first time in their true guise, and that for him all

such influence had sunk into insignificance before the vision of an

invincible love, from which henceforth nothing in all creation would be

able to separate him' (G. B. Baird).

It may at first appear strange, after being assured that the whole

creation, including things in heaven and things in earth, visible and

invisible were created by Christ, that the apostle, should specially record

by name 'thrones, dominions, principalities and powers', and Bishop

Lightfoot's paraphrase may be helpful here:

'You dispute much about successive grades of angels; you distinguish

each grade by its special title; you can tell how each order was

generated from the preceding: you assign to each its proper degree of

worship.  Meanwhile you have ignored or have degraded Christ.  I tell

you it is not so.  He is first and foremost, Lord of heaven and earth,

far above all thrones and dominations, all princedoms and powers, far

above every dignity and every potentate -- whether earthly or heavenly

-- whether angel or demon or man, that evokes your reverence or excites

your fear'.

The worshipping of angels, which is condemned in Colossians 2:18, arose

out of the incipient Gnosticism that was invading the church:

'There was a show of humility, for there was a confession of weakness,

in subservience to inferior mediatorial agencies.  It was held feasible

to grasp at the lower links of the chain which bound earth to heaven,

when heaven itself seemed far beyond the reach of man.  The successive

grades of intermediate beings were as successive steps, by which man

might mount the ladder leading up to the throne of God.  This carefully

woven web of sophistry the apostle tears to shreds'.

The speculations both of Jewish and Christian superstition respecting

the several grades of the heavenly hierarchy were somewhat as follows:

Thrones, Authorities, these were highest in the seventh heaven.