Therefore if you be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are you subject to ordinances,
All Commentaries on Colossians 2:20 Go To Colossians 2
Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
With the knowledge of what Paul had seen and heard in paradise, he cried out saying: “Why, as if still viewing the world do you lay down rules: ‘Do not touch; nor handle; nor taste!’—things which must all perish in their very use!” He wished us to be in the world in figure, not in actual possession and use of it. We are to use the world as if we did not use it, as if we were but passing through, not residing in it, walking through as in a dream, not with desire, so that with the speed of thought we might pass through the shadow of this world.
