Let’s take a look at this important passage concerning the 7th day Sabbath.
“No one is free, therefore, to pass judgment on you in terms of what you eat or drink or what you do on yearly or monthly feasts, or on the Sabbath. All these were but a shadow of things to come; the reality is the body of Christ” (Colossians 2:16-17).
This passage is pretty clear. All the Jewish feasts, the yearly (Passover, Pentecost, Booths, etc.), the new moon, and the 7th day Sabbath are only shadows without any real substance. The substance belongs to Christ. Therefore, no one can judge the Christian for how he observes these shadows, if he observes them at all (Romans 14:5). Now that they have the reality the Colossians no longer need the shadows.
The principle disagreement is in regard to the meaning of the feasts. What does Paul mean by yearly, monthly, and Sabbath? By yearly (also translated: holyday, festival, feast day) he means feasts that occur once a year on a particular date such as Passover. By monthly he means the new moon feast that was celebrated each month. By Sabbath he means, the only feast day not yet mentioned, the weekly 7th day Sabbath. It is really that simple! That is how the great minds in Christian history have seen it. That is how the rest of Christianity sees it today. But if you add Ellen White’s “visions” then you cannot accept this plain biblical truth.
The 7th day Sabbath was only a shadow of Christ prefiguring the perfect rest we Christians experience, a rest only available through Christ as Paul teaches in Hebrews 4. The 7th day Sabbath was a shadow of resting from our works and being saved by Christ’s finished work as God rested when He finished His work of Creation (Genesis 2:1-3). This is Paul’s point: “And he who enters into God’s rest, rests from his own work as God did from His. Let us strive to enter into that rest, so that no one may fall, in imitation of the example of Israel’s unbelief” (Hebrews 4:10-11). The Sabbath was to prepare Israel for salvation by grace. It was to show them that their works could never save them. “The law had only a shadow of the good things to come” (Hebrews 10:1). Now that the reality is here the shadow is obsolete. However, in the interest of good scholarship let’s look further.
The context of chapter 2 is that Paul is admonishing the Colossians church to stand strong in the true gospel that he preached to them (v. 6, cf. 1:23). Paul sternly warns them to resist those that would deceive them by adding to his gospel (v. 8). He reminds them that they already have a share in the divinity of Christ and so need nothing else (v. 9). This young church is apparently coming under attack from a number of groups chief among them are the Judaizers. The Judaizers seek to impose the Mosaic Law on to Gentile converts. This is the very problem that prompted the Jerusalem Council. “Some of the converted Pharisees then got up and demanded that such Gentiles be circumcised and told to keep the Mosaic Law” (Acts 15:5). Paul responds to the heretics, as did the Council that faith in Jesus is all that is needed for salvation (1:18-20, 28, 2:9: cf. Acts 15:11). Therefore, it is unnecessary for Christians to be worried by those who would impose on them anything in addition to faith in Jesus.
In vs. 11-12 Paul tells them that circumcision, the entrance sign into the Old Covenant, is no longer valid. It was a mere shadow of baptism. Baptism is the entrance sign into the New Covenant. Circumcision once replaced does not continue in the New Covenant.
The 7th day Sabbath was the on-going remembrance sign of the Old Covenant. The Lord’s Supper is the on-going remembrance sign of the New Covenant. “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me” And, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me” (1 Corinthians 11:24, 25). Therefore, the 7th day Sabbath, like circumcision, does not continue into the New Covenant. When Jesus proclaimed the New Covenant at the Last Supper “he declared the first one obsolete” (Hebrews 8:13). If the covenant is obsolete, and the Bible says that it is, than we must accept that the sign of that covenant is likewise obsolete.
The next key phrase is “He canceled the bond that stood against us with all its claims, snatching it up and nailing it to the cross” (2:14). What was nailed to the cross? I believe that the weight of the evidence indicates that it was the entire Old Covenant law. We can gain some incite into the meaning of this passage by examining another passage by Paul that uses very similar language. In Ephesians 2:13 Paul notes that it is by the cross that we are united. “In his flesh he abolished the law with its commands and precepts, to create in himself one new man from us who had been two and make peace” (Ephesians 2:15). So we see that by means of his cross Jesus “abolished the law”. To a Jew the term “the law” means all 613 laws of the Old Covenant. Jesus accomplished this by canceling “the bond that stood against us with all its claims, snatching it up and nailing it to the cross.” The bond with all its claims that is, all the law. Don’t forget that Jesus could not nail some of the law to the cross it had to be the entire law. “Of this much I assure you: until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter of the law, not the smallest part of a letter shall be done away with until it all comes true” (Matthew 5:18). It is all the law or none of the law (Galatians 3:10; James 2:10). Just prior to this key verse, Paul states that circumcision is not necessary for a New Covenant Christian. For the Jew, circumcision represents the whole law because one had to be circumcised in order to enter into the Old Covenant people of God and be required to keep all the law. “I point out once more to all who receive circumcision that they are bound to keep the law in its entirety” (Galatians 5:3). Thus Paul shows that what was canceled was the entire law.
Jesus took away the law that man could not keep and which could not save anyway. “Thus did God disarm the principalities and powers” (v. 15). All those false teachers offering another way of salvation have been exposed by Christ’s actions. He has nailed the written law that kills, that ministry of death carved in writing on stone, to his cross (cf. 2 Corinthians 3:6-7). In other words, Paul is saying to the Colossian church not to fear the Judaizers because they don’t have a leg to stand on. By abolishing the law in his own flesh, Jesus has taken the legs right out from under them. Paul is pleading with them to stand firm in the gospel of grace. He is telling them that when the Judaizers claim that you must be circumcised, tell them, “That’s Old Law, nailed to the cross.” When they say you must keep the Sabbath, tell them, “That’s Old Law, nailed to the cross.” Give them no further hearing.
Next comes the passage in question vv. 16 & 17. Paul has just told the young church that the Old Law has been taken away and that those that try to impose something other than the gospel on them are to be ignored. So Paul now tells them not to accept their judgment. “No one is free, therefore, to pass judgment” (v. 16). It does not matter anymore what one does or doesn’t do on the Jewish holydays. Why? Paul tells us bluntly, “All those were but a shadow of things to come; the reality is the body of Christ” (v. 17). This is another very clear statement that the 7th day Sabbath is no longer necessary.
The SDA will often try to avoid the plain words of Paul here by attempting to convince us that the Sabbath spoken of in v. 16 is not the 7th day Sabbath. Let’s look at this objection to see if it holds water. As already mentioned, the terms yearly and monthly feasts only leaves the 7th day Sabbath missing from the feasts of the Mosaic calendar. Paul could not be referring to another Sabbath because that would be redundant since he has already mentioned the yearly feasts. The SDA interpretation would have Paul saying, “Let no one judge you on what you do on the yearly, monthly, yearly feasts.” Also whenever a list of all the feast days occurs in the rest of the Bible never are the other days called Sabbaths. Further whenever the other feast days are mentioned separately and called a Sabbath, the Greek word used is “Sabbata sabbaton” as in Leviticus 23:24 & 32. The term used for Sabbath in v. 16 is “Sabbaton” which is always used to refer to the 7th day Sabbath. The new moon feast are often mentioned with the 7th day Sabbath as in 2 Kings 4:23; Isaiah 1:13, 66:23; Ezekiel 46:1, 3-7; Amos 8:5. The yearly feasts are never called Sabbaths. They are called by titles such as annual feasts, fixed festivals, appointed feasts/times as in 1 Chronicles 23:31; 2 Chronicles 2:3, 8:13, 31:3; Nehemiah 10:34.
We have an interesting close parallel to 2:16 in Ezekiel 45:17. There it reads, “It shall be the duty of the prince to provide the holocausts…on the feasts, new moons, and Sabbaths, on all the festivals of the house of Israel. “ What is interesting to our study is that Ezekiel says feasts, new moons, and Sabbaths and calls them “all the festivals”. It is significant that for Ezekiel to be correct Sabbaths must equal the 7th day Sabbath which, in context, it does. Once again we see that feasts, new moons, and Sabbaths cannot mean yearly feasts, monthly feasts, and Sabbaths of yearly feasts.
More evidence for the 7th day Sabbath being the one mentioned in 2:16 comes from common usage. The Old Testament writers used an established sequence when referring to “all the festivals of the house of Israel”. They recorded the holydays in either ascending or descending order. In other words, yearly to monthly to weekly or weekly to monthly to yearly (1 Chronicles 23:31; 2 Chronicles 2:3, 8:13, 31:3; Nehemiah 10:34; Ezekiel 45:17; Hosea 2:13). In this established sequence “Sabbath” always referred to the 7th day Sabbath. Paul, in using this established sequence, was well aware that those reading his letter would naturally conclude that he meant all the Old Covenant holydays were mere shadows of Christ. In point of fact that is what the evidence clearly shows he did mean.
It may be informative to know that in 59 of 60 references to the Sabbath in the New Testament the SDA Church agrees with all Christians that it refers to the 7th day Sabbath. However, they view the one occurrence in Colossians 2 differently. This is because of the obvious implications it has to their theology. I ask you: is that a proper way to interpret God’s word? We must be honest and true to God’s word. We may not distort it to fit our already held beliefs. We must change our beliefs when they do not agree with the Holy Bible.
, yearly observance (“feasts”
