A new look at Colossians 2:16

[Diakonos]

"One person regards one day above another, another regards every day alike. Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind"
- Rom 14:5

 

[Blik]

That's disingenuous, and beneath you.
While your accusation about making Scripture say whatever men want is completely off the mark, is that any worse than picking which Scripture verses apply to you and which don't? That's what you seem to do.

You simply don't seem to understand the distinction between the covenants. If God intended Christians to follow the directions given to Israel, then Christians would be pleasing God by slaughtering Canaanites and stoning adulterers.

Here's a question for you: if God intended His commands to Israel to be followed indefinitely, why did He allow the complete destruction of the Levitical system of worship, including the temple itself, in 70 AD?

And I think that you have accepted some things that are false and it leads you into misinterpreting what the Lord is telling you. If you would approach scripture as a child, as we are told to do, and simply accept what it tells you without making it fit what men teach you then you would see things differently.

It does seem to be that you think of Israel in a very different way than the Lord tells us it is. The Lord needed to give instructions to them to separate them from the idol worshipers. It was a training ploy. But with the new covenant we are to now understand the things the Lord was training them for and not need the training helps. The new covenant did not change the spiritual facts, as it would be if your understanding of that new covenant was right. It is like you are throwing out the baby with the bath water.

I do not believe that with the new covenant the Lord is telling us that He gave spiritual facts to Israel that we can now know are wiped out. I don't believe that the new covenant is telling us we are not to praise and celebrate Christ or the Lord's way of giving us grace with feasts.

 

[massorite]

I wonder that for years and years no one really listened to how God created our world to operate, men liked ordering it their own way. They don't listen to scripture as the authority, but just look to scripture to back up their own decisions about what they want it to say.

Think of how much of our world is following the occult! Our week days are all named for false Gods. Every single holiday is copying pagan ones, men say when God gave us the Holy Spirit and the new covenant it really means we aren't to listen to God any more but follow men. Men follow the crowd and the crowd followed the occult. I wonder, for God knew that when they found that Christ had risen on Sunday morning that man would use that to say God changed how He created Sabbath! God uses everything for good, I wonder what the good is in this decision by men. I also wonder that man decided that God changed something God created at the beginning of our world, for we learn of the Sabbath as we learn how God created in the first chapter of scripture.

It is the way of the world my friend and the fail of the church is part of prophetic scripture and it is falling hard as we speak.
America is now embracing Islam as if it were a real and viable religion when it is actually a man made pagan religion. Small towns are being taken over by Muslims being elected and passing Islamic type laws within those towns and we now have many Muslims in our federal government who are working against the God in whom our nation and laws were fashioned after in our beginning. The Democrats and many of the Republicans are the enemy of God.

 

[massorite]

**cough**

And He declared unto you His covenant, which He commanded you to perform, ​

even ten commandments; and He wrote them upon two tables of stone. ​

(Deuteronomy 4:13)​

​

i agree that the rest of the Law is elaboration on the principles in the decalogue. but the marvelous thing is that Jesus Himself said that all of the law and the prophets are based on two things: love the LORD and love one another -- yet neither of these are in the decalogue!
this speaks to an amazing thing, that the law is based on principles higher than the law - as the decalogue forms an underpinning for the law, the great commandment, and the next, form the underpinning even of it. and these two 'commands' are not even the basis of righteousness! because both of these are testimonies of Christ Jesus the Eternal Son -- who loves the Father eternally, and who gives Himself for love to us.

it is not Leviticus that God writes in our heart when He makes it anew; it is love for God and for others. it is not Deuteronomy written on the redeemed heart; it is Christ, and we are being conformed to Him.

Yes I agree.

 

[Blik]

It is the way of the world my friend and the fail of the church is part of prophetic scripture and it is falling hard as we speak.
America is now embracing Islam as if it were a real and viable religion when it is actually a man made pagan religion. Small towns are being taken over by Muslims being elected and passing Islamic type laws within those towns and we now have many Muslims in our federal government who are working against the God in whom our nation and laws were fashioned after in our beginning. The Democrats and many of the Republicans are the enemy of God.

The church is falling hard, I agree, but there is a remnant that keeps to listening to God alone. I think that is why the deep sea scrolls were hidden until now--the messages men are discovering in them is from a time before all these fleshly ideas were accepted into the church.

The Lord will win this battle.

 

[massorite]

The church is falling hard, I agree, but there is a remnant that keeps to listening to God alone. I think that is why the deep sea scrolls were hidden until now--the messages men are discovering in them is from a time before all these fleshly ideas were accepted into the church.

The Lord will win this battle.

There is no question that the Lord has already won. I read a book on the Dead Sea Scrolls once and found them to be credible and insightful. I also studied the doctrinal beliefs and early church events during the first 300 years of the church. and yes there is a great difference between what we believed then and what we believe now. Before 300-325 A.D. there was a smidget of false man made doctrinal beliefs that were scattered about compared to what we have today and no paganism or pagan ritual at all. Christmas was not even celebrated until after the Roman Church created the so called holy day. It was a pagan holy day before then.

 

[UnitedWithChrist]

This verse was written by Paul to the Colossian Christians when false teachers infiltrated the church. He wrote: “let no man judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of any holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days which are a shadow of things to come”.

Today’s church has interpreted this passage to mean that God sanctions the cancellation of the sabbath and feasts. Many scholars think this is a misinterpretation.

The letter to the Colossians was written to a church of Christian gentiles whose church had false teachers that infiltrated them. These false men taught not to touch, not to taste, not to handle as the Colossians were doing as they enjoyed the feasts and Sabbaths. They taught Gnosticism, whose teachings were to not be part of anything physical but keep to the spiritual. The Lord teaches to celebrate, be joyful, feast at God’s festivals.

Paul warns against following men’s direction rather than the Lord’s, yet this verse is interpreted to mean that we are not to be judged if we follow the dates set up by men rather than God. It is men who decided that Sunday should be the sabbath because the discovery of Christ being gone from the grave was on Sunday, not because of a scripture teaching.

We are taught how to interpret scripture, and one way is to remember all the characteristics of God and know each verse is by a God with these characteristics. One characteristic is that God is eternal and never changes. What God tells us in Genesis is the same as what God tells us in Revelation. If God teaches to listen to God not man in one place, we are to know it applies in every case. Because God taught through ordering physical acts like special diet and cutting flesh and changed to teach these things through the Holy Spirit, people say God changed, but God didn’t. They teach he same things. Changing the way of telling us the same things is not a fundamental change.

What many believe Paul was teaching in Col. 2:16 was to go ahead to the joy of the celebrations that are shadows of things to come.

It is quite a new interpretation, what do you think?

I suggest that you study Gnosticism.

Gnosticism had a Jewish element and a Greek element.

"Great Courses" has some lectures on Gnosticism by a secular scholar and he mentions this.

By the way, these individuals were occupied in judging Gentiles, apparently. What does this tell you?

As an ex-Judaizer, I would encourage folks to study the NT writings from Acts forward, to see that there was a heavy influx of Judaizers who CONTINUALLY tried to claim that observance of days and dietary restrictions were required. Paul and other authors warned about them over and over again. Paul called them "dogs".

They would follow him around, after he won Gentile converts, and attempt to subvert their faith in Christ, talking them into observing days and diets.

By the way, if you think the issue was physical circumcision alone, you are wrong. Physical circumcision, in Jewish society, meant that one was subjecting himself to the Mosaic Covenant. It was only the entry-level event, much like the marriage ceremony is the entry-level event related to marriage. Physical circumcision was committing one's self to the Mosaic Covenant. Sabbath was a weekly reminder of the Mosaic Covenant.

That being said, I have no issue with those who would like to observe the Sabbath, but don't judge others for observing the LORD's Day.

However, you will find that isn't the agenda with the original poster, or a few others on this site. They are actually judging others as being inferior Christians or non-Christians. I was exactly the same as a Judaizer member of an Armstrongite cult.

The belief of many Sabbathkeepers is that non-Sabbathkeepers are following Roman Catholicism, and are under the Mark of the Beast due to their Sunday observance. Some don't even consider them to be Christians. That was my position about non-Sabbathkeepers, until the LORD liberated me from their theology.

God implemented Sabbath and meat laws to distance Israel, who was not a spiritual nation for the most part, from the Gentile nations.

By the way, I posted a good article on the meat laws that discusses these "separation commandments". The same principle applies regarding days.

Most of all, though, it would be interesting if you could go back and review the posts of the original poster. See how many of the posts relate to judging others over days and diet, compared to the total posts. I imagine it will be significant.

Also, compare Colossians 2:16-17 to Hebrews 10:1-4 and 9:9-11. Print them out. Look at them side by side. Note the similar language Paul employs with regards to the ceremonial law and the Sabbath, festivals and new moons.

It is clear that Paul relates days in the same context as the ceremonial law, which is no longer in effect.

 

[UnitedWithChrist]

And I think that you have accepted some things that are false and it leads you into misinterpreting what the Lord is telling you. If you would approach scripture as a child, as we are told to do, and simply accept what it tells you without making it fit what men teach you then you would see things differently.

It does seem to be that you think of Israel in a very different way than the Lord tells us it is. The Lord needed to give instructions to them to separate them from the idol worshipers. It was a training ploy. But with the new covenant we are to now understand the things the Lord was training them for and not need the training helps. The new covenant did not change the spiritual facts, as it would be if your understanding of that new covenant was right. It is like you are throwing out the baby with the bath water.

I do not believe that with the new covenant the Lord is telling us that He gave spiritual facts to Israel that we can now know are wiped out. I don't believe that the new covenant is telling us we are not to praise and celebrate Christ or the Lord's way of giving us grace with feasts.

So, you believe that the entire Mosaic Law is still in effect?

That would be the natural conclusion of what you have just said.

As a Judaizer, I accepted a patchwork quilt which attempted to retain the Mosaic Law when the cult leader thought it applied, and discarded it when he thought it didn't apply.

And he thought it included festivals and the Sabbath, and clean meat laws.

By the way, what organization do you belong to? Are you bold enough to identify whose propaganda you are spreading? I have told you that I was a former Armstrongite.

Are you Seventh Day Adventist? What about Hebrew Roots? Armstrongite? Messianic Jew?

Those are the major groups.

I can also tell folks that they don't want you to know what group they represent, because their theology in other areas can be identified and criticized. For instance, Armstrongites believe they are to become God, just as the Father and Son, in the resurrection. Seventh Day Adventists perform elective abortions in their health care facilities. Some Hebrew Roots Movement people and Messianic Jews do not believe the letters of Paul are inspired or deny the full deity of Jesus Christ.

What's my point? Many Sabbathkeeper organizations hold other kooky ideas.

By the way, if someone was convicted on the seventh day Sabbath, from what I've seen, Seventh Day Baptists are really about the only sane group, besides some selected Messianic Jews. Unfortunately, there are few Seventh Day Baptists and sane Messianic Jews compared to these other groups.

 

[posthuman]

The next verse tells us that "these things" are a shadow of the things to come. Paul has just said that we aren't to be judged for pleasure in feasting, etc. and now Paul tells us that through Christ we have the joy of eternal life and the pleasure of the feasts are just a shadow of these things.

Colossians 2:16 begins with "therefore"
this means what is said in vv. 16-17 is a logical result of the facts presented in v. 15
verse 15 ((and preceding)) explains that God has cancelled the written requirements of the law, nailing them to the cross.
it says the principalities & powers have been "disarmed" by the crucifixion of the Lamb of God.

so this is the argument Paul is making:

Christ has taken away the power of sin. the power of sin is the law.
because of this fact do not let anyone judge you over food and drink, observing feast days or new moons, or keeping sabbaths.
these things -- things the law required -- are shadows, but the reality has come. Christ has appeared and made a new covenant in His blood with mankind, nailing the old covenant with its food and drink laws, with its feasts and sabbaths, to the cross.

this is the argument Paul is making:
Christ has appeared and been crucified for us. therefore do not let anyone judge you over the requirements of the law.

this does not make any sense whatsoever to be interpreted as Paul telling us to keep the rites and days of the law.
it simply does not follow at all from the structure of the argument: it is not a rational conclusion of the fact that the law was nailed to the cross. it is not a rational conclusion of the fact that these rites and restrictions and requirements in the law are mere shadows, that now that we have the actual reality we should continue in the shadows.
it does not make any rational sense at all that the Jews would be judging Christians because Christians were doing all the things Jews judge people for not doing.
the Jews would judge the believers for not keeping sabbaths and for not keeping feasts.
the Jews would approve Christians for doing those things.

the argument you are putting here, Blik, is the same one that for some 80 pages last year or the year before "Studyman" tried to make. he tried to make Colossians 2:16 a command to keep sabbaths. he balked at feast days and at new moons and at food and drink, showing his hypocrisy in making the argument, and the argument was defeated and proven false over and over and over for 80 pages or more. you were involved in that thread, too. Studyman eventually blew up in rage at being unable to answer the refutations & counterarguments to his perverted positions on scripture, cursed me out, and was banned for uncivil behavior.

it's a transparently false interpretation, and an unsupportable, pharisetical perversion that does not stand up to scrutiny
the only way you can present this argument is by selectively ignoring Colossians 2:8-15 and ignoring Colossians 2:17-23 and ignoring the fact there's a big "THEREFORE" at the beginning of verse 16. the only way you can make such an argument is to lift the verse out of its context completely and then pretend its context never existed. you can only make this argument by ignoring the gospel.

 

[TheLearner]

How can men decide that Sunday should be the Sabbath? If God made the seventh day the Sabbath and blessed it, surely men have no power to change it, anymore than they can make a union of sodomites a marriage?

However, if men choose to communally worship their Lord on a Sunday, in honour of their Lord's resurrection ushuring in the New Covenant in His blood on this day, what is that to you?

Romans 14

 

[UnitedWithChrist]

Colossians 2:16 begins with "therefore"
this means what is said in vv. 16-17 is a logical result of the facts presented in v. 15
verse 15 ((and preceding)) explains that God has cancelled the written requirements of the law, nailing them to the cross.
it says the principalities & powers have been "disarmed" by the crucifixion of the Lamb of God.

so this is the argument Paul is making:

Christ has taken away the power of sin. the power of sin is the law.
because of this fact do not let anyone judge you over food and drink, observing feast days or new moons, or keeping sabbaths.
these things -- things the law required -- are shadows, but the reality has come. Christ has appeared and made a new covenant in His blood with mankind, nailing the old covenant with its food and drink laws, with its feasts and sabbaths, to the cross.

this is the argument Paul is making:
Christ has appeared and been crucified for us. therefore do not let anyone judge you over the requirements of the law.

this does not make any sense whatsoever to be interpreted as Paul telling us to keep the rites and days of the law.
it simply does not follow at all from the structure of the argument: it is not a rational conclusion of the fact that the law was nailed to the cross. it is not a rational conclusion of the fact that these rites and restrictions and requirements in the law are mere shadows, that now that we have the actual reality we should continue in the shadows.
it does not make any rational sense at all that the Jews would be judging Christians because Christians were doing all the things Jews judge people for not doing.
the Jews would judge the believers for not keeping sabbaths and for not keeping feasts.
the Jews would approve Christians for doing those things.

the argument you are putting here, Blik, is the same one that for some 80 pages last year or the year before "Studyman" tried to make. he tried to make Colossians 2:16 a command to keep sabbaths. he balked at feast days and at new moons and at food and drink, showing his hypocrisy in making the argument, and the argument was defeated and proven false over and over and over for 80 pages or more. you were involved in that thread, too. Studyman eventually blew up in rage at being unable to answer the refutations & counterarguments to his perverted positions on scripture, cursed me out, and was banned for uncivil behavior.

it's a transparently false interpretation, and an unsupportable, pharisetical perversion that does not stand up to scrutiny
the only way you can present this argument is by selectively ignoring Colossians 2:8-15 and ignoring Colossians 2:17-23 and ignoring the fact there's a big "THEREFORE" at the beginning of verse 16. the only way you can make such an argument is to lift the verse out of its context completely and then pretend its context never existed. you can only make this argument by ignoring the gospel.

The type of inconsistency you pointed out is common amongst Sabbathkeepers.

For instance, I read Col 2:16-17 as a command to keep the weekly Sabbath and festivals, but did not apply it to New Moons.

Actually, I noticed this early as a new believer in an Armstrongite church, and asked the pastor about it. He never did give any reasonable explanation why "new moons" were included, if the organization did not observe new moons. However, my reaction was that I thought the rest of Scripture aligned, therefore I continued accepting their teachings in that regard. It should have been an early warning sign. There was at least one other event like that where I questioned the way some proof texts were out of context, and the pastor was unable to give me an appropriate explanation. He just stood there silent.

 

[Dino246]

And I think that you have accepted some things that are false and it leads you into misinterpreting what the Lord is telling you. If you would approach scripture as a child, as we are told to do, and simply accept what it tells you without making it fit what men teach you then you would see things differently.

It does seem to be that you think of Israel in a very different way than the Lord tells us it is. The Lord needed to give instructions to them to separate them from the idol worshipers. It was a training ploy. But with the new covenant we are to now understand the things the Lord was training them for and not need the training helps. The new covenant did not change the spiritual facts, as it would be if your understanding of that new covenant was right. It is like you are throwing out the baby with the bath water.

I do not believe that with the new covenant the Lord is telling us that He gave spiritual facts to Israel that we can now know are wiped out. I don't believe that the new covenant is telling us we are not to praise and celebrate Christ or the Lord's way of giving us grace with feasts.

Instead of responding to the substance of my post, you have offered opinion regarding my beliefs, and opinion regarding God's intentions.

Please try again. Deal with Colossians 2:17. Explain how that verse doesn't blow your position out of the water.

 

[Blik]

Instead of responding to the substance of my post, you have offered opinion regarding my beliefs, and opinion regarding God's intentions.

Please try again. Deal with Colossians 2:17. Explain how that verse doesn't blow your position out of the water.

I have. Would you tell us why that verse tells us Paul wasn't telling the church to go ahead and enjoy the celebration of Christ?

 

[UnitedWithChrist]

I have. Would you tell us why that verse tells us Paul wasn't telling the church to go ahead and enjoy the celebration of Christ?

It is telling the believer to enjoy Christ, rather than the types of Christ such as festivals and Sabbath and New Moons.

Those were the shadows or types, the reality is Christ.

And, if a person wants to hold onto the types and shadows, without denying the reality, there is no problem with this. Many Messianic Jews do this.

But, if a person is judging others for non-observances, they are Judaizers.

Which, given your history of posts, describes you pretty well.

 

[hornetguy]

Do the research and you will find that for the fist 300 years or so of the early church the Sabbath was kept on Saturday.

I imagine the apostles did still keep the Sabbath, being Jewish... but several first century historians wrote about the church, and described how they gathered together on the first day of the week.
So, as Jews, they still respected and "kept" the sabbath, but gathering together to worship and fellowship with other believers under the new covenant was on Sunday... apparently from the beginning.

 

[Dino246]

I have. Would you tell us why that verse tells us Paul wasn't telling the church to go ahead and enjoy the celebration of Christ?

I read every post you have made in this thread; you haven't even begun.

Posthuman explained the matter well in post #49, above. You have no case, and because you have no case, you're flailing, dodging, and generally avoiding dealing with the truth that refutes your position.

 

[Dino246]

Would you tell us why that verse tells us Paul wasn't telling the church to go ahead and enjoy the celebration of Christ?

It's simple: the reality is found in Christ. You interpret that reality as something yet future, but the text doesn't say that. Ephesians 2 tells us that we are already seated with Christ in the heavenly places.

What you advocate is like having a party to celebrate the hope that "Jesus is coming soon", while He's standing right there in the same room, and you're ignoring Him.

 

[Scribe]

This verse was written by Paul to the Colossian Christians when false teachers infiltrated the church. He wrote: “let no man judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of any holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days which are a shadow of things to come”.

Today’s church has interpreted this passage to mean that God sanctions the cancellation of the sabbath and feasts. Many scholars think this is a misinterpretation.

The letter to the Colossians was written to a church of Christian gentiles whose church had false teachers that infiltrated them. These false men taught not to touch, not to taste, not to handle as the Colossians were doing as they enjoyed the feasts and Sabbaths. They taught Gnosticism, whose teachings were to not be part of anything physical but keep to the spiritual. The Lord teaches to celebrate, be joyful, feast at God’s festivals.

Paul warns against following men’s direction rather than the Lord’s, yet this verse is interpreted to mean that we are not to be judged if we follow the dates set up by men rather than God. It is men who decided that Sunday should be the sabbath because the discovery of Christ being gone from the grave was on Sunday, not because of a scripture teaching.

We are taught how to interpret scripture, and one way is to remember all the characteristics of God and know each verse is by a God with these characteristics. One characteristic is that God is eternal and never changes. What God tells us in Genesis is the same as what God tells us in Revelation. If God teaches to listen to God not man in one place, we are to know it applies in every case. Because God taught through ordering physical acts like special diet and cutting flesh and changed to teach these things through the Holy Spirit, people say God changed, but God didn’t. They teach he same things. Changing the way of telling us the same things is not a fundamental change.

What many believe Paul was teaching in Col. 2:16 was to go ahead to the joy of the celebrations that are shadows of things to come.

It is quite a new interpretation, what do you think?

The interpretation of Col 2: 16 in context is quite obviously a reference to the sabbaths of the OT when it says that they are the shadow and Jesus is the Body (that cast the shadow) The reality that these shadows pointed to. It takes someone to confuse you to NOT understand it. LOL
14Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; 15And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.

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.

Yes, there were false teachers both Judaizers and Gnostics (howbeit they were not called gnostics but were a syncretic mixture of Judaizers and Greek knowledge cults) and yet the argument Paul is presenting here is that Jesus is the one they should worship and not take any stock in observances of ceremonies to gain revelation and secret knowledge or initiation into higher levels of access to God through the observance of these ordinances. Therefore sticking to the Authorial intent, grammatical contextual, cultural context, and also theological context the correct interpretation of this passage is not to let one pressure you into the idea that observing a sabbath grants any sort of "Higher learning, or access to the divine mine, or grants a "well done" from God in the future judgment. If at anytime we think this we are bowing the knee to the shadow rather than the body which is Jesus Christ. And they were being pressured that they MUST observe these ordinances to be accepted by God. Today we have cults that are teaching that Christians will suffer judgement from God for what they did on Saturday or Sunday with their time. They are the same doctrine of demons that was being taught to these Colossians.

 

[HWatts]

The law was given so that we may understand how far we fall short of it, so we could better understand the gift of forgiveness we receive undeservedly in Christ Jesus. Law condemns, Jesus saves. Jesus told Jewish religious leaders that they searched the scriptures because they thought that in them were words of eternal life, but failed to understand that those words pointed to Jesus himself.

He also accused them of practicing a ceremonial religion, making certain to follow their own notes and additions (of the Talmud), concerning things like the cleaning of cups. He further accuses them of not having the love of God within them, based upon the foregoing. Sometimes I think that we today search (and discuss) the scriptures only to miss the point, too.

 

[acts5_29]

This verse should take on a lot new meaning in light of the Covid crisis. A lot of the Church is holed up in their homes and forced to meet online. Others are defying distancing recommendations--and at times even orders--to meet in person, and hug one another. I am not saying either party is wrong (nor will I).

I am also confused what's going on with Seventh Day Adventists, in light of this? All this time they were intent on telling us how much we were in sin because we don't meet on Saturday. Then this whole Covid crisis comes, and I'm not hearing any stories of SDA's meeting at all? So...meeting on Sunday is not okay, but not meeting at all is okay?