After the Age of Shadows

It has been a few weeks, but I had an email request, an email question from one of the members, asking me to explain Colossians 2 verses 16 and 17. And so that's going to be our basic attempt here today.

Now, the challenge is that...well, let me back up a little on that. I love the study of church history. Well, history in general, but church history. And the challenge of studying church history is that from about the end of the book of Acts, all the way through the first century, we have very little recorded that was written by the ministers who were in the church. We have some outside secular sources. We have other historians who wrote. But the bits and pieces...or the information is a bit sketchy. I have a book of the house titled, The Story of the Christian Church.

The author is Jesse Lyman Hurlebitt. So, Hurlebitt's history of the...or story of the Christian church. And in his fifth chapter, he names it the Age of Shadows. And he is referring to that era from 68 to 100 A.D. where the church from the book of Acts goes behind this curtain. And then, after a while, the curtain pulls back. And amazingly, what we see as the church is dramatically different than what we saw in reading the end of the book of Acts, where Paul was there in his own hired house preaching the law and the prophets and the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.

Now, let me read a quote from Hurlebitt. This is page 41. He says, For fifty years after St. Paul's life, a curtain hangs over the church through which we strive vainly to look. And when it lasts, it rises about 120 A.D. with the writings of the earliest church fathers. We find a church in many aspects very different from that in the days of St. Peter and St. Paul. And you know, it's during that age of shadows that a lot of what we find, what you and I value and cherish as the truth of God, just disappeared.

And the church that comes out the other end, through the 100s, there's this great debate, do we keep Easter or do we keep Passover on the 14th of Nicene? And the other feasts aren't even mentioned. And then, of course, as we get to the 300s, there's a series of events that lead in that direction. But in the 300s, we have an edict, outlawing essentially the Sabbath day, and upholding observation of the venerable day of the sun.

And the problem is, none of that comes from the Word of God. So we're going to deal with a main passage that is used to sweep away God's Sabbath and holy days. Probably no other passage is used more often than this as their proof that the weekly and annual Sabbaths are no longer necessary for the people of God. So it is a primo text in supposedly disproving the Sabbath and holy days.

What we want to look at today will fall in three parts. Any time we study any area of the Bible, we should look at the context. We have to strive to understand what Paul said. And then secondly, we want to understand what it meant to those who received the letter. You see, much of the Bible is in the form of a variety of letters that were written to other people.

The Old Testament is essentially one letter after another written to ancient Israel. And then when we get to the New Testament, we have one letter after another that was written to a congregation, to a pastor, to a group of congregations in a certain region like the letter to Galatia. And you and I come along so much later, and we're reading somebody else's message, and we need to understand what did it mean to the people who received it. And then thirdly, we can draw some conclusions as far as how do we apply those words in our life today.

Collagion 2. Let us first read verses 16 and 17. I have the New King James Version that I will largely use, but I did copy into my notes the text from the King James Version. I want to read that. Verse 16. Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days, which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ.

Now, the first thing I want to point out there, any student of the Bible needs to realize that when the translators place words in italics, this was true in the King James translation, at least, when it is in italics, it is something that was added by translators in their attempt to clarify the meaning. So, in that, if you see it in the King James, where it says, or of the Sabbath, the word days is in italics.

So, it was added. And then, in verse 17, but the body is of Christ. The word is, is italicized. And so, it was added. Now, as the King James reads, the popular conclusion is that the observance of annual or weekly Sabbaths are no longer necessary. Part of the problem, I will suggest, is questionable scholarship, and part of the problem is misleading translations.

Whenever human beings try to add words here or there, we run a great risk of losing the intent of what God actually placed there. And that's why the Church has always recommended that we, for our main study, use the word for word translations, such as the King James, New King James. I believe the New American Standard falls in that category. When you get into the Meaning for Meaning, or sometimes they're called the Dynamic Equivalent Translations, you have a greater possibility for humans to put their interpretation in there.

The context. The context. Colossians is one of Paul's prison epistles. You hear that phrase, and when we say prison epistles, this means he was writing profusely while he was under house arrest in Rome. So he wrote to the Church at Ephesus, and he wrote to the Church at Philippi, and he wrote to those of Colossae, sent this letter, and at the end he says, also have it read over in Laodicea, which was only about a dozen miles away.

So this is one of his prison epistles, and that dates it to that era of about 60-62 AD. In his first two chapters in this book, he largely addresses some doctrinal issues, and in the latter two chapters he addresses some practical Christian living topics. Colossae, if you look at a map sometime, or maybe you have one in the back of your Bible now, and you can find it, it's in what we would today call the nation of Turkey, anciently called Asia Minor, or later called just Asia, and it is in the region called Phrygia.

You have the three main cities being Colossae, Hierapolis, and Laodicea. There is no record that Paul ever traveled to Colossae. Now, we know from the book of Acts that he ended up in, it was Acts 19, he came to Ephesus, ran across certain disciples who had had John's baptism. And it ended up where he stayed there, first teaching at the synagogue for three months, and then he left there and he taught somewhere else, and he was there for two years.

So, whether it's two years total or two years and three months, it was a long time. And, one hundred miles inland is Colossae, and some of these other cities. There's no evidence Paul was ever there, but probably some that he trained and sent out went over there, and that's how the church was established. We should also notice that the Colossian church was largely a Gentile church. Paul, when he traveled, as he said, he would go to the Jew first, but when he was there at Ephesus, it was one example, he got fed up with him, and so he went to this marketplace and began teaching.

And that's where he was for two years. But in chapter 2, up to verse 13, for instance, we have one of the clues that lead us to conclude this. Chapter 2, verse 13, in writing to those Colossian Christians, he says, And you, being dead in your trespasses, in other words, you've been called of God, you've been baptized, you've had your sins forgiven, once upon a time you were dead, but now you're alive, and the uncircumcision of your flesh. And so that statement is one of the main... there's some other internal evidence, but that's the main statement that leads us to conclude.

This was not a Jewish, this was not an Israelite congregation. You had a mixing of various peoples, and the thing that is astounding to me, and I think of note, should be to all of us, is that by the subject matter that we're going to be covering, it is obvious that they had been taught about the Sabbaths, annual and weekly.

And this is some 30 years after the events of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And here is a non-Israelite church, and they had been keeping the Holy Days and the Sabbath. And Paul told them, don't let any man judge you for what you're doing.

Alright, in Colossae, Paul begins dealing with the fact that false teachers, or I could call them heretics, had been infiltrating the collagen congregation. Let's go up in chapter 2 and notice verse 4. Chapter 1, he largely focuses on and emphasizes the role of Jesus Christ. He is the head of the church. He is the firstborn from the dead. He has the preeminence. He is the sum total of the very plan of God. Then in chapter 2, verse 4, he begins shifting, and he says, Now this I say, lest anyone should deceive you with persuasive words. For though I am absent of flesh, again he is cooling his heels down in Rome at this time.

He wants things to be done in order. He wants them to remain steadfast in their faith in Christ. Notice also verse 8.

We are very much so in the Greek sphere of influence. That was the seat of philosophy.

According to the basic principles of the world and not according to Christ.

Now, humanly devised traditions, what are these? Anything that is not based upon the Word of God. He is a humanly devised tradition, teaching, philosophy, whatever you want to call it. Now, keep your place here, but we might go back to Mark chapter 7 and be reminded that when Jesus walked to the earth, He faced a similar challenge. Similar but different. There were those who were in His bay adding to. It had been going on for a long time. They had added to the law of God traditions of men.

Mark 7 beginning in verse 6.

He answered and said to them, Well, did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites as it is written. And then he begins a quotation from Mac and Isaiah 29.

A while ago when I was referring to italics, that was something that was pretty much common or it was exclusively done in the old King James, where if there was an italicized word, it was added. But when you get to the New King James and a lot of other translations, when they are quoting from the old, they will italicize it and often indent it. So it's not as hard and fast of a rule as it once was back in just the old King James. So he's quoting from Isaiah, This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. And in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.

Different doctrines of men. But again, Christ dealt with it. For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men, the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other things such as you do. You could go on through there, but in verse 13, he again says, Making the Word of God of no effect through your tradition, which you have handed down, and many such things you do. So when Jesus walked the earth, he dealt with some of the Jewish traditions, the regulations that had been added on top of God's law.

And in essence, they nullified the law of God because they elevated their own traditions above the clear Word of God.

In more than one place, he told the Jews of his day, they were more concerned about some of the washing and what they were wearing than they were about how they were living their life. So now let's go back to Colossians.

As I said a while ago, Paul had focused their eyes on the fact that Jesus Christ was head of the church in chapter 1. Let's go to Colossians 2. Let's pick it up in verse 9. He continues that theme. For in him, and he is just referred to Christ, in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you are complete in him, who is the head of all principality and power. You see, we're going to see that a part of this group that was beginning to arise, Gnosticism, rose later on. It was more at the end of the first century, and I had their heyday and flourished in the second century. But you had the precursors, the forerunners of that philosophy at that day. And, okay, let's see.

The head of all principle and power. Verse 11, In him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands. And that speaks of the fact that the question of circumcision had been addressed in the early church. You had Judaizing efforts. You had those who went around. The book of Acts mentions several examples. You could just take Acts 15, where there were those where Paul and Barnabas had gone and taught and baptized and preached. And then some came along and taught, unless you are circumcised after the manner of Moses.

Well, then that led to the great conference, where it was determined that, no, it is not necessary. Circumcision is of the heart. It is no longer required of the males of the body of Christ. The circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, buried with him in baptism, in which you also were raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. It speaks here of having forgiven you all trespasses. Another difficult scripture is verse 14, wiped out the handwriting of requirements. There are those who say, aha, the law is washed away, swept away, nailed to the cross. But that's not what we're talking about. It is this death penalty that we have all had, that in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ was nailed to that cross with him, that we can be pronounced free and clean before God.

Verse 16, Let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival, or new moon, or Sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.

We could go on, and we should. Verse 18, right in the middle, it brings in the worship of angels. Again, he's dealing with local heresies, the worship of angels. He mentions down to verse 21, some of the man-made regulations do not touch, do not taste, do not handle, which all concern things which perish with the using, according to the commandments and doctrines of men. Verse 23, These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion. Remember these phrases, self-imposed religion, false humility, and then notice neglect of the body, but of no value against the indulgence of the flesh. So, there were those who attempted to teach worship of angels. There were those who advocated regulations made by man about physical things that are temporary and perish with the using. There were those who stressed philosophy over and above the commandments of God. And there were those who taught them to neglect their own flesh.

And these ideas did not come from the Bible. Now, Paul is not combating Judaizers. The Judaizers of the first century were the ones that went around and where the New Testament church was springing up. They tried to take them back into things like circumcision. And it's probably our greatest example. They wanted to take them back to things that had been completely fulfilled by the events of the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now, these deceivers of this time were probably the forerunners of those that would form the Gnostic movement that flourished a hundred years later. Now, I brought William Barclay's daily study Bible. This is the one on the letters to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians. It covers those four books. I won't read much about Gnosticism because I realize if you're like me, you tend to start yawning very quickly when we get into some of these things. But we do should notice just a little bit. This is kind of the forerunner to what became later known as Gnosticism. So, William Barclay here in his part on Colossians, page 112, he said, Gnosticism began with two basic assumptions about matter. First, it believed that matter alone was good. Excuse me. First, he believed, they believed that spirit alone was good and that matter was necessarily essentially evil. So, spirit is good and matter is evil. Second, it believed that matter was eternal and that the universe was created not out of nothing, but out of this flawed matter.

This teaching had an effect on creation. If God was spirit and was altogether good, He could not possibly work with this evil matter here on the earth. Let me find some of his summary statements. It is applied to the body as well. If matter was evil, it followed our bodies are evil. We must starve and beat and deny the body. We must practice a rigid regime of self-denial in which the body is suppressed and every physical need and desire was refused.

Gnosticism was a highly intellectual way of life and thought. They taught that people must fight their way up a long ladder to get to God. It involved secret knowledge, private learning, and hidden passwords.

The practice of rigid asceticism, self-denial.

Okay, enough of that. We will go on.

Gnostics believed that salvation could be obtained through constant contemplation of the spiritual. to the neglect of the physical body. But we had to do both. The body, as Paul said in another letter, is a temple of the spirit of God. And we are to care for that. Now, eating, drinking, and feasting.

These heretics, some of the false teachings they brought in, had to do with teaching that these things were evil. But, you know, the only Bible they had in Paul's day was what you and I know as the Old Testament. Now, let's go back and keep your place in Colossians, but let's remind ourselves what it says in Deuteronomy. As far as what we are to do when we go to appear before God on the annual occasions of the year. And it also applies to the weekly occasion, the weekly Sabbath. Deuteronomy 12, and let's just notice verses 17 and 18 as a reminder. Verse 17, you may not eat within the gates, your gates, the tithe of your grain, or your new wine, or your oil, of the firstborn of your herd, or your flock, of any of your offerings which you vow, of your free will offerings, or of the heave offering in your hand. But you must eat them before the Lord your God, in the place which the Lord your God chooses. You and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, and the Levite who is within your gates. And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, in all to which you put your hands. I think that's all we need to read there, but just there are many places, Deuteronomy 14 as well, that when you go and take this separate tithe, the wording is different. You keep this tithe, it is to fund your trips to go up here before God, and part of what you do is you feast. You eat, you drink, you share, and you rejoice before God. Now, we have these ascetics who come along and they see the church of God beginning to do that, and they don't like it. That's kind of the context, that's the setting of Colossae around 60 AD, when Paul wrote to them.

Now let's consider what Paul said and what it meant to them at that time. Now, the common argument as far as verses 16 and 17 of Colossians 2 basically goes this way. Basically, the argument is that in Colossians 2, 16 and 17, Paul says the Sabbath and feast days were shadows, but the reality is found or fulfilled in Christ. This shows that the Sabbath and Holy Days were obsolete and no longer being observed.

William Barclay, I thoroughly enjoy his work, his writings, but on these verses, he, like so many, goes off, goes down the same old road, and he's talking about the Judaizing effect in the local church, that they had been brought back under the Sabbath and Holy Days that they had been done away with. Only, again, it's not what it says here. Now, I went to Young's literal translation.

Let me read these two verses in question from Young's literal translation. Let no one then judge you in eating or in drinking. Now, let me pause there. In the King James, it says in meat or drink. Some will look at that verse in the King James translation, and they will say, Aha! He was reminding them, you don't need to be worried about what kind of meat you can eat, but meat wasn't the topic at all.

The Greek word, brosis, or the form used there, brosai, refers to food in general. Let no one judge you in eating or in drinking, or in respect of a feast, or of a new moon, or of Sabbaths, which are a shadow of the coming things, and the body is of Christ. Young's literal, even in italics, has that word, is.

They just have to get it in there. So, there are five items Paul mentions, and he says, these are a shadow of coming things. A is eating, B is drinking, C is keeping a feast, D is a new moon, and E is the Sabbaths. Now, it is interesting to me that those who go to these verses to disprove Sabbath and Holy Days do not also use these verses to disprove eating and drinking. Would not logic... I mean, you can't really have it both ways. Would not logic mandate that if you're going to read and say, two out of these five are swept away, well, what about the others?

Interesting to ponder. Now, we have passages, and I'll refer to some. We don't need to take the time to turn, but I have the basic text here. The Bible teaches us that our eating and drinking, and I think especially so at the feast, and of course, the weekly Sabbath is also a feast. If you go back to Leviticus 23, these are the feasts of the Lord, and it starts with the Sabbath, and then it goes pass over through tabernacles with the eighth day.

The Bible teaches us that eating and drinking foreshadows coming events. For instance, Revelation 21 verse 6, Revelation 21 verse 6, the statement there is, Jesus said, I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts.

Revelation ties the book back to the beginning, back to Genesis. In Genesis, we had Adam and Eve created. They are in the garden. There is the tree of life. In Revelation 2 verse 7, Revelation 2 verse 7 says, To him who overcomes, I will give the eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. And so, Revelation ties in the water and the fruit from the tree of life back to Genesis.

A part of our Christian calling is to anticipate the coming time that is foreshadowed by eating and drinking today. That's something that struck me when my family came to the Church of God. We are, and we still are, a bunch of people who like to come and get together, and we like to chew on things while we are together. And it's a wonderful tradition, and let us never let that get away from us. The eating and the drinking specifically, though, on the Sabbath and the Holy Days, foreshadow. There is a great married supper of the Lamb. There is a great banquet that is yet ahead.

And every Sabbath we anticipate that. Now, it says, Let no one judge you in food, New King James. No one judge you in meat, King James. And I believe I made this point. Greek word, brosis, means the act of eating. It means food in general. Meat is not the topic. The problem is some of the false teachers disdained feasting. They did not like people to see people eating and drinking and having a wonderful time. Because as they saw it, matter is evil, the body is evil, and we need to deny the self and just consume enough to maintain life.

And so they came and saw the members of the body of Christ doing that, and they abhorred the enjoyment, the feasting, and the process of sitting down sharing a meal with others. And so Paul did not want those members at Colossae to be influenced by the false teachers' objections to eating and drinking and rejoicing. But the Scripture mentioned Sabbaths.

They want to reject the Sabbath. We know that. They love the Ten Commandments, but they don't know what to do with that fourth one.

They try, and yet everyone knows the seventh day as a Sabbath is a Sabbath. And there's not a Scripture in the New Testament that changes it from the seventh day Sabbath to the celebration of, or remembrance of, the resurrection of Christ. And are they ever livid when they find out he actually was resurrected late on the Sabbath, three days and three nights after he died? Anyhow, maybe that's another topic. We do not want to reject the Sabbath. Paul tells them it symbolically foreshadows something to come. The Sabbath prefigures the Millennial reign of Jesus Christ over the earth, over the nations. Again, keep your place there, but let's go back and review Hebrews 4 and what is written there. Verses 1 through 9.

Hebrews 4, verse 1. Therefore, since a promise remains of entering his rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. For indeed, the gospel was preached to us as well as to them, but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith. And those who heard it, he had talked about those who had gone before of ancient Israel who failed because of unbelief in the previous chapter. Verses 3, 4. We who have believed do enter that rest. As he said, So I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. And he is referring to the fact that ancient Israel was condemned to forty days, prophetically, the fulfillment of forty years of wandering in the wilderness until the older generation died. They shall not enter my rest. Only Joshua and Caleb were of that group that left Egypt and went into Canaan. Although the works were finished from the foundation of the world, for he has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way, and God rested on the seventh day from all his works. And again, in this place they shall not enter my rest. Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience. Again, he designates a certain day, saying, in David, today, after such a long time, as it has been said, today, if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. For if Joshua, and again, remember, Joshua is the Hebrew equivalent of the Greek that is translated Jesus, if Joshua had given them rest, then he would not afterward have spoken of another day. There remains therefore a rest for the people of God, for he who has entered his rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from his. So here the Sabbath foreshadows a coming rest for all. The Sabbath is a shadow of things, yet future. The Sabbath is a memorial also, looking back to creation and the example of God as he modeled behavior for us. The Sabbath, we can read in the Gospels, was made for mankind.

And that includes modern humanity. The Sabbath is truly the Lord's day, because in the end of Mark 2 it says that Jesus is also the Sabbath day. It truly is the Lord's day. And Isaiah tells us that the Sabbath is the Lord's day. It is a day that is holy. It is a day we refrain from our weekly business. And it is a day we are to call a delight. And we also could turn to prophecies that talk about the Sabbath reappearing from one Sabbath to another. They will come, all flesh, to worship me. Now back to Colossians 2, verse 16. Let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival, regarding. Or the King James renders that in respect of... These translations come from the Greek word, Meros. Meros denotes a part, a portion, a share of something. Perhaps a more accurate rendering of what Paul is actually writing here to the Colossians would be this. Let no man therefore judge you in any part of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath. In respect of, or regarding, a share, a portion, a part. And Paul tells them, don't let anyone come along and judge you regarding anything you are doing in keeping holy time of God. Paul is being consistent. Eating and drinking is an appropriate part of Sabbath observance. Eating is an appropriate part of annual feast observance. He uses Meros, or part of, to reference any or all parts or aspects of God's holy days that the heretics of their day might condemn, judge, and criticize them for doing. But nothing in his passage suggests that God is hereby abolishing his Sabbaths, annual and weekly. Nothing here indicates that Paul was hereby authorized to sweep away the Sabbaths. It's not the topic at all. What Paul is condemning is the Christians of Colossae succumbing to the judgmental, critical, condemnatory influence of some of these early Gnostic heretics. God's feasts are time for joy and celebration. Did we not just do that? Wherever we went. It's a time to have a lot of fun. And it seems like there are some people that just can't stand it when they see others having fun.

Again, keep your place there. Well, we read Deuteronomy 12. Let's look at Deuteronomy 14. So, look at this while we were back here a moment ago. Deuteronomy 14, after it discusses clean and unclean animals. Notice in verse 22, it introduces this tithe that you keep for you. It's different from the tithe mentioned in Numbers that you give to the local Levite for the work of the service of the tabaracle. But just notice verse 26. And you shall spend that money for whatever your heart desires, for oxen or sheep, for wine or similar drink, for whatever your heart desires. You shall eat there before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your household. And again, it's just something wired in some people that can't stand the thought that God says, Go! Have fun! Enjoy one another! Eat and drink! Rejoice!

And these people found their way into the church at Colossae and began trying to pull people away from that, to make them think they're doing something wrong, and Paul vigorously condemns the ascetic philosophy of these heretics. He defends the right of the brethren to rejoice by feasting at God's Sabbath days. Now, we should comment on the phrase, New Moon, for a little while. New Moon. Paul referred to that. If you make a study, you can do a search back in the Old Testament. You will find the New Moon referred to a number of places. I know it was referred to in David's time and then in Solomon's time. And there were special acknowledgements and special offering sacrifices at the time when a new month came. A new moon. However, there is no Scripture anywhere that commands the observance of the New Moon with, I think we could say, the exception of one. What is the one exception? Trumpets. Very good. Trumpets. Which is the first day of the seventh month's history, which is the New Moon. Now, it is also important, New Moons are important for us today because the calendar, and once upon a time I had to learn to go through all the calculations, I don't ever want to see that again. It is not easy, and I am very happy that it's left in the hands of the Jews, but at any rate, the calendar calculations go through a long procedure of determining the date of Tishri the first. The first day, or the New Moon, or the Molad, is the Hebrew word, the Molad of Tishri. And when you know the date of the Feast of Trumpets, by counting backward and forward, you can determine the dates of all the rest of the annual samples of that year. So, if you're on the first day of the seventh month, just go back six months, and you have the date of the first day of the new sacred year. And then you figure the fourteenth is Passover, the fifteenth, the twenty-first is Unleavened Bread, and the Sunday within Unleavened Bread, count fifty, you know when Pentecost falls. From Trumpets, you go forward ten days, fifteen days. So, finding the date of the new moon of the seventh month is important, because the sacred calendar is a lunar calendar. And there's no, again, no commanded observance, even though in the days of David Solomon, later in the days, well, it's mentioned in the book of Ezra, but it was a time of before Ezra came down, the days of Joshua and Zerubbabel, and then it's mentioned in Nehemiah. So those are the basic books where you find reference to new moons, and they set aside a special celebration, but there's no command. It's not a Sabbath. All right. Isaiah 66, and again throughout, we'll go right back to Colossians 2. Isaiah 66.

And in verse 23. Very prophetic area here. The previous verse even speaks of the new heavens and new earth. But in verse 23, So there is a time coming when, yes, there will be noticing the coming of a new moon. Whether it's something God will adjudicate as a day to observe in the millennium, we don't have a scripture that tells us that. But they will at least make note of the fact that we enter a new month, and from one Sabbath to the next, it will be observed.

All right. Let's shift our thinking back to Colossians 2.

In verse 17, it has listed food, drink, festival, new moon, Sabbath. Now in verse 17, which are a shadow of things to come. Now let's consider a point here.

Again, many suggest this means they're just shadows. They're gone. They're nailed to the cross. We don't have to worry about them, but that's not what it says. The opposite is true. Paul is upholding the ongoing significance of feast days and sabbaths. Now where it says, a shadow of things to come.

To come, those words come from, or they're translated from the Greek word melo, M-E-L-L-O, melo. And it explicitly points to events, yet future. I have two references. The first is from the complete word study dictionary on the word melo. And it says it means to be about to do or suffer something, to be at the point of, to be impending. And then Vines' expository dictionary of Old and New Testament words says about melo, to be about to do something, often implying the necessity and therefore the certainty of what is to take place. So, it is a shadow of things to come. Eating, drinking, new moon, feast day, sabbaths are shadows of things to come. Of things that are yet in the future, things that are impending. You know, if you go out on a day when the sun shines, not like today, but if you go out early or you go out late, when the sun is above the horizon, and you walk away from it, you cast this long shadow. And there are times we've probably all been out somewhere and there's this shadow that goes over, and you look up to see, you know, what was that? And maybe it's a hawk flying over. Or maybe if you've got water, there's a few geese coming in for a touchdown. Splash down.

A shadow is something that is a harbinger of the reality that's going to follow. The reality is the hawk that flies over, or the geese, or the fact that you see a shadow, around the corner, here comes a person walking. The shadow is here first, but it speaks of the fact that the reality is about to arrive. We first see the shadow and then the reality. And Paul calls the Sabbath and Holy Days shadows, and they are given to foreshadow something that is impending, something that is about to happen. They direct our minds onward to where God's plan is leading. And the grammar, the way Paul uses it, requires us to conclude this. He is not condemning Sabbaths and Holy Days. He's saying they point us forward to what they foreshadow. When God first gave, we have the listing of all the Holy Days there, just say Leviticus 23, the weekly Sabbath, and then all in order of the annual festivals. And they were shadows. Now, here we are a long time later. And we could say that with Passover, it has been fulfilled, and yet the application of what Passover pictured continues to be realized. Unleavened bread is ongoing. You and I are learning better, not just seven days during the week, but every day of our life to walk the unleavened life, to walk the following steps of Christ. And, of course, Pentecost is something that began once upon a time to be fulfilled as God poured out His Spirit on about 120, and it continues to be poured out. But when we get to the fall Holy Days, in one sense, yes, Christ has come and should live in our life as our King today. But as far as Him literally returning and standing on the Mount of Olives and becoming the King over all kings of this earth, that's something that's yet future. And so is Atonement, and so is Tabernacles, and so is the last great day. Now, as we look at all of this, the context and what the statement actually says, how do we then understand Paul's words today?

I think, again, we need to remind ourselves that we must take the Bible as a complete whole, as God's revelation to humanity as far as how to live. We can't... well, the term is proof text. We can't just take little bits and pieces here, or you could use the Bible to prove anything you want. We have to take it for what it says. We also need to be reminded that, as Jesus said, the Scripture cannot be broken, and it is not going to contradict itself when you compare one passage, one place in the Bible with another one. It will not... it will perfectly complement each other. And when we look at the rest of, say, the writings of Paul, we realize this is a man who fiercely believed in and taught the commandments of God. Now, again, keep your place. Well, we may... let me check. Okay. We will come back to Colossians 2 at the end. Well, let's look at 1 Corinthians 7. Here is a statement that Paul made about the law.

This is on the topic of circumcision. It was quite the raging topic in the first century for a while. Just notice 1 Corinthians 7, verse 19. Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. He's saying it does not matter whether the males have or have not been circumcised. But keeping the commandments of God is what matters. What really matters is keep God's law. Live by His commandments. Now, we are so familiar with Acts 17, the early verses at... well, I know we ended up at Berea, but it mentions, as his custom was, he entered in on the Sabbath, the synagogue, and taught. And various places in Acts mentions he went and he kept the Sabbath, and he taught them on that day. Let's notice Acts 28.

Acts 28. This is when Paul wrote this book. He's in Rome. He is in prison in the sense that he was not free at large. He had his own house. He had a lot of freedom. But notice what he was doing during the time he wrote this very book to the church at Colossae. Acts 28, verse 23. So when they had appointed him a day, many came to him at his lodging, to whom he explained and solemnly testified of the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus from both the law of Moses and the prophets from morning till evening. And what do you find in the law of Moses? You find places like Leviticus 23, Deuteronomy 12 and 14 and 16, and you find Genesis 2, and you find a lot of other instruction that the law teaches about the Sabbath and the Holy Days. And the prophets, like Isaiah, turn your foot away from the Sabbath. It's holy time. Learn to delight in it. That's what Paul was teaching them. And Zachariah, who spoke of a time that if there are those in that millennial setting who will not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles, they won't have any reign. So that's what Paul taught. The Old Testament was the Holy Scriptures at that time. Let's go to 2 Timothy 3.

2 Timothy 3.

Verses 16 and 17. Foundational verses that teach where we today get our doctrine. Our Scripture is given by inspiration of God. There's a Greek word there. I didn't write it down. It's something like the onustos. But it is the word picture of God breathing life. Just like in Genesis 2, He formed the first man and He breathed literally life into Adam. Through the Holy Scriptures, He spiritually breathes life into us. And is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. That the man of God may be complete, fairly equipped for every good work. The Scriptures established the doctrine of the early church. The Scriptures at that time were the, what we call, the books of the Old Testament. The other books were added later on. The New Testament books. The non-Jewish, Gentile Christians at Colossae had learned about God's feasts and God's Sabbaths from the Holy Scriptures. And so Paul said, don't let any man come along and try to question you, condemn you, criticize you, and anything you do, as far as the feasting, the rejoicing, the eating, the drinking on those days.

Paul's main point in Colossians 2, his main point, the deceiving false teachers have no authority to judge or determine how you observe God's holy time. That's really, in a nutshell, what he was saying. The false teachers have no right condemning and criticizing or questioning how you observe God's holy time.

To summarize, nothing in this passage suggests that God abolished the Sabbath or Holy Days via Paul's epistle. Paul combats heresy, and in doing so, he explains the value of Holy Days, and that they are shadows. They look forward to things yet to come in God's plan. They foreshadow things yet ahead. They focus on future events. And the substance of all Sabbaths is Jesus Christ. Yes, He's the one who makes it all possible as the Lamb who gave Himself, and that began the plan of salvation. But He said, don't let man judge you regarding God's holy time. And in that last phrase, verse 17, but the substance is of Christ, the substance of Christ, the body of Christ, that Greek word soma. I think we also have to factor in the fact that there are times that refers to the church of God. And when Paul wrote to Timothy, he wrote to Him so He would know how to conduct Himself in the house of the living God, the church, the pillar and foundation of the truth. Look to Christ, look to His church to teach you how to keep, how to live, how to observe God's holy time. And so, in reality, Paul's comments confirms that these collagians, some 30 years down the line, were still observing Sabbath and holy days. Had the collagian church not been observing the Sabbath and holy days, these heretics would have voiced no complaint.

But since the collagians were observing weekly and annual Sabbaths, the heretics tried to divert their attention away from the feasting portion of each day.