Friday, March 22, 2019

Colossians 2:14-17 Up Close

"Paul's words in Colossians 2:14–17: Having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. … So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.

Paul wrote plainly that he was speaking of “sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come,” and not of the weekly Sabbath, which is a memorial of something that happened in the past, at the creation.

The contrast between a shadow and a memorial is quite clear.

Indeed, the fourth commandment does not tell us to keep the seventh day as a type of something to come. It says: Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. ... For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. Exodus 20:8, 11.
Moreover, to show that he had something other than the weekly Sabbath in mind, Paul distinctly mentioned “sabbaths,” plural, “which are a shadow of things to come.”

The King James uses the word “holyday,” and some will contend that it refers to the weekly Sabbath, while the expression “sabbath days” refers to yearly sabbaths.
The American Standard Version uses “feast day” instead of “holyday,” and this likely a clearer translation. The word translated holyday” is from the Greek heorte, and in John 5:1, this same word is used to designate one of the yearly festivals of the Jews: After this there was a feast [heorte] of the Jews; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.” This is one of the holy days that Paul spoke of as having been nailed to the cross."
SabbathTruth