Colossians 2:14-17 - The Stone vs. the Parchment

“BLOTTING 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. . . . Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or drink, or in respect of a 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.” Colossians 2:14-17

There was a law consisting of just ten commandments, spoken by the voice of God from the summit of Sinai. 

This law, and no more, God wrote with His own finger upon the tables of stone. 

This He caused to be deposited by itself in the ark prepared expressly for its reception. 

This code of ten commandments, He Himself calls “a law.”

He said to Moses (Ex.24:12), “Come up to me into the mount, and be there: and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written; that thou mayest teach them.” 

God wrote nothing but the ten commandments. 

These alone were written upon the tables; 

to these the terms law and commandments are both applied. 

By these circumstances and peculiarities, they are sharply distinguished and set apart from all other injunctions and obligations. By these they are shown to belong, in a degree and a sense not common to any other requirements, to the Most High. 

They are pre-eminently “the law of God,” and “the commandments of God.” 

These constitute “His [God’s] commandments,” the keeping of which is “the whole duty of man,” and by which every work shall be tested in the judgment (Eccl.12:13,14); and they compose the “royal law” and the “law of liberty” by which James declares we shall be judged at last. James 2:8,12. 

They are the “commandments of God” to which the third message of Revelation 14 brings us, in connection with “the faith of Jesus,” which includes all the teaching and precepts of Christ and His apostles in the New Testament. Rev.14:12. 

They constitute that law which God declared that his Son would “magnify” and make “honorable” (Isa.42:21), which He speaks of as “my law,” and declared that he would write it under the new covenant in the hearts of His people (Jer.31:33; Heb.8:10).

There was another law communicated privately to Moses, and written by him in a book, called “the book of the law,” which consisted of instructions in regard to meats, drink, feast-days, divers washings, and carnal ordinances, and which was deposited, not in the ark, but by its side. 

The difference between them in this respect was this: 

-*-The ten commandments lay in unapproachable majesty inside the golden ark, deep graven by the finger of Deity Himself.

-*-The law of types and ceremonies lay outside the ark, written with ink, by human hands, on the perishable parchment. 

--We call the one “the moral law,” because it related to moral duties alone; 

--We say that Col.2:14-17 refers exclusively to the ceremonial law, having to the moral law not the remotest allusion whatever.

The apostle further says that this “handwriting” was “blotted out.” ---That only can be blotted out with the ink and pen of the scribe,

which has been written by the hand of the scribe. 

--That which is engraved in stone might be brushed over and discolored with ink; but the engraving would be there in all its distinctness still; it could not in any sense be “blotted out,” and it would be utterly inconsistent to apply that term to it. 

The apostle continues that this handwriting was “nailed to the cross.” If we attempt to apply this to the ten commandments, we involve the astute and logical Paul in the absurdity of talking about nailing up tables of stone. 

Against such an idea there are two objections: 

1. That which was designed ever to be annulled by being nailed up after the ancient manner of parchment laws, would not have been put upon such material as stone, in the first place; and, 

2. Having been engraved on stone, the proper way to annul them, if they had to be annulled, would be to break the stone tablets, not to try the absurd and impossible feat of nailing them up. 

The figure of blotting out and nailing up the laws written by men upon parchment, as applied to what Christ accomplished by His death upon the cross, is at once consistent and forcible. 

Christ was nailed to the cross. 

In Him all offerings met their antitype, 

all shadows their substance. 

They were there nailed in Him to the cross. 

Men could look upon Him and say, Here is the great sacrifice which supersedes all typical offerings. The laws for these are now no longer in force; they are nailed with Him to the cross.

Respecting the meats, drinks, holy-days (feast-days,) and new moons, there is no difference of opinion—all agree that they belonged to the Jewish system, and with that passed away. 

The sabbaths there mentioned is the point around which the opposing forces rally, and on which the controversy centers. The object of the no-Sabbath and Sunday people being to include the weekly Sabbath in the catalogue of the things done away, various claims are at once set up.

Moreover, Paul is careful to guard still further against any misunderstanding in this matter, by immediately adding (verse 17) this restrictive clause: “Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.” 

Thus he points out in just as plain language as could be used, just what sabbaths he refers to; it is only to those which belong to the system of types and shadows, and which are a part and parcel of that system. But this was never true of the weekly Sabbath, which originated, as the record in Genesis shows, before any type or shadow had, or could have had, a place in the economy of God’s grace in behalf of men.

“Sabbaths which are a shadow,” as Paul expresses it, is a declaration that there are sabbaths which are not a shadow, and these last are excluded from the things of which he is speaking. 

There are many considerations which show that the weekly Sabbath cannot by any possibility be included in the sabbaths of which the apostle speaks in Col.2:16. 

1. The weekly Sabbath did not have its origin with meats, drinks, festivals, new moons, and ceremonial, or annual, sabbaths. It originated during man’s independent, innocent condition before the fall (Gen.2:2,3,) and was thus placed among the original, primary laws which would always have governed him though he had never sinned; while the latter originated with the ceremonial system introduced at Horeb. 

2. It did not rest on the same authority with them. Its authority rested upon the voice of God, and the writing of God upon the tables of stone; the ceremonial system was found only in the book written by Moses. 

3. It was not typical or shadowy in its nature, any more than the command, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” 

4. It was not “contrary to us,” for there is no commandment or institution anywhere singled out to which so great blessings are attached as are promised to the keeping of the Sabbath, not to the Jews only, but to the Gentiles also. See Isa.56:6,7; Jer.17:24,25; Isa.58:13,14.

The Jews had two feasts, each covering a series of days. These were the feast of the passover, from the 15th to the 22d of the first month, and the feast of tabernacles, from the 15th to the 23rd of the seventh month. 

On the first and seventh days of the passover, there was to be a holy convocation, and no servile work, to be done. Lev.23:7,8. On the first and eighth days of the feast of tabernacles, there were to be likewise holy convocations, and an entire cessation from servile labor. Verses 35,36. 

Respecting the two last named, the record (verse 39) says: “Ye shall keep a feast unto the Lord seven days: on the first day shall be a sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a sabbath.” In the common version these are called “sabbaths.”

 It thus appears, beyond any possibility of reasonable question, that Paul, in Col.2:16, had no reference whatever to the weekly Sabbath of the Lord, but only to the seven annual sabbaths of the Jews." 

Uriah Smith