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Is the Sabbath Still Important?
| "So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths..." (Colossians 2:16) NKJV |
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The meat, drink, holyday, new moon, and sabbath days in this passage refer to the ceremonial law. The "sabbath days" to which Paul refers were the yearly feasts, not "the Sabbath of the Lord." Leviticus 23:3,38. The Sabbath of the Ten Commandments was not a shadow, but a memorial of God's creation of the world in six days, a symbol of the rest Jesus gives our souls when He creates within us a clean heart, and an anticipation of the rest we will enjoy in God's great eternity.
The ceremonial sabbaths with their appointed offerings were called "shadows" because they were types, looking forward to Christ and His sacrifice on the cross. These sacrifices pointed forward to Jesus who was to become the Lamb slain for the sins of the world. Though they no longer had any significance when He died on the cross, some of the Christians of Paul's time continued to observe these ceremonial laws and insist that other Christians observe them. Leviticus 23:38 expressly distinguishes "the Sabbath of the Lord" from the other yearly sabbaths.
In Colossians 2:13,14 Paul speaks about something that was nailed to the cross. This was not God's holy Ten Commandment law, but the record of our sins, the written indictment against us. When Jesus forgave our sins (verse 13), that indictment was canceled, nailed to His cross.
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