"No More Sabbath Or Food Laws!" - Paul

There have been many conversations and interactions in recent days that have challenged the very foundations of my faith. Surprisingly, they did not come from atheists or blatant pagans; no, they came instead from those who also profess to be Christians. Attacks and deceptions from someone wearing the enemy's uniform are pretty easy to see coming, and they are expected. What isn’t so easy to see coming or to have defenses in place against are attacks from those you would consider to be allies. I’m going to talk about two of these attacks today because they are the most recent and share a concerning similarity.

Interestingly, both of these attacks had to do with the Sabbath, and they came from two different and unconnected sources, but Satan’s signature was quite visible on the calling card from both. I’m not saying that these people were agents of Satan, however. Far from it. Satan merely took advantage of opportunities that presented themselves and used them as weapons.

In the first interaction that took place, Satan misused the verse found in Colossians 2:16 to say that whatever day you want to keep as the Sabbath is fine, not just the Sabbath either, but any of the laws regarding days or eating. Whatever you want to do is fine with God. This would fit quite well with modern Christianity’s view of the Sabbath and Holy Days and the law in general. At first glance, this argument is persuasive. What we find upon closer examination of this section and once we take it in context with the rest of the book and chapter is something else entirely. We tend to read the New Testament as if everything was written to converted Jews; however, quite the opposite was true. Most of the New Testament was explicitly addressed to people who had never kept the law a day in their lives. It was written to converted pagans.

It would make no sense for Paul or any other author to tell them that the law and the Sabbath, something they had never observed in their entire lives, were done away with. What we find instead is that with this verse, Paul is giving a sort of dual message to these newly converted pagans. 

Colosians 2:16 NKJV So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths,

Paul’s somewhat cryptic way of writing easily lends itself to confusion, but when we look at it using the rest of the Bible as our decoding lens, it makes perfect sense. For this particular verse, we don’t even have to look any further than this same chapter. What is the context of this chapter? 

Colosians 2:8 NKJV Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.

This is also a well-known memory verse, but it is rarely read in the context of the later verse 16. If we start here, though, and work our way along the trail of Paul’s thought process, we find something interesting. Paul’s thought process starts out with him saying, “Beware of the philosophy (method of thought) of the world around you.” This was the way of thinking and the world they had just recently come out of! Paul said, beware of this! Watch out for it! Don’t fall for it! It’s lies! Don’t go back to the ways, the elements, the principles that you came out of. Don’t fall back into paganism. They just came out of the traditions of men and had given up the elements of the world to become Christ’s. So far, that’s exactly the opposite of giving up the law and the Sabbath since those are not traditions of men but rather commandments of God.

Paul never spoke about anything that was contrary to the Old Testament or the law, even though he was accused of it even while he was preaching. There is an entire account of an occasion where this happened in Acts. However, he refuted these claims. In fact, the doctrine Paul was preaching was so in line with the Old Testament that a group of people famous for their scriptural diligence only believed him after diligently searching the Old Testament to see if what he said was true. They didn’t have any of the gospels, all they had was the Old Testament, and from it, they proved every doctrine Paul preached. If we continue on, we see Paul continue this train of thought as he leads up to verse 16.

Colosians 2:13-15 NKJV And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, 

14 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. 

15 Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.

These people had nothing but death before they converted. That was their future, but Christ rescued them from that just as He rescued all of us. Instead of death, Christ took away the note of debt against them, their sins, and covered it with His blood giving all men an opportunity for salvation. This takes us to verses 16 and 17. 

Colosians 2:16-17 NKJV So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, 

17 which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.

These are converted pagans, and Paul is concerned about them falling back into their old ways or backsliding, as it’s often called. What he wasn’t concerned about was them keeping God’s law and the Sabbath and Holy days. Remember what I said about this verse having a bit of a dual meaning?

Well, who would be judging these converted pagans about keeping (or not keeping) days and what they would or would not eat? How about the friends and family still living in the pagan system of belief that they just left?

These new converts would no longer be keeping all of the pagan days of worship that they had kept for so long (including Sunday worship), and instead, they would have been keeping the Sabbath and Holy days. Their friends and family would have thought that they had lost their minds! Their families would have been judging them for keeping them, not the lack of keeping them! One of my friends encountered this sort of thing first-hand when his family judged him for keeping the Sabbath and Holy Days. No one can judge us for keeping the Sabbath and Holy Days except the body of Christ, who are also supposed to be keeping these days.

Paul was encouraging them to take heart and stick to what they knew to be right; he wasn’t telling them not to keep the Sabbath or the Holy days. Rather than saying that it had been done away with, he confirmed it, as we can see by verse 17, where he says that these days are a shadow of things to come. He goes on in verse 18 and through the end of the chapter to talk about not subjecting themselves to the doctrine of men. 

18  Do not allow anyone to defraud you of the prize by doing his will in selfabasement and the worship of angels, intruding into things that he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his own carnal mind

19  And not holding fast to the Head, from Whom all the body, being supplied and knit together by the joints and bands, is increasing with the increase of God.

20  Therefore, if you have died together with Christ from the elements of the world, why are you subjecting yourselves to the decrees of men as if you were living in the world?

21  They say, "You may not handle! You may not taste! You may not touch!"

22  The use of all such things leads to corruption, according to the commandments and doctrines of men,

23  Which indeed have an outward appearance of wisdom in voluntary worship of angels, and self-abasement, and unsparing treatment of the body, not in any respect to the satisfying of the needs of the flesh.

Something that could be confusing is in verse 21 when he talks negatively about not touching, handling, or eating. If we look at this in the illumination of the previous verses talking about the vain philosophy of the world, it becomes remarkably more clear. This was not talking about God’s law at all; rather, it was in specific reference to a school of philosophy that was all the rage at that time. A philosophy called stoicism which is a form of asceticism. Adherents to this philosophy believed that people must live in self-denial, not allowing themselves any pleasures. This later developed into the Catholic celibates, also known as monks or nuns. Paul was adamantly against these beliefs because they were contrary to God’s word and added things that didn’t need to be added. As he says in verse 22, these are the commandments of men and have only an appearance of wisdom.

The second encounter ties into this quite well. Someone told me that he believes the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath as an excuse for not keeping it or keeping it on whatever day and however they want to. This sounds really good and convincing on the surface; after all, these are Christ’s own words! What did Christ mean when He said these words?

He was talking in the context of the Pharisees adding extra regulations that He did not intend when He created the Sabbath. The Pharisees had made the Sabbath a burden through their extra man-made regulations. 

Matthew 23:4 NKJV "For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay [them] on men's shoulders; but they [themselves] will not move them with one of their fingers.

However, Christ intended for the Sabbath to be a delight, not in finding our own pleasures but in seeking fellowship with God. This is why Christ said that He made the Sabbath for man and not man for the Sabbath!

Isaiah 58:13-14 NKJV "If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, [From] doing your pleasure on My holy day, And call the Sabbath a delight, The holy [day] of the LORD honorable, And shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, Nor finding your own pleasure, Nor speaking [your own] words, 

14 Then you shall delight yourself in the LORD; And I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth, And feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. The mouth of the LORD has spoken."

This is the majesty and the beauty of the Sabbath; God gave us a day not only to rest from all of our work as He did, a day that He declared Holy, but He gave us a day to seek fellowship and delight ourselves in Him! As we saw above, the Sabbath is also a shadow of the rest to come in the future with the kingdom of God. All of His laws are a delight, especially His Sabbaths. It is a tragedy that so many people fail to see the love God had for us when He gave us these things. His desire is for us to love Him in return and to demonstrate this love through the keeping of His commandments. What God has declared holy, we cannot declare common, and what He has declared common, we cannot declare holy. He is the Lord of the Sabbath; how can we presume to usurp that authority and declare whatever day we want as the day we will rest and meet with Him?