Discovering the New Covenant by Greg Taylor - exAdventist Outreach

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DISCOVERING THE NEW COVENANT
as soon as we accept Jesus. Finally, Paul discusses the last
two Jewish distinctives. Notice the following verses:
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.
Col. 2:16-17.
It is crystal clear in these verses that Paul is specifically
addressing the New Covenant interpretation of the Old
Covenant Jewish laws. No other religion emphasized
circumcision, food laws, and sabbaths. There can be no confusion
as to what Paul is addressing here. Paul is telling the
Colossians not to let these people, who were trying to push
their Jewish religious views and customs on the Gentile
believers, lay a guilt trip on them about the food laws, the
festivals, new moons, or the sabbaths, because these were
part of the system that prefigured, or pointed forward to
Christ. They were a “shadow of things to come.”
During my entire life in the Adventist Church I was
taught that the Sabbath is an eternal institution, and it will be
forever. It is morally binding on all people for all time. I had
also learned in my studies in the SDA institutions that the
sabbaths mentioned here (Col. 2:16-17) could not be the
weekly seventh-day Sabbath, but rather these sabbaths
referred to the ceremonial sabbaths, such as the Passover,
Pentecost or Tabernacles. This passage was focused on these
ceremonial sabbaths of the Jewish feasts, and not the weekly
Sabbath. Later, however, I was most amazed to discover that
this is definitely not the case. Throughout the Old Testament,
this same construction is used. Paul was simply reiterating a
formula that was used repeatedly to refer to the entire old
system, including the seventh-day Sabbath. This same
construction is found in ascending or descending order
repeatedly throughout the Old Testament. There can be no
mistake what he meant. The “sabbaths” in this common Old