An interesting dilemma here is what is the "shadow"? As, Buzzard notes, "[t]he all-important question is, what in Paul's view is designated "shadow"?"1 And how does it relate to the "body of Christ" if at all? There seems to be several options:
a) The shadow points only to the feasting in vs 16. But, as Richardson has noted: "there is nothing in the construction of verse 16 and 17 which requires that verse 17 must include the beginning of verse 16, "eating and drinking.""2 We could ask how the "eating and drinking" would be, or are, shadows of Christ? One should take careful note of the fact that this is never answered. If the "eating and drinking" is a reference to "feasting or fasting as the case may be," as I have suggested above, then what exactly is it a shadow of? Or,
b) The shadow points to only the days that are mentioned in vs. 16. As Richardson also points out "it would not be grammatically incorrect for the phrase "which things are a shadow of the things to come" to refer only to the immediately preceding and obviously Judaistic phrase "feast day ... new moon ... sabbath day."".3 We should, however, note that "shadow" is in the plural and the only element in the plural in vs. 16 is "sabbatwn". Eadie simply claims that it is not to be restricted solely to "sabbatwn" but he doesn't offer any reason(s) why. He thinks it refers to the "entire ritual".4 Buzzard, likewise, assumes that the "shadow" refers to "festival, new moon, and Sabbath", "the holy days are a shadow by contrast with Christ ...".5 Waldron also declares that the "seventh day Sabbath was such a shadow".6 If the days were a "shadow" of the coming of Christ then wouldn't Paul have "lectured" the believers at Colossae for keeping those days instead of telling them not to let others judge them for keeping, or how they were keeping, the days? And wouldn't he have said that they were shadows of what had come, instead of saying "to come"? Note that none of the anti-sabbatarians consider this fact. Or,
c) The shadow points to all five of the elements mentioned in vs. 16.7 Or,
d) The shadow is being contrasted with the "body of Christ". It is interesting here to see how quickly some commentators insert the word "is" into the translation without noting that it isn't in the Greek!8 If Paul had meant "is" wouldn't he have used the Greek word for it ("estin") in the first place? This common way of looking at this verse has been voiced by De Lacey who states that "Paul, like others before him, is contrasting [skia] with the [soma] ("reality")." At this point, De Lacey raises an interesting question:
"is he [Paul] (as most earlier commentators assumed without question) like Plato encouraging his readers to seek the substance to the abandoning of the mere shadow?"9
In answer to De Lacey's question see Blair's suggestion that "Paul (and other Christian teachers) adapted the Platonic idea earthly shadows represent heavenly realities to his view of the succession of ages (this age and the age to come)."10 Or, is it more likely that we are reading the Greek way of looking at things into the text?
Thomas states that the "feast days are a type of that continuous festival that is ours in Christ (1 Cor. 5:8, Gr.), for all of them were, like the Passover, anticipatory of Christ (I Cor. 5:7) in some significant way."11 But, a closer analysis of the feast days reveals that the spring festivals pointed to the first coming of Christ; but the fall festivals point to the second coming (which fits well with the future aspect of the words "to come"). This can be seen more clearly when we lay it out like this in the following table:
Spring Festivals:
Passover, The crucifixion, Jesus is God's Passover Lamb
Feast of Unleavened Bread - Putting away sin from one's life
Sabbath of 15 Nisan, 1st day of the feast
Sabbath of 21 Nisan, 7th and last day of the feast
Pentecost, Sabbath of 6 Sivan, The outpouring of the Holy Spirit
Fall Festivals:
Feast of Trumpets, Sabbath of 1 Tishri, Announcement of impending judgment
Day of Atonement, Sabbath of 10 Tishri, The pre-Advent Judgment
Feast of Tabernacles, The ingathering of God's people - the second coming
Sabbath of 15 Tishri, 1st day of Tabernacles, freed from the bondage of sin
Sabbath of 22 Tishri, 8th and last day of Tabernacles 12
An alternative arrangement would look like this:
1) The Feast of Unleavened Bread
2) The Passover
3) The Feast of Firstfruits
4) The Feast of Weeks
5) The Feast of Trumpets
6) The Day of Atonement
7) The Feast of Tabernacles
Relating this to Christ’s first and second comings we could possibly see the feast of weeks as the Church age. Currently, several scholars and writers have looked more closely at these festivals and their relevance to the Church today.13
If "all of the shadows, types, and prefigures of Christ have come to end" then how does one explain the significance of Pentecost (which was after Christ died on the cross and rose to heaven) and the feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Tabernacles?14 But then one should also inquire as to what the new moon is a shadow of? Likewise, the Sabbath? One should note that the typical anti-sabbatarian critic in their haste to link the seventh-day Sabbath with "sabbatwn" of Col. 2:16 never answers these questions.15
Pokorny claims that "the rules and regulations cited in 2:16 are but a shadow of what is to come. That which is to come (ta mellonta) is the designation for the future age."16 However, as Richardson points out, while the word "skia" appears frequently in the LXX "not once is it used specifically as a definite foreshadowing of some future event."17
On this verse the NIV Study Bible text note reads:
"The ceremonial laws of the OT are here referred to as shadows (cf. Heb 8:5; 10:1) because they symbolically depicted the coming of Christ; so any insistence on the observance of such ceremonies is a failure to recognize that their fulfillment has already taken place. This element of the Colossian heresy was combined with a rigid asceticism as vv.20-21 reveal."
The only problems here that I can see are:
1) that there is nothing ceremonial about the food laws, and,
2) there is nothing ceremonial about the moral laws, and,
3) there is nothing in the food laws or in the Sabbath that points forward to the coming of Christ.18
1. Buzzard ["Sabbath Question," page 1]. Back to text
2. Richardson [ibid., (1960): 72]. Back to text
3. ibid. Back to text
4. Eadie [ibid., page 178]. Back to text
5. Buzzard [ibid., page 1]. See also Calderwood, "Reasons Against Festival Days." Back to text
6. Waldron, Samuel, "The Lord's Day," at http://members.nbci.com/rarebook/ld.htm, page 76 – one should note the complete absence of any proof for the claim. Back to text
7. Canright [ibid., page 7]; Schulz, Seigfried "skia," TDNT. Vol. 7 (Eerdmans, 1971): 394-400; see page 398--"the Law is called the shadow of future things"; Donelson, Lewis R. Colossians, Ephesians, First and Second Timothy, and Titus. Westminster Bible Companion (Westminster Press, 1996): page 41 refers to these as the "old regulations"; Olshausen [ibid., page 361]. Back to text
8. For an example, see Eadie [ibid., page 179], or Buzzard ["Sabbath Question," page 1]. Back to text
9. De Lacey [ibid., page 183]. Back to text
10. Blair [ibid., page 87]. Back to text
11. Thomas [ibid., pages 91-2]. Back to text
12. Table courtesy of Mark Scheiffler. See also Chumney's historical, messianic, and spiritual application of the feasts at The Seven Festivals of the Messiah. Back to text
13. As representative samples see the two book series by Bacchiocchi: God's Festivals in Scripture and History or Richard Booker's Jesus in the Feasts of Israel: Restoring the Spiritual Realities of the Feasts to the Church. (Bridge-Logos Publishers, 1998); or for an online source see Herbert W. Armstrong's "Pagan Holidays - or God's Holy Days - Which?." Back to text
14. Quote found at
15. Except Thomas [ibid., page 92] who, rather weakly, says that the "Jewish Sabbath is a suggestion of both the day that we call the Lord's Day, which is the believers privilege now, and also of the eternal rest of the soul here and hereafter for the people of God (Heb. 4:4:1-11)." The major weakness for this can be seen by noting that according to the prophet Isaiah (66:23 "And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the LORD.") we will be keeping both the new moon and the Sabbath in the hereafter. Buzzard, in his Law pamphlet, [page 12] writes: "The law prescribing the observance of holy days, new moons and Sabbaths foreshadowed the reality of Christ and his kingdom--the good things coming." We can say after looking at the table above that it is this and more and the table suggests that some of the feasts have a continued, or abiding, validity for us today as well. We should also note that there is nothing in these verses which say that just because something is a shadow that doesn't mean we shouldn't be practicing them. Back to text
16. Pokorny [ibid., page 144]. Back to text
17. Richardson [ibid., (1960): pages 77-8] ; this is contra Warren [page 1] and McCallum, Dennis and Delashmutt, Gary "Definition of Universal and Local Church". Back to text
18. Segraves at Why Don't Christians obverve (sic) the Jewish Sabbath? also claims that the seventh-day Sabbath "was predictive of the coming Messiah"; however, for the obvious reason, he fails to show how it does this. Back to text
Buzzard, Anthony "Colossians 2:16 and the Sabbath Question," article #150 (available through Restoration Fellowship)
Back to Colossians 2:16-17 Main Study Page (introduction)
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