Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Colossians · About this commentary
A Shadow of Things to Come
Colossians 2:16-17
16 Let no one therefore judge you in eating or drinking, or with respect to a feast day or a new moon or a Sabbath day, · WEB
Nobody is to sit in judgment on these readers over a calendar of observances that pointed forward to a Christ who has come.
Let no one therefore judge you in eating or drinking, or with respect to a feast day or a new moon or a Sabbath day. The therefore ties it to the canceled certificate of verse 14 — this is the consequence of that, not a new subject.
The three terms together are a standing Old Testament formula, and its home is the sanctuary's offering calendar. It recurs with the offerings attached: burnt offerings on the sabbaths, the new moons, and the set feasts 1 Chronicles 23:31 2 Chronicles 31:3 Nehemiah 10:33 Ezekiel 45:17 Hosea 2:11. Paul is using a recognized phrase for the yearly, monthly, and weekly rhythm of the sanctuary service, and the accompanying eating and drinking points the same way, since those offerings were eaten and poured.
Verse 17 says what the list is: a shadow of the things to come, but the body is Christ's. A shadow is cast by something ahead on the road, and the service pointed forward. Once the body arrives, the shadow has done its work.
The weekly Sabbath of the fourth commandment stands on different ground and earlier ground. God blessed the seventh day and made it holy at the close of creation Genesis 2:3, and the commandment gives that as its reason Exodus 20:11 — a memorial of a finished work rather than a shadow of a coming one, instituted before any sanctuary or sacrifice existed. The reading has been contested for centuries; the formula's home, the shadow's direction, and the ground the seventh day stands on are not.
held with reason What this mark means