Paul on Sabbath Observance

“Be careful that you don’t let anyone rob you through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the elemental spirits of the world, and not after Christ. For in him all the fullness of the Deity dwells bodily, and in him you are made full, who is the head of all principality and power. In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. You were dead through your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh. He made you alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, wiping out the handwriting in ordinances which was against us. He has taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross. Having stripped the principalities and the powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.

“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 (heortes, he neomenias, he sabbaton), which are a shadow of the things to come; but the body is Christ’s. Let no one rob you of your prize by self-abasement and worshiping of the angels, dwelling in the things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding firmly to the Head, from whom all the body, being supplied and knit together through the joints and ligaments, grows with God’s growth. 

“If you died with Christ from the elemental spirits of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to ordinances, ‘Don’t handle, nor taste, nor touch’ (all of which perish with use), according to the precepts and doctrines of men? These things indeed appear like wisdom in self-imposed worship, humility, and severity to the body, but aren’t of any value against the indulgence of the flesh.” Colossians 2:8-23 

“and to offer all burnt offerings to Yahweh on the Sabbaths, on the new moons, and on the set feasts (tois Sabbatois kai en tais noumeniais kai en tais heortais), in number according to the ordinance concerning them, continually before Yahweh;” 1 Chronicles 23:31

“Solomon sent to Huram the king of Tyre, saying, ‘As you dealt with David my father, and sent him cedars to build him a house in which to dwell, so deal with me. Behold, I am about to build a house for the name of Yahweh my God, to dedicate it to him, to burn before him incense of sweet spices, for the continual show bread, and for the burnt offerings morning and evening, on the Sabbaths, on the new moons, and on the set feasts (en tois Sabbatois kai en tais noumeniais kai en tais heortais) of Yahweh our God. This is an ordinance forever to Israel.”” 2 Chronicles 2:3-4 

“He also appointed the king’s portion of his possessions for the burnt offerings: for the morning and evening burnt offerings, and the burnt offerings for the Sabbaths, for the new moons, and for the set feasts (eis ta Sabbatois kai eis tas noumeniais kai eis tas heortas), as it is written in Yahweh’s law.” 2 Chronicles 31:3 

“It shall be the prince’s part to give the burnt offerings, the meal offerings, and the drink offerings, in the feasts, and on the new moons, and on the Sabbaths (en tais heortais kai en tais noumeniais kai en tois sabbatois), in all the appointed feasts of the house of Israel. He shall prepare the sin offering, the meal offering, the burnt offering, and the peace offerings, to make atonement for the house of Israel.” Ezekiel 45:17 

“I will also cause all her celebrations to cease: her feasts, her new moons, her Sabbaths, and all her solemn assemblies.” Hosea 2:11

“And I will take away all her gladness, her feasts, and her festivals at the new moon, and her sabbaths (heortas autes kai tas noumenias autes kai ta sabbata autes), and all her solemn assemblies.” Hosea 2:13 LXX

“And it came to pass in the first year of the exodus of the children of Israel out of Egypt, in the third month, on the sixteenth day of the month, [2450 Anno Mundi] that God spake to Moses, saying: 'Come up to Me on the Mount, and I will give thee two tables of stone of the law and of the commandment, which I have written, that thou mayst teach them.'

“And Moses went up into the mount of God, and the glory of the Lord abode on Mount Sinai, and a cloud overshadowed it six days. And He called to Moses on the seventh day out of the midst of the cloud, and the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a flaming fire on the top of the mount. And Moses was on the Mount forty days and forty nights, and God taught him the earlier and the later history of the division of all the days of the law and of the testimony. And He said: 'Incline thine heart to every word which I shall speak to thee on this mount, and write them in a book in order that their generations may see how I have not forsaken them for all the evil which they have wrought in transgressing the covenant which I establish between Me and thee for their generations this day on Mount Sinai. And thus it will come to pass when all these things come upon them, that they will recognise that I am more righteous than they in all their judgments and in all their actions, and they will recognise that I have been truly with them. And do thou write for thyself all these words which I declare unto, thee this day, for I know their rebellion and their stiff neck, before I bring them into the land of which I sware to their fathers, to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob, saying: 'Unto your seed will I give a land flowing with milk and honey.’ And they will eat and be satisfied, and they will turn to strange gods, to (gods) which cannot deliver them from aught of their tribulation: and this witness shall be heard for a witness against them. 

“For they will forget all My commandments, (even) all that I command them, and they will walk after the Gentiles, and after their uncleanness, and after their shame, and will serve their gods, and these will prove unto them an offence and a tribulation and an affliction and a snare. And many will perish and they will be taken captive, and will fall into the hands of the enemy, because they have forsaken My ordinances and My commandments, and the festivals of My covenant, and My sabbaths, and My holy place which I have hallowed for Myself in their midst, and My tabernacle, and My sanctuary, which I have hallowed for Myself in the midst of the land, that I should set my name upon it, and that it should dwell (there). And they will make to themselves high places and groves and graven images, and they will worship, each his own (graven image), so as to go astray, and they will sacrifice their children to demons, and to all the works of the error of their hearts. And I will send witnesses unto them, that I may witness against them, but they will not hear, and will slay the witnesses also, and they will persecute those who seek the law, and they will abrogate and change everything so as to work evil before My eyes.

“And I will hide My face from them, and I will deliver them into the hand of the Gentiles for captivity, and for a prey, and for devouring, and I will remove them from the midst of the land, and I will scatter them amongst the Gentiles. And they will forget all My law and all My commandments and all My judgments, and will go astray as to new moons, and sabbaths, and festivals, and jubilees, and ordinances. And after this they will turn to Me from amongst the Gentiles with all their heart and with all their soul and with all their strength, and I will gather them from amongst all the Gentiles, and they will seek me, so that I shall be found of them, when they seek me with all their heart and with all their soul. And I will disclose to them abounding peace with righteousness, and I will remove them the plant of uprightness, with all My heart and with all My soul, and they shall be for a blessing and not for a curse, and they shall be the head and not the tail. And I will build My sanctuary in their midst, and I will dwell with them, and I will be their God and they shall be My people in truth and righteousness. And I will not forsake them nor fail them; for I am the Lord their God.' Jubilees 1:1-17

2:16b The substance of the false teaching was the ritual observance of the law. The two concerns identified frequent battlegrounds in the early church. They were diet (“what you eat or drink”) and days (“religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day”).

The question of diet was an emotional issue in the first century. It took two distinct forms. Both grew out of the Jewish conscience, but one had more direct relation to the Jewish law. The first matter concerned the application of the Old Testament laws. The dietary laws of the Old Testament required careful discrimination between clean and unclean meats. This issue had been settled in theory by the time of the missionary journeys of Paul. Jesus addressed the issue so clearly that Mark could apply Jesus’ statement to the matter of meats (7:19). Peter, the charismatic leader of the early Jerusalem church, came to believe in the freedom to enjoy all meats through a very real and dramatic, though highly symbolic, vision of unclean animals lowered in a sheet from heaven (Acts 10:15). Peter faced the reality of virtually everything in his religious and cultural heritage being replaced by Christ, and he passed the test. Later, he had a slight lapse of practice, but not theology (Gal 2:11–21). Even though the mainstream of the Christian movement had settled these questions, pockets of resistance existed. Indeed, the Judaizers who followed Paul attempted to bring his converts back under these kinds of laws. 

Dietary practice was questioned from another perspective. In 1 Cor 8–10, Paul addressed the question of meats offered to idols. Some Christians taught energetically that it was against Christian principles to eat any meat that had been offered to idols. Other equally devout Christians believed that meat was undefiled regardless of how it had been “dedicated.” Emotions were equally strong among both groups. Although the Jewish aspect is less pronounced in the Corinthian conflict, the principles they used to argue their points come from the Old Testament concept of the uniqueness and holiness of God. 

At Colossae the Jewish nature of the philosophy predominated. It seems, therefore, that the question dealt with matters of Jewish law, that is, the eating of clean and unclean meats as forbidden or condoned in the Old Testament. The ascetics added to the Old Testament regulations and made them more intense than the Old Testament required. Paul did not handle the issue in Colossians as he did in 1 Corinthians. 

The second issue of asceticism concerned special days. Again two aspects of this issue surfaced in the first century. Some believers in more Gentile settings concerned themselves with whether to worship on the Sabbath or on Sunday. They also debated the question of participation in pagan holidays. 

The Jewish concern over special days grows out of the Old Testament. Certain religious days were to be observed: feasts (Lev 23), new moons (Num 10:10; 28:11), and Sabbaths (Exod 20:8–11; 31:14–16). These occasions were more than legal requirements found in an ancient document. They helped establish a national and ethnic consciousness that represented all that was distinctively Jewish. Perhaps, therefore, the issue was theological and cultural. The Jews believed that God had given their culture as well as their theological beliefs. 

Paul strongly forbade the Colossian Christians to come under these regulations. Such things may appear spiritual, but spiritual life is a matter of relationship with Christ and the heart’s commitment to him. To consider these matters as necessary to the Christian life would undermine the work of Jesus. If human effort is effective, the work of God is unnecessary.

2:17 Paul answered these teachers by explaining the relationship between these practices and Christianity (v. 17). Their regulations were called a shadow of things to come. As a shadow relates to its substance, these regulations related to Christ. The terminology reinforced the interpretation that these were aspects and outworkings of the Jewish law. The Jewish system can easily be understood as “vaguely resembling” the truths of the New Testament.

A shadow is less significant than the object which causes it. A shadow is temporary, lasting until the substance arrives in view. A shadow is inferior in that it imperfectly resembles the object. No one prefers the shadow to the substance. Thus the reality is of more significance and value than the shadow. The shadow is anticipatory. In historical sequence, the “the old covenant” shadow came first and provided a representation of the “new covenant” object. Although vague, it was enough to point people to the reality so that when they saw the object itself they could recognize it for what it was. As Paul employed this terminology, each aspect was appropriate. The law, Paul argued elsewhere, was temporary and inferior (Gal 3:19–20). Inasmuch as it was a revelation of God’s character, however, it was a representation of Christ. 

The shadow is caused by the body (“reality”). The nature of the body has been the subject of considerable discussion. Many commentators take the word to mean the actual body of Christ, i.e., his physical body. While the term “body” (sōma) normally does refer to the physical body, it is difficult to see how this interpretation answers the questions here. Is the law set against Jesus’ body? 

The best suggestion is that the term “body” simply contrasts and completes the common shadow/body distinction. The reality to which the shadow points is “of Christ.”²¹⁵ Christ and the new age he inaugurated (i.e., his things) complete the image of the shadow. Thus, Christianity completes, fulfills, and corresponds to the matters of the shadow. (Richard R. Melick, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, vol. 32, The New American Commentary [Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1991], pp. 267–269) 

16 The therefore at the beginning of v. 16 connects the theology about “fullness in Christ” in vv. 10–15 with Paul’s exhortation to resist the false teachers in this verse and following. Because it is in Christ that you have spiritual fullness, Paul is saying, do not let anyone impose upon you a program of spiritual development that does not have Christ at its heart. Turning to specifics, Paul begins by warning the Colossians: Do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. Paul’s use of the singular anyone (tis) might indicate that he has a particular prominent false teacher in view. However the singular is more likely simply generic (see our comments on v. 8). Judge, like its Greek equivalent (krinō), can have a neutral—“he judged that it was time to go”—or negative connotation—“she judged him for his false conduct.” The word here is clearly negative, paralleled by being “taken captive” in v. 8 and being “disqualified” in v. 18. The latter parallel in particular could suggest that Paul means not just that the false teachers were “criticizing” the Colossian Christians (cf. NJB and REB) but that they were pronouncing God’s judgment on them. The latter idea might find support from a passage that has many parallels with vv. 16–23, Romans 14:1–15:7. Paul there chastises the “strong in faith” for “judging” their brothers and sisters, noting that it is before God’s judgment seat that all must eventually stand (14:10). This passage implies that some Christians were taking upon themselves the role of judge that only God can exercise (see also Jas. 4:11–12). Perhaps the rendering “pass judgment” (RSV; ESV; NAB) best captures the sense.

Paul enumerates two sets of issues on the basis of which the false teachers are “passing judgment”: food and drink, and the observance of special religious days. These are also just the matters dividing the “strong” and the “weak” in the Roman community (Rom. 14:2, 5). And in both passages, there is considerable debate about the source of such regulations. While Paul does not directly say so here, his reference to “rules” such as “do not handle” and “do not taste” (vv. 20–21) make it clear that the false teachers were advocating abstinence from some kinds of food and drink. Similarly, it is virtually certain that the teachers were advocating (rather than, e.g., criticizing) observance of special days. Our text gives no information about just what foods or kinds of drink were being prohibited. (In Romans 14–15, the “weak” were avoiding meat [14:2] and perhaps also wine [14:21].) The Old Testament law, of course, prohibits the eating of certain food deemed “unclean,” but it does not generally prohibit any kind of drinking. However, both the Old Testament and Judaism reveal that many Jews living in Gentile environments chose to abstain from all meat and wine in order to avoid possible ritual contamination.¹²⁴ This is probably the rationale for the prohibitions in Romans 14–15, and, with explicit allusion to Jewish festivals later in this verse, it is natural to think that it is the same here. And the “shadow”/“reality” comparison of v. 17 also points to a probable contrast between Old Testament and New. Nevertheless, what is missing in Colossians, in comparison with Romans, is any direct reference to the Mosaic law or to divisions between Jews and Gentiles. These omissions are especially significant in light of the fact that Paul explicitly mentions just these matters in some passages in Ephesians that are closely parallel to ones in Colossians (cf. esp. Col. 1:24–29 with Eph. 3:1–13 and 2:14–15 with Eph. 2:11–22). We should therefore at least keep open the possibility that the Colossian false teachers’ abstinence from food and drink had its origins elsewhere, since many ancient Greco-Roman philosophical and religious traditions also featured prohibitions of meat and wine. 

An Old Testament/Jewish derivation for the false teachers’ insistence on keeping certain religious “days” is much more likely. The threefold religious festival (heortē), New Moon celebration (neomēnia), and Sabbath day (sabbatōn) is common in the Old Testament (e.g., 1 Chr. 23:31; 2 Chr. 2:3; 31:3; Ezek. 45:17; Hos. 2:13); and “Sabbath,” while occasionally observed by Gentiles, is, of course, a distinctly Jewish phenomenon. In the Old Testament, “festivals” include both the annual “pilgrimage” festivals (Passover/Unleavened Bread; Booths, or Tabernacles; and Weeks/Firstfruits) and other special times of community observance.¹²⁹ But the New Testament elsewhere uses the word to refer to the annual pilgrimage festivals, so that is probably the referent here also. 

Although there is, then, universal agreement that the false teachers’ insistence on observance of days was influenced by Judaism, dispute remains over the degree and nature of that influence. Some interpreters think that the false teachers were representing what we might call a “mainstream” Jewish viewpoint. Noting the importance of the observance of special days in the Dead Sea Scrolls, others have thought that a “sectarian” Jewish viewpoint such as found at Qumran might be the background.¹³² Most interpreters, however, persist in thinking that the false teachers had integrated the observance of Jewish special days into a larger syncretistic system. As Lohse, a good representative of the view, puts it, “The ‘philosophy’ made use of terms which stemmed from Jewish tradition, but which had been transformed in the crucible of syncretism to be subject to the service of ‘the elements of the universe.’ ” A decision among these options is difficult, although influence from Qumran, since the community observed a solar-based calendar, might be unlikely.¹³⁴ The Old Testament—derived language, the “shadow”/“reality” comparison of v. 17, and allusions elsewhere in the passage to Jesus’ teaching on ritual cleanness (see v. 22) certainly favor a strong Jewish element in the false teaching. Moreover, Lohse’s claim that the false teachers observed these days “in service of ‘the elements of the universe’ ” is an inference, not a sure conclusion (despite the fact that it is repeated in many commentaries). It presumes, perhaps, a definition of these “elements” in terms of “astral spirits” that we have questioned (see v. 8), and it does not necessarily distance the teaching from Judaism, since Paul brings the Jewish law and the “elements” together in Galatians 4 (vv. 3, 9). On the other hand, as we have noted, specific references to the law and Judaism, such as we might have expected had the false teaching been purely (or even mainly) Jewish, are lacking in our text. Furthermore, v. 18 suggests practices that are more likely to stem from broader religious traditions in the region of Colossae. On the whole, then, it seems best to view the practices in v. 16 as basically Jewish in origin and perhaps even orientation while still recognizing that they have been taken up into a larger mix of religious ideas and practices.

One implication of this larger discussion for the application of our passage is the continuing role of Sabbath observance within the Christian church. A casual reading of this verse would suggest that Sabbath observance is treated as entirely optional: one must not judge another Christian over it. But a number of interpreters argue that this kind of reading fails to reckon with the context in which the Sabbath is being observed in our passage. Only Sabbath observance that is connected inappropriately to a wider religious viewpoint is here being condemned. These interpreters are quite right to emphasize the importance of interpreting contextually and historically. And they are also right, we have suggested, to argue that Sabbath was taken up into a larger, syncretistic mix. 

But there is still reason to think that Paul calls into question here Sabbath observance per se. The language and logic of v. 17 suggest that the primary problem with Sabbath observance was a failure to reckon with the “fulfillment” of such institutions in the new era of salvation. As Lincoln puts it, “That Paul without any qualification can relegate Sabbaths to shadows certainly indicates that he does not see them as binding and makes it extremely unlikely that he could have seen the Christian first day as a continuation of the Sabbath.” In a way similar, then, to Romans 14:5, Colossians 2:16 can validly be used, we think, to conclude that the observance of a Sabbath day is no longer a requirement of God’s people in the new realm.

17 Paul does not explicitly connect v. 17 to v. 16 (there is no conjunction in Greek). Thus TNIV, along with most versions, has a new sentence begin in this verse. But the logical relationship between the two verses is clear enough: it is wrong for anyone to pass judgment on someone else over the matters mentioned in v. 16, because these matters are only the “shadow” of the reality that Christians now find in Christ. The pronoun these (translating the Greek relative pronoun ha) refers to the prohibitions of food and drink and the observances of special days in v. 16. In referring to them (collectively) as a shadow, Paul taps into a popular Hellenistic image with its roots in Greek philosophical speculation. Plato had famously used the contrast of “shadow” and “substance,” or “reality” to compare the material realities to their corresponding “ideals.” The distinction was taken up in a variety of ways in Hellenistic thinking. The comparison was usually between “shadow” (skia) and “form” or “image” (eikōn), but it could also be expressed, as Paul does here, as a contrast between “shadow” and “substance” (sōma). A good example of the general contrast, utilizing just these terms, is found in the Jewish philosopher Philo, who spoke of the “letter” of the Old Testament as the “shadow,” while his own allegorical interpretations were the “substance,” the “higher values … [that] really and truly exist” (On the Confusion of Tongues 190). In Hellenistic philosophy, the contrast of “shadow”/“substance” was often, as in the Philo text, a contrast between appearance and reality. 

But Paul, like the author to the Hebrews, who applies the same contrast in a similar way (Heb. 10:1), uses popular language to convey a historically oriented contrast between one era and another. He signals this orientation with the phrase that were to come, which refers to those realities that have now come in Christ but were still to come from the perspective of the original institutions. According to the fundamental salvation-historical perspective of the New Testament writers, the Old Testament, and especially the law, belonged to the time of promise, to the time when God was preparing his people and the world for salvation in Christ. With the coming of Christ, the new era of fulfillment has dawned. The old era and the law have now been brought to their “culmination” (Rom. 10:4). Believers who belong to the new era through their incorporation into Christ therefore experience the reality to which the Old Testament and its law pointed. And they are no longer compelled to follow the laws of that earlier era. The Colossian Christians should not let anyone insist on their observing the rules and ceremonies of the earlier era that has now passed. As we noted in our comments on v. 16, then, Paul’s use of this particular imagery makes clear that he views the “things” of v. 16 as having positive value. This makes sense if the rules about eating and observance of days are based on the Old Testament law, but it would be most unusual for Paul to accord such a stature to rules derived from pagan religion. 

As we noted above, ancient writers typically used the word “form” in contrast to “shadow.” Paul, however, chooses to use the word sōma. This word can be translated “reality” or “substance,” but, of course, more often is translated “body.” And since Paul uses this word in Colossians to refer to Christ’s own body (1:22) and to the “body” of the church (1:18, 24; 2:19; 3:15), it is often thought that he has chosen to use this particular word to convey a theological point, namely, that the “substance” to which the shadow pointed is the Christian church. “The reality which exists solely with Christ is shared only by those who, as members of the body of Christ, adhere to the head.” NJB tries to capture the dual meaning by translating sōma twice: “the reality is the body of Christ.” Lending some support to this interpretation is the particular phraseology that Paul has used. He does not straightforwardly say that “the substance is Christ” but that “the substance is of Christ or belongs to Christ” (see ESV; NASB). Certainly Paul draws attention to the “body” of Christ, the church, in this context (v. 19). On the other hand, as we have seen, sōma was sometimes contrasted with “shadow,” and we should respect the general linguistic principle that discourages double meanings unless the context makes it pretty clear. The context here is suggestive but not decisive. We conclude, then, that an allusion to the church is possible but not clearly established. (Douglas J. Moo, The Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon, The Pillar New Testament Commentary [Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2008], pp. 218–224)

ii. Therefore, do not submit to Jewish regulations (2:16–23)

a. These things were mere preparations for Christ’s new age (2:16–19). As often with Paul, the most significant word is the connective—in this case the Therefore at the start of verse 16. Paul is drawing out the implications of the victory of Christ over the rulers and authorities. They had tried to disqualify Gentiles from membership in God’s people, holding up ‘the handwriting, with its regulations’ as a barrier against them. Now Paul warns the Colossians against letting any ordinary mortal do what the ‘powers’ have failed to do. 

16–17. The first of the two negative commands of this section is do not let anyone judge you—perhaps better, with rsv, ‘pass judgment on you’. This is not so much a matter of someone criticizing them (J. B. Phillips), taking them to task (neb) or deciding for them (jb). It is a matter of excluding them, or informing them that they are excluded, from the people of God, on the basis of the Law’s regulations which, according to verse 14, no longer stand in their way. This, broadly speaking, was what had happened (or was threatening to happen) to the Christians in Galatia (see Gal. 4:17). The phrase by what you eat or drink refers to the kosher laws of the Old Testament, extended, as they already were in Paul’s time, to include wine as well as food. Or with regard to a religious festival, a new moon celebration or a Sabbath day is a fairly typical list of Jewish holy days (e.g. Ezek. 45:17; Hos. 2:11), referring in descending order to the great annual festivals, the monthly celebrations and the weekly Sabbaths. These rules of diet and ritual marked out the Jew from his pagan neighbour. Failure to observe them implied that one did not belong to God’s people.

It is interesting to observe what Paul does not say in opposition. He never says, here or in Galatians, that Christianity has nothing to do with Judaism. That would have been an equally effective argument in urging the Colossians (or the Galatians) to have no truck with Jewish regulations; but it would have cut off the branch upon which his whole argument rests, namely, the belief that Christianity is the fulfilment of Judaism. Christians are members of the ‘age to come’ for which Israel had been waiting. But ‘when the perfect is come, the partial is abolished’ (1 Cor. 13:10): or, as he puts it here, these are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. 

This language of ‘shadow and substance’ could be used in Hellenistic Greek in a Platonic sense, contrasting the ‘shadowy’ world of material objects with the ‘real’ world of ‘forms’ or of spiritual realities. It is true that Paul appears to be drawing up a contrast here between outward material regulations and inward spiritual truths. But, just as he never says that Christianity has nothing to do with Judaism, so he never says that it has nothing to do with material things, even with outward forms of worship and ritual. There are, in fact, four reasons why verse 17 should not be understood as a polemic against ‘material’ things per se.

First, Christianity, too, is a world-affirming religion, with its own outward symbols (see 2:12, etc.), intended to be lived out in concrete reality (3:5ff.). To ‘demythologize’ verse 16 into a condemnation of all outward regulations is to fall into a kind of modern gnosticism or antinomianism. 

Second, verse 18 objects equally strongly to a non-material feature of the teaching to which Paul is objecting, which would have slipped through the net were he simply attacking outward regulations.

Third, and most important, the phrase ‘of the things that were to come’, which qualifies ‘shadow’, shows that the proper contrast is that between the old age and the new. Christ has inaugurated the ‘age to come’. The regulations of Judaism were designed for the period when the people of God consisted of one racial, cultural and geographical unit, and are simply put out of date now that this people is becoming a world-wide family. They were the ‘shadows’ that the approaching new age casts before it. Now that the reality is come, there is no point in clinging to the shadows. And the reality belongs to Christ.

Fourth, there is a good reason why Paul would have used just this language to make his point. His style of argument throughout this passage is heavily ironic, portraying Judaism as ‘another religion’ in order to show that Christians do not need it for completeness. Here he is in effect saying: even in terms of pagan religion itself, Judaism has to do with the shadow-world, not with reality. The word for ‘reality’ here is sōma, which elsewhere regularly means ‘body’: so that the phrase could be translated ‘the body of Christ’. Since this seems quite out of keeping with the context, sōma is usually taken solely as the opposite of skia, shadow, and this meaning is undoubtedly the primary one. But the proximity, within the same argument, of verse 19, where the ‘head’ and the ‘body’ are introduced quite casually, may suggest that Paul is aware of, and wishes to exploit, a double entendre here. He manages to refer at the same time to the substantiality of the new people of God, as opposed to the shadowy nature of the old, and to the fact that this new people is the ‘body of Christ’. (N. T. Wright, Colossians and Philemon: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 12, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1986], pp. 123–126)

If the previous paragraph in this passage depicts the state of the Christian and the effects of what Christ has done for him or her, then there are consequences of this insight for the Christian life. In what looks like an application of Jewish halakhic rules of kashrut (i.e., kosher eating), Paul told the Colossians not to allow anyone to condemn them for what they ate or drank or which festivals they did or did not celebrate, which echoes the language of Romans 14:3–13. Naturally, people cannot control what others may think or say, but they can choose to ignore it or refuse to allow the others to make them feel guilty by their condemnation. Given that the Eucharist or Lord’s Supper was a communal meal in the first two centuries, it is not surprising that what people ate or drank would become an issue for others in the church. A fine lobster or a pork steak shared with the church would have been an abomination to those who wished to follow the usual Jewish rules. Something similar might have happened over the observance or nonobservance of certain festivals such as the Sabbath. Unlike the situation in 1 Corinthians 8, there was no danger of the other person being led to violate their own conscience and thus do something that they believed Christ condemned. Here the issue is that they were condemning believers. So Paul said in effect, “Don’t let them put that guilt trip on you” (2:16).

Paul admitted that at least some of these rules (the Sabbath, for instance) were indeed part of the Torah, the Old Testament law, but, using language also found in Hebrews (e.g., Heb 10:1) and in Hellenistic philosophy from Plato to Philo, he insisted that these rules were shadows of something that was coming (2:17). Now in Christ, and particularly in his resurrection, that which was coming has come and the shadows are gone (or at least unnecessary). Here we have an example of a Pauline hermeneutic of the Old Testament. He reexamined the Old Testament text in the light of Christ and his Kingdom, and that reexamination determined which parts he found still binding and which he did not. For instance, he viewed the Sabbath as fulfilled in the whole of the new age that Christ inaugurated and thus found the literal Sabbath and any other Jewish festival no longer binding. In fact, Jewish practices in general are not binding on the church, nor do they make a person more spiritual for keeping them, whether it be in matters of diet or in matters of time (e.g., observing the Festival of Trumpets or the Sabbath). 

Returning to the criticisms leveled against the Colossians by the teachers Paul rejected, Paul told the Colossians to not let anyone disqualify them by their delighting in practices of fasting associated with seeing and entering into the angelic worship in heaven (2:18). This disqualification could occur either by individuals condemning them and making them feel disqualified or by individuals leading them astray and causing them to disqualify themselves. That there was intense Jewish interest in angels at this time is clear: There is plenty of literature describing the participation of angels in giving the law (e.g., Jubilees), in fighting for Israel, and in influencing not only the heavenly court but also human affairs; furthermore, angels were believed to control the stars and planets. Given the exalted status of angels, there was a desire among some Jews to participate in the angelic liturgy attested in numerous pieces of late Jewish literature, from the Testament of Job (48–50), where the daughters of Job are given cords or sashes that enable them to speak angelic dialects, to a number of the Dead Sea Scrolls. (For example, 4Q403 1 ii 23; 11Q17 vii 12 [=4Q405 20 ii 22], also known as ShirShabb, Song of the Sabbath, or Angelic Liturgy.) The early followers of Jesus also had an interest in angelic worship. Paul refers to the presence of angels during human worship in 1 Corinthians 11:10 and to speaking in “the languages … of angels” in 1 Corinthians 13:1. It is not unlikely that the people who were disrupting worship by glossolalia (who are corrected in 1 Cor 14) were asserting that they were entering into angelic worship. By exalting the superior value of understandable prophecy in 1 Corinthians 14, Paul is clearly saying that this angelic worship is not higher or better. John’s Revelation witnesses to an impulse to worship angels (Rev 19:10; 22:8–9), which is rebuked (Did the author fear that undue honor would be paid to the revealing angel if this rebuke was not included?), and it also records angelic worship in heaven. In arguing that Christ is superior to the angels, Hebrews witnesses at least to the temptation to exalt angels in the communities the author knew. Given this interest in angels and their worship in heaven that was “in the air” (Noll 1998), it is easy to imagine what some might have said to the Colossians regarding angelic worship and fasting: “Why don’t you enter into real worship? Why do you stick with these human forms of worship and not go deeper into the worship of heaven?” Paul’s response is cutting. It is not that he rejected heavenly visions. He had some himself (2 Cor 12:1–4). But, having shown how great the status of the believers in Colosse was, he opposed the assertion that they would be disqualified unless they had such visions too or worshiped according to the pattern seen in such visions (cf. 2 Cor 12:7). 

Paul argued that such pride in one’s spiritual privileges and the condemnation of others for not seeking such experiences is not spiritual but comes from a mind directed by one’s natural humanity, one’s flesh (the Greeks held the mind to be the organ through which one received visions). Such pride indicates that one has let go of Christ, who is head of the church and holds the whole church together (2:19). Paul’s physiology is inexact in that the head does not nourish the body through joints and ligaments, but Paul was not giving a lesson in physiology. Rather, he was using a metaphor to indicate that Christ, as the head, holds together and nourishes the church as if it were his body and that this care for the church is not separate from the Father but is a growth that comes from the Father through him. Thus, a person cannot claim that he or she is in contact with the Father or worshiping the Father while bypassing the Son. The fact is that while Paul in other texts encourages dreams and visions, he was strongly against anything that divides the church into “haves” and “have-nots.” Paul had no problem with fasting and other spiritual disciplines, but when they divided the body of Christ, with one group feeling superior to another, they betray a merely human rather than a spiritual attitude. There is one Christ to whom every Christian submits. True worship focuses on that one. And this Christ binds us together, even though being together may be uncomfortable at times. Have plenty of spiritual experiences and disciplines, Paul says, but do not think that you are better than others because you have them. The Father is in the business of growing the body through Christ, not in growing inflated heads. (Harold W. Hoehner, Philip W. Comfort, and Peter H. Davids, Cornerstone Biblical Commentary: Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1&2 Thessalonians, Philemon., vol. 16 [Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2008], pp. 278–280)

In this section, Paul brings this first part of his argument to a conclusion. As he already pointed out in 2:11–12, the believers in Colosse have died with Christ and therefore are “dead” to the various spiritual powers of this age (2:20). The problem was their tendency to act as though they were still living in this age and thus to follow rules that applied to this age. The rules in question appear to be basic purity rules. We find plenty of rules in the Old Testament about what one could and could not eat (see Lev 11) and what one could not touch or handle (2:21; e.g., a leper, Lev 13:45–46; a woman during her menstrual period, Lev 15:19–24; a man with a discharge, Lev 15:2–12; a corpse, Num 19:11–13). Such purity issues were very much the concern of Pharisaic Judaism and the community that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls, which had strict regulations to make sure that no one impinged upon the “purity of the many” (1QS 6–7) and was very concerned that Jerusalem become a pure city. They were also the concern of other Jewish groups that were in no way as extreme as the Pharisees, even including some parts of the Jesus movement. As one Jewish apologist said, “So to prevent our being perverted by contact with others or by mixing with bad influences, [Moses] hedged us in on all sides with strict observances connected with meat and drink and touch and hearing and sight, after the manner of the Law” (Letter of Aristeas 142). But these rules, argued Paul, are simply human teachings that concern things that are consumed as one uses them (2:22). In saying this, Paul was surely following the teaching of Jesus found in Mark 7:7, “Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God” (two terms, rare in biblical Greek, occur in both Mark 7:7 and Col 2:20–23; cf. Isa 29:13). Paul was also following Jesus’ further comment in Mark 7:17–19 that food cannot make one impure or taboo, since it is eaten, digested, and then expelled into the sewer. Such man-made rules are ever with the church, some groups and individuals still practicing the purity regulations of the Old Testament and others more interested in rules stemming from more recent church history (e.g., rules forbidding any consumption of alcohol). Neither Jesus nor Paul would allow any validity to even the Old Testament food laws, calling them human traditions, much less to our later interpretations and applications of them.

Paul concluded his critique of the rule-bound spirituality that was threatening the Colossians with a sentence that is so difficult in terms of both grammar and vocabulary that no scholar can be sure of its meaning (2:23). If “severe bodily discipline” was not originally preceded by “and” and is therefore an expansion of the other two terms, then Dunn (1996:194–198) is likely correct that strong devotion and pious self-denial are simply severe bodily discipline and of no value with respect to dealing with human pride, that is, trust in ethnicity or identification with the Jews (Gal 6:12–13; Phil 3:3–4). In fact these measures increase the problem. On the other hand, if the “and” is original, it is likely that O’Brien (1982:152–154) is correct that the worship, self-humbling, and severe treatment of the body (cf. 2:18 with respect to the worship of the angels), while appearing wise, is of no help whatsoever. Instead, it simply leads to the gratification of our fallen human nature. What is clear is that anything that moves Christ out of the center of one’s life is not a helpful form of spirituality. One may fast in order to quiet the body and become more focused in one’s communion with Jesus. One may engage in devotional exercises that enable one to submit more fully to the teaching and direction of Jesus. But the minute these things become goals in themselves or are seen as means to gaining spiritual power, they become unhelpful at best or at worst negative influences in one’s life. We do not have to understand the exact meaning of the sentence to get Paul’s basic point. (Ibid., pp. 281–282)