Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day— things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. (Col 2:16-17 // NASB95)
I’ve seen this passage used quite a number of times to support several conclusions: (1) that the ceremonial portion of the Law were a type that pointed to Christ (the anti-type) and therefore should not be followed anymore—whereas the moral portions should be followed; (2) that the Torah was integral to pointing to Christ so that a person currently has the freedom to keep it (yes, including the ceremonial portions) as long as they do so in respect to Christ; and (3), that all those things that belonged to Israel (law, tabernacle, priesthood) were shadows that now belong to the body of Christ, the Church, to be used by her as she sees fit. Obviously some disagreement on to what should be done with the shadows in Colossians 2—but they are in agreement that the shadows are the things from the past. I deny all three positions.
Tags: colossians, exegesis, shadow, skia, typology
Posted in apologetics, hermeneutics | Comments (0)
