By Colleen Tinker
Recently we received a thoughtful letter from a former Adventist who had been watching a sermon online, unaware at first that the speaker was from the Hebrew Roots movement. The writer knew something was “off”, but he was confused by the preacher’s reasoning and found himself unable to answer the man’s arguments.
The confusion centered on Colossians 2:16 where Paul calls sabbath days “shadows” of the reality which is found in Christ. The Hebrew Roots argument was based on Colossians 2:8:
See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.
By taking Colossians 2:8 out of context and using it with Colossians 2:16, the preacher was saying that the “elementary principles of the world” by which believers were not to be taken captive were ascetic practices imposed onto the festivals, new moons, and Sabbath days of verse 16. Those holy days and the food laws, his argument went, were given by God, not men. Paul could not have been saying the days were now obsolete; he must have been referring to the man-made ascetic behaviors and prohibitions being obsolete. The preacher went on to say that Paul was instructing the Colossians to KEEP the sabbath days, not ascetically but with gratitude!
The writer then said the preacher asked, “How is ‘they are a shadow of Messiah’ a reason not to observe”? Are the Colossians then better off with no holidays whatsoever, or with idolatrous or secular festivals that have no connection to the Messiah? In the first century, there was no alternative to the Jewish calendar and holiday cycle other than a pagan one. Now that the Colossians are Christians, does that mean they cannot count months by the Jewish calendar and must use the Roman one instead? Surely Paul would not advocate this.”
Cancelled: the curse of the law
This confusion of attempting to explain away the words of Scripture with a philosophy that keeps followers under the law is not unique to the Hebrew Roots movement. Most of us with Adventist backgrounds know this bondage, as do a great many other people who have been trained in false religions.
The context of Colossians 2:8–23 is that false teachers will attempt to take people captive through false philosophies and religion. In Christ, however, we have been made complete. We lack NOTHING, and in verses 13-14 Paul explains that we were spiritually dead in our sins, but Christ made us alive and forgave us all our sins by canceling out the “record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands”. That “record of debt” is the law—the ENTIRE law including the Decalogue. The law stated clearly that there were blessings for obedience and death for sin, and the law stated the curse that is the natural consequence of humanity’s sin.
Verses 16-17 clearly declare that there is NO judgment for observing or not observing any festival, new moon or Sabbath day. Those things were all shadows. They were not eternal nor intrinsically holy. They were ceremonies established in the Old Covenant for a time; they were temporary. In fact, Galatians 3:15–17 states the period of their validity in the old covenant: 430 years after Abraham until the Seed came. When the Seed came, the law was over because Jesus was the reality to which the shadows of the law and the rituals and ceremonies and holy days pointed.
Jesus and the shadows
Days are created things, and no created thing is eternal. In fact, Hebrews 12:27-28 states that all created things will be shaken when the Lord returns, and nothing that is created will remain. No day is intrinsically sacred nor eternally holy.
Colossians 2 continues by stating that no man-made observances or traditions are to be honored as holy or mandated. If we have died “with Christ to the elementary principles of the world,” why are we continuing to observe the laws that tell us not to touch, taste, or handle unclean things? Those laws even appear to be useful and holy, protecting us from defilement…but, Paul says, they have NO POWER to stop the “indulgence of the flesh”. No POWER. They are useless.
When we have been born again through faith in Jesus, we have everything we need. We have born-again spirits, brought to life from our natural depraved, dead condition. No observance in the world can give us spiritual life, only faith in the Lord Jesus and His finished work can do that.
Moreover, Galatians 4:8–11 explains that if Christian gentiles pick up the law after coming to faith, they are leaving grace and turning back to weak and elemental principles and will be enslaved all over again just as surely as if they had returned to paganism.
What Paul means is that, once the shadows have been fulfilled in Jesus (and Hebrews could not be more clear that the entire law was shadows that were fulfilled in Jesus…see chapter 10), the laws are elemental principles. Observing the law when we have the REALITY is actually rejecting Jesus. Jesus IS ENOUGH, and He has fulfilled all righteousness defined in the law. When we are in Him, we have His righteousness credited to our account. If we return to the shadows, we turn away from Jesus.
In context, Colossians 2 is not remotely speaking of observing days with gratitude. The text simply doesn’t say that. What verses 6-7 do say, however, is that we are to WALK exactly as we RECEIVED Jesus. How did we receive Jesus? By faith! We do not receive Jesus by keeping the commandments, observing the Sabbath, or being “good”. We receive Jesus by believing He died for our sin according to Scripture, was buried, and was raised on the third day according to Scripture (1 Cor. 15:3-4).
Receive Jesus by faith and walk by faith
“Good discipline” after being born again is growing by faith in the fruit of the Spirit. It is not observing the law! Paul is explaining that we “walk in Him”, in the Lord, exactly as we received Him: by faith. Both our justification (our being born again) and our sanctification (our growing in Christlikeness and the fruit of the Spirit) are accomplished not by rituals set out in the law but by FAITH. We walk by FAITH, not by observing the law.
Verse 7 explains that we were “firmly rooted” in Jesus when we receive Christ Jesus as Lord. It was God who firmly rooted us, not we ourselves. In fact, we had nothing at all to do with it…except to believe when the Holy Spirit convicted us of the truth of Jesus. Now that we have been rooted, we are NOW “being built up in Him and established in [our] faith, just as we were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude.”
Paul is clearly saying that our growth in the Lord is the work of the Lord. He is not even suggesting that keeping days contributes to our growth. Quite the opposite; he is saying we “are being built up in Him and established in our faith”.
The verb tense is important. “Are being built up” is a passive verb, not an active verb. A passive verb is one that shows that the subject is not doing the action. Instead, someone is acting UPON the subject. So the sentence “in verses 6-7 that says You…having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith” is a sentence that says someone else has caused YOU to be firmly rooted, and you are now “being built up and established”. God is the actor; we are the receiver. These tenses are extremely important, and we can’t miss that fact.
We do not root, establish, and build ourselves up. God does it to and for us.
No shadows when we’re in Christ
Then, Paul ends his sentence in verse seven by saying we are to overflow with gratitude—and the context of this command is the preceding reminder that we have already received Christ and must walk in Him by faith exactly as we received Him. The Lord builds us up and establishes us, and because of this amazing reality—that our life with the Lord is His responsibility and care—we are to overflow with gratitude. The Lord takes care of us when we know Him! We are His, and our hearts overflow with gratitude for His faithfulness and care of our lives.
There is NO HINT in these verses that we are to observe holy days, or that we are to observe days with gratitude. That idea is being read INTO the passage; the Bible doesn’t even suggest such a thing.
In fact, Paul goes on to build the case that these externals and “traditions of men” are not needed because Christ has “all the fulness of Deity” in Him in His bodily form, and “in Him” we “have been made complete”—and there’s another passive verb! We haven’t become complete, or built ourselves up to completion…we “have been made complete” by someone else…by Jesus who is fully God, and we are IN HIM. We can’t possibly need those shadow days when we are IN CHRIST.
We can’t have anything greater that Jesus, and we don’t need shadows to remind us of Him. He reminds us of Himself by indwelling us and teaching us and making His word come alive in our lives.
All the laws and rituals and ceremonies of the Old Covenant—of Judaism—pointed toward Christ. In Christ, we have everything those laws foreshadowed.
Israel worshiped with shadows; we worship Reality: Christ.
Go outside the camp
The argument that the early Christians would have had no religious celebrations or holidays of their own, so they needed those old covenant holy days overlaid with Christian meanings is actually a ridiculous point. Christianity is not a religion like Judaism. Judaism was the most elaborate, beautiful, vivid religion of ancient times. It outshone all pagan rituals and worship because it foreshadowed the True God and the True Substitute and Sacrifice for human sin. But when Jesus came, all those rituals were fulfilled.
The book of Hebrews, in fact, is written to Christian Jews to remind them that Jesus fulfilled every single shadow, including Sabbath (Heb. 3–4:9). The author stresses in chapter 13 that Jesus suffered outside the camp. Outside the camp was outside Jerusalem, and Jesus’ going outside Jerusalem represented His going outside Judaism. Then, in Hebrews 13:13, we are commanded to go to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach.
Those new Jewish believers lost everything, just like former Adventists do. They lost families, social circles, and they lost their familiar Sabbath worship and all the religious observances that made Judaism distinct. The author of Hebrews is telling them that they now have Christ and an altar “from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat” (Heb. 13:10). That altar is the cross and the Christian remembrance: the Lord’s Table. People who follow the law have no right to eat from that altar! They are still holding onto shadows, honoring the shadow days and not treating or trusting Jesus as the only One, the only Thing they need. (For a compelling explanation of Hebrews 13:10–19 and the implications of our being commanded to go outside the camp, listen to the late S. Lewis Johnson at this link: http://subspla.sh/ecf7a5b)
We need Jesus’ shed blood, but we do not need days. Furthermore, the argument about the early Christians surely not being commanded to live under the Roman calendar is just made up. Of course those gentile converts lived under a Roman calendar! They were gentiles living outside Judea in Roman provinces. In fact, God made sure that the world is a gentile world after the cross. The New Covenant is not a continuation of Judaism. It is something COMPLETELY NEW. Worshiping the Lord Jesus does not require holy days. Christianity is not an external religion; it is spiritual. The Holy God indwells believers, and worship is in Spirit and in Truth (Jn. 4:24). No longer is worship in holy places or on holy days (read John 4). Religious holidays are never commanded nor required; Christianity is the worship of a living Savior and Lord who indwells believers. It is not an external religion; it is “invisible” except in the ways the fruit of the Spirit is manifested in believers’ lives.
Calendars are moot points. God fulfilled the law, and He allowed the entire world to operate on a Roman calendar. The Jewish calendar is all but lost. Christianity functions in a gentile world; it is not Judaism on steroids. If the Jewish calendar were necessary in Christianity, the New Testament would have to explain that. Furthermore, it would have to explain how to keep the holy days in a covenant that is inaugurated by eternal blood and perpetuated by people being born again by the Spirit. Christianity is not dependent upon the law. The law pointed to Jesus, and when we have Jesus, if we cling to the law, we are actually breaking that law. The law was intended to be DONE when the Reality appeared.
Paul wasn’t just teaching against asceticism. He was addressing ceremonialism, angel worship, visionary prophets, the depreciation of Christ, secret knowledge, and reliance on human wisdom.
Here’s a rule of thumb I learned from our women’s ministry leader, Elizabeth Inrig: words matter, and context is everything. We must read the Bible like we would read a normal book; we can’t yank verses out of context and recombine them with other passages to make our points. That Hebrew Roots preacher was teaching a false gospel.
Colossians means exactly what it says, and we can read it in context and understand clearly what the words say. The Lord Himself teaches us and guides us into all wisdom. †
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