Colleen and Nikki discuss the second part of chapter two of Colossians. The Sabbath, vegetarianism, and visions are important in Adventism. What does the Bible say? Transcription by Gwen Billington.
Nikki: Welcome to Former Adventist podcast. I’m Nikki Stevenson.
Colleen: And I’m Colleen Tinker.
Nikki: And we are continuing our walk through the letter to the Colossians, and today we are in chapter 2 beginning in verse 16. This is a big one for former Adventists, isn’t it?
Colleen: It’s huge. It’s the core of everything.
Nikki: It really is, and this is where we find ourselves going as we talk to people about their questions about the sabbath-keeping and even food. So this letter that was written to the church at Colossae was written by Paul, who had never met the people who attended this local congregation. It was formed by Epaphras, and he traveled to Rome to get help from Paul because there were heresies that were infiltrating the church, and there were Jewish traditions that were combining with paganism, and the people of Colossae were being deceived, and they were being pulled away from the gospel, the pure gospel, and they weren’t holding fast to the truth about who Christ was and what He did and were being led astray. And so Epaphras went to get help from Paul, and this is what we have as a result.
Colleen: From what we know – and nobody knows for sure exactly what the nature of the heresies were, but from the instructions that Paul has given, it seems clear that it was a combination of gnostic Judaism, paganism, and it focused a lot on ascetic practices and a diminished view of Jesus. Paul is very, very clear as he walks through this letter that who Jesus is is the antidote to the heresies, and he takes the heresies apart one by one. We’re going to see that very clearly in the passage we’re looking at today. But he leads, first of all, in the first chapter, with who’s Jesus? And he has one of the most incredible descriptions of who Jesus is, what His role is, what He does, that He holds all things together, that in Him all the fullness of deity dwelt. He makes clear who Jesus is before he addresses the heresies because indicatives, or the statements of truth that declare who Jesus is and who we are when we trust Him, that truth, those indicative statements, are what give us the foundation for the commands, or the imperatives, for how to live. So he starts with the indicatives, who’s Jesus and who are you in Him, and then he walks through the practice, or the behavior.
Nikki: And Paul takes careful time to explain that he was given the authority to teach the mystery of the gospel, the mystery of Christ in you, to the Gentile church, and so as the church at Colossae was being infiltrated by false teachers and false ideas, Paul is telling them he has the authority to correct that, and that authority was given to him by God Himself. And he goes on to explain what Christ did on the cross, that He nailed to the cross the law and all of its demands. And we learned in Hebrews that believers are no longer under the Old Covenant, and so this is the foundation that he has laid before he walks us into verse 16, where he begins to unpack some of the heresies that are burdening the people of Colossae, and it’s interesting to me, it becomes very clear when you look at the order of Paul’s writing, that all of the dangerous teachings and all of the trappings that they were falling into, by their very nature diminished the person of Christ and the work of Christ. So, Colleen, with our background in Adventism, as you read these verses that we’re going to cover today, what are some of your reactions to them because they really deal with the core, the fundamental issues, of Adventism.
Colleen: I am struck by the fact that this passage, as short as it is, as brief as it is, deals with the essential nature of what Adventists hold to with pride and tenacity. It includes the Sabbath, and it includes what we would have called the health message, and it includes the foundational source of our understanding of Scripture, the prophet, Ellen White.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: It seems like a brief statement of spurious teachings that he’s warning the Colossians against, but in our practice, this is the core of the Adventist religion. We were talking before we started recording, Nikki, about how kind of ill-prepared we felt to deal with this, not because we haven’t studied, but because it felt almost nerve-wracking to try to address it, and it’s just a few verses. But I think the reason for that, as we were discussing together, is because this is describing the core of the Adventist heresy, and at the bottom of the Adventist heresy is Ellen White and her visions.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: It’s very interesting to me that through the history of Adventism there have always been people who questioned Ellen White’s visions, and yet they will never, as a denomination or as an organization, give up Ellen White or the supposed inspiration that she had from God. When we look at her writings, it’s clear that she did have visions, and it’s clear that she did have an other-worldly messenger. She says she did. But it was not God, and it was not angels from God, because she taught unbiblical doctrines that contradict Scripture. So she was a false prophet, but none of the people who have questioned Adventist doctrine, who have twisted Scripture to try to re-explain things, like the Investigative Judgment and like the reason we keep Sabbath and what the health message is about, none of them will actually take it to the bottom, foundational line and do away with Ellen White. If people go to that level, they realize they can’t change Adventism, they have to leave it. I think overall that is my reaction as I look at this. This is kind of like a watershed passage. If you figure out that you want to defend Ellen White and what she said, even though it’s not biblical, then you find yourself embracing something like the Colossian heresy. If you find yourself saying, Ellen White couldn’t have gotten these messages from God, then you find yourself saying, the biblical gospel is an amazing gift from God, and I have to choose between Ellen and Him.
Nikki: Yeah, and I would add to that that sometimes people hold fast to the teachings of Ellen while claiming to deny her. They have not taken the time to understand what of their faith comes from Scripture and what comes from their tradition. When I did that, I was shocked to see that just about everything I believed had its roots in Ellen White’s interpretation of Scripture or personal visions.
Colleen: Me too. When we left Adventism, I had the feeling that there were certain things that we would carry with us because they were unique insights that were so wonderful. I remember early on Richard saying to me, “Well, one thing we know we’ll take with us is the Great Controversy paradigm.”
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Colleen: Well, imagine our shock as we continued to study the New Testament, and we realized the Great Controversy is a myth. The way Ellen White taught it, the way Adventism teaches it, it is not a biblical principle. So as we look at this passage beginning with 16, we’re looking at 16 through 23 – that goes to the end of the chapter – there’s just a few verses, less than ten here, but Nikki, let’s start by reading the first four of this passage. Do you mind reading 16 through 19?
Nikki: Sure.
Colleen: And then we’ll talk about them and see how they have shaped our understanding of Adventism and of the world through Adventism.
Nikki: “Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.”
Colleen: Well, there’s nothing like jumping right into the question of the Sabbath, is there?
Nikki: Yeah. [Laughter.]
Colleen: Verse 16. “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.” Right there we have the health message, and we have Sabbath. Nikki, you were doing quite a bit of study on this, looking at various Adventist authors. As you look at verse 16 now, what can you say about what impressed you about the Adventist authors that you read as you were doing study for this? How did they explain this and defend it?
Nikki: Well, you know, I spent most of my time reading Uriah Smith. He wrote a piece called What was Nailed to the Cross? where he deals with these passages, and honestly, it was as though he was scrambling. And what fascinated me was that he knew all of the biblical, Christian arguments against the Adventist interpretation of these texts.
Colleen: Isn’t that interesting? I think it’s worth mentioning, Uriah Smith was one of the original Adventists. He knew the Whites, worked with them, and he was the editor of the official church publication. He was the editor for 50 years. And he wrote a book which is considered a fundamental necessity in the Adventist library called Daniel and the Revelation, and this is a book where he summarizes the Great Controversy ideas of Ellen White, and Adventists everywhere have read him. So go ahead and talk about what he said about the Sabbath here.
Nikki: So to hear this contemporary arguing with solid Christian reasons to not see this passage the way that they do, it was frustrating and slightly comical. Some of the attempts that he made to undermine Scripture were clearly driven by an element of ego, and I noticed what I would call generational tactics, where he would shame anyone who might disagree with him. I’ve seen that, even today, from Adventists when they try to defend themselves. Part of their defense is to shame and insult those who don’t see it the way they do.
Colleen: That is so true. Now, when we look at 16 – we’ll come back to the food and drink part, but we’re going to jump right into that “with respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day.” What does that set of words mean? When Paul writes this, what are festivals, what are new moons, and what are Sabbath days, and how do we know?
Nikki: These are yearly, monthly, and weekly special days.
Colleen: And this is a pattern that occurs throughout the Old Testament, where the different prophets wrote about festivals, new moons, and Sabbath days, either in an ascending or descending order, like weekly to monthly to yearly or yearly to monthly to weekly. Paul is using that same format here, and it’s very clear that he is talking about Jewish shadows because he says that the substance of them was found in Christ. He can’t be talking about pagan things because nothing of paganism foreshadowed Jesus. So he’s speaking and he’s using the pattern of the Jewish Hebrew writings in the Old Testament, and he’s saying, don’t let anyone act as your judge in regard to a festival, which is a yearly special day, or a new moon holy day, or a Sabbath day, which is the weekly Sabbath. Interestingly, many Adventist scholars will agree that that is speaking of the weekly Sabbath, but with that being the case, how do they go on to try to discredit this verse?
Nikki: They will argue that it’s actually about the sacrifices that were made on those particular days.
Colleen: People like Ron duPreez, people like Samuel Bacchiocchi – these are kind of well-known names within Adventism – have said, oh, no, this is the weekly Sabbath, but this text is saying don’t let anyone judge you – don’t let anyone force you to offer those ceremonial sacrifices, but there’s nothing in this passage to suggest sacrifices. It’s specifically speaking of honoring days.
Nikki: No, they’re reaching, they’re reaching. And it’s interesting to me, Uriah Smith made a pretty long case to say that this has nothing to do with the weekly Sabbath, this is about special Sabbaths, and he spent most of his time using the Hebrew to do that. And then you have these more contemporary people who are saying, no, no, no, it’s not about that, it’s about the sacrifices. They’re all scrambling and kind of running into each other, but their goal is common: It is to hold up Ellen White’s interpretation of the Sabbath. It is the idol of Adventism.
Colleen: Well, you know, as we’ve looked at this, Nikki, it’s become so clear to me that what Adventists cannot lose, no matter how they trample Scripture, no matter how they redefine what Jesus did, the thing they cannot let go of is the fourth commandment and the Ten Commandments as a document. They worship the document of the Ten Commandments and the seventh-day Sabbath as if it were God. In fact, they call it the expression of God’s character. And that’s just not in Scripture. That was only in Ellen White’s visions.
Nikki: Well, and Uriah Smith said that the Decalogue is more authoritative than anything else because even if all of the Scriptures of Israel were burned up, the Decalogue still existed inside of the ark, it was separate, it was something else and something higher.
Colleen: Oh, my. And that was because it was written in stone by God’s finger?
Nikki: Well, yes. And because it was placed in the ark. And the rest of the ordinances were also placed in the ark, maybe at a different location, but they were all still in the same place, and the fact that he wasn’t even aware of the fact that Moses broke the tablets that God wrote and that the tablets that were actually in the ark were written by Moses. He doesn’t know Scripture. You can see that as you read his stuff, but there’s a good deal of passion and a lack of logic behind a lot of his arguments.
Colleen: That’s so interesting. Do you have the text where Moses wrote the second set of tablets?
Nikki: That’s found in Exodus chapter 34, and you can read about it where it talks about the covenant renewed in verses 10 through 27, and we specifically see that Moses is the one who wrote the Ten Commandments beginning in verse 27, “And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Write these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.’ So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.”
Colleen: So God chiseled out the words of the Ten Commandments in the first set of stones that Moses broke when he came down the mountain and saw them worshiping the golden calf. When he went back up the mountain and received the second set of tablets, Scripture is clear that it was Moses who wrote the words in that second set of tablets. Adventism did not teach us that.
Nikki: No, I never heard that.
Colleen: God gave the Ten Commandments, but Moses wrote the tablets that were kept in the ark. And for Uriah Smith or any other Adventist to say that the Ten Commandments were different from the rest of the law because God wrote them with His own finger and they came straight from God is just to be completely deceptive because God gave the rest of the law to Moses as well, and even though it wasn’t carved in stone, the rest of the law was written down by Moses and kept in the ark. So I just want to say, there’s no scriptural evidence that we can separate the Ten Commandments out of the rest of the law and say they’re more important. And there’s nothing indicating that the fourth commandment is the most important of the ten, in spite of the fact that the prophet Ellen had a vision where she saw the Ten Commandments in heaven with a golden halo around number four. That we all heard as an Adventist, and that, frankly, is a lie.
Nikki: And I think it’s also worth mentioning that these tablets of stone are considered the “ministry of death” in 2 Corinthians.
Colleen: That’s right, 2 Corinthians 3. And if you question us, read the whole chapter. It’s called the “ministry of death.”
Nikki: And it’s also important to point out that the fact that the Decalogue was placed inside of the ark does not mean that they’re still binding to New Covenant believers. If you walked with us through the letter to the Hebrews, then you know that right after the author says in chapter 8 that the Old Covenant is obsolete and passing away, he begins to describe everything that belonged to the Old Covenant in chapter 9, and in there he specifically talks about the tablets of the covenant that are placed inside of the ark as being a part of this covenant that is now obsolete.
Colleen: He’s very clear. And Nikki, also, thanks to our walk through Hebrews, how does the Sabbath day, along with the festivals and the new moons, how do those foreshadow Jesus? How is Jesus the fulfillment of them? What do we know about the Sabbath from the Book of Hebrews?
Nikki: Well, we know that the Sabbath is talking about God’s rest, all the way through. Even given at creation, it was about God’s rest.
Colleen: It wasn’t the Sabbath given at creation either, because the word “Sabbath” is never mentioned. It only says that God hallowed, or sanctified, the seventh day and rested. Sabbath is first mentioned when He gave the law in Exodus and commanded that it be kept.
Nikki: Adam and Eve were created on the sixth day of the week, so the seventh day of the week was their first day of the week.
Colleen: That was their first full day of life, yeah.
Nikki: But they were never given the command to have a seven-day cycle in which they would rest. We just hear about God resting from His work, ceasing from His works. That’s what He points to when He gives the Decalogue the first time. And when God gives the Ten Commandments again in Deuteronomy, He points to His redemptive work, when He took the Israelites out of Egypt. And so then we hear again in Hebrews about this rest of God’s that He’s offered the people, and no one has ever entered that rest, because of their disobedience. And yet, there’s a day that remains, and it’s called a new day, it’s called “today.” We’re urged in Hebrews to not harden our hearts, but to enter God’s rest today through belief in the finished work of Christ. It’s very clear. It’s in Hebrews chapters 3 and 4, and in fact, if you haven’t listened to those episodes of the podcast, I believe it’s episodes 41 and 42, and the titles are, It’s Not About the Sabbath and Enter Sabbath Rest Today. Absolutely the Sabbath, the weekly Sabbath, is a foreshadowing of the finished, completed work of Christ, and out of that completed work of Christ, now we have a new creation.
Colleen: And a new Sabbath, which is rest in Christ. No longer are we trying to please God, but we are made one, reconciled with Him through the completed work of Jesus. I also just want to say that the yearly festivals, I think even Adventists understand that they foreshadowed Jesus. We understood that Passover foreshadowed Jesus, and so forth. Some Adventists have said that the new moon had no symbolic reference to Jesus, and I just want to say, that’s not true. The new moon Sabbaths all through the Old Testament, explained in the law, required sacrifices and required the Israelites to treat it as a holy day, as they would any other Sabbath. But the thing that was so significant about the new moons for the Israelites was that they were not on a solar calendar as we are. The new moons were used to figure when the Sabbath would occur every month. Every month, Sabbath was figured from the day of the new moon. The new moon was inextricably connected to Sabbath in the Old Testament. We don’t have that in the solar calendar. In the solar calendar we have standard weeks that recur. But in Israel, their months began with the new moon. So the new moon had to be observed before they could figure when the Sabbath would be celebrated. Now, Adventists know that. I think it’s really interesting that when William Miller developed his proofs and his prediction that Jesus would come in 1844, he used a lunar calendar to figure the Israelites’ Day of Atonement for 1844 because he knew that the Israelites were on a lunar calendar. The Adventist organization knows that their precious Great Disappointment was figured on a lunar calendar, and yet in spite of that they have retained their insistence that the Sabbath, as it occurs in a solar calendar, stands from creation, and they know Israel didn’t use a solar calendar. They’ve mixed and matched. They want to have their cake and eat it too, but they don’t talk about it. And when there have been people that have tried to bring this to the attention of Adventist officials, those people have been marginalized, and I’m only saying this because this is known to the organization, but they suppress it because it doesn’t fit their current narrative.
Nikki: They go to great lengths to alter the purpose and work of Christ.
Colleen: Still in verse 16, we have the reference to food and drink. Now, how can we say food and drink were shadows of Christ that were fulfilled in Him? Can you think of some examples of that, Nikki?
Nikki: Well, when I think of God giving the Israelites manna, that was a foreshadowing of Christ.
Colleen: So was the Passover lamb.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: So was their Passover meal, with the four cups of wine. Their ceremonies and their yearly feasts included food and drink and meals together that were foreshadowing the work of Christ, and those things have been fulfilled in Him. Even today when we have the Lord’s Supper, the Lord’s Supper is demonstrating the fulfillment that Jesus gave to the Passover meal. Now, to be sure, we are taking the Lord’s Supper in anticipation of the marriage supper of the Lamb when Jesus returns and takes His bride home. But even so, the Lord’s Supper, which is a sign to us and a remembrance of what He did and a foreshadowing of what is to come, that is still a fulfillment of the Old Testament food and drink of the Passover meal. We can see, in verses 16 and 17, that what Paul is talking about here is that Old Testament prohibitions and practices of food, drink, and holy days were fulfilled in Christ, and he is telling the Colossians, don’t let somebody come along – you have been made complete in Christ. Don’t let them take you back to those things which have been fulfilled. They no longer have meaning, now that the shadow has become a reality. The shadow is empty. The reality is where you need to live.
Nikki: Colleen, I love the story you tell about walking through the desert and finding a shadow. Can you share that with those who haven’t heard it before?
Colleen: Well, when I think about the law and these ceremonies being foreshadowings of Jesus, I’ve thought sometimes about being wandering in a desert, a very hot desert with no relief in sight, nearly dying from thirst and heat stroke, and suddenly up ahead I see an oasis and a very big building. I keep myself going and I get to that building, and I stand in the shadow that that building is casting in the desert so that the desert sun is shielded from me, and I just stand there and go, “Oh, good, there’s relief!” But I never actually walk inside the building, where there is ice water and air conditioning and a full relief from the desert heat. Standing in the shadow is just a hint of what’s inside that building. And if I don’t go inside that building, I never truly escape the effects of the desert. I just know that there’s something promised. And Adventists stand in that shadow, in the Sabbath and in their food laws, without going in and embracing the reality of being in Christ, where everything is fulfilled, and life is real.
Nikki: And in the context of Colossians, I think applies to Adventists as well. Paul is warning these Christians, who he has just said, “You are in Christ, you were in Him when He died, you were in Him when He rose,” so you can picture them in this building you’re talking about, and these false teachers are standing outside the building in the shadow, and they’re shaming them and telling them, “Come back. You have to come out here if you’re going to be good at which you’re doing.” They’re calling them out of the building and into the shade, and Paul is saying, “No, no. Hold fast, stay put, stand firm.”
Colleen: That is a great way to explain it, Nikki. In verse 18, after he tells them, “Don’t let anyone pull you back into the shadows from the reality,” he goes into some more details, and most theologians look at this and say, this is talking about things that are not necessarily rooted in Judaism. These are more rooted in paganism. These are probably parts of the gnostic religion that was swirling around the Colossians. But you know, when we read verse 18, I see Adventism here. What about you, Nikki?
Nikki: Oh, yes. I do too.
Colleen: Could you read that again for us, please?
Nikki: “Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.”
Colleen: I find this amazing. I decided I was going to look up some quotes from Ellen White, as I read through verses 18 and 19, because she says things about some of these things that defend her role as a prophet. She does it in a way that clearly indicates that she fits in verse 18 as something you’re not supposed to be deceived by.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: Paul says, “Let no one keep defrauding you” – or deciding against you – “for your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind.” I just want to share a couple things that Ellen White said about herself. It’s so interesting to me that he leads with, “Don’t let anyone defraud you by delighting in self-abasement.” Well, what’s “self-abasement”?
Nikki: That’s essentially asceticism. It’s denying yourself certain things, trying to control and manage your indulgences. It can be severe treatment to the body.
Colleen: Well, you know what’s really interesting to me is how often Ellen White mentions “self-abasement” in her writings. And she doesn’t mention it as a bad thing. She mentions it as a very good thing, a thing that’s necessary if we want to be saved. I mean, that’s right there completely opposing this verse. So, here’s a quote from her Manuscript #107. She says – and she starts by explaining that Jesus practiced self-abasement and that we are to do the same thing. She says, “It was through infinite sacrifice and inexpressible suffering that our redeemer placed redemption within our reach.” Do you see anything wrong with that right there?
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: Jesus didn’t come to place redemption within our reach. He came to do everything necessary to pay for our sin so that we would have redemption by believing in Him. We don’t reach for it. We don’t attain it. He does it for us. And then she continues, “He was in this world, unhonored and unknown, that through His wonderful condescension and humiliation He might exalt man to receive eternal honors and immortal joys in heavenly courts. Will fallen man murmur because heaven can only be obtained by conflict, self-abasement, and toil? The inquiry of many proud hearts is, ‘Why need I go in humiliation and penitence in my religious life?'” Ellen White taught that we are to practice asceticism, denial of ourselves, denial of our desires, denial of who we are, denial of everything that is natural to a man in order to be saved, and she says that’s what Jesus did as well. That’s not how the Bible describes salvation and that not how the Bible describes godly humility. But she taught this.
Nikki: Very clearly. It actually reminds me of our episode of mind control.
Colleen: Yes!
Nikki: She taught this kind of asceticism in every area of life.
Colleen: She did. Absolutely. And Paul right here in verse 18 is saying, “Don’t let anyone defraud you by delighting in self-abasement.” You cannot become pleasing to God or more righteous or more holy by self-denial and extreme willpower. And that’s what Ellen White taught. She’s a false prophet.
Nikki: I think it’s worth pointing out that she taught all of this with all the authority she gained from her angels.
Colleen: That’s true. Which leads us right into the next part, “Don’t let anyone keep defrauding you of your prize, not only by delighting in self-abasement,” but “and the worship of angels.” Now, we might argue, Ellen White didn’t actually command the worship of angels, but she claimed that angels gave her her message. She claimed she had a messenger, and she had a handsome young man that she said would appear to her in her dreams. She also had an angel that would guide her through her visions. One of the things she wrote about that was this, “My instructor said to me, ‘Tell these men that God has not committed to them the work of measuring, classifying, and defining the character of the testimonies.'” Now, when she said, “the testimonies,” what was she referring to?
Nikki: Her teachings.
Colleen: Absolutely. Her testimonies were her visions from supposedly God, but really from her instructor and her guiding angels. Her testimonies were her visions. So she says her instructor said, “Tell these men,” or interestingly, the men within the Adventist organization that were questioning her, “Tell them God has not committed to them the work of measuring, classifying, and defining the character of the testimonies. Those who attempt this are sure to err in their conclusions. The Lord would have men adhere to their appointed work. If they will keep the way of the Lord, they will be able to discern clearly that the work which He has appointed to me to do is not a work of human devising.” She was clear about the value of her own visions and testimonies and where they came from.
Nikki: They were not to be questioned. Even though the Bereans are commended for even checking on the Apostle Paul. You cannot question her, though.
Colleen: Her instructor gave her visions to chastise her fellow Adventists if they questioned her visions. She had a perfect storm created around her, if you want to say that. Nobody could question her without getting silenced or being told that God said they were in error.
Nikki: And I think it’s worth pointing out when we’re talking about the angels, the worship of angels, that she believed that Jesus was Michael the Archangel, which is a very common New Age belief as well.
Colleen: Yes. In fact, in Patriarchs and Prophets, she did say this, “Christ is called the Word of God, John 1:1-3. He is so called because God gave His revelations to men in all ages through Christ. It was His Spirit that inspired the prophets. He was revealed to them as the angel of Jehovah, the captain of the Lord’s host, Michael the Archangel.” That’s right out of Patriarchs and Prophets. Now, she had many more places where she identified Jesus as Michael the Archangel, but I thought this one was especially interesting because she’s just listing the ways she’s diminishing Jesus by not calling Him God. She also – besides putting down people who questioned her visions, she also said that her visions and her testimonies were to stand and be the source of truth for Adventists for all time. One of the things she said in one of the manuscripts, #10, Manuscript release #10, “The very last deception of Satan will be to make of noneffect the testimony of the Spirit of God. Where there is no vision, the people perish. Satan will work ingeniously in different ways and through different agencies to unsettle the confidence of God’s remnant people in the true testimony. He will bring in spurious visions to mislead and will mingle the false with the true and so disgust people that they will regard everything that bears the name of visions as a species of fanaticism, but honest souls, by contrasting false and true, will be enabled to distinguish between them.” That’s, again, not the only place she has said this. But she made sure that she shamed Adventists for all time if they ever questioned her visions. And Paul is really clear here that no one is to be led astray by someone who is delighting in self-abasement, the worship of the angels, or in Ellen’s case, the honoring of angels and the diminishing of Jesus to call Him an angel, and taking a stand on her own visions and being puffed up in her own mind.
Nikki: She really was puffed up in her own mind. She said she was more than a prophet.
Colleen: She believed her own press, which is always dangerous. What is the antidote to having somebody like an Ellen White come into your midst or be the one that shapes your belief system? Verse 19, what is the antidote to an Ellen White?
Nikki: You hold fast to the Head, you hold fast to the Lord Jesus. And we read in Colossians 1, He is the Head of the Body, the church. He’s the firstborn. He is sovereign over all; even the church was created by Him and for Him. He is the one that we answer to. He is the one that we hold fast to, and in fact, He’s holding fast to us.
Colleen: You said something really interesting before we started recording, Nikki, about how growth occurs, and that’s kind of mentioned in 19. Do you want to talk about that?
Nikki: Verse 19 says, “…and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.” So you have these people in Colossae who are listening to these false teachers, who are telling them what they need to be doing in order to grow, in order to be in the right place as Christians, as Christ followers, and they’re pulling them away from the truth of who Christ is and what He’s done and what they need to do. And Paul is saying, they are not holding fast to the Head. You need to hold fast to the Head because that is where the Body of Christ is nourished and knit together, and it grows there. We grow in the Body of Christ, we do not grow under the leading of false teachers, who would take us captive. In chapter 1 he said, “See to it that no one takes you captive,” that no one kidnaps you. And that’s not just a “Hey, I hope it doesn’t happen,” or “Hey, look out.” That’s a command, “See to it” that no one does this. We are responsible before God when we are deceived.
Colleen: As believers we are responsible not to be captivated by people who, as you said earlier, are calling us out of the building, where we have life and coolness and living water, into the shadow that’s still in the heat, that’s still not actually embracing what the reality is. We must stay connected to Christ. And when we’re born again, that means we listen to Him, we listen to His word, and we reject utterly the pious-sounding words of the false teachers who claim to have visions from God, and they’re really telling us things different from the Bible. So, Nikki, could you read us the last four verses in this section now, verses 20 to 23, please?
Nikki: “If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations – ‘Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch’ (referring to things that all perish as they are used) – according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.”
Colleen: Well, isn’t that an indictment against the Adventist health message?
Nikki: Yeah.
Colleen: What is the indicative in verse 20? Paul is now going to speak against asceticism, against the harsh treatment of the body, against rigid rules, against avoiding foods and not touching, tasting, or experiencing things, but these commands are all based on a fact, an indicative, which he gives in verse 20, and what is that indicative?
Nikki: Well, that indicative is if you are in Christ, if with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world – and remember Paul is writing to a church with believers, with true believers in it, and he has said – in the beginning of chapter 2 he has warned them against being taken captive by elemental spirits, and he has told them that Christ has disarmed all of the authorities in the spiritual realm, that they have died to that, that that no longer has power over them, and so now the question is, if that happened, if you’re a believer, if you’re in Christ and you died with Him and He disarmed all of this, why do you submit to regulations? They have no power.
Colleen: Yes. Isn’t that amazing? They have no power to make us more holy, to make us more spiritual, to make us more effective, to make us more pleasing to God, to make us more nearly perfect. They have no power. All we need is the new birth, the life in Christ, and to have our lives hidden with Christ in God. Jesus has taken the curse of our sin and has nailed to the cross the law of commands that was against us, and He’s disarmed Satan, taking away the tool he had to accuse us. He took away the law. He Himself is our authority now.
Nikki: And I want to point out, Uriah Smith said that the weekly Sabbath can’t be in view here because Paul says that Jesus nailed to the cross the ordinances that stood against us, and he said, the weekly Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, and so it doesn’t stand against us. But under the Jewish law, if you do not keep the Sabbath, you are to be killed, you are to be stoned. When you are under the law, you have all the blessings, but you have all the curses as well, and Jesus removed all of that and offered us rest in Him regardless of how we fail. If we are in Him, He did the work of atonement. He brought us into new life, and He’s given us full rest.
Colleen: That is such a great point, Nikki. Thank you for saying that. It’s interesting, because as you described that I was thinking, the Sabbath absolutely stood against us, as Gentiles who thought we could please God by keeping the law. The Sabbath was part of the law that brought the curse, so to think that the Sabbath is for you when you keep it because it was made for you is taking something out of context and trying to apply it to the New Covenant, and that doesn’t work. It was against us because it was part of the law that contained the death decree. If not every single point of the law was kept, the person was to be killed. Death was the result. Jesus took that death, He took that curse, and He died and broke the power of death and rose again and gives us His resurrection life when we trust Him.
Nikki: And that doesn’t remove the power of the foreshadowing of the law either.
Colleen: No.
Nikki: The same thing that can stand against us can also foreshadow our Savior and be for us in another kind of sense.
Colleen: In verse 21, Paul continues his argument about not putting yourself back under the elementary principles of the world by observing do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, and I want to say, as an Adventist, I didn’t understand how the rules of the law could possibly be considered the principles of the world. Galatians expounds on this idea as well. Paul is explaining in the Book of Galatians and here in Colossians that when Jesus died, fulfilling the law, and rose again, the law, which was a shadow and a foreshadowing of Him, has been complete. Hebrews 8 says it is now obsolete. If we go back, like we talked about earlier, and embrace the shadow instead of Jesus, it is empty of meaning in the same way it was filled with meaning before. We are now rejecting the reality if we hold onto the shadow, and that is an elemental principle of the world. When we refuse to embrace Jesus alone and take only the shadow and say, “I like the shadow, I’m going to do the shadow,” then we’re slapping Jesus in the face, and Hebrews is really clear that if we reject the fulfillment, the living Jesus, in favor of the old principles of the law, our consequence will be far more serious than the Israelites’ consequence for breaking the law.
Nikki: You know, as I was reading this, aware of the fact that Paul was dealing with the misuse of Jewish teachings, and I read that these were all according to human precepts and teaching, I had to reflect on the fact that he is calling regulations that were given by God “human precepts and teachings,” and I realized that we, as humans, are so prone to take the word of God and make it say whatever we want to make it say and then to try to bring people under that yoke. So just because they are pointing back to God’s words doesn’t mean that they’re applying them according to God’s will, and when you apply God’s words according to your own will and not according to Him, you are now using human precepts and teachings.
Colleen: Oh, that was so well said, Nikki. It’s interesting to me that Adventism has insisted that there are things we’re not to touch, taste, or handle if we want to be spiritual. Ellen White said, “The brain nerves which communicate with the entire system are the only medium through which heaven can communicate to man and affect his inmost life. God cannot let His Holy Spirit rest upon those who, while they know they should eat for health, persist in a course that will enfeeble mind and body.” She taught that if people eat meat, if people eat eggs, if people eat cheese, if people eat too much sugar, they will be unhealthy, and their brains will not perceive the Holy Spirit, but Scripture never says that. The Old Testament used food laws to keep the Jews separated from the Gentiles so they wouldn’t become blurred and take on those pagan religious characteristics of the Gentiles, but on the cross Jesus put those laws – He completed them, He fulfilled them, and He nailed them to the cross, making one new man in Himself. Food laws are no longer applicable to Christians. Now, that doesn’t mean a Christian can’t be a vegetarian, but they need to be sure that they’re not trying to be a vegetarian in order to please God or to hear the Spirit. Romans 8 tells us that the Spirit testifies with our spirit. He doesn’t speak to us through our physical brains. Our brains will understand and interpret, but we have spirits that hear the Holy Spirit, and Ellen White did not believe that.
Nikki: So one of the hardest things for people to let go of is the Sabbath, and I really believe that the Sabbath is what keeps people inside of Adventism. But once you leave, I believe that, for many of us, vegetarianism keeps Adventism inside of people. It’s a way that we find ourselves separated from others, and I think some of us resent it. Those of us who were raised vegetarian and who don’t want to be vegetarian but have food aversions, and we go to church, and – I remember the first time I went to church on a Monday night, women’s Bible study, we had dinner together every week, and I couldn’t eat with the women. It was a point of separation. And it was something I had to overcome through prayer, and I realized there was a part of me – I didn’t believe that it was related to my spirituality before God, but I did believe that it was kind of inhumane to eat animals. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. To look at meat and think, “That’s food,” was a challenge for me. I had to pray to see it as food, and it occurred to me one day that to question the morality of eating an animal is to question the God who commanded that we eat animals. It’s to question the morality of God Himself, who is the arbiter of truth, who tells us what is and is not moral. And so it is not ours to question the morality of eating animals.
Colleen: That is a great point. It’s God who gave us meat to eat and told us in Mark 7:19 that all foods are clean, when He said, “What defiles a man comes out of the heart, not what goes into the body.” Jesus was teaching His disciples, even before His death, that the food laws were coming to an end, because food laws would separate people from having true fellowship in Him. And when Peter received that vision in Acts 10 of the sheet filled with unclean creatures and was told to kill and eat, yes, God was saying, don’t call anybody I have declared clean unclean. And he was about to be called to go with Cornelius’ men to Cornelius’ home, but that included the food. The Jewish law forbade Jews from eating with Gentiles, from sharing a table, from sharing food, from sharing dishes. And Peter was supposed to go, and he had to eat those ham sandwiches without questioning it, and God was preparing them. This whole idea that food is what makes us ultimately spiritual is a pagan idea. And I just want to say, Ellen White said something pretty horrific about Jesus. She twisted Jesus’ wilderness temptation into an example of vegetarianism and of good eating. She says, “If the indulgence of appetite was so strong upon the race that in order to break its power the divine Son of God, in behalf of man, was required to fast for nearly six weeks, what work is before the Christian in order that he may overcome, even as Christ overcame.” And she also said, “Adam fell by the indulgence of appetite. In order to impress upon man his obligations to obey the law of God, Christ began His work of redemption by reforming the physical habits of man. The declension in virtue and the degeneracy of the race are chiefly attributable to the indulgence of appetite.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Adam did not fall because he indulged appetite. He fell because he didn’t trust God’s word and obey it. Jesus didn’t come and undo Adam’s indulgence of appetite. Jesus came by the direction of the Holy Spirit and was tempted by Satan. It was not about His appetite. It was about His being God the Son and resisting Satan’s accusations against Him by appropriately using the word of God, which was His own word. This was not a test of appetite. Ellen White has it so wrong. So when Adventists read this passage in Colossians 2, do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, they write it off, and they say that has nothing to do with our food laws, but it has everything to do with their food laws because their food laws can’t make them more holy.
Nikki: And I want to say too, Paul dealt with this when he wrote to Timothy, and he actually referred to this kind of asceticism as “teachings and doctrines of demons.”
Colleen: That’s correct.
Nikki: In 1 Timothy 4 he said, “Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.”
Colleen: Paul ends this section by saying this: “These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement” – there’s that self-abasement again – “and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.” In other words, the Adventist health message, the abstinence from touching or eating certain foods and meats, drinks, the idea that we have to be even vegan or maybe even raw foods vegan, these things do nothing to enhance our spiritual perception. They do nothing to enhance our holiness. They do nothing to enhance our lives as followers of Christ. They don’t even have anything to do with enhancing our health because God gave us the food we need for the nutrients we need.
Nikki: Yeah, He designed our bodies to need the things that are offered to us in meat. It’s a very symbiotic relationship, which I was disappointed to learn as I came out of Adventism and had to figure out how to eat meat.
Colleen: So as we end this chapter in Colossians, we just want to say, we know how hard it is to get past the habits of the Adventist lifestyle, the Adventist health message, the Adventist obsession with exercise and fitness and diet, the counting of calories, the agonizing over eating flesh foods. We understand; we have been there. I think everybody who grows up Adventist has to face this in some way, but what Paul is saying and what we have learned is that Jesus is enough. And if you have not put your trust fully in His finished work, if you’ve not understood that you were in Him when He died and rose again, paying the price for your sin, we just ask you to go back and read the gospel as Paul explains it so clearly in 1 Corinthians 15:3 and 4. Jesus lived and died for our sins according to Scripture, He was buried, He was raised on the third day according to Scripture, and in doing that, He satisfied all of the wrath and righteousness of God. He took our sin into Himself. He paid the price of our own death, and He rose again, breaking the curse that was ours by nature because we were born sinners and dead in sin, and He has given us eternal life without ever worrying about the health message. We just ask that you put your trust fully in Jesus and find that in Him you are reconciled to God and counted fully righteous. That’s the blessing of belonging to Him and letting go of those elemental principles of the world.
Nikki: So if you have any questions or comments, write to us at formeradventist@gmail.com. You can visit proclamationmagazine.com and sign up to receive our free weekly emails or view our online magazine. You can also sign up to join our Former Adventist Fellowship forum there. If you’d like to donate to the ministry, there’s also a donate button there. Like and follow us on Facebook and Instagram, and we look forward to seeing you again next week as we dig further in Colossians.
Colleen: We’ll see you then.
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