Colossians 2:16

Christian Liberty and Theories hostile to it

16. therefore Such is the Christian's position in this sacrificed and triumphant Saviour. He stands possessed of the full inheritance of which the Mosaic ritual institutions were at once the shadow and the veil. Now therefore, so far as those institutions are presented to him by any school of teaching as an obligation and bond on Christian practice, he must decline to receive them.

judge you Take you to task (Lightfoot). Cp. Romans 14:3-4, for a close parallel, full of the principles of both liberty and duty in Christ. See also 1 Corinthians 10:29.

in meat, or in drink Rather better, in eating and in drinking. For the Mosaic laws about food cp. Leviticus 11:17; Deuteronomy 14, &c. Of allowed or forbidden drinkslittle is said in the Old Law; Lightfoot notices Leviticus 10:9 (the prohibition of wine to the priests at special times); Leviticus 11:34 (the prohibition to drink liquid from an "unclean" vessel); and the law of the Nazirite, Numbers 6:3. Cp. with the text, Hebrews 9:10. Possibly the Colossian misleaders forbade wine in toto;not at all on modern philanthropic principles, but as a token of abjuration of social life.

in respect of Lit., "in the portionof;" i.e. "in, or under, the classof;" and so, idiomatically, with regard to. The Latin Versions render literally, in parte diei festi;and so Wyclif, "in part of feest dai;" Tyndale, Cranmer, Geneva, "for a pece(peece) of an holy daye."

holy day feast day, R.V. The Greek word denotes the yearlyJewish festivals; Passover, Pentecost, Atonement, Tabernacles, &c. It is used by the LXX. to translate the Hebrew mô"êd, rendered in A.V. (e.g. 1 Chronicles 23:31) "set feast;" see Chronicles just quoted for an example of such a threefold enumeration as this of holy times. Lightfoot refers to Galatians 4:10 (" days, and months, and seasons, and years") as a true parallel here; it only adds a fourth observance, the (sabbatic) year.

new moon See Numbers 10:10; Numbers 28:11; Numbers 28:14; Numbers 28:16; and cp. 1 Samuel 20:5; 2 Kings 4:23; Psalms 81:3; Isaiah 1:13-14.

sabbath days Better, sabbath. The original (sabbata) is a Greek plural in form and declination, but only as it were by accident. It is a transliteration of the Aramaic singular shabbâthâ(Hebrew, shabbâth).

It is plain from the argument that the Sabbath is here regarded not as it was primevally (Genesis 2:3) "made for man" (Mark 2:27), God's benignant gift, fenced with precept and prohibition only for His creature's bodily and spiritual benefit; but as it was adopted to be a symbolic institution of the Mosaic covenant, and expressly adapted to relation between God and Israel(Exodus 31:12-17); an aspect of the Sabbath which governs much of the language of the O.T. about it. In that respectthe Sabbath was abrogated, as the sacrifices were abrogated, and the New Israelite enters upon the spiritual realitiesforeshadowed by it as by them. The Colossian Christian who declined the ceremonial observance of the Sabbath in this respect was right. An altogether different question arises when the Christian is asked to "secularize" the weekly Rest which descends to us from the days of Paradise, and which is as vitally necessary as ever for man's physical and spiritual well-being.