Colossians 2:16 and the Sabbath

“Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.”

Colossians 2:16–17 (KJV)

The Annual-Monthly-Weekly Reading

On this reading, festival, new moon, and sabbaths name annual, monthly, and weekly observances. The Old Testament lists these together, sometimes in reverse order (Hosea 2:11; 2 Chronicles 8:13). The plural “sabbaths” can include the weekly Sabbath. Its number does not restrict it to annual festivals.

The strongest liberty reading joins that calendar to the shadow in verse 17: Christ fulfills what these observances anticipated, so Christians must not be judged for failing to keep them. Thomas Schreiner argues this case. It does not require a command transferring the Sabbath to Sunday. Answering it requires more than showing that Paul never names Sunday.

The Sabbath Defenses

One defense restricts the passage to annual “ceremonial sabbaths,” pointing to the festival rests in Leviticus 23. That distinction exists in Israel's calendar, but Paul does not state it here. The weekly term still needs an explanation.

A different defense includes the weekly Sabbath but distinguishes its sacrifices from the day of rest. Paul Giem develops this argument. Numbers 28–29 orders sacrifices by weekly Sabbaths, new moons, and annual festivals; Ezekiel 45:17 uses the same calendar in a sacrificial setting. Nehemiah 10:31, 33 also distinguishes Sabbath observance from the offerings appointed for Sabbaths. On this reading, the rituals point forward to Christ while seventh-day rest continues to recall creation. Weekly inclusion alone does not refute this case.

Yet Hosea 2:11 lists the same calendar without naming sacrifices, and Colossians does not name them either. The sequence alone cannot settle what Paul means.

Adventist scholar Roy Gane accepts Giem's distinction and adds a grammatical argument. He reads en merei as referring to aspects of observance, rather than the days themselves. But his own note records the competing sense, concerning or with respect to. Gane also distinguishes moral and health duties from ceremonial practices and civil penalties. The continuing Sabbath obligation in his account rests on that wider reading of biblical law, not on one Greek phrase.

The immediate context also matters. In verses 20–23, “touch not; taste not; handle not” names regulations Paul challenges, not commands he gives Christians. The passage opposes imposed rules and bodily severity. That supports a defense against distorted observance, but it does not identify every practice or opponent with certainty.

This book finds the distinction between creation rest and imposed ritual observance persuasive. Freedom from imposed judgment or distorted observance does not, by itself, establish a continuing Sabbath obligation. That conclusion must rest on the wider biblical argument.

The Body and the Shadow

The Church of the Great God offers another Sabbatarian reading: the body is the church, which should judge these matters instead of outsiders. Colossians does call the church Christ's body (1:18; 2:19). This interpretation carries the judging verb from verse 16 into the final clause and identifies the church as the permitted judge.

Yet verse 17 immediately contrasts shadow and body. This book reads the body here as the reality belonging to Christ. The Greek leaves the connection implicit; the supplied English word is does not, by itself, make a translation wrong.

Remembering creation does not rule out looking forward. Hebrews 4 connects creation rest with rest still to be entered. Some Sabbatarians also appeal to Paul's present are and the phrase things to come: if the shadow still anticipates fulfillment, they argue, its observance should continue. But a future meaning does not itself command observance, just as a symbolic meaning does not itself abolish it. Christians must still ask how the passage applies under the new covenant.

What the Text Settles

Paul forbids judgment over the listed observances and contrasts the shadow with the body belonging to Christ. He does not name Sunday or command a weekday transfer. Christians disagree over the scope of the freedom he teaches and its relation to the Fourth Commandment under the new covenant.

This book retains the seventh-day Sabbath because it reads Genesis 2, Exodus 20, Jesus' teaching, and the apostolic record together. Colossians 2:16 is part of that argument, but its disputed phrase cannot carry the conclusion alone.

Texts and Sources