Colossians 2:14-16 - The Law That Was Against Us

[Tong2020]

Ah! Where were <the Israelites> who were <<to observe the Sabbath>> "when in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the Seventh Day rested"? They were "IN ADAM" - "the first man Adam" JUST LIKE in these Last Days the "Israel of God" are inclusive and included in "the Last Adam the Lord" Jesus Christ who "made the heavens and the earth, and on the Seventh Day rested".

Those who are in Christ have entered into His rest.

Tong
R1650

 

[Brakelite]

U moet tog ernstig u se hoof laat ondersoek!

I agree. Maybe.

 

[GerhardEbersoehn]

Those who are in Christ have entered into His rest.

Who denies?
Whom did the LORD save, any who did not stand on their feet planted by the LORD in That Day in Jesus Christ by faith?
NONE!
Therefore what you actually, in fact but covertly declare, is that those who stand on and by the LORD'S Day are NOT in Christ nor have entered into His rest. Shameful. Smug judge no. 2 on this forum.

 

[GerhardEbersoehn]

 

[GerhardEbersoehn]

I agree. Maybe.

Beautiful ostrich

 

[GerhardEbersoehn]

Under the Law men either operated under true faith or not. When Paul said the Law is not of faith he's describing how Israel depended on the Law apart from faith. That is what he meant by saying "the Law is not of faith." In other words, those who depend on obedience to the Law are not of faith, because they are failing to see that depending on the Law only condemns them for having a sin nature.

Excellent! Thanks for your post, it's solid logic and according to the Scriptures as well as honest and positive simplicity.

 

[Brakelite]

Beautiful ostrich

And no sand in sight.

 

[CadyandZoe]

Well Cady, this is quite a bit to take in, and I'm not sure I can be that precise. I believe you're describing the pagan gods, who the worshipers believed provided value in the offerings themselves, without regard for how sincere those gifts were given. After all, pagan gods are largely impersonal, and quite detached from human feeling. The sacrifice from the human is what is wanted--not a "relationship."

By contrast, the God of the Law was very much interested in sincere offerings to close and sustain a covenant relationship with Israel. Insincerity spoiled such offerings. Offerings given in good faith meant everything to God.

I suppose you could say that God did not find intrinsic value in offering bulls and goats, because to One who is immaterial and transcendent, this would be no better than "breaking a dog's neck." On the other hand, God required it so that *we* would feel the pain of the loss of material value. And in this sense, it *did* have value to God.

These offerings, which therefore did have some intrinsic value to God, were replaced with the more meaningful offering of Christ himself, which was both a loss to God and a loss to us. It was the sacrifice that gave the offering value, since God had already given up much, in terms of time and anguish, as He endured the sins of men for many centuries. Losing His Son was the epitome and the summation of all that went before, leaving no stone unturned. Final salvation was won when God Himself suffered and every sin was covered.

It's not that I'm disagreeing with your characterization--I think it makes good sense. It just doesn't work for me making your distinctions because it can lead some to think that 1) animal sacrifices weren't really important under the Law, and 2) obeying God in mundane matters don't matter to a transcendent God.

At any rate, I feel that Israel's carrying out instructions on such elemental matters was important if for no other reason than it was a necessary act of obedience to God's word. Whatever form our obedience takes, it does matter to God. That being said, yes--animal sacrifices were transient in form, and were never intended to be eternal forms of worship. God was aiming at a much greater sacrifice--His own sacrifice of His Son. And we should therefore see this as the greater form of worship, as well!

Thanks Randy. With regard the sacrifices ordained by God in his law, we could not do better than to come to terms with Psalm 51, especially these two verses.

Psalm 51:16-17
For You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it;
You are not pleased with burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.

If David knew that God did not delight in sacrifice, then why did he ever do it? Was he doing it for God or was he doing it for himself? This particular Psalm seems like a shift in David's thinking and perhaps other Jewish people began to think along the same lines. I don't know for sure. I have no issue with your assessment concerning God's law. But I want to take account of the fact that while God's law is holy and good, the people were still pagan in their thinking. And folks like David were awakening to a new way of thinking about God, coming to terms with their relationship to a transcendent creator. They began to ask the questions, "what does God want?" and "what do I really want?"

I appreciate your thinking Randy. Keeps me thinking also. Blessings brother.

 

[mailmandan]

God did not bring YOU, out of the land of Egypt, bondage?

I was not literally brought out of the land of Egypt, bondage along with the Israelites in the Old Testament. In a spiritual sense, I was brought out of bondage to sin when Jesus Christ saved me by grace through faith.

YOU define 'Egypt', 'bondage', but 'the Israelites' may not be defined, 'The People of God' like in Hebrews 4:9?

The Israelites were brought out of Egypt, bondage. As I already explained to you in a previous post:

Hebrews 4:9 - So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. (NASB) Notice that the Greek word "sabbatismos" here is used no where else in the Bible! Amazing that Sabbatarians would suggest that this is the word for "keeping the weekly Sabbath" when it is never used anywhere else in the Bible!

W. E. Vine, Greek Dictionary points out:

Sabbath rest (4520) (sabbatismos from sabbatízo = keep the Sabbath) literally means a keeping of a sabbath or a keeping of days of rest. It is used in this passage not in the literal sense (meaning to keep a specific day, the "Sabbath" day) but to describe a period of rest for God’s people which is modeled after and is a fulfillment of the traditional Sabbath.

SABBATISMOS a Sabbath-keeping, is used in Heb. 4:9, R.V., "a Sabbath rest," A.V. marg., "a keeping of a Sabbath" (akin to sabbatizoµ, to keep the Sabbath, used, e.g., in Ex. 16:30, not in the N.T.); here the Sabbath-keeping is the perpetual Sabbath rest to be enjoyed uninterruptedly by believers in their fellowship with the Father and the Son, in contrast to the weekly Sabbath under the Law. Because this Sabbath rest is the rest of God Himself, its full fruition is yet future, though believers now enter into it. In whatever way they enter into divine “rest,” that which they enjoy is involved in an indissoluble relation with God. (Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words)

Sabbath rest (4520) sabbatismos - Sermon Index

Is not 'the Lord', YOUR God?

Yes He is, yet I am not a Jew under the law.

As long as He is not Lord of ths Sabbath the one He gave 'the Israelites'?

He is Lord of the sabbath and Lord of all. That doesn't mean Christians are under the law of Moses.

You're toot good because you're a Christian?
Was not the Christ of the Christians "the SAME" in the eternal past, in the eternal future?

Toot good? Did you mean too good? Jesus is the same Christ of the Christians past, present and future. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. (Hebrews 13:8) Yet that still does not change the fact that the old covenant has been replaced by the new covenant. (2 Corinthians 3:6-9; Hebrews 8:13)

 

[mailmandan]

Look at your 'arguments' in whole -- do you do it all JUST to justify yourself of not keeping the Sabbath holy? Amazing, flabbergasting! I have nothing else to say to you but that I notice the one Scripture after the other robbed of its purity at your abuse for personal delight.

Why don't you show me a New Testament command for Christians to keep the sabbath day holy and also show me from the New Testament exactly how that's done. Turning keeping the sabbath day into a legalistic prescription for Christians in the New Testament after the apostle Paul specifically said no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink of 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 (yet you judge me) is flabbergasting! You can have your legalism.

 

[mailmandan]

Come now, let's be honest. When I read this, and read, God "gives the commandments to Israel. 2 The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb" I felt and cannot help to BELIEVE "our God", my, God, made a covenant "with us" -- with me -- with us, Christians, believers, the Israel of God.

Is it so easy to just shrug off God -- easier than to 'switch off your (my) computer' on the screen....

You are not being honest and your absolute failure to rightly divide the word of truth and twisting of scripture is nauseating.

 

[mailmandan]

You're hallucinating, Danny Boy.
Argument from silence

Those scriptures I cited to prove my point are only silence to those who don't have ears to hear.

 

[Brakelite]

@Randy Kluth @CadyandZoe
I think you guys are missing the real purpose of the sacrifices. The question shouldn't be, "what does God want" but why does He want it? The sacrifices to false gods you realise are a perversion of the real. Remember those false sacrifices came after the demonstration of the real. Why? Because the real pointed to one very important... Essential.. aspect of the sacrifices that man needed to understand. Transgression of the law demanded the death of the transgressor. In providing a substitute, God was revealing His infinite grace and mercy. It isn't about man providing or making a sacrifice. It's about God providing a substitute for our own death. Like Abraham and Isaac. That story isn't about Isaac. It's about the ram. It isn't about what Abraham provided... It's about what God provides.

 

[Brakelite]

@Randy Kluth @CadyandZoe
I think you guys are missing the real purpose of the sacrifices. The question shouldn't be, "what does God want" but why does He want it? The sacrifices to false gods you realise are a perversion of the real. Remember those false sacrifices came after the demonstration of the real. Why? Because the real pointed to one very important... Essential.. aspect of the sacrifices that man needed to understand. Transgression of the law demanded the death of the transgressor. In providing a substitute, God was revealing His infinite grace and mercy. It isn't about man providing or making a sacrifice. It's about God providing a substitute for our own death. Like Abraham and Isaac. That story isn't about Isaac. It's about the ram. It isn't about what Abraham provided... It's about what God provides.

Man's attempts to work for his salvation finds its genesis in satan's counterfeit offerings in paganism.

 

[mailmandan]

What about the cattle, the servants, and the strangers that were visiting...were they Israelites? No. What of the Gentiles who were joined to Israel by adopting the Israelites' God as their own? Were they to keep Sabbath? Yes.

In Isaiah 56:2, we read that foreigners were to "join themselves to the Lord;" and "love the name of the Lord;" and "be his servants;" and "take hold of God's covenant." The OLD COVENANT. But to do this they had to be circumcised, for God said: "No foreigner uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh, of all the foreigners who are among the sons of Israel, shall enter My sanctuary." (Ezekiel 44:9) When Gentiles thus "joined themselves to the Lord" they CEASED BEING GENTILES and became proselytes to the Jewish religion. They kept the Sabbath AS JEWISH PROSELYTES, NOT as Gentiles.

But WHERE ARE GENTILES as Gentiles ever commanded to keep the Sabbath? Furthermore, if the Sabbath was of universal application, why were the Gentiles called "strangers?" The apostle Paul, speaking of the Gentiles during the Jewish age, says they were "strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world?" (Ephesians 2:12)

And when God gave the Sabbath commandment at Sinai, why did he make it binding ONLY on "the stranger that is within your gates?" (Exodus 20:10) Where is the passage that proves the Sabbath was binding on the Gentile OUTSIDE the gates? All this shows the Sabbath was NOT universally applied. If it had been, there would have been no "strangers from the covenants of promise."

What of Gentiles in the NT era who are joined to Christ along with Jewish Cristian converts? Are we now not all Israel?

Not in a physical sense and not under the old covenant. Jew and Gentile alike who believe the gospel are united together into ONE BODY, the body of Christ. (Ephesians 1:13; 3:6; 1 Corinthians 12:13)

If we are to keep Sabbath i the new earth (see Isa.66) then where's the logic in dispensing with it today? Because that is what you are doing.

Where is it stated in Isaiah 66 that we are to keep the weekly sabbath day under the law in the new earth? Isaiah 66:22-23 simply teaches that from month to month and from week to week, God’s people will worship Him. In the new heaven and the new earth, we read there will have no need of the sun or moon, there will be no night there, but one perpetual day and the glory of God will illuminate it. (Revelation 21:23-25) How then could there be a cycle of seven days that would allow for literally keeping the weekly sabbath day under the law? The Isaiah passage simply means that God’s people will perpetually worship Him in contrast to keeping the weekly sabbath day under the law.

Furthermore, if one insists on sabbath observances based on Isaiah 66:23, then one also needs to observe new moons as well. Yet from what I hear, Sabbatarians don’t observe new moons, which is inconsistent. New moons require night, hence sabbatarians have night in heaven, yet there is no day and night cycles in heaven. You cannot have "new moon to new moon" or "sabbath days" without day and night, so the argument is moot.

Will there be Levitical priests in the new heaven? If Isaiah 66:23 teaches that we will keep the sabbath day in the new heaven, then it also teaches in Isaiah 66:21 that the Levitical priests will be in the new heaven, because it is also mentioned. What happened to the Levitical priesthood under the new covenant terms? Priesthood changed so did the law. Hebrews 7:12 - For when the priesthood is changed, the law must be changed also. *The old and new covenants do not mix.*

There is no explicit instruction anywhere in scripture, including Colossians 2, where the weekly Sabbath is said to be dispensed with.

There is no explicit instruction anywhere in the New Testament where the sabbath is commanded to be kept by the Church. In Colossians 2:16-17, we read - Therefore, no one is to act as your judge in regard to food and drink, or in respect to a festival or a new moon, or a Sabbath day— things which are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. Yet you act as my judge.

That is an invention of your own making, and historically began with the apostate church and compromising believers in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, and made ecclesiastical law by Rome in the 4th. If you reject Sabbath, you are appeasing Rome.

Typical SDA straw man argument. Seventh-day Adventists are so obsessed with the sabbath day that they teach the ludicrous doctrine that the near the end of time the "mark of the best" of Revelation 14 will be placed upon those who worship on Sunday instead of Saturday.

Mark of the Beast

 

[GerhardEbersoehn]

And no sand in sight.

What is the poor fellow going to bury his head in? He must ask the local emu's.

 

[GerhardEbersoehn]

Seventh-day Adventists are so obsessed with the sabbath day that they teach the ludicrous doctrine that the near the end of time the "mark of the best" of Revelation 14 will be placed upon those who worship on Sunday instead of Saturday.

You're behind the times. The Scriptures teach since apostolic times that the "mark of the best" will be placed upon those who worship the beast - the papacy.

 

[GerhardEbersoehn]

There is no explicit instruction anywhere in the New Testament where the sabbath is commanded to be kept by the Church. In Colossians 2:16-17, we read - Therefore, no one is to act as your judge in regard to food and drink, or in respect to a festival or a new moon, or a Sabbath day— things which are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. Yet you act as my judge.

You don't quote Colossians 2:16 -- you quote you. I've shown you, yet you judge the real Scripture a fake.

But even the version you present against the Sabbath contains nothing against the Sabbath, but on the contrary presupposes "eating and drinking of Sabbath's Feast of Christ the Nourishment ministered" no one has the right to judge the Church for. What do you want better for <explicit instruction> in the New Testament where the Sabbath is SEEN -- READ of, as, <kept by the Church>?

 

[CadyandZoe]

@Randy Kluth @CadyandZoe
I think you guys are missing the real purpose of the sacrifices. The question shouldn't be, "what does God want" but why does He want it? The sacrifices to false gods you realise are a perversion of the real. Remember those false sacrifices came after the demonstration of the real. Why? Because the real pointed to one very important... Essential.. aspect of the sacrifices that man needed to understand. Transgression of the law demanded the death of the transgressor. In providing a substitute, God was revealing His infinite grace and mercy. It isn't about man providing or making a sacrifice. It's about God providing a substitute for our own death. Like Abraham and Isaac. That story isn't about Isaac. It's about the ram. It isn't about what Abraham provided... It's about what God provides.

Backlit I don't know enough about pagan sacrificed to speak authoritatively on the subject but from all I have read so far, I don't think the pagans were attempting to appease the wrath of their god, seeking forgiveness of sins. I think this idea was unique to the Jewish, and then the Christian religion.

And after much study and thought, I no longer believe in the substitutionary atonement theory. It's not that Jesus died in my place; it's that the death of Jesus on the cross demonstrates what I deserve. It's like Jesus said, he would be raised up on a cross, like the serpent that Moses raised up on a pole. John 3:14 And just as those who looked at the snake were healed, those who look at the cross are forgiven and saved. Paul elaborates on this subject in his epistle to the Romans. I take note of the concept of "demonstration" in the following passage.

Romans 3:23-26

. . .for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Paul mentions that God publicly displayed Jesus on the cross, that the cross was a demonstration of his righteousness.

 

[GerhardEbersoehn]