Skip to main content

Storms: Why would you want to observe them?

By
Col 2 v 17 (NIV)
17 These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.

Image result for sam storms colossiansThese observances, says Paul, were but a "shadow of the things to come" (v. 17a). The phrase "things to come," of course, is not a reference to what is future to Paul, but what was future to those who lived when the obligation to abide by these holy days was in force (cf. 1 Cor. 5:7–8; Heb. 8:5; 10:1). During the time of the Mosaic covenant they certainly had their place and fulfilled a glorious divine purpose. But that purpose was to point to Christ. They were adumbrations of a greater and more substantive reality that is now present in its fullness in Jesus Christ and all that we have by faith in him.
That is why Paul exhorts the Colossians (and us) not to let anyone suggest they are sub-Christian if they choose not to celebrate these festivals or observe the regulations associated with them during the time of the old covenant. Everything they symbolized, everything they foreshadowed, everything they were designed to teach and accomplish has now come to full and final fruition in Jesus.
Are Christians free to abstain from certain foods and drink? By all means, yes, so long as they do not impose their choice on others or suggest that others have fallen short of what is acceptable to God.

Are Christians free to observe those religious holy days mentioned in verse 16b? Yes. But not because they think that God, for that reason, now regards them as more holy or more committed or more acceptable than those who do not observe them.

Indeed, if you now have in Christ everything and more than those days were designed to provide, why would you want to observe them? Would not your observance come perilously close to denying that the fulfillment that is in Christ has come? Would not your observance have the potential to undermine enjoyment of who Christ is and what he has accomplished by continually taking you back to the age of shadows and types?

In any case, we would do well to heed Paul's counsel. Beware the legalists! Beware those who pass judgment on spiritual worthiness based on practices and observances that God does not require. What his grace has provided for us in Christ is enough. Period.


Storms, S. (2007). The Hope of Glory: 100 Meditations on Colossians (pp. 194–195). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.

--
Garrett Conner
Senior Pastor- La Plata Baptist Church
9400 Old Stagecoach Rd.
La Plata, MD 20646


The Christian church is one of the most vital facts in the total history of the world. We cannot understand that history without bringing in the story of the church.                           
                                                            - Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

John Stott on the "old man" and the "body ruled by sin" in Rom 6 v 6

By
  There are, in fact, two quite distinct ways in which the New Testament speaks of crucifixion in relation to holiness. The first is our death to sin through identification with Christ; the second is our death to self through imitation of Christ.  On the one hand, we have been crucified with Christ. But on the other we have crucified (decisively repudiated) our sinful nature with all its desires, so that every day we renew this attitude by taking up our cross and following Christ to crucifixion.  The first is a legal death, a death to the penalty of sin; the second is a moral death, a death to the power of sin.  The first belongs to the past, and is unique and unrepeatable; the second belongs to the present, and is repeatable, even continuous. I died to sin (in Christ) once; I die to self (like Christ) daily. It is with the first of these two deaths that Romans 6 is chiefly concerned, although the first is with a view to the second, and the second cannot take place w...
Post a Comment
Read more

Berkoff: "The law was not substituted for the promise; neither was faith supplanted by works. "

By
  The giving of the law did not effect a fundamental change in the religion of Israel, but merely introduced a change in its external form.  The law was not substituted for the promise; neither was faith supplanted by works.  Many of the Israelites, indeed, looked upon the law in a purely legalistic spirit and sought to base their claim to salvation on a scrupulous fulfillment of it as a body of external precepts.  But in the case of those who understood its real nature, who felt the inwardness and spirituality of the law, it served to deepen the sense of sin and to sharpen the conviction that salvation could be expected only from the grace of God . L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans publishing co., 1938), 498–499.
Post a Comment
Read more

F.F. Bruce: ...know their father's will...

By
The NT does not contain a detailed code of rules for the Christian. Codes of rules, as Paul explains elsewhere, are suited to the period of immaturity when the children of God are still under guardians; but children who have come to years of responsibility know their father’s will without having to be provided with a long list of “Do’s” and “Don’t’s.” What the NT does provide is those basic principles of Christian living which may be applied to varying situations of life as they arise. So, after answering the Corinthian Christians’ question about the eating of food that has been offered to idols, Paul sums up his advice in the words: “whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). Phrases current in worship, like “to the glory of God” or (as here) “in the name of the Lord Jesus,” were given a practical relevance by being applied to the concerns of ordinary life. Bruce, F. F. (1984). The Epistles to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to the...
Post a Comment
Read more