Colossians 2:16

Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a feast day or a new moon or a sabbath day.

So Paul continues to speak of Jewish things. Gnosticism is not in one hundred miles of this passage. We deplore a statement like this:

The church at Colossae was no exception. Instead of its members being harassed by Judaizers, as were the Corinthians, they were in danger of being corrupted by the Gnostics. False teachers were seeking to deprive the Colossians of that simplicity which is in Christ.[45]

While there evidently were traces of incipient gnosticism, it was the Judaizers who were refuted in these verses. As Dummelow said, "The Jewish character of the false teachers comes very plainly into view here."[46]

Meat ... drink ... feast day ... new moon ... sabbath day ... All of these refer to Jewish observances; as Macknight said, "Some of these were enjoined in the Law, and others by private authority."[47] Of particular importance is the appearance of the sabbath commandment in this list. "Although the article the is not in the Greek, it clarifies the meaning; Paul was resisting the Judaizers who insisted on legalistic sabbath observance."[48] As F. F. Bruce expressed it, "It is as plain as may well be that Paul is warning his readers against those who were trying to impose the observance of the Jewish sabbath upon them."[49] The sabbath observance is here placed upon the same footing as the other things abolished, and "Thus Paul commits himself to the principle that a Christian is not to be censured for its non-observance."[50]

THE SABBATH IS ABOLISHED

There is no sabbath commandment in Genesis; there is not even an indication that Adam knew anything about God resting on the sabbath day (Genesis 3:2). In Genesis, Moses was merely stating, generations and millenniums after the fact, what God had done in the remote ages long before Moses wrote Genesis. Historically, the very first revelation of any such thing as the sabbath came not to Adam, but to Moses. Note:

Thou camest down also upon Mount Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments, true laws, good statutes and commandments: And madest known unto them thy holy sabbath ... by the hand of Moses thy servant" (Nehemiah 9:13-14).

Conclusion: The sabbath observance did not antedate the Law of Moses; the sabbath was unknown prior to Moses, else God could not have revealed it to him.

Significantly, the reason God assigned for requiring Israel to keep the sabbath was not prior existence of the institution but their deliverance from bondage.

Thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore, the Lord thy God commandeth thee to keep the sabbath day (Deuteronomy 5:15).

The sabbath is said to be a sign, not between God and all men, but between God and the Jews. "It is a sign between me (God) and the children of Israel" (Exodus 31:17).

Took it out of the way, nailing it to the cross ... In what sense did God nail the sabbath to the cross of Christ? The words of course are highly figurative and symbolical. A day could not actually be nailed to anything. Still, there is a marvelous connection. Many centuries before Christ, some tradesmen who resented keeping the sabbath day came to Amos and demanded to know:

When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances of deceit? (Amos 8:5).

The prophet answered this question with words which to the prophet might have seemed to say that the sabbath would never be removed; but here is the word that God actually put into the mouth of Amos:

And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in a clear day (Amos 8:9).

Very well; these Scriptures teach that the sabbath day was to be abolished when God darkened the earth in a clear day and the sun went down at noon. This of course happened when Jesus was crucified; thus the sabbath day was nailed to his cross. See more on this in Matthew, my Commentary on Matthew, Matthew 27:51ff, where significant additional detail is provided. Also see my Commentary on the Ten Commandments, for the entire chapter on the Fourth Commandment.

[45] Arthur W. Pink, Gleanings from Paul (Chicago: Moody Press, 1967), p. 222.

[46] J. R. Dummelow, op. cit., p. 983.

[47] James Macknight, op. cit., p. 538.

[48] John B. Nielson, op. cit., p. 405.

[49] F. F. Bruce, Answers to Questions (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1972), p. 109.

[50] A. S. Peake, op. cit., p. 531.