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Seventh-day Adventism Refuted:

Colossians 2:16-17 and the Seventh-Day Adventist Church

    

Colossians 2:16-17 says, “Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.”

The context shows that the “festival or a new moon or a Sabbath” were the regulations of the Jewish yearly calendar. The Puritans, and the Seventh-day Adventists following them, have argued that Paul is not talking about the Sabbath of the Decalogue but only about the Sabbaths from the ceremonial law. They have “seen” two things in Colossians 2 which they use to justify their position:

1. They argue that there were two types of Sabbaths in the Old Testament -- the weekly Sabbath of the decalogue and the ceremonial Sabbaths of the yearly festivals recorded in Leviticus 23.

2. They also argue that the Sabbath in Colossians 2 is “a shadow of the things that were to come” (Col. 2:17). They believe that since the weekly Sabbath was a memorial of creation (Exod. 20:8-11), they argue that it could not be called a “shadow” (Gen. 2:2-3). Colossians 2:16 must therefore be referring to the ceremonial rest days brought to view in Leviticus 23.

These claims are false for the following reasons:

1. The special times of Colossians 2:16 are called a festival, a new moon or a Sabbath and represent the annual, monthly and weekly observances. Even Dr. Bacchiocchi of the Seventh-day Adventist Church agrees saying that is “the unanimous consensus of commentators” that the sequence implies annual, monthly and weekly observances.

2. This same annual, monthly and weekly sequence appears five times in the Septuagint, 2 Chronicles 2:4; 31:3; Nehemiah 10:33; Ezekiel 45:17; Hosea 2:11 and every time, without exception means the days, months, seasons and years of the entire system of worship under the Mosaic Covenant.

3. Whenever the Old Testament links the new moon celebration with the Sabbath, as it does in Colossians 2:16, it is referring to the weekly Sabbath (2 Kings 4:23; 1 Chron. 23:31; 2 Chron. 2:4; Ne. 10:33; Isa. 1:13; 66:23; Ezek. 45:17; 46:1; Hosea 2:11; Amos 8:5).

4. The New Testament uses the same annual, monthly and weekly sequence to show the Sabbath was part of the Old Covenant and not binding on Christians who live by the New Covenant (Col. 2:16-17 and Gal. 4:10-11).

5. Leviticus 23 points to all of the sacred days of the Lord under the Mosaic Covenant. After the Sabbath, the Jewish feast days are given in the order of the Hebrew calendar (Lev. 23:4-44). In Leviticus 23:3, the seventh day Sabbath is listed along with all of the other appointed feasts and holy convocations of the LORD showing that it was part of the ceremonial requirements of the Old Covenant. At special times the Sabbath could be set aside because of greater concerns (Matt. 12:1-4; 1 Sam. 21:1-6; Matt. 12:5; Num. 28:9-10). None of the other commandments of the Decalogue could ever be set aside.

6. When the Old Testament refers to the yearly Sabbaths, such as the Day of Atonement (Lev. 23), it calls them “a Sabbath of rest," which the Septuagint consistently translates with the compound Greek expression “Sabbata sabbaton”. Colossians 2:16 only has “sabbaton”, the same word that Matthew 28:1 uses for the weekly seventh day Sabbath.

7. It has been argued that since Paul calls the Sabbath in Colossians 2:16 “a shadow of the things that were to come”, he could not be referring to the Sabbath of the Decalogue. But Colossians 1:16 has already shown that all things were made by Christ and exist for His sake. Adam himself was “a pattern of the One to come” (Rom. 5:14). The Sabbath and all of the festivals recorded in the Old Testament were instituted to point back to the mighty works of God in the creation or in their deliverance from bondage in Egypt. They also pointed forward to God’s new creation and new act of deliverance at the end of time.

8. In the New Testament, the Greek word “sabbaton” is translated to mean “Sabbath” 59 times. Seventh-day Adventists believe that it means the seventh day “Sabbath” in 58 of those instances. The only time they change its meaning is in Colossians 2:16-17. They have to do this in order for their doctrinal system to appear reasonable.

The Apostle Paul wrote over one-third of the New Testament and never once told his Gentile converts to keep the Mosaic Law or the Sabbath. None of the other writers of the New Testament told anyone to keep the seventh day Sabbath either.

As Christians, we rest in the finished work of Jesus Christ and the security He offers everyone who accepts Him as Lord and Savior.

Matthew 11:28-30 says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

In the immediate context, Jesus is giving His audience an invitation to come and trust in Him personally. “All who labor and are heavy laden” refers to those who were oppressed by the burden of religious legalism imposed on people by the scribes and Pharisees.

The larger application for the Church is that Jesus provides rest for our souls, an eternal rest for all who seek the forgiveness of their sins and freedom from the legalistic burden and guilt of trying to earn salvation by good works. The Jews often spoke of the Sabbath as a foretaste of the unending Sabbath rest we will get in the age to come. Hebrews 4 does the same where the author links the Sabbath rest God wants us to enter into with the divine rest of salvation offered to us by Jesus Christ in the gospel.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church’s insistence that we must all keep the seventh day Sabbath of the Old Covenant makes them more like the scribes and Pharisees that both Jesus and Paul had to fight so hard against.

Colossians 2:16 can only mean that the weekly seventh day Sabbath was no longer binding on the Christian Church. It was a “shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.”

The yearly, monthly, weekly, pattern in Colossians proves it was the weekly Sabbath

 

Yearly

Monthly

Weekly

1 Chronicles 23:31

feast days

new moons

Sabbath

2 Chronicles 2:4

appointed feasts

new moons

Sabbath

2 Chronicles 8:13

annual feasts

new moons

Sabbath

2 Chronicles 31:3

appointed feasts

new moon

Sabbath

Nehemiah 10:33

appointed feasts

new moon

Sabbath

Isaiah 1:13-14

appointed feasts

new moons

Sabbath

Ezekiel 45:17

appointed feasts

new moons

Sabbath

Ezekiel 46:1-11

appointed festivals

new moons

Sabbath

Hosea 2:11

appointed feasts

new moons

Sabbath

Galatians 4:10-11

seasons and years

months

days

Colossians 2:16-17

festivals

new moon

Sabbath

(English Standard Version)
  

“Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible”
“Used by permission. All rights reserved.”
ESV Text Edition: 2016

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