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God commanded Israel to keep His 'feasts of the LORD.' What is their relevance for Christians - and mankind - today?
by Roger Foster
ew Testament Church.
Old Testament Holy Days. Incompatible? Absolutely not!
Why? How can festivals observed by ancient Israel be valuable to Christians today?
Simple! They reveal God's master plan of salvation.
The Holy Days unveil for us the crucial keys to salvation. They give us a step-by-step explanation of how God plans to reconcile all human beings to Himself. They reveal the big picture - the spiritual harvest of the whole world. They give vivid meaning to the gospel of the kingdom of God. Their value to the Church of the living God is incalculable!
How can we be sure that the Holy Days reveal God's plan of salvation for all mankind? After all, millions don't understand, or they simply disagree. How can we be certain that we are right? The key is in Paul's letter to the Colossians. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, speaks about these Holy Days to a Christian church. What he says-and does not say-carries immense weight. Let's examine what Paul says and understand what he means.
He says, "So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ" (Colossians 2:16,17).
This passage, probably more than any other in the Bible, is interpreted by those who reject God's festivals as confirmation that the Holy Days are unnecessary observances for Christians. Their reasoning is not only false; it is based on poor scholarship. Paul, while countering a local heresy, pinpoints the real value of these Holy Days to Christians. They foreshadow "things to come," he says. They focus our attention on the future. They connect the plan of God directly to the commission Christ gave His Church.
Now let's examine what Paul really says about Sabbaths, new moons and Holy Days.
Background to Colossians
First, we need some essential background to Paul's letter to the Colossians. Paul was combating heresy. False teachers had infiltrated the church there. These deceivers heavily influenced the Colossians. They introduced their own religious philosophy-a mixture of both Jewish and gentile concepts. Paul warned, "Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men . . ." (Colossians 2:8).
Human traditions - the inventions of the human mind - were the foundation of the Colossian heresy. This human reasoning and teaching are what Paul opposed, not revealed instruction from God's Word. Earlier, Jesus had soundly condemned the Pharisees for the same thing. They had elevated their own traditions to greater importance than God's commandments (Mark 7:8,9,13).
Tradition played an extremely important role in the life of the Jews at that time. The Greeks had a long history of astrological traditions that related planets and stars to deities. Human tradition was beginning to subvert the Church of God in Colosse.
Paul fought to keep the Colossians focused on Christ as the Head of the Church. These false teachers sought to persuade them to worship angels (Colossians 2:18) to the neglect of their own bodies (verse 23). None of these distorted ideas came from the Old Testament Scriptures.
Paul characterized this Colossian heresy as "empty deceit" and "the basic principles of the world" (verse 8). It was more than just another harmless local tradition. It was an intolerable deception designed to change the very focus of their worship. They were being persuaded to ignore plain biblical instruction in favor of "the tradition(s) of men" (verse 8). Some elements of that deceptive philosophy survive in Christianity to this day.
Man-made regulations
How does Paul characterize these basic principles of the world? "Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations (?) ..." What regulations? "Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle, ... according to the commandments and doctrines of men" (verses 20-22). These man-made regulations concerned things "which perish with the using" (verse 22). Paul is discussing physical things-perishable items!
Why is this important?
The Colossian deceivers were among the forerunners of gnosticism, a major religious movement that flourished in the second century. Gnosticism gets its name from the Greek word gnosis, meaning "knowledge." Gnostics believed that higher, secret knowledge available only to its adherents was necessary for salvation.
The gnostic teachers influencing the Colossians blended both traditional and nontraditional Jewish beliefs with pagan superstitions and integrated their astrological beliefs with the worship of angelic beings. In no way did this mixture of beliefs represent the mainstream Judaism of that day. Theirs was an aberrant sectarian philosophy nowhere taught in Old Testament Scripture.
What were their main beliefs?
They believed that salvation could be achieved by constant contemplation of "spiritual" things, to the neglect of the physical body. They believed in various orders of angels and that humans should interact directly with angels. They regarded physical things, including the human body, as decadent and unworthy of their time and concern.
Paul explicitly states that the judgmental attitudes he was countering "all concern things which perish with the using (obviously referring to physical things) - according to the commandments and doctrines of men" (verse 22). How clear! Paul plainly says that he is countering the commandments and doctrines of men, not the commandments of God.
Why can't people believe him?
The Colossian heretics created their own prohibitive regulations - "do not touch, do not taste, do not handle" (verse 21) - against the enjoyment of physical things. They were especially critical of the eating and drinking aspects of the Holy Day festivals observed by the Colossian members. That was not compatible with their idea of being "spiritual."
Their objections covered all feasting aspects of the Holy Days, but apparently not the observance of Holy Days as religious festivals. They regarded the observance of a Holy Day as spiritual, but feasting-eating and drinking for enjoyment-was beneath them.
Now we can understand what Paul really says to the Colossians. He is discussing judging-the critical objections of some narrow-minded heretics to the enjoyment of physical things. He commands the Colossians not to be influenced by the false teachers' objections to eating, drinking and rejoicing on Sabbaths, Holy Days and new moons.
Criticized for feasting
"So let no one judge you in food or in drink (literally "in eating and in drinking" in the original), or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ" (verses 16,17). The word regarding is translated from the Greek noun meros, meaning a "part" or "portion" of something. A more accurate rendering would be: "Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in any part of a Holy Day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days ..."
Paul is just being consistent. Eating or drinking is a part of Sabbath and Holy Day observance. Both were a part of God's instructions for rejoicing in observing those days (Leviticus 23, Deuteronomy 14:22-26).
In writing to the Colossians, Paul uses the word meros ("part") to cover any other part or aspect of these days that the heretics might condemn or criticize. Nothing in this passage even suggests that the Sabbaths or Holy Days were abolished. Succumbing to the judgmental influence of those early gnostic heretics is what Paul condemns, not the observance of Sabbaths and Holy Days.
Future fulfillment
Now back to the main purpose of the Holy Days for us today. Paul says they "are a shadow of things to come." The phrase to come is a present active participle in the Greek. It means "things coming," referring to the future, not the past. Any theologian who claims that Paul is referring to the Holy Days as a shadow of things in the past is not being honest with the Greek grammar. The Greek requires it to point to the future.
The Sabbath and the Holy Days foreshadow things to come - future events. There is no doubt about what Paul is saying. The Holy Days still represent future events in the plan of salvation.
God's Holy Days are also times for joy and celebration. He commands us to attend and rejoice with our entire family. "But you shall seek the place where the Lord your God chooses . . . and there you shall go. There you shall take . . . your tithes, . . . your freewill offerings, . . . and there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice in all to which you have put your hand, you and your households, in which the Lord your God has blessed you" (Deuteronomy 12:5-7).
God's festivals were designed to be a wonderful blessing! He desires that we thoroughly delight in them. He wants us to experience together the joy of being His children. No wonder Paul attacks the misguided philosophy of the Colossian heretics with such vigor. They sabotaged the very spirit of God's festivals. Paul defended the Christians' right to feast on these feast days.
The Sabbath and Holy Days are also called memorials. Their purpose is to make us aware of God's plan, both past and future. The Sabbath is a memorial of creation (Exodus 20:11). It also is a type of the rest that is to come (Hebrews 4:4-11).
Some aspects of God's master plan have already been fulfilled. The Holy Days represent them as memorials. The Feast of Trumpets portrays what is still future, yet it also is called a memorial (Leviticus 23:23,24). Memorials make us remember all the plan of God. We keep them so we will never forget any major part of God's master plan of salvation.
Majority of mankind blinded
Why do so few understand God's Holy Days today? They have been taught to reject them.
Satan hates God's plan. He wants to destroy every vestige of that plan, eradicating all knowledge of it. He is still "the god of this age" (2Corinthians 4:4). He "deceives the whole world" (Revelation 12:9), blinding the vast majority of mankind to the importance of God's ways, including the Holy Days.
No religion has maintained an accurate understanding of God's plan without the Holy Days. Some discern important details of that plan correctly. But, without an understanding of God's master plan as revealed by the Holy Days, they simply can't put all the pieces together. Confusion has been the result.
We should deeply appreciate the understanding these Holy Days give to us. And we should thank God that these days also picture the future, when all mankind will understand God's great master plan. Those who are now blinded are just as much a part of that plan of salvation as we are. Only the timing is different.
We must remember that people who are spiritually blinded are often very sincere, and we should never be judgmental toward them. Some have deep convictions and follow many right principles. They may not yet see the big picture or fully grasp the awesome plan of God, but the time is coming when they will.
We need to appreciate the magnitude of the plan of salvation pictured by God's Holy Days. Our individual calling is important, but God is working out a much bigger purpose than just our personal salvation.
Christ died for all mankind
"For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: `The Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; for this is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins'" (Romans 11:25-27).
However, God shows no favoritism (Romans 2:11). Christ died so all may be saved! All mankind must yet learn the truth and come to repentance. We continue to have an important part in that process. "Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men . . . For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1Timothy 2:1-4).
Also, "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise . . . but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance" (2Peter 3:9).
Spread to the entire world
The wonderful truths we are learning now will be spread to the entire world. "And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, on them there will be no rain. If the family of Egypt will not come up and enter in, they shall have no rain; they shall receive the plague with which the Lord strikes the nations who do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. This shall be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles" (Zechariah 14:16-19).
There are no shortcuts. All peoples must be brought to real repentance before they will be saved. God's Holy Days will continue revealing the plan of God to mankind until His plan is complete. These days will always play a major role in bringing the whole world to repentance.
The apostle Paul wrote, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world ... having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth ..." (Ephesians 1:3,4,9,10).
What a wonderful plan! What a wonderful God! GN
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Keywords: festivals holydays
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