Wednesday: Shadow or Substance?
Daily Lesson for Wednesday 4th of March 2026
Read Colossians 2:16-19. What Jewish-Christian practices are highlighted here by Paul?
To this day, scholars do not agree on exactly what the issues were that Paul was addressing here. What we can be sure of is that Paul’s epistle itself provides quite a bit of information on what seems to have been a Jewish-Christian divisive influence on this predominantly Gentile church (Colossians 2:13). That is, the Jewish believers were pushing things that were not necessary for the members to follow.
Image © Review & Herald Publishing from GoodSalt.com
Clearly, Colossians 2:16 lists a number of regular Jewish practices that were apparently continued among some Jewish converts to Christianity. But even the elements in Colossians 2:18 fit the same context. Jesus criticized pretensions to humility among the religious leaders (for example, Matthew 6:1,5,7,16). From the scrolls of Qumran, we learn that angels featured prominently in some Jewish conceptions of worship. So, the problems that Paul was confronting in Colossae were most likely similar to those he confronted elsewhere.
Since Colossians 2:16 is so often misunderstood, it is important to consider it in greater detail. Notice these points:
Paul’s use of “therefore” (ESV) signals that this is a conclusion drawn from what he has already said. Previously, the need for literal circumcision was dismissed because it is the inward change of the heart that matters (Colossians 2:11-15).
“Food and drink” refer to the meal and drink offerings that the Israelites brought to the temple.
The specification of “a festival or a new moon or sabbaths” (Colossians 2:16, NKJV) apparently alludes to Hosea 2:11, where the same sequence of ceremonial days are referred to, which includes ceremonial sabbaths (see, for example, Leviticus 23:11,24,32).
Crucial to our understanding of this verse is Paul’s own interpretation: that these “are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ” (Colossians 2:17, NKJV). These ceremonial days, like the sacrifices, pointed to the work of Christ (see 1 Corinthians 5:7, 1 Corinthians 15:23). The seventh-day Sabbath, in contrast, was instituted in Eden, before sin, and long before the ceremonial sacrifices of the sanctuary were adopted; therefore, it was not a shadow to be done away with after the Cross.
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Although the seventh-day Sabbath is not at issue here, how might you apply Paul’s counsel about not passing judgment on others? |
One of the issues in the early Christian Church was just how much Judaism should be retained. The idea that Gentiles could be saved too was a very big step. And initially there was a very big push for Christian converts to become Jews. In the Jewish mind there was not a lot of distinction between cultural things and spiritual things. I mention this because from our viewpoint 2 millennia later we often overlook this.
The big issue that came to the surface initially was circumcision. Typically, a male convert to Judaism had to be circumcised and there was a fair bit of resistance to this as you can probably guess. For one thing, without anaesthetic in hurts. This issue came to a head in the first council in Jerusalem. The council decided that the Gentiles did not have to be circumcised, but, as is typical of a lot of church decisions, there were some who did not accept this and campaigned loudly and often that the church had got it wrong.
There is evidence not only in Acts but in Paul’s epistles also, that the debate did not go away. Obviously dissent on this circumcision issue was a distraction from the Gospel of grace and Paul says so on a number of occasions, such as in today’s lesson.
The other big issue is that people started to overthink the Gospel and made it complicated with new theories about the nature of the Godhead, and Jesus in particular. We see the beginnings of Gnosticism and Arianism alluded to in Paul’s letter to the Colossians. The simple Gospel was being ambushed from both sides. The fact that by the end of the second century, The Church was dealing with major heresy should come as no surprise.
Paul’s message to the Colossians, was “Keep it simple!”
We Seventh-day Adventists have a quite complicated apologetic for our Christianity, and I often hear the argument that we are baptising people to early and they need to understand more before they are baptised. There are 27 (I think) fundamentals and some of them are quite complicated. It was much easier when I was baptised as a teenager as there were only 13 fundamentals back then. I want to ask the question: In all of this fundamental stuff, have we lost sight of the relationship with Jesus bit. It is easy to get bogged down in definitions and forget about the relationship thing.
A few years ago on one of my bird photography expeditions I visited a church where Sabbath School consisted primarily of reading the Fundamentals. The Church service comprised readings from the Testimonies. The warmth of relationships was absent. Someone did ask me where my home church was and when I told them, I received a frosty description that maybe it was an apostate church.
We need to ensure that our churches reflect the love of Jesus by the way we interact with one another. When we care for each another, the rest falls into place. Paul warned the Colossians about heresies and Judaism, but he commended them for their love for one another. When we read Colossians, we find it is a remarkably pastoral letter. Maybe that is the model we should be following.
Your experience while visiting another church is very unfortunate and this “stuff” happens. However, You seem to downplay the churches fundamental teachings as though they are a burden. A couple of weeks ago on SS Net someone wrote, “for every mile of road, there are two miles of ditch.” The devil wants us to believe that the teachings of the Bible (doctrine) are not important or let’s be legalistic about them. He doesn’t care which ditch we are in. Can we not stay in the middle of the road and have a relationship with Jesus and uphold all the teachings because of our relationship and love for Him.
I love this Church filled with a few legalistic brothers and sisters. With all our problems this ship will make it to the harbor.
By the way there are 28 Fundamental Beliefs.
The big issue for me is that some of us discuss doctrine in detail but ignore the pastoral care side. I am reminded that during Jesus ministry he did not talk about doctrine all that much, His was a ministry of pastoral care. Back on the farm the cows lived in a paddock. Provided we ensured the paddock was rich in grass and clover, they did not seem to worry about the barbed wire fence. A good farmer knows the importance of good pasture. An important contributing factor to most of the ex-Adventists I know has been the lack of pastoral care.
I love our church too, but I want to make sure the people are still in the boat when it reached the harbour.
Hi Maurice et al. I am struggling right now with what our attire should look like during Sabbath services. I live in a part of the world where there is a laissez-faire attitude about the dress code in church. I don’t want to adopt a rules-oriented, pharasaical stance because I firmly believe that the church doors are open to all. However, when people don loungewear to church but then dress to the nines for weddings, job interviews, etc. it makes me wonder if we are missing the importance of what it means to come properly attired to the house of God. I am praying for better understanding on this. Any thoughts or insights would be most welcome because I am struggling to find peace in church when parishioners come dressed for a picnic – but not how I would expect to commune with the Creator of the universe.
I grew up in a church where suits and ties for men and hats and gloves for women were the gold standard. Today I go to a church where we all dress much more casually. I do not own a suit and I have one tie. (A New Zealand “All Black” tie – which needless to say I don’t wear to church) Last week a teenager sat next to me in T-shirt and Jeans, with flip-flops on his feet. I was glad he was there. He does not come all that often. I made him feel welcome and I am sure that others did too. I want him to come back again and again and experience the pastoral love and care that I know our church can give.
Insightful as always. But a few additional points. Would you be less welcoming to a kid wearing jeans and flip flops if you were in a suit? My impression would be no. In fact, my hope is that we can set a good example of decorum. Clothes don’t make the person but they do set a tone. Would you encourage the kid at church to go to a job interview wearing those same jeans and flip flops? He would probably not be hired if he looked that way. Finally, where do you wear that All Blacks tie? Now would be a good time to be wearing it with the team doing so well in the World Cup – even to church! God bless.
I was raised to dress up for church and I still do. I could get away with being more casual, but I feel God deserves my best and certainly not less than an interview, wedding etc.
That being said, our world has changed drastically. People are much less dressy today. In the school where I am teaching, people wear anything. I look a bit funny dressed up, but I feel as a professional I should look the part.
Anyway, what I’m saying is that a lot of younger people don’t see dressing up the same way. They don’t come from the same perspective. And the world is much the same.
I still think all things being equal, it’s better to dress up. We can probably find scriptural support (but there is also scriptural support against people who dress for show). But no matter what, it’s not a major issue and one we should be gracious about. I would probably leave it alone and not speak about it unless someone asks your opinion. Then you can share it graciously. Beyond that, telling people what they should do rarely works. If it’s something that concerns you, pray over it and trust God will work on hearts.
Pritham: You raise some interesting questions..!! There is a strong movement in the SDA Church to “deconstruct” Adventism, (getting rid of the old ways). Setting the tone and leading by example, as you pointed out, is I believe a loving way to encourage reverence in the Sabbath worship service.
Even hoodie wearing John Fetterman wore a suit and tie at President Trump’s State of the Union address out of respect for the office!
I wear my best clothes to church. My best clothes are unfaded black jeans and a couple of nice collared shirts, only one of which I bought new . If I went to a formal secular function that’s what I would wear. I never wear ties , I see them as just another arbitrary tradition. In any case , I was born with a curved spine so wearing a suit and tie is uncomfortable and looks silly on me.
I do think a person should make an effort to look their best at church and if their best is ripped jeans, teeshirt and flops then that’s no problem at all.
Good question. I’m glad that my wife, who was born and raised in the SDA faith, keeps checking on my attire every Sabbath. Sometimes I insist on wearing what I like because I believe I look good in it, even if she disagrees. But her usual response is, “When you go to the mall or to work, you dress handsome. Now that you’re having a special date with Jesus, why can’t you wear something fitting for that?” Ultimately, I respect her perspective—her will is done. By the way, I was just baptized last August 2025.
Our church body as a whole has begun to go in so many different aspects of our own logic and human ideas and actions that have went far beyond own basic foundation of what the pioneers of the faith began. Along with leaving out what the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy tells us as God’s remnant church. Not sure if your church membership is at an apostate church or not, but we all are seeing that if you’re not in one, they’re definitely not hard to find. May The Lord Jesus be with us all as we’re in these end times.
Keisha, it is easy to find apostate churches by looking around, but that is not what we should focus on. we must keep our eyes on Jesus.
When I go photographing birds with other people and I find the bird we are looking for and others want to see it. I don’t tell them they are looking in the wrong place. I look at the bird with my long telephoto lens and say look where I am looking!
If we are looking in the right place, we can be bold and tell others to look there too.
We are taught from childhood to think about possibilities rather than limitations. In fact, we are encouraged to believe that we can achieve anything we set our minds to. This statement prioritizes hard work, focus, and determination, which are obviously good things. But the honest truth is that in life there are things we have not accomplished, there are things we have failed to do, there are things we have not succeed to do as we hoped thus Failure is real.
The Bible tells us about our greatest limitation. It teaches that though we try our hardest, though we do our best, though we work day and night for years, we will never overcome our sins on our own. It is possible to overcome relationship problems. We can overcome physical problems. We can overcome learning difficulties. But when it comes to the problem of sin, we are powerless. As much as this fact drives some people insane—because they want to earn salvation by what they do—sin is like a shadow that, even if we spend our entire lives running from it, we cannot escape.
Because of this condition, more often than not our hearts settle for the shadow of good things instead of the substance—the very substance —Christ (Colossians 2:16–17). The Bible teaches that these things were only a shadow of what was to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Yet we tend to substitute rules and regulations for a real relationship. We focus on rituals,the shadows and miss the One who rescued us, Jesus Christ, who is the substance and fulfillment of them all. It is Christ that makes is able to overcome what we could not do, it I’d Christ who! Is the real deal and not our efforts.
Seeing the faults in others is easier than seeing it in ourselves. This attitude makes us judgmental of others. The most important things we need to get busy at are:
1 Fearing God and keeping His commandments
2 Loving our neighbors as yourselves.
After Christ died on the Cross it was not necessary to continue the ceremonial laws that pointed to Christ providing the way for us to be saved. So the ceremonial sabbaths that were instituted by God, were no longer needed. They did not always fall on the Seventh-day Sabbath. The Bible calls them sabbaths, yet they only pointed towards Christ death thus taking on our sins, thus they are the shadow of things to come, just as the sacrifice of the lamb on the alter was a shadow of Christ as the Lamb of God. Paul points out these were no longer necessary. The observance of the Seventh-day Sabbath points back to creation, not forward to Christ, another salient point.
I am cognizant of the fact that I have to prayerfully consider Colossians 2:16-17 even further before I attempt to make a statement anywhere close to comprehensive. One thing that definitely stands out clearly to me : is its challenge as to how some of us Seventh-Day Adventist view other Christians. I am convinced that one reason that we would get a new heart when we get to heaven, is when we realize who is in heaven with us; had it not been for that new heart, we would have experienced a heart-attack.
Colossians 2:16–17 does not abolish the weekly Sabbath. Paul was addressing false teachers imposing ceremonial rules and festival sabbaths, calling them “a shadow of things to come.” The weekly Sabbath was established at Creation (Genesis 2:2–3), made for all humanity (Mark 2:27), and pointed to God’s gift of rest in Christ.
The verse frees believers from ritualistic, legalistic practices, not from God’s moral law. Paul consistently upholds the law as holy and good (Romans 7:12), and Jesus affirmed the Sabbath’s importance, even warning His disciples to pray their flight not be on the Sabbath (Matthew 24:20).
Bottom line: Colossians 2 is about ceremonial shadows, not the Fourth Commandment. The Sabbath remains a lasting, God-given sign of His covenant and rest for all people.
The gospel is still simple, beautiful, and available to anyone who accepts Jesus by faith in His atoning sacrifice. Thank God that they took responsibility for sin and we as sinners saved by grace, are the ones benefitting. For we are complete in Him Jesus Christ the Righteous.
Hello Wendy! Just a point of clarification on your remark. God doesn’t take responsibility for sin. That belongs solely on the devil. God is in no way responsible for the existence of sin. However, Jesus did pay the penalty for our sin, thus freeing us from it when we believe in the gospel. His Righteousness becomes our righteousness, and yes, it is all by grace freely given to those who will receive it. Indeed, in Christ alone are we complete and accounted righteous.
To me, the best part of the church is this space here, where studies meet reality. Perhaps the worst is that some people may think those in church are better than others, surrounded by a small world; that’s the opposite of what Christ taught: “consider yourselves lower!”
Wouldn’t it have been better if, in the painting chosen for this day’s lesson, the Sabbath would have been pointing to Jesus rather than Jesus pointing to the Sabbath? (This is not a criticism of the person choosing the artwork. They do a much better job than I could do.)
I kind of see it both ways. Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath (Matt. 12:8; Mark 2:28; Luke 6:5). Yet, the Sabbath points back to Jesus as the Creator (John 1). Creation was completed in 6 days, yet Jesus created a seventh day, not to rest because He was weary or tired from the work of creation, but as a memorial of creation. A weekly reminder that we aren’t glorified pond scum, or descendants of apes. No we were fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God. The Sabbath reminds us of that reality.
The Sabbath does remind us that we are created in the image of God. It also reminds us (as in Deuteronomy) that God is our savior. It points both backwards and forwards. But it is pointing to God. God is the focus, and He invites us to join Him in celebrating His creative and saving activities. I fear that sometimes our focus is on the day rather than the Lord of the day. How often do the mission stories in our Sabbath School lessons celebrate a person’s acceptance of the seventh-day Sabbath with no mention of their acceptance of Jesus as their loving creator and savior?
Can anyone explain this chapter more briefly please
Hi Marcus, I will reply to your question the same way I reply to students who come to me with a maths problem and the question, I don’t understand any of this!
Tell me in your own words what you think this chapter is saying. (I suggest that you read a modern paraphrase like “The Message” first.) Then tell us what you do not understand.
There is nothing more frustrating than embarking on a journey with confidence, only to discover—long after you have passed the halfway point—that you were headed in the wrong direction, and that all your strength and resources have been exhausted. Such is the experience of many who attempt to walk the path of faith in their own power.
New converts and our children who are stepping into adulthood must be taught this vital truth: while we cherish all the commandments of God and seek to uphold His holy principles, without Jesus Christ, all our efforts are in vain. How painful it is to find oneself sinking in a deep pit of miry clay, having trusted in self rather than in the Lord, forgetting the counsel of Scripture: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart” (Prov. 3:5).
Yet, praise be to God, who is rich and abundant in mercy! He never ceases to call us, even when pride and arrogance have led us astray. May the Lord help us lay aside old, lifeless traditions and teaching methods that turn sweet worship into a heavy burden. Instead, may He lead us back to Christ-centered faith, where obedience flows from love and worship becomes a joy rather than a duty.
Human judgment is far different from the Lord’s. God knows the heart, thus he knows everyone’s intimate motivations. No human can do that.