Richard wrote:
Certainly, holidays such as Easter and Christmas can remind one today of God's provision for man in sending His Son and showing Christ to be authentic. This passage is written to the early believers and/or Jewish people who may use the observance of certain so-called "holy days" as a means of justification and sustaining righteousness."
Dear Richard,
God Bless you, and thank you for writing. In the Book of Colossians, there are a couple of warnings we should be concerned about. Let's look at one:
Colossians 2:8
Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit,
after the tradition of men,
after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
Here, the Apostle Paul tells us to beware of men's philosophies and hollow lies that seem to be closely linked with men's traditions. After reminding us that we are complete in Christ, he goes on to warn us again about other traditions:
Colossians. 2:16-17
Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink,
or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:
which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.
Hear Paul informs us that these traditions, rites, and holidays are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ, Who is The Substance. The same could be said about the early believers because all the rites, feasts, sacrifices, and holy days showed the people in a shadow, The Truth of The Coming One, Who would die to take away the sin of the world. If we take a closer look at the word used for Shadow, we will gain a greater understanding of the Apostle's warning. This applies to an even greater magnitude today than for the early believers in that they had a better understanding of the meaning of the shadows than the modern traditional ones made by men (like Christmas and Easter), not God. We hope the following teaching helps.
Shadow
Shadow is the English translation of the Greek word skia, that occurs seven times in the NT.
Matt. 4:16
The region and shadow of death.
Mark 4:32
Lodge under the shadow of it.
Luke 1:79
In the shadow of death.
Acts 5:15
The shadow of Peter passing by.
Col. 2:17
Which are a shadow of things to come.
Heb. 8:5
Example and shadow of heavenly things.
Heb. 10:1
The law having a shadow of good things to come.
- Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: which are a shadow of things to come; but the Body is of Christ (Col. 2:16-17).
While the Epistle to the Hebrews does not teach The Truth of The Mystery, it does lead the believer on from the rudiments of the faith to the reality found only in Christ and speaks of the observances imposed under The Law, as shadows of heavenly things and of good things to come. If this is God's will for Hebrews, who had been under The Law, how much more must it be so for Gentile members of The Body of Christ, who were never under The Law? While Colossians 2:17 contrasts the shadow with the body, there is no explicit reference to the title of The One Body here, as meaning The Church of that name. Shadow and body here are placed over against one another, for example, pattern and image, and are placed over against shadow in Hebrews. The reason for the altered term may be discovered in the nature of the things compared. In Hebrews, there is a fulfillment of what had been reported and outlined in The Law, but in Colossians, we have already been told that The Mystery had been hidden from ages and generations (Col. 1:26) and had formed no part of the typical teaching of Moses. It is a happy coincidence that the body can be used both of the opposites of shadow and of the new constitution of The Church. Dean Alford, a member of the Church of England, wrote:
- We may observe that if the ordinance of the Sabbath had been, in any form, of lasting obligation on the Christian Church, it would have been quite impossible for the Apostle to have spoken thus. The fact of an obligatory rest of one day, whether the seventh or the first (our italics), would have been directly in the teeth of his assertion here.
Much has been written by zealous teachers that would put the believer into bondage and exalt mere self-denial into a positive grace. Colossians 2 warns against the mere neglecting of the body (Col. 2:23). While much emphasis is laid upon the observance of The Lord's Day as a Sabbath, one seldom comes across a positive exposition of the words, The Living God, Who giveth us richly all things to enjoy. We are complete in Him; let us not in any sense step down from our high calling. Of the Galatians, Paul wrote I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain -- and that because they had turned again to weak and beggarly elements, and observed days, and months, and times, and years (Gal. 4:9-11). The only religion ever given by God was done away at the cross. We have something infinitely greater than religion; we have the substance as opposed to the shadow of the body, which is Christ.
So what about Christmas and Easter? We don't celebrate them for they are tradition, not Truth, but we celebrate the day December 25 because we know through researching the Scriptures that our Savior was conceived on that day. His birthday was September 29th, 4 BC. Why is the day He was conceived celebrated? Because it is that day, Mary believed God, and that day began The Coming of our Lord to earth as All God and all Man.
John 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, (December 25) and dwelt among us, (September 29th 4 BC) (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
As for Easter, well, we call it Resurrection Day. The Traditional holiday is terrible and is the worship of a fertility goddess, who came to earth in a giant egg out of the river Euphrates whose name is Eostre, which became Easter. It is a disgrace that Christians call the day our Lord became The First Fruits of all who sleep in death. He is the First in all things, the new Head of the Human Race, the Second Adam, Lord of all.
All God's Blessings,
The Believers
