A shadow of things to come

"A shadow of things to come," is to many another proof that the holy days are in the past, have been fulfilled, and are no longer important to the believer, that, in fact, observing them is rejecting Christ.

Let's look at Colossians 2:17 more closely.

16. Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day.

17. Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.

Have you considered the present tense of the word are? The verse doesn't say were, meaning in the past, over and done with, though some recent Bibles have been translated that way. Are instead of were, shows Paul's understanding that the holydays, new moons, and sabbaths, are not in the past. They are still looking forward to a future fulfillment.

Many of those who observe Sunday as their weekly holy day, instead of the seventh-day Sabbath, say that the Sabbath is only a memorial of creation. Even Sabbath-keepers make that point, that they are keeping the Sabbath as a memorial of God's creation. Even the Sabbath, in this point of view, is a shadow looking backwards!

These same Christians will likely say that observing a feast, Passover, for example, is turning our back on Christ, because Passover has been fulfilled through Christ's sacrifice. They will observe the Last Supper/Communion service, which is the Christian Passover memorial, but to do it on Passover or to call it Passover instead of Easter, that strikes them as outright unChristian!

My studies have shown me that the feasts are absolutely Christian. They are God's timeline of His plan of salvation. a picture of the Gospel of the kingdom. We can celebrate what He has done for us for eternity!

The Feast Days have future fulfillment. Passover and Unleavened Bread shows how God's people are freed from sin and death. Pentecost shows a future, more complete, understanding of God's law and the Latter Rain of the Spirit. Trumpets depicts the warning, gathering-in message, going to all the world. The Day of Atonement has no past fulfillment, only future, and Tabernacles point forward to when we will all gather together to live with our Saviour. Observing the feasts, which have never been abolished in Scripture, is a deeper, closer understanding of the truth and love that Jesus has for us.

Some will want to separate the Sabbath from the rest of the feasts. Let's look at the weekly Sabbath. Not only is it a memorial of creation, a sign between God and His people and listed with the other feast days in Leviticus 23, but it is also forward-looking, pointing to the rest we have in Jesus.

There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Hebrews 4:9,10

This verse shows how the Sabbath rest is an object lesson of the rest we are in because of the work Christ has done for us. The Sabbath-rest remains as a celebration and object lesson throughout eternity.

From one New Moon to another and from one Sabbath to another, all mankind will come and bow down before me," says the LORD. Isaiah 66:23

Christ said he did not come to destroy the law but to fulfill it. If fulfilling means abolishing, it is the same as destroying, exactly what He said He did NOT do!

Feast days after the cross

For Seventh-day Adventists, a leading theologian's conclusion about the feast days:

A fourth surprise was to discover that I was wrong in assuming that the annual Feasts came to an end with the sacrifice of Christ, simply because they were connected with the sacrificial system of the Temple. I came to realize that the continuity or discontinuity of the Feasts is determined not by their connection with the sacrificial system, but by the scope of their typology. If the Feasts had typified only the redemptive accomplishments of Christ's first Advent, then obviously their function would have terminated at the Cross. But, if the Feasts foreshadow also the consummation of redemption to be accomplished by Christ at His second Advent, then their function continues in the Christian church, though with a new meaning and manner of observance. 

God's Festivals in Scripture and History, Volume I: The Spring Festivals, from the chapter, "Preview of the Book," by Dr. Samuele Bacchiocchi