INTRODUCTION

As Pastor Sumpter pointed out last week, Israel’s calendar was part of her pedagogy. But Paul says that we are now full-grown sons (Galatians 4:1-7) and appears to associate observing days and seasons with reversion to childhood (Galatians 4:10-11; Colossians 2:16-17, 20-21). Is recognizing a church calendar an act of Judaizing?

THE TEXT

“Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily . . . .” (Colossians 2:8-23).

JUDAIZING

In Colossians, as in Galatians, Paul addresses the problem of Christians reverting to the old covenant patterns of life and worship. He reminds Gentile Christians tempted to seek circumcision that they are already circumcised in Christ (2:11-12). He warns about inappropriate adherence to the Jewish festival calendar (2:16). He warns them not to conform to the elementary commands about food and impurity (2:20-21). Jesus grants everything Judaism promised; and what isn’t in Christ was shadow anyway (2:17).

THE FULLNESS OF DEITY

The transition from old to new, Paul says, depends on the work of Jesus. Colossians includes some of the richest statements about the incarnation and work of Christ in the New Testament. Jesus is the “image of the invisible God,” the “firstborn of creation” (1:16). “Firstborn” doesn’t mean that Jesus is created or made, but that He fulfills the role of a firstborn, administering the Father’s things and carrying on the Father’s name; as firstborn, He has first place in everything (1:18). In Him dwells the “fullness” (1:19), and that fullness of God dwells in Him in a bodily form (2:9). He has come to reconcile everything in heaven and earth “through the blood of His cross” (1:20) and to be the “beginning, the firstborn from the dead” (1:18). Jesus’ work focuses on the law. The law is an indictment, and by His death Jesus removes the indictment and frees us from the law’s condemnation (2:13-15). Jesus’ death brings us, as Paul says elsewhere, from the ministry of condemnation and death into the ministry of righteousness and life (2 Corinthians 3:9).

DEATH AND FREEDOM

Jesus’ death is a liberating death, but it also means we have died to the “elementary principles” (2:20), the childhood ordinances of Israel. What does this mean about keeping a calendar? In Galatians 4:9-11, Paul seems to condemn keeping a calendar per se, but elsewhere his emphasis is on our freedom. Because Jesus delivered us from the indictment of the law, we are not to judge, or let ourselves be judged, by adherence to festivals, new moons, or Sabbaths (2:16). In Romans 14:5-6, whether or not we observe days and dietary laws is left to our own conscience. In all these passages, Paul has specifically Jewish regulations in view. Christians of the first century are not to identify the boundaries of the people of God by circumcision, food laws, or Sabbath-keeping. The same principle applies to us. Observing a calendar is a matter of freedom. Some Christians observe Advent, Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. Others don’t. And that’s just fine. We are not to let food or days or seasons become occasions for strife or division.