"THE HANDWRITING OF ORDINANCES."
By George Ide Butler
ANY attempt to show that the law of God was abolished must inevitably result in confusion. So people who would fain believe that the law is not binding upon them are wont to cite Col. 2:14 in defense of their position, in utter disregard of other scriptures that make the subject plain. We quote the text with its context: "And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses; blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross; and having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it. 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. 2:13-17. That which was nailed to the cross was the Levitical law. It is the same "law of commandments contained in ordinances" that is mentioned in Eph. 2:15, 16, called "the enmity," which Christ "abolished in His flesh." Now Christ overcame sin in the flesh; therefore, sin being "the transgression of the law" (1 John 3:4), He vindicated the law in His flesh, instead of abolishing it, even paying its penalty on the cross for all who accept Him as a substitute. Thus it is that by faith "we establish the law" (Rom. 3:31), and its righteousness is "fulfilled in us" (chapter 8:4) instead of being abolished. So it can not be the moral law of God that is "against us;" it being emphatically for us, if we "walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." The "sabbath days" mentioned in Colossians are connected with other ceremonials, and therefore do not include the weekly Sabbath, which was established before sin entered the world, and could not have been typical. Those ceremonial sabbaths are mentioned in Leviticus 23. Everything typical was "nailed to the cross," as such things no longer had any significance. The Antitype, to which they pointed, and which they foreshadowed, had come, and they could be of no further use. They stood for sin, the "yoke of bondage," and had themselves become a yoke of bondage, and "against" the people, because they trusted in them for righteousness; but Paul still testified of the moral law that it is "holy, and just, and good," by which we have a knowledge of what sin is. See Rom. 3:20; 7:7, 12. Of the typical services, including the mere ceremonial sabbaths, the Lord said to Moses, "Ye shall proclaim," etc. But the moral law was proclaimed, or rather repeated, by the Lord's own voice, and written in stone by His own hand. The weekly Sabbath is distinguished from the ceremonial sabbaths in Lev. 23:37-39. Here the latter are noted, "beside the Sabbaths of the Lord." Therefore it is clear that the sabbaths which ceased when the "handwriting of ordinances" was blotted out, were the ceremonial sabbaths. That this view did not originate with Seventh-day Adventists is shown by the comments of men whose expositions are recognized in all Protestant circles. First, we will quote from Dr. Adam Clarke: The apostle speaks here in reference to some particulars of the handwriting of ordinances, which had been taken away, viz., the distinction of meats and drinks, what was clean and what was unclean, according to the law; and the necessity of observing certain holy days or festivals, such as the new moons and particular sabbaths, or those which should be observed with more than ordinary solemnity. . . . There is no intimation here that the Sabbath was done away, or that its moral use was suspended, by the introduction of Christianity. I have shown elsewhere that, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy," is a command of perpetual obligation. On the same point, we quote from Dr. Albert Barnes, as follows: There is no evidence, from this passage, that he [the apostle] would teach that there was no obligation to observe any holy time, for there is not the slightest reason to believe that he meant to declare that one of the Ten Commandments had ceased to be binding on mankind. If he had used the word in the singular number—"the Sabbath"—it would then, of course, have been clear that he meant to affirm that that commandment ceased to be binding, and that a Sabbath was no longer to be observed. But the use of the term in the plural number, and the connection, show that he had his eye on the great number of days which were observed by the Hebrews as festivals, as a part of their ceremonial and typical law, and not on the moral law, or the Ten Commandments. No part of the moral law, no one of the Ten Commandments, could be spoken of as "a shadow of things to come." These commandments are, from the nature of moral law, of perpetual and universal obligation.