The historic position of the Seventh-day Adventist Church on Colossians 2:16 is `that the "sabbath days" mentioned in this verse are festival sabbaths prescribed by the laws of Moses (Lev 23:32, 37-39), not the seventh-day Sabbath of the fourth commandment of the Decalogue. Individuals here and there have recognized that the arguments used to support this position are not coercive, but the position has seldom been challenged. A review of church publications reveals that writers have set forth and defended the historic view using one or more of the following four arguments.
      1. The Colossian believers, being confused by a heresy that sought to impose on them various requirements of the Jewish ceremonial law, needed to distinguish between the moral and ceremonial aspects of the Torah, or law. The heresy very likely included some pagan and Gnostic elements, but the heart of it, as at Galatia, seems to have been legalistic, Jewish ceremonialism. Logically, then Paul would have set forth the truth that to perform ceremonial rites as a means of salvation was not only futile but an implicit denial of the fact that Jesus was the Messiah, the One who, by fulfilling the types, made them meaningless. And, to help the Colossians identify the parts of the Torah that no longer were binding, he mentioned several rituals and festivals prescribed in the ceremonial law.
      2. The religious activities listed in verse 16 are similar in order and content to those mentioned elsewhere in the Scriptures where the sacrifices and festivals of the ceremonial law are set forth. For example, in Ezekiel 45:17 God says: "It shall be the prince's part to give burnt offerings, and meat offerings, and drink offerings, in the feasts, and in the new moons, and in the sabbaths, in all solemnities of the house of Israel." (See also 2 Chron 2:4; 8:13; Hosea 2:11.) Though some believe that the sabbaths mentioned in Ezekiel and other passages refer primarily to the seventh-day Sabbath, doubtless the ceremonial sabbaths also are included.
      3. Both the larger context and the immediate context strongly suggest that Paul was referring primarily to the festivals and ordinances of the ceremonial law. Throughout Colossians 1 and in the early part of chapter 2 Paul extols Christ as the Son of God, the Creator, the One who deserves worship and honor, the One who provides forgiveness and redemption, the One whom all should accept as Lord. He emphasizes one of his favorite themes-that to be "in Christ" is the summum bonum of religious experience. He sets forth Christ as the One who on the cross reconciled the world to God, the One who is Head of the church. Paul is determined to make clear that only that faith which focuses on Christ is of value. Neither thrones, dominions, principalities, nor powers (1:16 and 2:15) are to be feared or venerated, for they are under the authority of Christ, having been created by Him. Thus, while the immediate context of verse 16 speaks of the complete forgiveness offered by Christ to believers (verses 13, 14), the larger context, the main theme of Paul's message, is the greatness of Christ and the importance of being "in Him," adhering to His teachings and recognizing that circumcision and ceremonial meats, drinks, holy days, new moons, and sabbaths have no value for salvation.
      The key word in the passage, the word that argues strongly that the "sabbath days" of verse 16 are ceremonial sabbaths, is "shadow" (skia, as opposed to soma, body), a word used in a similar way in Hebrews 8:5 and 10:1. Paul says that the meat, drink, holy days, new moons, and sabbath days "are a shadow of things to come" (Col 2:17). A shadow has neither substance nor ultimate value. It is dependent for its existence on something substantial (the soma casts the skia). It ends when it reaches the reality. Thus "shadow" describes well the various elements of the ceremonial law, including the annual sabbaths, for they pointed forward to Christ's life, ministry, and kingdom as the reality. Paul can hardly be referring to the seventh-day Sabbath of the Decalogue, for the seventh-day Sabbath is not a shadow of anything, it is the reality. Further, although to some extent the Sabbath points forward to the promised rest in Christ (see Hebrews 4), it does not obtain its primary significance from "things to come" but from an event in the past-the creation of the world in six days (Gen 2:2, 3; Exod 20:8-11).[1]
      Adventists acknowledge that of the approximately sixty times the word sabbath is used in the New Testament, fifty-nine are references to the weekly Sabbath. But they hold that in Colossians 2 it means "ceremonial sabbath." They defend this view not on the basis of linguistics but on the basis of context. They argue that the number of times a word is used in a certain way does not determine its meaning in all situations. Context is decisive.
      The word frog, for example, has a wide variety of meanings. It may mean a small, leaping, tailless amphibian; it may mean a swollen, sore throat; it may mean the triangular horny pad in the middle of the sole of a horse's hoof; it may mean a device on one rail of a train track that can be switched to permit wheels to cross an intersecting rail. Clearly, to argue that because fifty-nine times the word means a four-legged creature it must mean the same in the statement "I have a frog in my throat" is nonsense. Meaning must always be decided by context.
      This principal is so obvious that it hardly needs elaboration; yet because some seek to show from Colossians 2 that the seventh-day Sabbath was abolished at the cross, we wish to add two further illustrations. The Hebrew word torah, for example, has many meanings, all of which must be determined by context. Sometimes torah refers to the Pentateuch, sometimes to the Ten Commandments, sometimes to the entire expressed will of God, sometimes to the instruction given by a king, a teacher, a mother, a father, wise people, a wise wife, or a poet.[2]
      Likewise, the word day may mean a twenty-four-hour period; or it may mean only the light part of the twenty-four-hour period; or it may mean an extended but indefinite period of time (for example, "The day in which we live is one of international tensions" or "The antitypical day of atonement began in 1844"). Clearly, even if the word day is used fifty-nine times to mean a twenty-four-hour period, this does not require that it mean twenty-four hours the sixtieth time it is used.
      While many commentators hold otherwise, several of the most respected Bible commentators have declared that Paul was referring to ceremonial sabbaths, not the seventh-day Sabbath, in Colossians 2:16. Adam Clarke, a Methodist, said: "There is no intimation here that the Sabbath was done away, or that its moral use was superseded, by the introduction of Christianity. . . . Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, is a command of perpetual obligation, and can never be superseded but by the final termination of time."[3]
      Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown noted that the annual sabbaths "of the day of atonement and feast of tabernacles have come to an end with the Jewish services to which they belonged (Lev 23:32, 37-39)," but "the weekly sabbath rests on a more permanent foundation, having been instituted in Paradise to commemorate the completion of creation in six days."[4]
      Albert Barnes, a Presbyterian, observed, "There is no evidence from this passage that he [Paul] 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 teach that one of the ten commandments had ceased to be binding on mankind. . . . 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 to 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 good things to come.' These commandments are, from the nature of moral law, of perpetual and universal application."[5]
      4. If the apostle Paul had intended to announce to the Colossian believers that the seventh-day Sabbath was no longer of consequence, surely this news would have created quite a stir, not merely in Colossae but in other cities. Adventists recognize that the argument from silence is not a strong argument, but they feel certain that as copies of Paul's letter were made, and these copies were taken to other churches and read, the shock of the believers in learning that Christ's death on the cross abolished the Sabbath would have been so great that the ensuing discussions would have been recorded, as were those regarding circumcision, idol worship, fornication, and other matters (see Acts 15).
      But Paul's letter sent no shock waves through the community of believers. The people apparently understood that he was speaking of the rites and ceremonies connected with the Jewish faith. They understood him to mean that the cross abolished the ritual sacrifices, festivals, regulations involving meats and drinks, ceremonial sabbaths, special days governed by the new moon, and even the ceremonies that had been performed on the seventh-day Sabbath.
      In using the four arguments reviewed above to support their position that Paul is speaking primarily of ceremonial sabbaths in Colossians 2, Adventists are aware that the word sabbath in verse 16, though apparently plural in form, probably should be translated as a singular. But they feel that this fact does not undermine their view and can be harmonized with it. Careful students have noted that in most passages where the Greek word for sabbath is used with a singular meaning, the form is sabbaton, a neuter noun in the singular, and that in some places the neuter nominative in the plural-sabbata-is used to express a singular meaning. In Colossians 2:16 the genitive of this form is used.
      In the Septuagint the plural form with a singular meaning is found in numerous places. For example, in Exodus 16:23, 25; 20:8; Deuteronomy 5:12; Jeremiah 17:21, 22; and Ezekiel 46:1. The New Testament contains similar instances, for example in Matthew 12:1; 28:1; and Luke 4:16.
      Adventists feel that A. T. Robertson, the well-respected New Testament scholar, has offered the best explanation as to why sabbata and sabbaton, though plural in form, often stand for the singular. The Aramaic word for Sabbath is shabbetha, transliterated into Greek as sabbata. But sabbata, although representing the singular shabbetha, happens to be spelled as a plural in Greek and has been misunderstood to represent the plural of the Greek sabbaton, "Sabbath." Therefore in any occurrence of sabbata (or its other case forms such as sabbaton) one must inquire if it represents the Aramaic shabbetha, in which case it is singular, or whether it is genuinely the plural of sabbaton, in which case it is a plural.[6]
      The most defensible position seems to be to regard the genitive plural sabbaton in Colossians 2:16 as a singular. Not only from a linguistic point of view is this logical, but from the context. Apparently the apostle Paul used sabbath generically in the singular, to correspond with the four other words in the series-meats, drink, holy day, and new moon, each of which is singular. Inasmuch as some ritual observances commanded by the laws of Moses were held on the weekly Sabbath-for example, the daily burnt offering was doubled on that day-perhaps Paul used sabbath generically, intending to include these ceremonies along with those that specifically involved annual sabbaths, as part of the "shadow" that was done away in Christ. These ritual ceremonies, of course, did not make the seventh day a Sabbath; it was a Sabbath already, established at Creation and commanded by the moral law, and abolition of the ceremonial observances that fell on that day would abolish neither the Sabbath nor God's command to keep it holy.
      Among the references in Seventh-day Adventist literature that discuss Colossians 2:16 the following are typical:
      Bible Readings for the Home (Washington, DC, 1958).
      William Henry Branson, Drama of the Ages (Nashville, TN, 1950).
      Earle Hilgert, "'Sabbath Days' in Colossians 2:16," Ministry, February 1952, 42, 43.
      W. E. Howell, "'Sabbath' in Colossians 2:16," Ministry, September 1934, 10; id., "Anent Colossians 2:16," Ministry, April 1936, 18.
      Arthur E. Lickey, God Speaks to Modern Man (Washington, DC, 1952).
      Francis David Nichol, Answers to Objections (Washington, DC, 1932); id., Problems in Bible Translation (Washington, D.C., 1954); id., The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Washington, DC, 1957), 7:205-6.
      Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets (Mountain View, CA, 1913); id., Selected Messages (Washington, DC, 1958), Book. 1.
      Milton Charles Wilcox, Questions and Answers (Mountain View, CA, 1911); id., Questions Answered (Mountain View, CA, 1938).
      "Appendix D," The Sabbath in Scripture and History, ed. Kenneth A. Strand (Washington, DC: Review and Herald Publishing Assoc., 1982), 338-42.

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[1].    See also Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets (Mountain View, CA, 1890), 48.
[2].    See The SDA Bible Commentary 1 (Washington, DC, 1953): 372, 887-88, 1063.
[3].    Adam Clarke, The New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (New York, n.d.), 2:524.
[4].    Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset, and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (Grand Rapids, n.d.), 378.
[5].    Albert Barnes, A Popular Commentary on the New Testament, Beings Notes Practical and Explanatory (London, n.d.), 7:267.
[6].    A. T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research (London, n.d.), 95, 105.