I find the justification of modern-day Christian leaders to sequester the fourth of the ten commandments invalid and obscene. If leaders taught obedience to the rules outlined in Acts 21:25 or the seven laws of Noah, which it strongly overlaps, then it would make sense to not follow the Sabbath. Most of the pastors who have led churches I attend state that since Jesus is our Sabbath, we can do whatever we like. Some of these same people claim that since Christ took our sins, everything we do is justified even if it goes against God’s word. As mentioned earlier, Paul never discredits obedience in the Law. When someone tells you that it’s okay to sin because we’re no longer bound by the Law they are lying. What does Christ’s sacrifice offer us, then?

There are 613 commandments outlined in the Torah. We’re often just told about the main ten, and more often assume that only those ten were written on the stones God gave Moses. Each law we break is a mark against us. Jesus painfully takes those marks on Himself.

And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. – Colossians 2:13-14

The risk any person has by attempting to live out the laws is pride, or as the writer of Colossians puts it, “false humility.” What is the benefit of following any of the Judaic law?

Let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God. – Colossians 2:16-17

The first benefit is that we don’t have to accept the judgment of anyone other than Christ. The next one is that God provides for the “Head”. Something I’d like to point out before moving forward is that the book of Colossians has controversy as to who actually wrote it. Nevertheless, whether it was dictated directly by Paul or was written by one of his disciples under his authority is not really the issue, but that this group of churches was struggling with legalism and asceticism. Legalism is when the letter of the law is more important than the law’s intent. It makes any law burdensome. In the case of God’s law, legalism puts focus on the law itself rather than on God. Christ put down legalism several times, pointing out that more often than not the person pointing at the letter of the law justified not following it himself. Lawyers were called vipers for a reason. Asceticism is the philosophy that through living a terribly restricted and debased lifestyle one could attain a higher order of spirituality. Jesus confronted this matter, too, when he talked about making a big deal when we’re fasting. There is something spiritual that occurs during a fast, but that spiritual experience doesn’t give anyone a larger bandwidth to God. It’s not a gateway into mysticism. So when it’s later written”

Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world , do you subject yourselves to regulations – ‘Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,’ which all concern things which perish with the using – according to the commandments and doctrines of men?

Notice that the commandments and doctrines that are being addressed are not the ones from God, but those from other men. Which means, as Colossians 2:16 states, when other men, Jew or Gentile, start getting uptight and judgmental because one decides to take a day of rest or doesn’t execute one of the feasts in just a certain way, one can accept the freedom that Christ offers and disregard the legalism of man’s influence on the law in favor of loving the Creator who ordained the law.

If all the Prophets and the Law hang on the commands to Love God with all our heart, mind and soul… and to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:37-40) then Jesus doesn’t void the Prophets or the Law. In fulfilling the Prophets and the Law, Jesus does two things: 1. Attests to the deity of God on behalf of the Prophets and 2. Pays the atonement on behalf of the Law. Doing so doesn’t discredit the Prophets or the Law, but reinforces them. Why, then, would a leader of Christ play God in deciding what is and what isn’t pertinent today? God is the same today as he was when giving the Law to Moses. The new covenant justifies the old one; it doesn’t nullify it.