Paul thus describes the abrogation of the typical system at the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus:—
“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.... Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days; which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.”[294]
The object of this action is declared to be the handwriting of ordinances. The manner of its abrogation is thus stated: 1. Blotted out; 2. Nailed to the cross; 3. Taken out of the way. Its nature is shown in these words: “Against us” and “contrary to us.” The things contained in it were meats, drinks, holy days [Gr. ἑορτης a feast day], new moons and sabbaths.[295] The whole is declared a shadow of good things to come; and the body which casts this shadow is of Christ. That law which was proclaimed by the voice of God and written by his own finger upon the tables of stone, and deposited beneath the mercy-seat, was altogether unlike that system of carnal ordinances that was written by Moses in a book, and placed in the side of the ark.[296] It would be absurd to speak of the tables of stone as nailed to the cross; or to speak of blotting out what was engraved in stone. It would be blasphemous to represent the Son of God as pouring out his blood to blot out what the finger of his Father had written. It would be to confound all the immutable principles of morality, to represent the ten commandments as “contrary” to man’s moral nature. It would be to make Christ the minister of sin, to represent him as dying to utterly destroy the moral law. Nor does that man keep truth on his side who represents the ten commandments as among the things contained in Paul’s enumeration of what was abolished. Nor is there any excuse for those who would destroy the ten commandments with this statement of Paul; for he shows, last of all, that what was thus abrogated was a shadow of good things to come—an absurdity if applied to the moral law. The feasts, new moons, and sabbaths, of the ceremonial law, which Paul declared to be abolished in consequence of the abrogation of that code, have been particularly noticed already.[297] That the Sabbath of the Lord is not included in their number, the following facts evince:—
1. The Sabbath of the Lord was made before sin entered our world. It is not therefore one of those things that shadow redemption from sin.[298]
2. Being made for man before the fall it is not one of those things that are against him and contrary to him.[299]
3. When the ceremonial sabbaths were ordained they were carefully distinguished from the Sabbath of the Lord.[300]
4. The Sabbath of the Lord does not owe its existence to the handwriting of ordinances, but is found in the very bosom of that law which Jesus came not to destroy. The abrogation of the ceremonial law could not therefore abolish the Sabbath of the fourth commandment.[301]
5. The effort of our Lord through his whole ministry to redeem the Sabbath from the thralldom of the Jewish doctors, and to vindicate it as a merciful institution, is utterly inconsistent with the idea that he nailed it to his cross, as one of those things against man and contrary to him.
6. Our Lord’s petition respecting the flight of the disciples from Judea, recognizes the sacredness of the Sabbath many years after the crucifixion of the Saviour.
7. The perpetuity of the Sabbath in the new earth is not easily reconciled with the idea that it was blotted out and nailed to our Lord’s cross as one of those things that were contrary to man.[302]