F4F | Sorting out the Biblical Covenants

Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Roseborough. I am your servant in Jesus Christ. This is the channel that compares what people are saying in the name of God to the Word of God.

Why the Biblical Covenants Matter for Exposing False Teaching

All right, we've got a long episode. So I promised y 'all that I was going to do a review, a review of Robert Morris's Blessed Life. And so I want to talk about what the plans are. So before we get to it, let's, you know, kind of take a look here and let's pull up the old web browser.

And we're going to be doing at least two episodes on debunking the Blessed Life. But in doing my preparation for debunking the Blessed Life, it became really apparent to me that the root cause of why Christians fall for, you know, these kinds of false teachings.

You know, are Christians obligated to follow the Mosaic Covenant's command to tithe? No, we're not. But are we are we required to keep the Passover? No, we're not. Are we required to keep the Mosaic Covenant's Sabbath laws?

No, we're not. But the thing is, is that if you don't understand why, then it's really, you know, you end up having to reinvent the wheel like five or six times, like for each and every time. So what I'm going to do here is we're going to start a little mini series here on fighting for the faith and about errors that relate to a improper understanding of the biblical covenants.

When you understand the biblical covenants correctly, then what happens is you're no longer going to be swayed by the false teachers of the Hebrew roots movement, guys like Larry Huck and even guys like, well, Robert Morris.

So let's just say we got so much work to do that we're going to have to dedicate this first episode in the series to an in-depth look, and I mean in-depth, this is going to be a long episode, an in-depth look at the biblical covenants, how they're established, how they work, how the signs play into it, and which covenant we're in, and we're going to be taking a really good look, hard look, at Galatians chapters 3 and 4 as well as Hebrews 5, 7, 8, 9, and 10.

So let's just say we got a lot of biblical ground to cover. But before we get to that, what I wanted to do was go back in time. This is me from seven years ago. I debated a guy in the Hebrew roots movement by the name of Jim Staley.

Now, a little after I debated him, he ended up going to prison for some time because he was found guilty of you know, let's just say taking little old lady's inheritance money and lots of it. So, you know, he's somebody who's disqualified from any teaching publicly within the body of Christ, and you shouldn't be listening to him on moral grounds as well as on grounds related to false teaching, because he's a Judaizer, just straight up.

That's exactly what he is. So what we're going to do here is we're going to go to the Q &A portion of my debate with him from seven years ago. You know, I just look at myself and go, yeah, this is before I decided to grow the goatee out a little bit longer, but you can already see the gray hair.

It's so annoying. Anyway, I want you to listen to this exchange during the Q &A time because one of the things I kind of keyed in on is that with his understanding of Christians being obligated to keep Torah, to keep the Sabbath, to keep the feast days, you know, there's no physical temple in Jerusalem presently.

And so my question for him was is if they're what, you know, why aren't you presenting yourself three times a year in Jerusalem as the Torah demands? And if they rebuilt the temple, would you be offering sacrifices there?

And this, his answers help us understand what the problem is as we study the covenants, because a proper understanding of the covenants will protect you from guys like Jim Staley. But let's listen to this exchange.

Ephesians 2 and the Abolished Law of Commandments

Jim, in Ephesians chapter two, verses 14 through 15, it says, for he himself is our peace who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances.

Yes, sir. What does that mean? Okay. Well, if you look, now real quick, I'm going to pull this up in my Bible, and I didn't plan on this, but worth looking at. We're going to duplicate this tab and we're going to go to Ephesians chapter two.

And after that wonderful section, then we get this, for he himself, Christ, you know, but now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ, for he himself is our peace who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace.

Now, as this teaching today unfolds, you're going to understand that the Mosaic Covenant, its official status, I think the theological term is kaput, okay? That's the German theological status. It's kaput.

It is not in place. Christ has fulfilled it and here it says Christ has abolished the law of commandments. Now, this does not mean that the Ten Commandments, at least nine of them, don't apply today because those get reiterated in the New Testament, in the New Covenant.

The one that doesn't is the Sabbath and we'll explain why. So that's the text that I read out to him, that Christ has abolished the law of commandments expressed in ordinances. Flat out, you know, that's what the text says.

So here's his answer.

The first century and the term here that is important to understand is the wall of separation. The reason why the apostle uses the wall of separation is because there was a very real wall of separation in the temple that was kept the Gentiles on this side of the wall and the Jewish people on that side of the wall.

It was the wall of separation that was contained in ordinances and commandments that were not found in Torah but the oral law of the Jews that separated the Jew from the Gentile.

So if you don't know what he just did there, he is flat out denying what this text says by making the referent not the Torah but the oral Torah of the Pharisees. That is a slick trick.

But we continue. It was done away with. It was those laws of commandments as well as the sin and bonds of our sin that were nailed to the cross, not the law of God. If it is the law of God, we have big problems with Paul when he upholds the law and John tells us to keep the commandments of God and in the Great Tribulation, it's said that the saints are the ones that are keeping the commandments of God.

What is the purpose of the law? The purpose of the law is to show people their sin and to prove our love for God.

Okay, do you keep it?

I absolutely keep the best that I can. No questions asked. No more than I keep my wife's laws the best that I can.

Okay, is the standard set out in scripture regarding the keeping of the Torah that you do your best best that you can?

What's the standard? The standard is perfection. There's no questions asked. Okay, so because the standard is Christ and we are to attain and reach for the standard of our Messiah. So you do not keep the Torah?

I keep the Torah as I absolutely best can reaching for the rung of the Messiah.

Do you appear three times a year before the Lord in Jerusalem? Not required to. You're required to. Are you sure? If you're keeping Torah, you're required to appear before the Lord three times a year.

Do you know where that scripture is? Yeah, yeah, it's actually this is talking about the feast days.

Okay, and and do you know the conditions of which we are required to appear before the Lord and those conditions are not available today? So that commandment is put on pause because the requirement is that the temple is supposed to be standing.

If a temple was there, would you be keeping that? I suppose I would ask for him to give me free flight status to get there. But Absolutely, I would do my best to always honor my king. All right, that's the answer that you needed to hear.

So in the Mosaic Covenant, it is absolutely required of those in the Mosaic Covenant to appear, the males, to appear three times a year in the place where God has caused his name to dwell. And this was in the Old Testament before the temple.

It was where the tabernacle was tabernacling and then in Jerusalem where the temple was built as a fixed item. And he flat out said, I asked him, so if they rebuild the temple, will you be flying? Will you be going to Jerusalem three times a year and offering sacrifices?

Answer, yes. And that shows a complete jumbling and a misunderstanding or I would say deceived or being deceived, you know, or deceiving, it's kind of both, understanding of the covenants. Christians are not under the Mosaic Covenant.

Full stop. So this is where we're going to jump over to an extended biblical teaching on the covenants. And this again, like I said, sets the groundwork that will protect us against the Judaizers of the Hebrew Roots Movement, of people who are Sabbatarians like the Seventh-day Adventists.

Also, it's going to protect us from guys like Larry Huck and also Robert Morris because the failure to recognize which covenant we're in and which commands are associated with which covenants is one that bamboozles people quite a bit.

And the reason why is because the skilled twister of God's Word by not properly distinguishing the covenants is able to say, it says in the Bible, do this. But if you're not paying attention who it's saying that to and which covenant is being invoked, then you get all kinds of confusion and bondage.

All right, so that being said, we are going to first take a look at kind of a presentation, and we'll reference this throughout today's teaching. And when we talk about covenants in the Bible, they are similar to contracts.

I think this is a basic understanding here. And the idea is that once a contract is signed, there are obligations, and there are blessings for keeping your obligation, and there are curses for not keeping your obligation.

A good example of a modern-day covenant, and I'm going to use that phrase here, would be if you have a mortgage or if you have a contract regarding your lease or your rent in the place where you are living.

And the idea is that when you sign that contract, you'll note that there are obligations. The obligation is to pay a certain amount of money by a certain time every month. And failure to do so will result in punishments, fines, and ultimately in eviction.

So that's how these things work. And so when we talk about covenants, we're going to note that in Scripture there are several notable covenants. Some of them are unilateral, and what I mean by that is that God is the one who's carrying all the weight of the covenant.

He's making all the promises, and He's going to be the one who is going to be in trouble if He doesn't follow through on His obligation, on His Word. But God never lies. So you get the idea. Then there are bilateral covenants, and most notably is the Mosaic covenant.

And in the Mosaic covenant, then both parties have responsibilities and duties, and it's responsible on both parties to keep their parts. And then note that once a covenant is ratified, no changes. There can be no changes to a covenant once ratified.

In a similar way that once you sign your mortgage, you can't unilaterally decide that you're going to change the details of the mortgage or your obligation. Say, you know, it's just too much for me to pay this every month.

I'm going to change my mortgage contract and drop it down by 200 bucks a month. You can't do that. You can try to renegotiate with your mortgage company, but that's going to then result in another contract.

And so the idea, once a covenant is ratified, there are no changes. We've already talked about that there's blessings for obedience, curses for disobedience, and then biblical covenants always seem to have signs.

Ah, signs! And we'll talk about this here in a little bit. And then you'll note that in Scripture, subsequent covenants do not nullify previously ratified covenants, and some covenants are, shall we say, permanent, while other covenants are temporary.

And that's a distinction I didn't put in the slide here, but you get the idea. So we're going ask this question, what is the New Covenant and what is the status of the Mosaic Covenant? Now, we've already seen from Ephesians 2 that Christ has canceled the Mosaic Covenant.

It's done away with. It's kaput. But I'll show you more text along those lines so you kind of get the idea. And so next slide then, we're going to take a look at the Noatic Covenant. Noatic Covenant is a great covenant to go to to begin to get how covenants work.

This is God establishing His covenant with Noah, His family, all their descendants, all the animals, all the creatures that God has made. Those are the ones who are receiving it. There's a specific sign regarding this covenant, and God is the one who's making all the promises.

It's all 100 promise. So let's take a look at that. And we're going to find it in Genesis chapter 9, starting at verse 8. Then God said to Noah and his sons with him, behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you.

And with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark, it is for every beast of the earth. I establish my covenant with you that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.

And God said, this is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you for all future generations. I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.

When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh, and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.

When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth. And God said to Noah, this is the sign of the covenant I've established between me and you and all the flesh that is on the earth.

So the idea then here is if you have small kids, you know what I'm talking about, everyone's in the car, you're heading off to church or to the mall, or maybe you're on a driving trip and you just pass through a rainstorm and voila, there is a rainbow.

And everyone says, look, there's a rainbow. And one of the kids says, yes, and that's the promise that God says that he will never again flood the whole earth to destroy it. And we all remember when we see the sign, we remember the promise.

But if you paid attention to what I just read here, you'll note that the more important person who remembers is God. And so you'll note in verse 14 and 15, when I bring the clouds over the earth and the bow is seen, I will remember, God remembers.

So every time there is a rainbow here on planet earth, God sees the rainbow and he remembers his promise never to flood the entire earth. And so this is a good thing. And I was thinking back just a few weeks ago, there was a news article that I ended up putting a link to it in social media, where Pope Francis was basically saying, if humanity doesn't get a hold of its carbon footprint, then what's going to happen is that God's going to flood the earth again.

And it's like, and my question, and so I put this out on social media, is how does exactly does one become the Pope without having read Genesis 9? It's like, hello, every time we see a rainbow, we remember the promise that God will never destroy the earth by a flood, and God sees the rainbow and he remembers the promise that he will never again destroy the earth by a flood.

So we got a problem here. And that is that the Pope needs to go back to Bible 101. Just saying. All right. So all of that being said, you get the idea then how this all works. Let me come back here then.

So the Noahic Covenant is a unilateral covenant. God is making all the promises. The sign of the covenant is the rainbow. Both parties see the sign, and both parties remember the promises. Next covenant, Abrahamic Covenant.

And this one is a little complicated. And the reason why is because we need a Holy Spirit interpreted like Supreme Court ruling on the finer details of the Abrahamic Covenant. And thankfully, we have that in the Book of Galatians.

But we'll note then the Abrahamic Covenant is a unilateral covenant, all promise, and it's made between God... God is the one making the promises is between Abraham and his seed, singular. Not off springs, but off spring.

And the seed is Jesus. You're gonna see this when we look at the Holy Spirit interpretation of the Abrahamic Covenant. And this covenant is established in Genesis 15, and the sign of the covenant then is circumcision.

This sign is established in Genesis 17. So just a little after God establishes this covenant with Abraham, then in chapter 17, circumcision is given as the sign of the covenant. And the idea then is that both parties see the sign, and they remember the promises.

All of that being said, let's take a look then at the Holy Spirit interpretation of this, because I think it'll be, well, at least somewhat helpful. So in the Book of Galatians, and what we're gonna do, we're gonna start in Galatians chapter one, and I'm gonna remind you that this is the definitive epistle written by the Apostle Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit against the Judaizers.

And the Judaizers had come into the Christian church, and they were saying that unless Gentiles were circumcised, which by the way, that's the sign of the Mosaic Covenant. No, I'm sorry, that is the sign of the Abrahamic Covenant.

And then they have to keep the Sabbath and the feast days and things like this. The Sabbath is the sign of the Mosaic Covenant. I'll talk about that. My apologies if I'm getting ahead of myself. But they are saying, unless you're circumcised, you can't be saved.

And we see this then in Acts chapter 15. It says this, when some men came down from Judea, and they were teaching the brothers, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you can't be saved.

And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and to the elders about this question.

And when you read the details here, you know, so here you got all the living apostles coming together to discuss, are Gentiles required to be circumcised? Answer, no. And there's very specific reasons as to why that's the case.

So Paul, writing to the churches in Galatia who had fallen for the heresy, and that's what it is, the Judaizers were heretics. They were teaching works righteousness, not salvation by grace through faith apart from works, but salvation by grace plus works.

It was just a complete mess. So Paul starts off the epistle to the churches in Galatia by saying, I'm astonished that you're so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.

Note, the charges that they have deserted the real Jesus and his grace and are turning to a different gospel. And then he says, not that there is one, but another one, but there are some who trouble you and they want to distort the gospel of Christ.

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel that is contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be anathema, damned. So you get the idea here and he goes on. So I say, as I said before, so again, if anyone's teaching a different gospel, let him be a curse, let him be damned.

And so now in the kind of the meat and potatoes portion of the book of Galatians, we're going to start to get a clear distinction between the Abrahamic covenant, the covenant of promise made between Abraham and Jesus, as well as the Mosaic covenant and its status and what it does.

So Paul then says to the churches in Galatia, oh foolish Galatians, who's bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. So let me ask you this. Did you receive the spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

The answer, by the way, to that question is the second one. They received the spirit by hearing with faith. Are you so foolish having begun by the spirit? Are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain?

If indeed it was in vain, does he who supplies the spirit to work miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith? It's the second one. So just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.

And here Paul is quoting from Genesis chapter 15. This is the same chapter where after Abram believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness, that God then basically went into covenant with Abraham and established the Abrahamic covenant.

So then Paul goes on. No, then it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And I want you to consider this for a second, because one of the false teachings that's running around dispensational evangelicalism is that somehow the people who are genetically related to Abraham have some kind of an inside track with God.

That's not true. That's not true at all. In fact, scripture is very clear. Everybody who believes and trusts in Christ, they are grafted into Israel. And that those who have faith like Abraham, the man of faith, they are the ones who are counted as the sons of Abraham.

Keep that in mind. So in scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying, in you shall all the nations be blessed. So then those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

For all who rely on works of the law, and here the reliance, this is a tough sentence in Greek, but the idiom, I think the ESV is grabbing the idiom correctly, that for all who continue to keep on doing works of the law and do so for the purpose of salvation, they are under a curse, for it is written, curse be everyone who does not abide by all the things written in the book of the law and continue to do them.

And here, book of the law, I think you could translate this as the Torah, because that's what's really being referenced here. So now it's evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for the righteous shall live by faith.

But the law is not of faith, rather the one who does them shall live by them. You don't have to have faith to keep commandments. No, not at all. And that's kind of Paul's point. The righteous live by faith.

So the law is not a faith, rather the one who does them shall live by them. So Christ redeemed us, listen to this, from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. He's redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.

And here the curses of the law are basically, it's invoking the curses portion of the Mosaic covenant. You don't keep these commands, here are the ever-increasing curses, and Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse, because cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.

So that in Christ, the blessing of Abraham, the promise by grace through faith, might come to the Gentiles so that we might receive the promised spirit, how? Through faith. So to give a human example, now I'm going to note here, from this point forward in our teaching, things are going to be a little complicated, and it's necessary that we apply ourselves to these things.

It's not, let's just say, this isn't a great story like the story of David and Goliath. This is more like an insurance seminar. I understand that. That being the case, we must apply ourselves to this.

Otherwise, we open ourselves up to being deceived. And you'll see that once we lay this out, a proper understanding of the commandments, that you're going to be inoculated against these false teachers, inoculated wonderfully.

So Paul then says this, to give a human example, even with a man-made covenant, think contract, no one annuls it or adds to it once it's been ratified. And that was one of the points I made in our slides.

Now, the promises were made, listen to this, to Abraham and to his offspring, singular. It does not say, and to offsprings, plural. And so Paul is going into Genesis 15, the very promise made by God to Abraham, these promises were made to Abraham and to his singular offspring, Zerah, not the Zerayim, his descendants, but his descendant, one.

Okay. So watch again. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, and to offsprings, referring to many, but referring to one, and to your offspring, who is Christ. This is definitive.

You cannot overturn this and turn it into some kind of a plural. It's flat out. The Abrahamic covenant has two parties who are recipients. One is Abraham, the other is Jesus. That's what this text says.

So if you don't grab this, you're going to mess a lot of things up. So this is what I mean then, the Torah, which came 430 years afterwards. So the Mosaic covenant comes 430 years after God went into this covenant with Abraham and with Christ.

It does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God so as to make the promises void. So the Mosaic covenant had a specific purpose. Its purpose was never to save anybody. That's not its purpose. Its purpose is to show you how sinful you are at the end of the day.

That's kind of its job. But the idea then here is this, is that when the Mosaic covenant then is cut with the children of Israel, that the Abrahamic covenant was not put aside at all, because it couldn't be, because there was a second recipient who was yet to be born.

And that's kind of Paul's point. So if the inheritance then comes by the law, it no longer comes by the promise, but God gave it to Abraham, how? By a promise. So you'll note, our eternal inheritance doesn't come by law keeping.

It comes by a promise from God. And that's his point. So then the question arises, all right, well, if the Mosaic covenant doesn't save you, why? Why did God give it? Answer, it was added because of transgressions.

So a good way to think about it is that the children of Israel, coming out of slavery, they were a pretty rowdy, sinful, idolatrous bunch, were they not? So the law was added because of transgressions.

And then watch the word, until. All right, so if I were to tell you, you know, back in my history, my wife and I, when we dated, we dated through high school and a little bit of college, and we got married while we were in college.

All right, but before we got married, we lived in separate homes until the marriage ceremony. And after we were publicly married, then we started living in the same roof, in the same house. You would understand that, okay, once a particular thing happened, then things changed.

Things were this way until that happened, and then after that happened, then the order of things changed. Watch what Paul says here. So the Torah was added, it was added because of transgressions, until.

Until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one. So note, so Christ, the Mosaic Covenant was put in place until Christ, the second recipient of the Mosaic Covenant, should appear.

All right? So then the question is, is the Torah then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not. No way. For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law, by the Torah.

But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law. We were imprisoned until the coming faith should be revealed.

So then the law was our guardian until, there it is again, until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. You see, the Mosaic Covenant didn't save anybody. It didn't save a single person, not even one.

Law-keeping never saved anybody. Everybody who was saved was always saved by grace, through faith, believing in the promises of God. So now that faith has come, we're no longer under a guardian. For in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith.

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ, you have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is no male or female. You're all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, and you are heirs according to the promise.

Sit there and go, I don't have any Israeli blood in me at all. I understand that. The point is, we've all been grafted into Israel. If you are Christ, you are Abraham's offspring. Abraham, the man of faith.

And this is what the text says. The Abrahamic covenant is the covenant of note prior to the establishing of the new covenant. The Mosaic covenant was added because of transgression to basically make us all slaves and hold us as a guardian until Jesus, the offspring of Abraham, should appear.

So then Paul then builds off of this idea and he says, so I mean that the heir... So think of it this way. If we're the heir of eternal life, and we are, but prior to Christ showing up, we're likened to being children who need to have managers and guardians over us because we're not old enough to manage the estate.

So Paul says, so what I mean, the heir, as long as he's a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father.

In the same way, we also, when we were children, we were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. Now, here is where we have to do a little cross-reference work. Excuse me. And the reason why we have to do this cross-reference work is due to the fact that the phrase elementary principles is used by Paul quite a few times in his epistles, but it's in Colossians chapter two that he explains what that means.

So let's do our cross-reference work here and we'll come back to Galatians four. Okay. Galatians chapter two. We'll start at verse eight for our context. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human traditions, according to the elemental spirits of the world, not according to Christ.

For in Christ, the whole fullness of the deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also, you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by the putting off of the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead.

I would just simply note here that baptism is the new covenant's answer to circumcision, and it's for everybody, and it's a circumcision done by the hands of Christ. That's what Colossians two is saying here.

Now talking about our status before God, before we were regenerated, and you who were dead in your trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God has made you alive together with Christ, having forgiven all of our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.

This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and the authorities, put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him. And every one of us says, amen. What good news this is, that God has canceled the record of debt that stood against us, nailed it to the cross.

This is another beautiful picture of salvation by grace through faith, and it assures us that all of our sins that we've committed from the moment we were conceived until the moment when we draw our last breath, that every one of our sins has been bled for and died for, and the whole record of debt in our books that are open on the last day has been torn out of our books and nailed to the cross.

Beautiful, beautiful picture. Now, because of this then, watch where Paul goes. Therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Shabbat.

Okay? And this is where we see here, what's the status then of feast days and the Sabbath. Paul says, these are a shadow of the things to come. The substance belongs to Christ. So, the Passover, it's a shadow.

The substance belongs to Christ. Are we required to keep kosher laws? Those are all a shadow. The substance belongs to Christ. The Sabbath itself, same thing. It's a shadow. The substance belongs to Christ.

We're not obligated to keep the mosaics, mosaic covenants, feast days. The mosaic covenant has been done away with. We're not under it. That's the point. So, then he goes on to say this, let no one disqualify you insisting on asceticism, the worship of angels, going on about visions puffed up without reason by holding to a sensuous mind.

I think of Kat Kerr. I think of all the people claiming that they've made trips to heaven. Yeah, don't let anyone disqualify you. Not holding fast to the head from whom the whole body is nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments and grows with a growth that is from God.