UNDER ITSELF,
16. THE CEREMONIAL LAW
The ceremonies are a different matter: they have been abrogated not in effect but only in use. Christ by his coming has terminated them, but has not deprived them of anything of their sanctity; rather, he has approved and honored it. Just as the ceremonies would have provided the people of the Old Covenant with an empty show if the power of Christ’s death and resurrection had not been displayed therein; so, if they had not ceased, we would be unable today to discern for what purpose they were established.
Consequently Paul, to prove their observance not only superfluous but also harmful, teaches that they are shadows whose substance exists for us in Christ [<510217>Colossians 2:17]. Thus we see that in their abolition the truth shines forth better than if they, still far off and as if veiled, figured the Christ, who has already plainly revealed himself. At Christ’s death
“the curtain of the temple was torn in two” [<402751>
Matthew 27:51]
because now the living and express image of heavenly blessings was manifested, which before had been begun in indistinct outline only, as the author of The Letter to the Hebrews states [<581001>Hebrews 10:1]. To this applies Christ’s utterance: “The law and the prophets were until John;
since then the good news of the Kingdom of God is preached”
[<421616>
Luke 16:16]. Not that the holy patriarchs were without the preaching that contains the hope of salvation and of eternal life, but that they only glimpsed from afar and in shadowy outline what we see today in full daylight. John the Baptist explains why the church of God had to pass quite beyond these rudiments: “The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” [<430117>John 1:17]. For even though atonement for sins had been truly promised in the ancient sacrifices, and the Ark of the Covenant was a sure pledge of God’s fatherly favor, all this would have been but shadow f242 had it not been grounded in the grace of Christ, in whom one finds perfect and everlasting stability. Let it be regarded as a fact that, although the rites of the law have ceased to be observed, by their termination one may better recognize how useful they were before the coming of Christ, who in abrogating their use has by his death sealed their force and effect.
17. “THE WRITTEN BOND AGAINST US” IS BLOTTED OUT Of slightly greater difficulty is the point noted by Paul: “And you, when you were dead through sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven you all your sins, having canceled the written bond which was against us in the decrees, which was contrary to us. And he bore it from our midst, fixing it to the cross,” etc.
[<510213>
Colossians 2:13-14, cf. Vg.]. This statement seems to extend the abolition of the law to the point that we now have nothing to do with its decrees. They are mistaken who understand it simply of the moral law, whose inexorable severity rather than its teaching they interpret as
abolished. f243 Others, more carefully weighing Paul’s words, perceive that these apply properly speaking to the ceremonial law; and they point out that the word “decree” is used in Paul more than once. For he also addresses the Ephesians thus: “He is our peace, who has made us both one... abolishing... the law of commandments resting upon decrees, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two”
[<490214>
Ephesians 2:14-15, cf. Vg.]. f244 There is no doubt that this statement concerns the ceremonies, for he speaks of them as a wall that divides the Jews from the Gentiles [<490214>
Ephesians 2:14]. Hence, I admit that the second group of expositors rightly criticizes the first. But the
second group also still does not seem to explain the meaning of the apostle very well. For I am not at all happy about comparing the two passages in every detail. When Paul would assure the Ephesians of their adoption into the fellowship of Israel, he teaches that the hindrance which once held them back has now been removed. That was in the ceremonies. For the ritual cleansings and sacrifices, whereby the Jews were consecrated to the Lord, separated them from the Gentiles. Now who cannot see that a loftier mystery is referred to in the letter to the Colossians? The question there concerns the Mosaic observances, to which the false apostles were trying to drive the Christian people. But as in the letter to the Galatians he carries that discussion deeper — reverting, so to speak, to its starting point — so he does in this passage. For if you consider nothing else in the rites than the necessity of performing them, what is the point in calling them “the written bond f245 against us” [<510214>
Colossians 2:14]? Moreover, why lodge nearly the whole of our redemption in the fact that they are “blotted out”? Therefore, the thing itself cries out that we should consider it as something more inward.
But I am sure that I have come upon the true understanding of it — provided the truth be granted of what Augustine somewhere most truly writes, or rather takes from the apostle’s clear words: in the Jewish ceremonies there was confession of sins rather than atonement for them [cf. <581001>
Hebrews 10:1 ff.; also <031621>
Leviticus 16:21]. f246 What else did the Jews accomplish with their sacrifices than to confess themselves guilty of death, since they substituted purification in place of themselves?
What else did they accomplish with their cleansings but confess
themselves unclean? They thus repeatedly renewed the “written bond” of their sin and impurity. But in giving such proof there was no release from it. The apostle, for this reason, writes: “Since Christ’s death has occurred, redemption from the transgressions which remained under the old covenant has been accomplished” [<580915>
Hebrews 9:15 p.]. The apostle rightly, therefore, calls the ceremonies “written bonds against” [<510214>Colossians 2:14] those observing them, since through such rites they openly certify their own condemnation and uncleanness [cf. <581003>Hebrews 10:3].
There is no contradiction in the fact that they also were partakers in the same grace with us. For they attained that in Christ; not in the ceremonies that the apostle in that passage distinguishes from Christ, inasmuch as
these, then in use, obscured Christ’s glory. We hold that ceremonies, considered in themselves, are very appropriately called “written bonds against” the salvation of men. For they were, so to speak, binding legal documents, f247 which attested men’s obligation. When the false apostles wanted to bind the Christian church again to observe them, Paul with good reason, more profoundly restating their ultimate purpose, warned the Colossians into what danger they would slip back if they allowed themselves to be subjugated to the ceremonial law in this way
[<510216>Colossians 2:16 ff.]. For at the same time they were deprived of
the benefit of Christ, since, when once he had carried out the eternal atonement, he abolished those daily observances, which were able only to attest sins but could do nothing to blot them out.