Editorial – Types and Shadows, Part V

Concerning the teaching of the apostle Paul in regard to feast days, he commanded to the Galatian church that anyone who still adhered to the keeping of feast days be disfellowshipped. So we know for certain what the apostle Paul was teaching in regard to the religious practices that, evidently, some in the church in Colossae, as well as the churches in Galatia, were still practicing. These feast days included monthly feast days (new moons) as well as yearly feast days and also old covenant ceremonial practices on the seventh-day Sabbath such as the morning and evening sacrifice.

Ellen White had some very helpful insights in regard to the change in the law when the old covenant was superseded by the new covenant. “The symbols of the Lord’s house are simple and plainly understood, and the truths represented by them are of the deepest significance to us. In instituting the sacramental service to take the place of the Passover, Christ left for his church a memorial of his great sacrifice for man. ‘This do,’ he said, ‘in remembrance of me.’ [1 Corinthians 11:24, 25.] This was the point of transition between two economies and their two great festivals. The one was to close forever; the other, which he had just established, was to take its place, and to continue through all time as the memorial of his death.” Review and Herald, May 31, 1898.

“In this last act of Christ in partaking with his disciples of the bread and wine, he pledged himself to them as their Redeemer by a new covenant, in which it was written and sealed that upon all who will receive Christ by faith will be bestowed all the blessings that heaven can supply, both in this life and in the future immortal life.

“This covenant deed was to be ratified with Christ’s own blood, which it had been the office of the old sacrificial offerings to keep before their minds. This was understood by the apostle Paul, who said: [Hebrews 10:1–12 quoted].” Ibid.

“In this ordinance, Christ discharged his disciples from the cares and burdens of the ancient Jewish obligations in rites and ceremonies. These no longer possessed any virtue; for type was meeting antitype in himself, the authority and foundation of all Jewish ordinances that pointed to him as the great and only efficacious offering for the sins of the world. He gave this simple ordinance that it might be a special season when he himself would always be present, to lead all participating in it to feel the pulse of their own conscience, to awaken them to an understanding of the lessons symbolized, to revive their memory, to convict of sin, and to receive their penitential repentance. He would teach them that brother is not to exalt himself above brother, that the dangers of disunion and strife shall be seen and appreciated; for the health and holy activity of the soul are involved. . . .

“It was Christ’s desire to leave to his disciples an ordinance that would do for them the very thing they needed,—that would serve to disentangle them from the rites and ceremonies which they had hitherto engaged in as essential, and which the reception of the gospel made no longer of any force. To continue these rites would be an insult to Jehovah. Eating of the body, and drinking of the blood, of Christ, not merely at the sacramental service, but daily partaking of the bread of life to satisfy the soul’s hunger, would be in receiving his word and doing his will.” Ibid., June 14, 1898.