Don't Judge Me!

The Shadow of Things to Come

"Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day— things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ." (Colossians 2:16-17, NASB)

 I have some good friends who believe that in order to follow Jesus / Yeshua, you must keep the Sabbath, the Jewish feasts and the Old Testament Law / Torah.  I saw someone post in reply to this verse that it does not refer to Jewish Sabbaths and Feasts, but to pagan feasts.  However, that would mean that:
1.  Paul would be teaching the Colossians not to let people judge them for keeping the pagan feasts, when he repeatedly tells Gentiles to abandon idolatry and come to Christ.
2.  Paul would be teaching that those pagan feasts are a foreshadowing of the Jewish Messiah, which also makes no sense.

 No, Paul was teaching the Colossian believers that the Jewish feasts, new moons and Sabbaths were the shadow of the Messiah.  The contrast is between the body of Christ and the shadow of the Feasts and Sabbaths.  They are only a insubstantial shadow compared to the substance, the reality, of Christ.  Believers who have trusted Christ for salvation follow Him by walking in the Spirit, obey His New Covenant commandments, and are under no obligation to observe the old shadows of food laws, Feasts and Sabbaths.   They were fulfilled in Christ and now we have the fullness of God in Him.

 "But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter."  (Romans 7:6, NASB)