Did you know?
Colossians 2 is often used to claim that God’s law — especially the Sabbath — was nailed to the cross. But that is not what Paul says.

Paul says that Christ cancelled “the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands” and set it aside, “nailing it to the cross” (Colossians 2:14, ESV).

The thing nailed to the cross was not God’s moral law. It was the debt of sin standing against the sinner, together with the ceremonial requirements connected to that debt — the sacrifices, the Levitical priesthood, the offerings, the feast system, and the ceremonial sabbaths that pointed forward to Christ.

That is why Paul immediately says these things were “a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ” (Colossians 2:17, ESV).

A shadow points forward. Once Christ came, died, rose again, and became our High Priest, the shadow system had fulfilled its purpose.

But the Ten Commandments are not a shadow. They do not merely point forward to Christ’s death — they reveal God’s character and define sin. Paul himself says, “through the law comes knowledge of sin” (Romans 3:20), and “if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin" (Romans 7:7).

So Colossians 2 does not abolish the moral law. It does not remove the fourth commandment. It does not nail the seventh-day Sabbath to the cross.

The cross did not destroy the law that reveals sin.
The cross removed the debt of sin and fulfilled the ceremonies that dealt with sin.

The shadows ended.
The moral law remains.
And the Sabbath of the Lord still stands.