16Therefore 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— 17things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. 18Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, 19and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God. -Colossians 2
Colossians 2:
13 And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; 14 Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;
What were the “ordinances that was against us”? Weren’t they the laws and rules and rituals that we are told no one would have been able to keep? Weren’t they just a shadow of things to come? Christ took those all “out of the way, nailing it to his cross”. We are no longer under those laws, ordinances, and commanded holy days. No longer under the dietary laws, the watching for the new moon to ascertain when to celebrate holy days like the Old Testament Jews.
16 Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:
No man is to hold us to those days any longer because those were only a “shadow of things to come”. The body is now “of Christ” who fulfilled all those “shadows”.
17 Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.
Jesus took that law of ordinances out of the way. That law was a yoke of condemnation to the Jews and a partition wall to the Gentiles. We are no longer subjected to the following of Sabbaths, or holy days which were “shadows”. The days we set aside to worship are no longer guided by those laws but can be set at any time.
That passage is Paul telling the Colossians that they need be made to feel subjected to the ordinances that the Jews were trying to force them back under. Christ set us free from those laws and ordinances.
20 Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances,
NO WHERE in that passage does it say we are free to take on the customs and rituals of the pagans which had long ago been condemned by God.