Let's first take a look at the apostle Paul's words in Colossians 2:14-17: "Having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. ... So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ."

When some read about the sabbath days that were shadows and that passed away at the cross, they think that Paul was referring to the weekly Sabbath, the fourth of the Ten Commandments. Is this accurate? It's important to get this right, because our interpretation of the apostle's actual meaning ...

The vast majority of Christians have been taught that since the "law is spiritual" and we are carnal, no human will ever be able to meet the requirements of the perfect law in his or her lifetime. Is this true?

Has God really given us a law that is a great idealistic but impossible goal toward which converted souls should struggle to meet but never expect to attain? Is there some hidden reservation or secret meaning in the many commands to obey the law God wrote on stone? Or did God mean what He said and say what He meant?

Many teach that only Christ could have obeyed that law and only because He had special powers that have not been made available to anyone else. Certainly it is true ...

'Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made' (Genesis 2:1-3).

According to this Scripture
1. The time when God made the Sabbath was at the end of Creation week.

2. The way in which God made the Sabbath was by taking a day - the seventh day - and resting on it, blessing it, and sanctifying it.

3. The material out of which He made the Sabbath was ...