Colossians 2:16

The connexion with the preceding argument is this: Since the bond written in ordinances has been abolished, and the angelic powers spoiled and led in triumph, allow no one to criticise your action on the ground that it is not in harmony with the precepts of the Law, or cuts you off from communion with the angels. You have nothing to do with Law or angels. At best they were but the shadow, and in Christ you possess the substance. κρινέτω ἐν : “judge you in,” ἐν meaning on the basis of. Whether a man eats or drinks or not his conduct in this respect supplies no fit ground for a judgment of him. κρ. is not to “condemn,” though the context shows that unfavourable judgment is in Paul's mind. βρώσει καὶ ἐν πόσει : “eating and in drinking,” not food and drink, for which Paul would have used βρῶμα and πόμα. The question is not altogether between lawful and unlawful food, but between eating and drinking or abstinence. Asceticism rather than ritual cleanness is in his mind. The Law is not ascetic in its character, its prohibitions of meats rest on the view that they are unclean, and drinks are not forbidden, save in exceptional cases, and then not for ascetic reasons. But these injunctions stand along with ordinances of the Law itself, partly, because they may have been regarded as extensions of its principles, partly, we may suppose, because, like the Law, they were attributed to the angels by the false teachers. In Hebrews 9:10 regulations as to drinks seem to be referred to as part of the Jewish Law. That the false teachers were ascetics is clear from ἀφειδίᾳ σώματος in Colossians 2:23. ἐν μέρει : “in the matter of,” μέρ. expressing the category. Chrysostom and some others have taken it strangely to mean “in the partial observance of”. ἑορτῆς ἢ νεομηνίας ἢ σαββάτων : the Jewish sacred seasons enumerated as they occur yearly, monthly and weekly. The Sabbath is placed on the same footing as the others, and Paul therefore commits himself to the principle that a Christian is not to be censured for its non-observance. σαββ., though plural in form, means a single Sabbath day.