16Therefore
let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard
to a festival or a new moon or a sabbath. 17These are only a shadow
of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.
Because all hope and confidence is in Christ, Paul told us not to
subject ourselves to any superstition or law. Therefore those who proclaim,
loudly or softly, anything which is irrelevant to the faith of Christ are to be
rejected. The only one to be followed is the one by whom death has been
overcome and the resurrection of the dead has been given to us. Some of the
Jews are used to judging believers because they eat the things which were
forbidden by Moses, although God made everything clean. The Jews are considered
unworthy to eat such things which they are forbidden to do by their betters.
They are also accustomed to upbraid us because we ignore their holidays or
because we do not observe the beginnings of months which they call new moons,
and above all because we do not keep the sabbath by passing it in idleness and
feasting to excess, which is more likely to cause offence than to be a means of
grace. All these things are the body of Christ, because they are the names of
the elements by their effects. This is why it says in the Gospel: The Son of Man is Lord also of the sabbath.
All the things which were given by Moses derive from him and are a shadow or
figure of what is to come, so that when the truth appears the shadow will
cease. Just as the emperor’s image has authority when he is absent but does not
have it when he is present, so also these things were meant to be observed in
their time, before the coming of Christ, but when he appeared they lost their
authority. For which of the Lord’s deputies rules when he is present? If the
prefects’ deputies are deprived [of their authority] when they are present, how
much more must the servants of the Lord be subject to him when he is present.
(Ambrosiaster, Commentaries on Galatians-Philemon [trans. Gerald
L. Bray; Ancient Chrisitan Texts; Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2009], 90-91)
