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‘Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.’
Col_2:17
The great question now to every one of us is: Which is ‘the substance’ and which is ‘the shadow’ to me?
I. But St. Paul’s words have yet a stricter meaning.—He is speaking of ‘ordinances’ and he says that all ‘ordinances’—the Jewish first but also the Christian—are ‘the shadows,’ ‘the substance is Christ.’ He does not mean that ‘the shadows’ are nothing; but they are nothing without ‘the substance.’ God forbid that we should make little of ‘ordinances.’ They are amongst our most precious inheritance. But, after all, their worth is in the Christ we find in them.
II. Take any ‘ordinance’ you like:—
(a) Preaching. Without Christ it is mere shadow; Christ is ‘the body’ of every good, useful sermon that ever was preached.
(b) Prayer. Prayer is the lung of the soul. But it must be offered in the Name of Christ. That is ‘the body’ of the prayer; the rest of the prayer is only prayer’s ‘shadow.’
(c) The reading of the Bible. If you do not find Christ in your daily study of the Bible, you have founds if you like, words, interest, instruction, pleasure, but not life. The letter is ‘the shadow,’ ‘but the body is Christ.’
III. But there is one more view the text presents.—The Old Testament was almost entirely ‘the shadow’ of the New. It was a typical dispensation. But are there no ‘shadows’ of things yet to come in the New Testament? Are we not still typical? May we not well believe that many things which we are doing and loving, which belong to our Church now, and which are essential parts of our religion, are also types of other things which shall be in another dispensation? Our services, our sacraments, our converse, our work, our love, our best joys, have they not a higher ‘substance’ yet to come, of which they may be now only the earnests, and the representatives, and the preparations?
Rev. James Vaughan.