No More Shadows of Things to Come

 

For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. For he finds fault with them when he says: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.” In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. (Hebrews 8:7-13 ESV).

 

If you walk along a city street on a bright, sunny day, you will come across shadows. The shadows won’t really affect your walk. For example, you can walk through the shadow of a light pole because you know it is just a shadow of the pole. But it does make you aware that there is a light pole near you.

 

The priests that God ordained under the old covenant served in a tabernacle (and later a temple), that was like a shadow, or a copy, of what is in heaven, says Hebrews. That tabernacle and those priests were there to point to the real tabernacle in heaven and the real High Priest, Jesus Christ, who works on our behalf to save us from our sin and gives us new life forever with God.

 

Jesus represents the new covenant, and his work is far superior to that of the priests of the old covenant. Jesus is the ultimate and final Word of God. Unfortunately, people got lost looking only at the shadow instead of looking to the real work of God in their lives and worshiping him as the only true God. Jesus Christ came into the world so that we would no longer need the temple priests to intercede for us; he himself intercedes for us.

 

And he has made the perfect sacrifice, providing forgiveness of sins once and for all. Instead of looking at shadows, we are called to look to Jesus.