Shadow To Substance
Every shadow tells us that there is something of substance in existence. There cannot be a shadow without a substance.
The Old Covenant is filled with shadows. It was not the substance. Here’s the thing about shadows. Shadows cannot replace the substance because they cannot do what the substance does.
For instance, I can see a shadow of a chair cast on the floor. However, if I go to sit in the shadow, I will fall on the floor because the shadow cannot support me. The same thing would be true of a car or plane. If I were to try to travel by getting in the shadow of a car or plane, I would get nowhere. I need the substance.
Some believers love shadows; they spend their time preaching the shadows of the Old Covenant and extracting principles from them, believing that if you just tell people how to live, they can, by their own strength and willpower, do so. It’s like they are stuck celebrating the shadows.
Here’s something to consider. I love my wife, Sheila. I think she is beautiful. I enjoy my time with her. But wouldn’t it be weird if I preferred her shadow over her? Who wouldn’t think me to be weird if I were always trying to hug her shadow, or talking to her shadow, or trying to hold the shadow of her hand?
We no longer need to be preaching shadows because the substance has come! It’s time to stop looking at the shadows and start looking at the substance we’ve been given in Christ! When we stop celebrating the shadows and instead celebrate the substance, it produces a certain type of living that expresses freedom.
Colossians 2:16 So don’t let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain holy days or new moon ceremonies or Sabbaths. 17 For these rules are only shadows of the reality yet to come. And Christ himself is that reality. 18 Don’t let anyone condemn you by insisting on pious self-denial or the worship of angels, saying they have had visions about these things. Their sinful minds have made them proud, 19 and they are not connected to Christ, the head of the body. For he holds the whole body together with its joints and ligaments, and it grows as God nourishes it. 20 You have died with Christ, and he has set you free from the spiritual powers of this world. So why do you keep on following the rules of the world? For example, 21 “Don’t handle! Don’t taste! Don’t touch!”? 22 Such rules are mere human teachings about things that deteriorate as we use them. 23 These rules may seem wise because they require strong devotion, pious self-denial, and severe bodily discipline. But they provide no help in conquering a person’s evil desires. 3:1 Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. 2 Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. 3 For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God.
Often, there will be people who push others regarding their idea of what spiritual maturity should look like, and it often involves a certain level of devotion to certain things. It is a performance-based mindset that they operate in, and they desire that others adopt the same mindset. Their idea of devotion is often based on Old Covenant principles, which they think are hard, fast rules. This kind of thinking is so caught up in the things of this earth that they cannot think of heavenly things, new man realities, and Spirit-governed living.
In Christ, we are called to live according to the Spirit because the substance that has come to us makes this type of living our new reality. What was at one time out of reach and only casting a shadow is now within reach and desires that we partake. Christ in you the hope of glory! You are hidden with God in Christ and seated in the heavenly places with Christ! We no longer see according to types and shadows. We get to see God in the face of Jesus Christ! The substance (Christ Jesus) has come and revealed the Father! For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.
