Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] All right, let's get our bible. Turn to the Book of Colossians. Colossians, chapter two.
[00:00:08] Colossians.
[00:00:17] Colossians, chapter two.
[00:00:20] Now, on Wednesday night, we have been going through. We've actually just last Wednesday night, went through the final, the. The last of the Ten Commandments, and I hope that was a blessing to you. And as I was preparing for those different messages on the Ten Commandments, the thought came to me.
[00:00:41] Sometimes, as believers, we emphasize the New Testament a lot. And one part of the Bible besides the minor prophets that doesn't get a whole lot of attention is the law. Is the law. It's often neglected and realize in the New Testament, before the New Testament was written, that is, in, like, the book of acts, for instance, the Bible of those people was the Old Testament scripture. That was their bible until the New Testament was completed, and it's still our Bible today. And so as we've gone through the Ten Commandments, we've seen one aspect. We have seen one aspect of the Old Testament law. That is, we have looked at, some people try to define it as the moral law of God. And so we looked at that, and we've seen how it applies to us in the New Testament. And we've studied each one of those things. We've seen the issues as these things come of the heart and how the heart is affected by them. But did you know there are other aspects of the law of God, the law of Moses, that which is in particular in Exodus and Leviticus and in numbers to some degree, and in deuteronomy, there is more involved in that. In fact, you can divide it up. You can have the laws that deal with morality, that deal with holiness and unholiness, which those are some of which we studied already on Wednesday nights previously. But then you have a large portion of the law takes up the description of the tabernacle and the covering of that tent and all of the different furniture pieces, the brazen altar, the labor, the altar of incense, the table of showbread, and all of those other things.
[00:02:36] And then you have the ark of the Covenant and the veil and all of those things. That's a whole section of the law of Moses. And then you also have an entire section that deals with holy days and feast days. You have all kinds of Sabbath days. You have all kinds of times. They were supposed to stop working. And these things. Listen, we know from the beginning, even the ten Commandments, we saw that God gave those commandments to Israel. Well, all the rest of the law is given to Israel as well.
[00:03:04] So there's those aspects, but then there's one other major aspect that you see in the law, and that is the sacrifices. And there's a lot of information about the sacrifices in the Old Testament. So what I would like to do is I would like to kind of turn the page staying in the law and go from our study on the ten Commandments to the law more broadly. And listen, it is my desire to not bore you, okay. Because now, if you would, if you will pay attention to the brazen altar it's made of.
[00:03:41] It was 2ft. It was two cubits by two cubits. Yeah, I'm not going to do that. I promise.
[00:03:52] Thanks, Vidari. My heart is touched.
[00:03:57] We're not going to do that. Okay.
[00:03:59] We're not going to try to dissect and microanalyze the decimal points on the measurements of various articles in the tabernacle, okay?
[00:04:11] Yeah. We're just not going to do that. Well, I didn't say anything was wrong with it, but a practical rule I've heard a preacher say is, do not be boring. Do not be boring. Do not be boring. All right. So we're going to try not to be boring. All right. But I would like to look at some of these aspects, at least hit the high points of this, because it is part of the scripture and it's very helpful to you. I hope that you read the Bible through. I hope that you read these parts of the Bible that sometimes you wonder why they're there. I hope that you read all them because they're all important. I want to show you tonight. I want to show you a reason why these different aspects of the law are important and worthy of our attention. But to do that, we have to look at this, which is, it's a biblical basis for our study moving forward. Okay, so that's where we're going to start in Colossians chapter two. Let's pray first, and then we'll read Colossians a couple of verses in Colossians chapter two.
[00:05:14] Our father, thank you for the opportunity to meet together as the church of God. Thank you for everyone that's here and those that are listening in that can't be here tonight. Lord, I pray I just commit this time to you. As we look at your word, let it be fruitful in our lives and in our heart. Thank you for your people. Thank you for the grace that is obviously at work in your people. Thank you, Lord. Lord, thank you for brother Zach being here. Lord, bless him and keep him and guide his steps. Thank you for him. Lord, I thank you for brother Ken being here. I pray that you'd give him comfort and grace both to him and to his kids and grandchildren. Lord, please help them. Lord, we want to see you in these verses. Help us and guide us in our study. Lord, I need your help to help your people. Lord, give us ears to hear as well. In Jesus name we ask. Amen.
[00:06:06] Okay, so I want to look at Colossians chapter two, verse number 16.
[00:06:12] Now, one thing that's going on among the colossian church is there was a group of them that was dabbling in law keeping. Now, these people aren't Jews.
[00:06:24] They never did keep the law. But somebody has been telling them that there are certain things in the law they have to keep, like the holy days and different things like that, even though they've never kept them. Now, we've already seen that when we've looked at acts chapter 15. But verse number 16 of colossians two says this. Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of an holy day or of the new moon or of the Sabbath days, which. Stop right there. Okay, be a good bible student.
[00:06:58] What does the word witch in verse 17 refer to?
[00:07:03] The word which refers to what things?
[00:07:10] Holy days. Holy days, new moons, sabbaths, meat and drink. All these different. These things here. Right? Okay. Now those things. I'm going to substitute the word those things. So this fresh in our mind, those things are verse 17. A shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ. Those things are a shadow of things to come. Now, what is a shadow? Now, you all know what a shadow is, but for our purposes here, I want to illustrate it. A shadow is basically an outline of an object that is cast.
[00:07:49] An outline that is cast by an object when the object is placed between the light source and the surface that is cast upon. All right, so you have light, you have the surface, just like we have here a projector. That's why it's here. So the light shines, but it hits an object and it casts a shadow, in this case, an outline. And that's what this is talking about here. Now, I want to do a little object lesson here, but I need a volunteer. Now, I'm going to volunteer somebody, and I've already chosen who it is. Ben, you're up.
[00:08:26] Because Ben is always a good sport. Will you come up here, please?
[00:08:32] Now, Ben, just stand right over here beside the projector, if you would. Now, Ben, do you trust me?
[00:08:40] If you have to ask somebody that, the answer is no. Okay, here's Ben, I want you to just. I'm going to move Ben closer to the screen, okay, so you can see the screen. Now I'm going to ask you to close your eyes. I'm not going to touch you. I'm not going to do anything to you, I promise. Keep them closed. I'm going to get something, an object.
[00:09:01] This is the object.
[00:09:03] It was a gift.
[00:09:04] Okay. Don't say anything. Now, what I'm going to do, keep your eyes closed. What I'm going to do is I'm going to illustrate this idea of a shadow. Okay?
[00:09:17] Now, when I tell you. Not now, but when I tell you, I want you to open your eyes and look at the screen. And at the screen only. In fact, put your hand up like a blinder. On this side.
[00:09:26] Yeah.
[00:09:27] So you can't see your right hand side. All right. When you open your eyes, all right, I think it actually goes this way.
[00:09:40] Okay. Keeping your right eye. Keeping your right eye blocked so you can't see. Open your eyes and look only at the screen. Don't say anything, though, okay?
[00:09:49] No, you can look both eyes, but just block your right eye so you can't see what I'm holding.
[00:09:54] All right, can you see the screen?
[00:09:56] Okay, so right now Ben sees a shadow between the light and the screen is the actual object, right. Now Ben can't see that actual object. Okay. What, though, Ben? What does it appear to be based upon? The shadow.
[00:10:17] All right, it's the flag raising of Iwo Jima. That's correct. The Marine Corps Iwo Jima Memorial in Arlington.
[00:10:29] Yeah. They had fought all the way up that hill. Remember Mount Surabachi?
[00:10:34] Okay, so don't look yet. All right. Now, Ben, what color is the actual object that I'm holding?
[00:10:42] No idea.
[00:10:44] I can assume it's black, but I don't think it's. He assumes it's black based off of shadow. How big is the object that I'm holding?
[00:10:54] Maybe six inches long.
[00:10:59] What's it made of? I assume bronze.
[00:11:04] He assumes it because he knows the object. All right, here's the thing I want you to see about. This is brother Ben. He sees the shadow, he sees the outline, and he recognizes certain things that allow him to at least recognize what the object likely is. But what he sees is still obscure. It's not clear why, because he's only seeing a shadow. He's not seeing the actual object. Okay, now, Ben, look at the actual object.
[00:11:36] Now, hold the object.
[00:11:38] What's it made of, Ben?
[00:11:41] Little bit of wood, a little bit of metal.
[00:11:45] It's plastic.
[00:11:47] It's plastic. It's painted like it's metal, but it's plastic.
[00:11:54] It might be a little bit.
[00:11:57] You don't know your own answer. Yeah, I don't know. It seems plastic. Yeah, you would jim up bronze. I think that just means the color.
[00:12:05] Okay, thank you, Ben. Okay, so what I'm trying to show you is this.
[00:12:13] When Ben was looking at the shadow, although he recognized the object, it's obscure, it's not perfectly clear. So there's a lot about the actual object that he doesn't know because it has not been fully revealed to him. But there are things that he can know and see and recognize, even though it's fuzzy being in the projector and even though there's no color, he just sees the outline. That is what we're talking about in Colossians 217. We're talking about verse 17. All of those things which are meat and drink, respective and holy days, new moons and the Sabbath days are a shadow of things to come. So in the Old Testament scripture, those things were only shadows. Okay, let me make a few comments about shadows and we'll look at a couple of other verses. Hopefully we won't be long tonight. From a shadow, you can often discern things about the actual object. You have to make a clear distinction in your mind between the shadow and the object. Here's the thing. The shadow is not the object, right. The shadow cannot be the object.
[00:13:32] Now, from the shadow, as I said, you can discern a lot of things about the actual object, but it's obscure.
[00:13:39] But here's the thing you have to remember. You cannot have a shadow unless you have an object.
[00:13:46] The object is more important than the shadow, right. Because without the object, the shadow can't exist.
[00:13:56] So the shadow is not the most significant part, but the actual object is the most significant part. The object is the reason for the shadow. All right, does everybody follow me on that? Now you say you're speaking all cryptic and I don't understand what you're trying to say. All right, let's look back at Colossians chapter two.
[00:14:17] Now note the things. This is important. Note the things in verse 16 that in verse 17 are described as shadows. Here's the list. Food and drink, holy days, the new moon and the Sabbath days.
[00:14:39] These things are all. This is a reference to all these different aspects of the law of Moses. When they had holy days and new moons, there were certain sacrifices that were to be made on the new moon. That is, each month there were certain holy days where they were to stop working. Beside the weekly Sabbath, there were certain holy days, right? The feast of atonement and the feast of unleavened bread and the Passover feast and feast of first fruits, or in gathering tabernacles and all those various feasts. There's these various feasts in the Old Testament. And then it says food and drink. So it's dealing with dietary laws, laws of cleanness and uncleanness and those types of things. Those are all things in verse 16 that are identified by verse 17 as being just a shadow. So if those are just shadows in the Old Testament, now we know that Israel did those things.
[00:15:34] Those things were a law to Israel, right? But in God's purpose and plan, those things were not the object.
[00:15:43] Those things were a shadow of something else.
[00:15:47] Okay? But by looking at those things, you can see certain aspects of the main object.
[00:15:56] Everybody follow what I'm trying to say.
[00:16:02] But now you see, if you read verse 16, look what it says. Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of an holy day or of the new moon or of the Sabbath days. Now here's what he's saying. He's saying nobody should judge you on these things, whether you do or don't do them. In other words, if you don't do any of these things, nobody should say a word to you. Because remember, there was a bunch of judaizers running around telling these gentile believers, christians, that they had to keep all these laws and Old Testament law of Moses. Remember, we've already studied that in detail. Right? And Paul is saying no man should judge you in those things. Why?
[00:16:45] You have the real thing. You have the actual object that has cast the shadow. Why do you need the shadow now?
[00:16:56] The shadow no longer has a use to you because you have the object.
[00:17:03] You see it clearly.
[00:17:05] That's what he's saying here. That's why he's telling them not to judge. We live in a time, we live in a time when all of these shadows of the Old Testament, and we're going to see a couple more, all of these shadows of the Old Testament have already been revealed. The object that was there casting the shadow, the real thing, has already been shown to us in fine detail. We know every aspect of it, just like we know every aspect of this little commemorative Iwo Jima flag raising thing. We know every aspect of it because we see it as it were, in broad daylight. We don't need a shadow.
[00:17:45] See, the things that are found in the law of Moses that are listed here are only shadows. They don't give you the whole picture, but they give you an idea of something else.
[00:17:57] Okay?
[00:18:01] These shadows show us.
[00:18:05] We know the shadows, but what we have been given and what has been revealed to us are the very images that are casting the shadows. They're clearly and openly described to us. What am I talking about? I'm talking about the truths of the scripture.
[00:18:22] Who Christ is, his bloodshed for us, the forgiveness of sin, and complete erasure of our sin. All of those things are perfectly and clearly revealed in the New Testament. But the Old Testament law were shadows of those New Testament truths.
[00:18:45] So the thing is, in Colosse, the Christians were being led to return, even though they had the real logic to return to the shadow. It's like putting on a pair of glasses on purpose that obscures your vision. Why would you do that? If you see it clearly now, why would you intentionally obscure it? You don't do that. But that's what is essentially happening when somebody says, oh, you got to keep these laws. No, all that's been fulfilled.
[00:19:13] Let's go to Hebrews, if you would. Chapter eight.
[00:19:22] Hebrews, chapter 80.
[00:19:32] Let's look at verse number, verse three.
[00:19:37] Hebrews eight. Verse three says this. For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices. Wherefore it is of necessity that this man, speaking of Jesus, has somewhat also to offer. For if he were on earth, he should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law. Verse five. Who serve. What are we talking about? Who's the who? Who is the who?
[00:20:04] The priests in the verse three and four. The priests of the Old Testament, which is in the law of Moses, serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things. That means that the priests, the priests, as well as their sacrifices that they gave, as well as the place where they offered those sacrifices, which is the tabernacle and all of its related furniture. Their whole purpose, it says, serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things. So the whole reason that God instituted all of that was to demonstrate by an example or a pattern of the real thing in heaven. Okay, that's what we see here.
[00:20:53] Their whole purpose was not to take away sin, for that was impossible, and we'll see that a little bit later.
[00:21:01] Their whole purpose was to show something else that wasn't yet fully revealed. These things, the priests, the tabernacle, the sacrifices, those things were not to be the end. All those things were not the final product. They were not the very object.
[00:21:19] You know what? This is one thing that bothers the Jews so much to this day because the way they view their religious practices in our day, as the orthodox Jews, all their religious practices and holy days and laws and things, they view them as the final product, even though the Old Testament tells them that it's not. It's a pattern, but they view it as the final product. So you can understand why it's offensive to them when we say there's no more need of that because Christ has come, we're essentially saying it's outdated. In fact, Hebrew says it very plainly. We'll see in a minute.
[00:21:57] Look at chapter nine, verse number. Let's see, verse number, verse six. Chapter nine, verse six. The Bible says this. Now, when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God. But in the second went the high priest alone. Once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the heirs of the people, the Holy Ghost. This signifying that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing. Now, what subjects are we talking about here? We're talking about the priest, the high priest. We're talking about the tabernacle. We're talking about the goat he used on the day of atonement. Right? Once a year. This is what we're talking about, right? We're talking about a sacrifice, an offering.
[00:22:50] Verse nine. Those things which was a figure for the time, then present. Notice that. Temporary. The time then present means it was only temporary. Right? A shadow is only temporary until the object is revealed. The figure is only needed, you might say a know. Oftentimes, before they design something, they'll have schematics of the thing. And it tells you the dimension is not all that. But what do you need know? Back in the back here in Karen's office, there's drawings of this church building, right? But we don't look at those every time we come to church, do we? Why don't we look?
[00:23:28] Because it's here. What need we of the drawings, except for memory purposes.
[00:23:37] And so in this verse, it's telling us, it says, which was a figure for the time, then present, temporary, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices that could not make him that did the service perfect as pertaining to the conjure. So in these things, all of these things are figures in the Old Testament. The gifts and sacrifices, the meat and drink, the washings, the rituals, the clean, the unclean things, the tabernacle and all of its furniture. The priests as well as the high priest are described. Does everybody get this? Are described as shadows and figures in these verses because as it says in verse eight, was not yet made manifest.
[00:24:29] All right, look at one more passage here in chapter ten, verse one.
[00:24:36] Chapter ten, verse one, says this, for the law having a shadow of good things to come, notice that good things to come, that's future. So if you were sitting in the old, if you're an Old Testament saint and you lived under the law of Moses, like David did, like Joshua did, all these others, all the things that they did that God ordained for them to do with his law, the sacrifices, the tabernacle, the priesthood, all of those things were not intended to be permanent. All of those things were actually intended to be temporary. And they were all designed to show something about the real object that they described as a shadow. Is everybody with me?
[00:25:30] What I'm trying to show you is this.
[00:25:35] All of these things, these verses that we've read clearly show the biblical basis for what we call typology.
[00:25:45] How many of you have heard this word before? Typology. We get the word type.
[00:25:50] Get the word type from the word.
[00:25:56] Where'd it go?
[00:26:03] It's from the word that's translated pattern. The word that's translated pattern. I think it's in chapter nine, if I'm not mistaken.
[00:26:16] Anyhow.
[00:26:19] No, it's not there anyway.
[00:26:22] It's from a word that's translated pattern. So a type. We talk about type this. This is a type of Christ. This is a type of whatever. That's essentially, this is the reason that types exist. It's not like some preacher. It's not like some preacher that wanted to be cute, was reading the Old Testament. It's like, hi.
[00:26:39] This kind of reminds me of Jesus. It's not like test the book of Hebrews or book of colossians tells us, look, you go back and look at that stuff in the Old Testament, and you're going to see things that were already there about Jesus and about my redemption that were there the whole time.
[00:27:02] But see, we have the benefit of looking back.
[00:27:06] So when we see the outline of this, the only reason that brother Ben could recognize the shadow is because he had seen this before.
[00:27:16] He had seen this prior. Now, this is an imitation, of course, but he knew the shape of it, and because he had full knowledge of the thing. Have you ever visited the memorial? No, but because the real memorial, how many of you have seen it? It's huge. It's really big. It's like 30 foot tall or something. It's really big. But the reason he recognized the shadow is because he knows the real object. Well. That's where we are as New Testament Christians.
[00:27:45] We can look back at the Old Testament because we have full knowledge that's been revealed in the New Testament. We have full knowledge of Christ's redemption, of who he is and all of those things. And we look back at the Old Testament, at the sacrifices at the tabernacle, at the priesthood, at the holy days. We look at those things that we, you know, for somebody that's not paying attention, we think it's boring. It's not.
[00:28:10] All along, those things were pointing to Christ, and we have perfect view of it.
[00:28:16] And that's. What's that? What's that?
[00:28:20] Eight, five. Thank you. I'll read it real quick. Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things as Moses would admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle? For see, saith he that thou make all things according to the pattern that is type showed to thee in the mount.
[00:28:40] And that verse is actually out of Exodus, chapter 25, when God says to Moses not once, not twice, but many times.
[00:28:50] Remember in the Old Testament when God was showing him all of these things, the priest garments, the tabernacle's furniture, all of that. He didn't give him a schematic written on a piece of paper. He said this long. He did tell him dimensions, but he showed him the real objects in heaven.
[00:29:11] You know what that means? That means that those objects that he made were not the real objects. They only represented the real objects.
[00:29:20] Where Christ went, though, was to the real objects, to the real temple in heaven, offered his blood once for all. Look at some of these verses and we'll be finished.
[00:29:38] Look at Hebrews eight verse. We're already in verse eight, verse, chapter eight, verse seven.
[00:29:45] Listen to what the Bible says about the law. Now I want you to note how the finality of this, the finality of the shadow. In other words, when God talks about the shadows, all these things in the Old Testament, he tells you, this is only temporary. This is not going to last forever. It serves a purpose. Right now, later, something will be manifest. Listen to these words. For if that first covenant, that's the law, had been thoughtless, then should no place have been sought for the second.
[00:30:20] You see that? Look at verse 13. In that he saith a new covenant. He hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth, he's talking about the law of Moses. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away. What do you need the shadow. For you have the objects.
[00:30:41] That's why we don't observe the law of Moses and all those dietary laws and have tabernacle and sacrifices. Why these sacrifices already come. It's done. Right, it's done.
[00:30:54] Look at chapter nine, verse twelve.
[00:30:58] This is a famous verse in Hebrews, one of the most important verses in Hebrews. Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, he entered in once. Notice that one time, not like the priest, over and over and over and over and over. One time that was always needed.
[00:31:16] Once into the holy place, having obtained. What's the next word? Eternal redemption. If the Lord Jesus Christ has, by shedding his blood, then offering his blood as a sacrifice at the place where it required to be offered, if he has done it once for eternal redemption, there's no need to do it again.
[00:31:38] There's no need to do it again. It's done. That means all of the shadows are finished.
[00:31:44] Look at chapter verse 25.
[00:31:48] Says this, nor yet that he should offer himself often as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with the blood of others. With blood of others. For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world. But now, once in the end of the world, hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
[00:32:12] Look at verse number 28. So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin, unto salvation. It's final.
[00:32:24] What Jesus did was the real object.
[00:32:27] What the shadow was supposed to show us.
[00:32:32] A couple more verses. Chapter ten, verse eleven. Look at that.
[00:32:37] And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering, oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God.
[00:32:56] So why do we need a tabernacle and a priest to go in every year on the day of atonement? We don't need that. Our savior has offered himself for us once, and that's all that's necessary. It's eternal, done one and done. And so the shadow, it has value to point.
[00:33:14] But we're not going to serve that, right. That would be foolish.
[00:33:21] So we have the benefit as a New Testament Christian with full revelation, of looking back. Listen now, looking back at all of the shadows in the Old Testament law and seeing Christ in them, that's the benefit. And this is the basis of what I would like us to study going forward. Upon this basis, we can look at those things and say, yeah. Jesus is there. And he's there. And he's there too. And he's there. He's all throughout all of these things. He's in all of it. Because they all show his outline. They all show his shadow.
[00:34:07] So we look at his shadow now. And to us it's no longer obscure. It's clear.
[00:34:14] It's clear.
[00:34:16] And so that's what I'd like to do as we go forward on Wednesday nights. Is to look at some of these things. And look for the true, the aspects of the true. While looking at the shadow. All right, let's pray together.
