The law is a shadow

… the law, having a shadow of the impending good things, not the selfsame image of the matters… Hebrews 10:1

Reading in Exodus and Leviticus all about the rules and regulations for the sacrificial service, will for few people be a favorite activity. It leaves a gory and macabre impression, when we read how bucks or bulls had to be slaughtered, as well as when we take note of the many details what next was to be done with the blood and flesh. The writer of the Hebrew letter calls the law in general, and the sacrificial service in particular, expressly not an image, but a shadow of what was to come. A shadow is the opposite of light. The law and the sacrifices are in themselves, darkness. Although a shadow is the opposite of light … it does exists by the grace of light! A shadow shows contours, a profile. Sacrifices refer to the reality in the resurrected Christ; to Him, Who as the perfect and innocent ‘lamb’ was ‘slain’ and then, as a “sweet incense”, in His resurrection “on the third day”, ascended to God. Behold: shadow and reality. A slain animal that ascends in smelly smoke is a shadow, dark and deathlike, but it shows the contours of Life that would come to light on that third day, on which the stone would be rolled away… ——————————— translation: Peter Feddema

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