To Encourage You

Hebrews 10:1 “the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities”

Hebrews 1:3 “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature”

One of my favorite topics of Bible study is the shadows and types that are provided for us throughout the Old Testament.  However, as Hebrews 10:1 tells us, “the law (i.e., the Old Testament Scriptures) is but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities.”  You see, although the Old Testament types are very wonderful, each and every one of them and in fact all of them together have their limitations.  For example, although the tabernacle, the temple, and all the furnishings, and ceremonies in one way or another pointed to Christ, they all had to be ritually purified because they were created by the hands of sinful men.  But even the purification rituals themselves involving the blood of animals were limited in that “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4-6).  God, in His grace, provided a substitute by way of these sacrifices for the forgiveness of sins, but they all pointed to the reality of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. Without His ultimate sacrifice, these shadows would have all been worthless. 

People serve as types throughout the Old Testament, as well.  David was a man after God’s own heart and a righteous king that pointed to the King of kings Who was to come. However, unlike the King of kings, David was an adulterer and a murderer. His life fell far short of the true righteousness of Christ.  Solomon was a type of the wisdom of Jesus, but Solomon’s wisdom was greatly lacking in many ways as he fell into the sins of idolatry and the marriage of many foreign and idolatrous wives.  Noah’s life pointed to Christ Who is the true ark of the salvation of God, but Noah was also a sinner, like all the other Old Testament human types of Christ.  It is only in Christ that we have the “exact imprint” of the nature and being of God. 

You see, Jesus was not a type of God in shadow form.  He was a replica in 3D. He fell short of the image of God in nothing. As Jesus told Philip when he asked to see the Father, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).  Notice, He didn’t say that seeing Him is to see a shadow of the Father or a type of the Father. No, seeing Him is to actually see the Father in all His glory.  Jesus didn’t just reflect the Father’s glory or point to His glory; He is the very radiance of His glory.  In other words, all the glory of God is seen in the glory of Christ, for it’s the same exact thing. Unlike all the types of the Old Testament, Jesus falls short of the reality of God in nothing, for He is God. 

That’s the main theme of the book of Hebrews: the absolute supremacy of Christ.  There is no higher being, there is no more glorious God. Everything God the Father is, God the Son is – the exact same eternal nature, the exact same power, the exact same wisdom, the exact same omnipresence.  And yet He humbled Himself to enter this world to show us what the reality of God looks like in the form of a man.  Jesus is God’s love.  It’s a love that goes to the extent of bearing the penalty for our sin and our shortcomings, shortcomings that were seen so readily in the Old Testament’s glorious yet imperfect types.  It’s a love that was demonstrated not in a type or shadow of suffering for a type or shadow of our sin, but in His very real suffering on the cross as the indescribably awesome real payment for our real sin. 

Praise His glorious name!