SHADOWS OF THINGS TO COME.
“Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath-days; which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.” Col. ii, 16, 17. When we have taken the position that there was nothing typical in the weekly Sabbath of the Lord, nothing which prefigured the work of Christ, no shadow, the body of which was of him, it has been asked why it could not be typical as well as the ceremonial sabbaths to which we claim that exclusive reference is made in the text above quoted. What is there, it has been asked, typical in a ceremonial sabbath more than in the weekly? The one was to be a holy convocation, so was the other; in the one there was to be no servile work done, neither in the other; if one was typical, why not the other? Well, let us see. There were three feasts in the year in which all the males were to appear before the Lord. Ex. xxiii, 14-17. To these we think reference is made in the text in the term holy-day, which is translated from heorte, which means a feast. Connected with these feasts were seven yearly sabbaths, or days in which holy convocations should be held, and no servile work be done. Lev. xxiii. There were two of these connected with the Passover—on the first and seventh days of the feast of unleavened bread. Lev. xxiii, 7, 8. Let it be marked that these two sabbaths were connected with the Passover, and were dependent on it for their existence. But Christ is the antitype of the paschal lamb. Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. 1 Cor. v, 7. When he made his offering, what became of the Passover? It ceased of course. And when the Passover ceased, what became of the sabbaths connected with it? They could not of course longer exist. This is the principle which runs through all these ceremonial sabbaths, indissolubly connecting them with something that is typical, and meets its antitype in the work of Christ. The third yearly sabbath was in the feast of weeks, on the fiftieth day after the waving of the first-fruits. But Christ was the antitype of the wave-sheaf, and the feast of Pentecost met its antitype fifty days thereafter. The fourth sabbath occurred on the first day of the seventh month, a memorial of blowing of trumpets; the fifth, on the tenth day of the seventh month, the day of atonement, now meeting its antitype in the work of our great High Priest, in the cleansing of the heavenly Sanctuary. There were two more sabbaths connected with the feast of tabernacles, on the first and eighth days. The antitype of this feast we think will be found in the great “ingathering” of the Lord’s harvest. 1 Cor. xv, 23. But the Sabbath of the Lord stands upon no such basis as this. It is an absolute and independent institution. It is as old as the world, and commemorates an event which equally concerns every individual of the human race; and none, unless they wish it, need be troubled with confounding it with the ceremonial and shadowy yearly sabbaths of the former dispensation.