Hebrews 10:1, commentary and pictures

The law here is the ceremonial law of sacrifices, offerings and temple services, not the moral law of ten commandments, and it is called a shadow because it gave only an outline and outward likeness of good things to come rather than the full reality itself. The sacrifices offered year by year continually could never make worshipers perfect, cleanse the heart, take away sin or give eternal life, for they had no saving virtue in themselves apart from the atonement they represented. The whole system was ordained to keep fallen people mindful of guilt and death, of separation from God and need of a Mediator, and to hold faith alive by continually pointing to Christ in whom alone its meaning and value lay. Christ is the substance and great Antitype of all those types, and at His death type met antitype so that the sacrificial offerings and temple services ceased forever, as shown by the rending of the inner veil. The ending of those shadows did not abolish the ten commandments, which remain holy, immutable and binding, and those before the cross were saved in the same way as those after, by faith in Christ's blood looking forward through the dying victims to the coming Lamb.

What Law Means Here

The “law” having a shadow is the ceremonial, typical law of sacrifices, offerings, temple services, forms, symbols, ordinances and the entire Jewish system, not the moral law of ten commandments engraved on stone. It is the law of types and shadows, distinct from the law of Jehovah which is as abiding and changeless as His eternal throne, while the moral law and the statutes that explained and guarded it were not shadows that passed away at Christ’s death. This shadow law reached only to the time of Christ and remained in force only until type met its fulfillment in His death, when the greater and wholly complete sacrifice of Jesus as the spotless Lamb, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, virtually abolished the whole system of forms and symbols and it ceased forever to be of force. That is what was meant by coming to fulfill and not destroy the law, and by blotting out the handwritten ordinances and nailing them to the cross. To continue the typical burnt offerings and sacrifices after the crucifixion denies Christ and declares lack of faith in Him who gave His life for the sins of the world, and to use this text to prove the moral law abolished blends the moral with the ceremonial and perverts the Scriptures.

The whole typical system originated with Christ, was instituted by Him, and in His death met its antitype, for He is the author and foundation of the religion of God’s people from the days of Adam, the finisher of the faith, the vindicator of the truth and the fulfiller of the prophecies. He did not make the law of God of none effect but came for the express purpose of vindicating His Father’s law, and distinct from the typical law the moral law gives light by which a person sees himself a sinner, leading to death to sin, repentance, obedience to the law of God, faith in Jesus Christ as Saviour, baptism and zealous preaching, as Saul learned when his spiritual vision was touched. Its true meaning is seen by thoroughly studying the ancient prophecies regarding Messiah and comparing them link after link with the facts of His life, death and resurrection to establish their fulfillment in Him, and His death bringing type and antitype together gives a clearer understanding of what the ceremonies represented as events fulfilled in Christ. The yearly sacrifices could never make the comers perfect or complete.

The verse contrasts a shadow with the very image, reality and substance: the law gave only an outline, figure, husk, outward likeness and continual prophecy of the good things to come, not the full reality itself. The law and the whole Jewish economy were a shadow, a figure, appointed for a time to point to Christ as the truth, the life, the heart and the substance of all the service, and the Old Testament is the gospel in figures and symbols while the New Testament is the substance, one as essential as the other. Its sacrifices typified Christ’s sacrifice for fallen humanity, kept before people the need for His blood, looked ahead to His once-for-all sacrifice which brings the blessings of the new covenant, and He fulfilled that long-represented prophecy by offering that sacrifice. In the shadow the round of service, first in the holy place for the entire year save one day, and second in the most holy place on the last day of that year, was repeated each successive year, but Christ’s ministry is not so. He entered the holy place of the heavenly sanctuary at His ascension in the spring of A.D. 31 once for all and ministered there eighteen hundred and thirteen years and six months until the cleansing of the sanctuary at the close of the 2300 days in the autumn of 1844, when on the tenth day of the seventh month He entered the most holy place once for all to make a special atonement for the blotting out of sins, which is the cleansing of the heavenly tabernacle. As He suffered upon the cross not often but once for all, so He cleanses the heavenly sanctuary once for all, and the period of His ministry in the most holy can no more be defined before its close than the time of His ministry in the holy could be defined before it ended, so the tenth-day atonement for the cleansing of the typical sanctuary proves He would enter the most holy of the heavenly tabernacle on the tenth day of the seventh month but proves nothing that He would on that day come out to bless His waiting people.

Type met antitype in the death of Jesus Christ, who instituted the economy and in whom it found its perfect fulfillment, yet the teachers of the Jewish nation failed to discern this veiled mystery, perverted the figures and symbols by their own inventions, were blinded and confused, crucified the Originator to whom all their ordinances pointed, and discarded the truth while still holding the mere shadows. Meats and drinks and divers ordinances were multiplied until ceremonial religion became their only worship. The verse’s distinction between shadow and substance warns against spiritualizing the doctrines of present truth until the substance and the shadow can no longer be distinguished.

That shadow system was established after Adam’s fall and continued from Adam onward, requiring the sacrificing of beasts to keep before fallen man that the penalty of disobedience is death. If the law had not been transgressed there never would have been death and there would have been no need of additional precepts to suit man’s fallen condition, but transgression made it necessary for Christ to die as a sacrifice to make escape from the penalty possible while the honor of God’s law was preserved. The animal sacrifices beginning with Adam were a shadow of good things to come and not the very offering itself, and Adam taught his descendants to honor them as types of the promised Saviour yet to come. The bleeding victim prefigured the Son of God who was to die as man’s sacrifice, and the offerer was to look forward by faith to Him. The ceremonial offering was ordained as a perpetual reminder of guilt and a penitential acknowledgment of sin, teaching humility in view of the fallen condition and teaching that transgression of God’s holy law brings death and that nothing less than the death of God’s dear Son could expiate it. Those sacrifices year by year could never in themselves make the comers perfect, but pointing to the great and perfect offering of God’s dear Son they held out a star of hope in the dark future of sin and ruin, leading to repentance and to trust in God alone through the promised Redeemer for pardon for past transgression of His law.

Shadows Cannot Perfect

The yearly sacrifices offered continually under the law could never make those who came to them perfect, cleanse away sin, take away sin, complete salvation, secure pardon and restored communion with God, or give eternal life. They were only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very reality itself, instituted to represent the death and mediatorial work of Christ and to keep continually before the people the separation that sin had made between God and man and their need of access to God only through another, a mediator. They kept before sinners the need for Christ's blood and looked ahead to His once-for-all sacrifice that brings the blessings of the new covenant, for people in earlier times were saved by faith in that blood, looking through dying victims to the Lamb of God who would take away the world's sin as the one great sacrifice and source of life and hope. They were figures pointing forward to Christ the perfect, sinless, spotless Offering without blemish whose sacrifice alone could satisfy the law's demands, and through the promised Christ the broken communication between God and sinners was opened. The system was thus symbolical and temporary, to continue until that perfect Offering should take the place of the figurative, with a Mediator whose office and work would greatly exceed in dignity and glory the earthly typical priesthood, and it was to cease at His death.

In themselves the ceremonies had no meaning, virtue, efficacy or saving power except as they related to Christ, who was the foundation of the entire system, and of themselves they could never secure the salvation of one soul. An animal's life was worth less than the life of the sinner and could not serve as the sinner's ransom, and the blood of beasts cannot expiate sin, but those sacrifices were acceptable only as figures pointing forward to the perfect Offering whose blood they represented. All their virtue was derived from the blood of the atonement they typified, for the offering of beasts did not cleanse away sin but was a shadow and symbol of the great and complete sacrifice of Christ upon the cross of Calvary for the sins of the whole world. When Christ died the type met its reality, the blood of animals became valueless, and His one great offering of His own life fulfilled what the earlier offerings had foreshadowed and ended the value of the Jewish sacrificial offerings. The whole sanctuary service, including the rivers of blood that flowed when sacrifices were offered in large numbers at the harvest thanksgiving, was meant to teach this great truth and to impress that things set apart for God are holy and the distinction between the sacred and the common must be kept, with even the productions of the earth and bounties for sustenance owed to Christ's offering as the gift of redeeming love, and with ample provision made for the poor and for carrying the gospel to those perishing in sin. They can never make worshipers perfect when the sin is daring, willful transgression insulting to a holy God, as with the iniquity of Eli's house which shall not be purged with sacrifice nor offering forever, and to profane those typical sacrifices by blasphemous conduct is to trample upon the blood of the atonement itself.

The cleansing rites required of ancient Israel illustrated the need for carefulness and purity, but they could not cleanse the heart or make worshipers perfect. When Christ the Sin-Bearer died the type met its antitype and those ceremonies lost their force. Outward performances cannot take the place of inward cleansing and a religion of the heart and life.

Purpose Of Shadow System

The sacrificial system was ordained to keep continually before fallen people that disobedience brings death, that sin had separated God and humanity, that guilty sinners can find access to God only through another, and that a mediator was needed. Established after Adam's fall with the sacrificing of beasts, it was a perpetual reminder of guilt and of the broken communication between God and sinners, calling to humility in view of the fallen condition, to repentance, confession, obedience, and to trust in God alone through the promised Redeemer for pardon of past transgression. Every dying victim was explicitly planned to rivet in mind and heart that forgiveness comes through the blood of Christ alone, which alone cleanses from all sin, for without shedding of blood there is no remission, a lesson impressed in solemn sacred ceremony and explained definitely by the priests. The ceremonies had no meaning and no virtue in themselves except as they related to Christ, and of themselves they could never make worshipers perfect or secure salvation, for they were symbolic and temporary, to continue only until the perfect, sinless, spotless offering without blemish should take their place with a Mediator whose office far exceeds the earthly typical priesthood.

The whole Jewish economy rested on, originated with, and was founded by Christ, who established that system and came to uphold his Father's law and fulfill its types in his death. Its meaning, value, life and beauty depended entirely on its relation to him as its foundation, with the blood of its sacrifices pointing to the Lamb of God and all its typical offerings fulfilled in him. The earthly priesthood and its sacrifices could not themselves provide the sinner access to God, for sinners cannot approach God on the merit of their own guilt-stained lives, but Christ alone opens the way by offering himself perfect and undefiled in a sacrifice equal to the demand of the divine law, of infinite value whose cost reveals the terrible consequences of sin.

It was a continual and compacted prophecy of the gospel, the gospel in figures, appointed to keep faith alive until fulfillment and to typify Christ's sacrifice for fallen humanity, which he fulfilled by offering the long-represented sacrifice. Through age after age of darkness and apostasy faith was kept alive as the solemn sanctuary service unfolded in shadow the grand truths to be revealed through successive generations, from the first promise through patriarchal and Jewish ages, worthy of its divine Originator and glorious in its place in redemption and its relation to the work of Christ. The cloud of incense ascending with the prayers of Israel represents Christ's righteousness that alone can make the sinner's prayer acceptable to God, the bleeding victim on the altar testified of a Redeemer to come, and from the holy of holies the visible token of the divine presence shone forth. In that light the Old Testament presents through types and shadows the same gospel the New Testament unfolds, not a different religion, with sinners then saved by faith in the coming Saviour as now through faith in Christ, while the ten commandments stand unlike the shadowy ceremonies as lasting reality.

Even the daily sacrificial offerings in the temple hallowed it because they prefigured Christ's coming and symbolized his death, yet when the time was fulfilled for his advent no preparation was made in the temple to welcome him. So the Passover both commemorated Israel's deliverance from Egypt and typified Christ the Lamb whose death redeems fallen humanity, and the type reached its antitype when he died on the cross, Christ leaving the Lord's Supper as the ordinance to commemorate his crucifixion.

Christ Fulfills The Shadows

Christ is the substance, reality, foundation, life and great Antitype to whom all the types pointed, the spotless Lamb, the perfect, sinless, infinite offering, and the Mediator whose office far exceeds the earthly priesthood. The Jewish economy was a continual prophecy and a shadow of the good things to come rather than their full reality, its sacrifices and services typifying his sacrifice for fallen humanity. Its types pointed to him, in whom type met antitype and shadow met substance, and the Levitical service revealed its significance only through its relation to him. The sacrificial offerings foreshadowed his crucifixion, priesthood and sanctuary ministry, and his death on the cross gave significance to the entire ceremonial system. People in earlier times were saved by faith in his blood, looking ahead through dying victims to the Lamb of God who would take away the world’s sin, the source of life and hope.

At his death on the cross, at Calvary at Passover in A.D. 31, type met antitype. The sacrificial system fulfilled its purpose, was virtually abolished, and its offerings, forms, symbols, ceremonies and temple services ceased forever and became valueless and unacceptable to God. The blood of animals became valueless, and his one great offering of his own life fulfilled what the earlier offerings had foreshadowed and ended their value. Those ceremonies and sacrifices could not be made requirements for accepting the gospel, while the ten commandments remained binding and were kept in letter and spirit. The Jews were slow to discern this end because they prided themselves on their divinely appointed services, concluded that because God had once specified the Hebrew manner of worship he could never authorize a change, decided Christianity must connect itself with Jewish laws and ceremonies, and feared that if restrictions and ceremonies were not made obligatory the national peculiarities that kept them distinct would disappear among those who embraced the gospel.

The rending of the inner temple veil from top to bottom at the crucifixion signified that the ceremonial sacrificial system had ended and need no longer be observed. The whole priesthood was established to represent his mediatorial character and work, and the entire plan of sacrificial worship with burnt-offerings and blood of beasts was a foreshadowing pointing for ages to his death to redeem the world from sin, with himself as foundation and life of the temple. At his crucifixion type met antitype in the perfect offering of the Son of God, so from that day sacrificial offerings and the services connected with them became valueless in his sight, the ceremonial system coming to an end forever in the one great and final sacrifice of the Lamb slain for the sins of the world.

To continue the typical burnt offerings and sacrifices after the crucifixion while still awaiting the Messiah is useless, denies Christ, and declares lack of faith in him. They had already prefigured him who had come, and the disciples’ teaching of the risen Christ made those offerings of no effect. When he at his ascension entered the heavenly sanctuary by his own blood to shed upon his disciples the blessings of his mediation, that ministration of types and shadows ceased, and the door by which men had formerly found access to God through them was no longer open. Those rejecting the light were left in total darkness, continuing useless sacrifices and offerings that could bring no pardon and no communion with God, while those who by faith follow him in the great work of atonement receive the benefits of his mediation and to those rejecting it the door is shut. Their spiritual and eternal meaning was obscured when people clung to the sacrificial forms while rejecting the reality they prefigured, making false interpretations barriers to understanding and practical piety.

His willing, spotless self-sacrifice bore the world’s sin and the law’s curse, fulfilled every requirement of the broken law, vindicated and magnified the Father’s law and showed it unchangeable. His separation from the Father for transgression upheld God’s justice, magnified the law, testified that it is unchangeable, and settled the controversy over the law’s character. He originated that system, came to uphold his Father’s law and fulfill its types in his death, and did not make the law of none effect but came for the express purpose of vindicating it. He is the author and foundation of the religion of God’s people from the days of Adam, the finisher of the faith, the vindicator of the truth and the fulfiller of the prophecies. Without him the law is only condemnation and death, but in him a way is opened for people to obey it and teach it, for his sacrifice did not cancel the law or lessen the duty of obedience, and disobedience cannot earn eternal life. The moral law remains distinct from the typical law, giving light by which a person sees himself a sinner, leading to repentance as death to sin, obedience, faith in Jesus as Saviour, baptism and zealous preaching, as Saul learned when his spiritual vision was touched.

Moral Law Still Binding

The law having a shadow is the law of types and shadows, of sacrifices, offerings, ceremonies and ordinances, distinct from the moral law of ten commandments engraved on stone. Those sacrificial services were only an outline pointing forward to Christ's death, not the reality itself, and their repeated yearly offerings could never make the worshipers perfect. When type met antitype at Christ's death the ceremonies and sacrifices fulfilled their purpose, reached to that time and no further, ceased to be of force, and were not to be made requirements for accepting the gospel. That ending did not end the ten commandments, for unlike the shadowy ceremonies they are a lasting reality, holy, unalterable, immutable, abiding and changeless as God's eternal throne, holding their claims upon man in all ages and still binding and kept in letter and spirit. Heaven is moved with indignation to see them trampled under foot, for Jesus died for transgressors of God's holy law, and if that law could have been abolished man could have been saved without His death; therefore His death did not destroy the law of His Father but magnified and honored it and enforced obedience to all its holy precepts, while the light of the gospel gave the ancient rites new significance by revealing their meaning.

To use this text to prove the moral law abolished blends the moral law with the ceremonial and perverts the Scriptures. The verse describes only the ritual ceremonial law of ordinances, which reached its substance when type met antitype and for that reason was abolished and nailed to the cross, not the moral law engraven on stone. Putting the moral law in the place of the shadow to make it void is Satan's warfare to subvert and make void the law of God.

The moral law and the statutes that explained and guarded it are distinguished from the temporary types that passed away at Christ's death, for the ceremonies represented events fulfilled in Christ and His death brought type and antitype together to give a clearer understanding of their meaning. The tithing system enjoined upon the Hebrews was not repealed or relaxed by the One who originated it but was to be more fully carried out and more extended as salvation through Christ alone was more fully brought to light, so that duty in the Christian age was not limited but more especially defined and simply expressed, requiring not less gifts but greater than at any other period, with gifts and offerings in proportion to light and blessings enjoyed. The distinction between the sacred and the common commanded through Moses must still be strictly observed, and the lessons of practical obedience given from the Mount of Blessing remain binding, with far greater light now given to God's people than ancient Israel had. The Sabbath of the fourth commandment is not rubbish to be displaced, for Christ restored its meaning, declared Himself its Lord, and affirmed it as a day made holy by the Creator for people to keep.

Salvation And Heavenly Ministry

Salvation was the same in both dispensations, for people in earlier times were saved by faith in Christ's blood, looking ahead through dying sacrificial victims to the coming Lamb of God who would take away the world's sin, just as people now trust the Saviour who has come as the one great sacrifice and only source of life and hope. The Jewish sacrifices and priesthood were symbols pointing to his death and mediatorial work, not a means of salvation in themselves, and their meaning and value depended entirely on their relation to him as the true foundation. They taught that sin had separated humanity from God and that access was only through a mediator, and through him the way of communication was reopened so that ancient believers who looked to him through the sacrifices trusted in him and found peace and pardon for breaking God's law. God forgave when they came with confession, weeping, repentance and true contrition, and his grace made that repentance real.

The light of the cross reaches back into the Jewish age, and the light of the gospel gives the ancient rites new significance, revealing their true spiritual meaning after type met antitype in Christ's death. His death fulfilled the typical sacrifices and brought them to their end, so that they lost purpose and value and could not be made requirements for accepting the gospel, while the ten commandments remained binding in letter and spirit. In him the sacrificial types met their antitype, for he offered himself for fallen humanity, fulfilled every requirement of the broken law, and as the one great offering for the sin of the world gave significance to the entire ceremonial system. His work continued as High Priest and mediator in the heavenly sanctuary, able to feel human weakness, and those who by faith follow him in the great work of atonement and seek him there as the true sacrifice and only mediator receive the benefits of his mediation.

In the shadow the round of service was repeated each successive year, first in the holy place for the entire year save one day, and second in the most holy place on the last day of that year, but his ministry is not so. He entered the holy place of the heavenly sanctuary at his ascension in the spring of A.D. 31 once for all and ministered there eighteen hundred and thirteen years and six months until the cleansing of the sanctuary at the close of the 2300 days in the autumn of 1844, when on the tenth day of the seventh month he entered the most holy place once for all to make a special atonement for the blotting out of the sins of his people, which is the cleansing of the heavenly tabernacle. As he suffered upon the cross not often but once for all, so he cleanses the heavenly sanctuary once for all. The period of his ministry in the most holy can no more be defined before its close than the time of his ministry in the holy could be defined before it ended, so the tenth-day atonement for the cleansing of the typical sanctuary proves that he would enter the most holy of the heavenly tabernacle on the tenth day of the seventh month, but proves nothing that he would on that day come out to bless his waiting people. That yearly sanctuary cleansing was the high priest's final service closing the work of atonement by removing sin from Israel, and it pointed forward to his closing work as High Priest in heaven in investigation and judgment in which his people's recorded sins are blotted out, a judgment that precedes his return when every case has already been decided.

When at his ascension he entered the heavenly sanctuary by his own blood to shed upon his disciples the blessings of his mediation, that ministration of types and shadows ceased, and the door by which men had formerly found access to God through them was no longer open. The picture of useless repeated sacrifices applies to prayers offered to the sanctuary apartment he has left, for like those sacrifices they cannot benefit worshipers who reject the messages pointing to his ministry in the Most Holy Place. The Jews who rejected the light given at his first advent and refused to believe in him as Saviour were left in total darkness, continuing useless sacrifices and offerings that could bring no pardon and no communion with God, while to those who reject the light of his present ministration the door is shut.

The typical meaning was plain even to Satan as a diligent student of prophecy, for he watched every circumstance connected with the sacrifices with intense interest and learned that they pointed to a future atonement to ransom fallen man from the powers of darkness through the Son of God. Because it threatened his cherished plan to gain dominion over the whole world and its inhabitants, it caused him great uneasiness, and instead of desponding he laid deep plans from generation to generation to control human hearts and blind their understanding of the prophecies so that when Christ came the people would refuse him as Saviour. He sought to bring contempt upon the offerings, and as the minds of the Babel-builders were darkened by idolatry he led them to counterfeit these offerings by sacrificing their own children upon the altars of their gods. The sacrifices were types and symbols pointing to his suffering and death, to be fulfilled in his sacrifice ordained before the world's foundation to redeem and save humanity, and their fulfillment is essential to God's work of redemption and to his defeat.

Warnings And Right Use

The system was not to be held in contempt, for its sacrifices and services were a shadow of gospel realities pointing to Christ in whom type met antitype and shadow met substance. Its ceremonies had spiritual life and beauty when understood as symbols of Him, but trusting in sacrifices and ordinances instead of Christ reduced them to dead forms that could not save apart from Him. The yearly sacrifices of cattle and sheep at Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles prefigured the blood of God's Son to be shed for the life of the world, with each innocent victim symbolizing Christ and directing men toward a crucified Redeemer. The Jews had almost lost sight of this meaning, measuring holiness by ceremonies while added human requirements burdened troubled consciences, turning great convocations into noisy scenes of bloodshed and cruelty and avaricious trading for immense profit that destroyed solemnity. Priests and elders appreciated the blood of beasts kept incessantly flowing as little as they would appreciate Christ's blood soon to be shed, and keeping the rites while rejecting Christ meant rejecting the one to whom they pointed, even crucifying the Originator. Pride in divinely appointed services led to concluding that God could never authorize a change in worship, to insisting Christianity must connect with Jewish laws and ceremonies, and to fearing national peculiarities keeping them distinct would disappear if restrictions and ceremonies were not made obligatory on believers.

Because Israel made outward forms all-important while losing the spirit of true worship, corrupting services with traditions and practices of heathenism and performing sacrificial rites without looking beyond the shadow to discern Christ the true offering, God brought captivity, destroyed the temple and suspended its service. The removal of outward glory was ordered so outward ceremonies would not become the sum-total of religion, so principles and practices might be purged from heathenism, so ritual service ceasing would revive heart service, and so the spiritual might be revealed.

Even abundant sacrifices through the centuries pointing to the great atonement could never take the place of true sorrow for sin, obedience, living faith, repentance and faith toward Christ the Advocate, and no one can be saved through the law alone. A broken heart and contrite spirit is of far more value than multitudes of offerings made without true repentance, deeds of righteousness from love and true goodness of heart outweigh burnt offerings and sacrifices, and guilt fastened by rejecting present mercies and warnings cannot be washed away by animal sacrifices. Daring willful transgression insulting to a holy God, as with the iniquity of Eli's house which shall not be purged with sacrifice nor offering forever, is never made perfect by shadow sacrifices whose virtue was derived from the blood of the atonement, and to profane those typical sacrifices by blasphemous conduct is to trample upon that blood itself. The sacrifices and priestly work were sacred ordinances appointed to prove and test professed faith and obedience, yet Saul's presumptuous act of offering dishonored them and risked teaching Israel to regard them lightly.

The whole sanctuary service, including rivers of blood flowing when sacrifices were offered in large numbers at the harvest thanksgiving, taught the great and complete sacrifice on Calvary for the sins of the whole world and impressed that things set apart for God are holy. The distinction between the sacred and the common commanded through Moses must still be strictly observed, even the productions of the earth and bounties for sustenance are owed to Christ's offering as gifts of redeeming love, with ample provision for the poor and for carrying the gospel to the perishing, and the lessons of practical obedience from the Mount of Blessing remain binding under far greater light. The significance of the typical sacrifices for redemption is to be kept often before children to lay foundations for prosperous households, and worship with its sacred privileges is to be treated with deeper reverence and consecration now that type has met reality in Christ's death ending the need for sacrificial offerings. The distinction between shadow as outward likeness and substance as the real thing itself warns against spiritualizing doctrines of present truth until substance and shadow cannot be distinguished, and calls for discernment between what is substantial and what merely glitters.