Hebrews 10:1-4 (NIVUK)
10 The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming – not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. 2 Otherwise, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshippers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. 3 But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins. 4 It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
In 1961, the company Coca Cola started an advertising campaign with the slogan ‘The Real Thing’. A growing number of alternative cokes had entered the market, and they wanted to remind people that although these looked and tasted a little like Coca Cola, they weren’t. It was the original and best coke. Hebrews has a similar theme going. A number of times, as here, it looks to the rituals and practices of the Old Testament and says that although they might be good, they aren’t the real thing. Like a shadow points towards the object it is the shadow of, so to these rituals and practices point towards the ‘real thing’, Christ.
Father, I don’t want to be satisfied by the copy or the shadow, I want to know the power of Jesus in my life, the real thing.
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