Biblical Shadows: The Torah Foreshadows the Logos

Biblical Shadows: The Torah Foreshadows the Logos.

“So don’t let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain feast days or Sabbaths. These are all a shadow (“skia”) of things to come; the substance is Christ.” (Colossians 2:16-17); “These priests serve at a sanctuary that is a copy, a shadow (“skia”) of the original one in heaven.” (Hebrews 8:5); “For the Torah was only a hint, a shadow (“skia”) of the good things to come – not the realities themselves. Since the Law wasn’t complete in itself, it can never, by repeating the same sacrifices endlessly year after year, provide perfect cleansing for those who draw near to worship.” (Hebrews 10:1).  

“Skia” = the Greek word for shadow; shade; thick darkness; an outline or sketch that represents something more detailed; an image cast by a solid object; an incomplete shape that points to a more substantial reality; a dim copy of something much greater; an incomplete preview of a complete reality coming in the future.

“Under the old system, the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer could cleanse people’s bodies from ceremonial impurity. Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our consciences from sinful deeds so that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered Himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins.” (Hebrews 9:13-14).

On Blood Sacrifice as a Shadow. “According to the law of Moses, nearly everything was purified with blood. For without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.” (Hebrews 9:22). God designed a blood sacrifice system in the Old Covenant that atoned for the sins of the Chosen People. As a God of justice and righteousness, He demanded a punishment for sin, and the blood of an animal sacrifice was put in place to satisfy that demand.

1. Pure blood from unblemished and utterly innocent animals. Innocent blood was the only answer to the guilt of sin. But this sacrificial system was not meant to be permanently in place. It was ultimately an incomplete system in many ways. It required ongoing sacrifices; it was only a temporary atonement until the person sinned again; it was merely for external purposes, making the person ceremonially clean; it didn’t necessarily change the heart of the person making the offering. So the Mosaic system was adequate and God-ordained for a time. But it was only a shadow, a hint of a better system coming along in God’s perfect timing. It was a necessary beginning to what turned out to be a perfect end. In the Old Covenant, the Mosaic sacrifice was necessary but insufficient. The best was yet to come in the fullness of time.
2. Innocent Blood. Jesus was the perfect sacrifice hinted at in the animal sacrifice. He fulfilled all the requirements of the Old Covenant system… an unblemished, pure, innocent victim offering blood for atonement. Jesus completed the sacrificial system, so only one sacrifice, His, was needed. His blood brought forgiveness of all sins, by all people, for all time. At a superficial glance, it looks like God is out for blood. But God “doesn’t want blood, He wants life.” Only Jesus Christ, the Son of God, can offer his blood for eternal life, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world”(John 1:29). In Jewish tradition, the discovery of an unblemished red heifer signals the coming of the Messiah. Truer words were never spoken. Jesus is the Red Heifer. The Messiah has come.

On the Red Heifer as a Shadow. “Now the Lord Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, ‘This is the statute of the law which the Lord has commanded, saying, ‘Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring you a red heifer without blemish, in which there is no defect and on which a yoke has never come…” (Number 19:1-2).

1. What is this ritual? At first glance, God’s peculiar instructions to Moses and Aaron were puzzling and mysterious. There appeared to be no logical reason for parts of this ritual as God explained it (Numbers 19). A perfect, unblemished red heifer, one who hasn’t been yoked, was to be taken outside the camp and slaughtered. This heifer has to be completely red, and it had to be a young female cow that had not borne a calf. After the butchering of the heifer, the attending priest was required to sprinkle some of the cow’s blood seven times directly in front of the Tabernacle. The dead heifer was then to be completely burned, including its hide, its flesh, everything. Into this fire the priest was to place some cedar wood, a branch of hyssop, and a scarlet woolen thread. Both the man who burned the heifer and the eye-witness priest were then required to clean their clothes, take a bath, and be considered unclean till the evening. The priest was then instructed to gather the ashes and make a thin paste as they mixed the ashes with clean “living” water from a nearby stream. This mixture is called the “water of purification” by the Lord. “It is for purifying from sin,” says Yahweh ( 19:9). If someone is deemed unclean, then a branch of hyssop is dipped into the watered-down paste and is applied to the person’s tent, his vessels, and his body. The mixture of ash and water will purify the unclean person in the sight of God.
2. Why red? There have been a couple of explanations as to why the heifer had to be red, as opposed to brown or yellow or black and white. Some have said that red is a symbol of blood. Blood is seen as a life principle. Creatures can’t live without blood, and so red signifies that life which protects against death. Others believe that the color of red is associated with sin. “Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” (Isaiah 1:18). The death of the heifer symbolizes the destruction of sin, then. Sins are red, and of course ashes become white. Maybe, as in a few other details of this ritual, God only knows. After all, God can mean both red as in blood and red as in sin.
3. Jesus is the Red Heifer.  Blood is sacred, says the Lord. Blood is holy, set apart from other aspects of creation. In the eyes of God, blood represents life. Life itself depends on blood. In fact, “the life of the flesh is in the blood.” (17:11). Blood is a life principle flowing into the very structure of created life. Since the Fall in the Garden, the world has had a disastrous problem: sin. The result of sin is death. And the result of blood is life. So it naturally follows that blood is somehow the remedy for sin. Blood has to be involved if forgiveness is to happen, if life proves victorious over death. In God’s plan of redemption, His universal solvent is blood, it dissolves the presence and authority of sin.

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the Law till all is fulfilled… For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the Kingdom of heaven.”  (read Matthew 5:17-20).

Fulfilling Torah with Jesus. (Matthew 5:17-48). Jesus wanted to enter a rabbinic debate about the Law and its implications for daily life. He wanted to reveal a fuller understanding of Torah. He wanted to explain the spirit of the Law and its original intent instead of being content with the superficial letter of the Law by the rabbinic authorities. He wanted to broaden the implications of certain Jewish laws, offering His own distinctive interpretation on specific verses. By sharing examples of how He interprets Scripture, Jesus wanted to provide an example of how other verses of the Law could be interpretated. Jesus wanted to show His disciples how to move from ritual obedience of the Law to an inner, heart-felt reverence and faith. Jesus wanted to raise the moral and ethical standards by revealing a righteousness of the heart and not the outward righteousness of mere observation of the commands. Jesus said that disciples must show a greater righteousness than the scribes and Pharisees. The greater righteousness involves a relationship with Christ, not the dead letter of the Law, and allowing Him to change your heart and life. The scribes and Pharisees have set a low bar in their form of righteousness, Jesus said. I want a righteousness of the heart that doesn’t stop at the merely legal or ritual observance. I want the religious leaders to understand that you can probably accomplish the Law as you understand it by sheer willpower, but no one can truly obey the Law the way I understand it, says Jesus. Your righteousness must depend on me and my power, not your human will.

Rightly Interpreting Torah. When Jesus claimed that He wanted to “fulfill’ the Law, not “abolish” it, Jewish hearers would have understood His terms in a particular way. To “abolish” meant to cancel a law through misinterpretation or by sheer disobedience. To “fulfill” meant to preserve it, to sustain that law by properly interpreting it. So Jesus is engaging in a rabbinic debate about proper interpretation of the Law. Someone had evidently suggested that through His unique interpretation He is in effect canceling the Law, nullifying what has been accepted and in writing for centuries. Jesus disagreed. Hebrew scholar David Bivin paraphrased Jesus’ response this way… “Do not suppose that I have any intention of undermining Scripture by misinterpreting it. My purpose is to establish and maintain the knowledge and observance of God’s word. My intent is not weaken or negate God’s written instruction, but to sustain and establish it through correct interpretation. I would never invalidate the Torah by removing something from it through misinterpretation. Heaven and earth would sooner disappear than something from the Torah.” (Bivin, New Light on the Difficult Words of Jesus).

Amen! For Jesus loved Torah. He was an observant Jew who cherished the Law. He accepted the authority of God’s Word in what we now know as the Old Testament. He felt strongly about the importance and permanence of Torah. He basically said that the Law of Moses would never cease to exist. When Jesus said in M. 5:18, “Truly, assuredly, neither the smallest letter of the alphabet nor the tiniest little mark on one letter would ever be removed from Torah,” He started out with “Amen.” That word that has a root in the word for truth means truly, assuredly, so be it, this is the truth. This was unusual, because most times someone would say Amen at the end of a prayer or special teaching, affirming the truth about what’s been said. But Jesus used Amen before He even said anything. Jesus is revealing His authority to speak the truth, declaring His words to be truthful before He says it. Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life.

The Living Logos. Another way to understand Jesus “fulfilling” the written Torah is that He is indeed “Logos,” the Living Word. He is the living Torah. He embodies the Law of Moses, and was the spiritual inspiration to all that is in the Hebrew Bible. He is the Author of the absolute truth that is in the Jewish Bible. Jesus fulfilled Torah by fulfilling the OT prophecies about Him, through His teachings saturated with truth, through His actions performing God’s will. Jesus was the perfect fulfillment of the Law.

Intended Meanings. In His words that immediately followed His comments on the Torah, Jesus repeatedly used the formula, “But I say to you.” He is declaring something rather outrageous in the eyes of the rabbinic authorities. Jesus is claiming that He has equal authority to the established Law. He is saying, ‘You may have heard the Law means this, but I am here telling you that the Law actually means that.’ He is declaring total, divine authority. He is claiming that He knows the original intent of the Law, as if He wrote it Himself. He is telling those around Him that He knows why it was written in the first place. ‘I am here to tell you the Word hidden behind the Word,’ Jesus is saying, ‘the intended meaning that God was thinking about all along. I don’t want to alter the Torah in any way,’ Jesus declared, ‘I want to reveal the deeper meanings hidden in the legal meaning. I want to clarify the Law so you truly understand what it means.’ “Like other rabbis and teachers, Jesus developed His own approach within the parameters of ancient Jewish faith and practice. He sought to reform and revitalize, not to destroy or replace. Jesus placed the meaning of Torah on a firmer footing.”  (Dr. Brad Young, Jesus the Jewish Theologian).

“No one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the new wine would burst the wineskins, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine must be stored in new wineskins. But no one who drinks the old wine seems to want the new wine. ‘The old is fine,’ they say.” (Luke 5:37-39).

The Old Wineskin of Torah Foreshadows the New Wineskin. Jesus’ little parable about new wine and old wineskins seem to suggest that Jesus was about to pour new wine, something brand new about to be produced, and that the old will not be able to contain it. The wineskin of the Old Covenant was a preliminary copy of the wineskin of the New Covenant. The Moses Covenant was a necessary but incomplete shadow of the Jesus Covenant.

New Wineskins Needed for New Wine. Back in 1st century Israel, of course, there were no glass bottles to store wine. Wine was kept in goatskins that were sewed around the edges to form watertight bags. Winemakers were well aware of the fact that new wine would expand as it fermented, which in turn would stretch the goatskin bag. By the time the wine had aged, the goatskin would have become rigid and stretched to the limit. Old wineskins were not pliable or flexible enough to keep new wine, and would burst if new wine were poured into it. New wineskins, though, were stretchable and pliable and would always be the safe choice if needing to store new wine.

Old Wine. The outdated teachings of Moses. Mosaic Law was good for its time, but were always meant to be temporary. The Law was limited to that particular time in Israel’s history. It reflected and involved a more hidden work of the Holy Spirit, and was waiting on tip-toes for the appearance of the Son of God to fully reveal the full Godhead in all His wonder and glory. The spirit of the Law needed to be fulfilled in the Spirit of Jesus. The teachings of Moses were aimed at external obedience and legal cleansing and ceremonial righteousness. The old wine of legalism could never make someone righteous at the heart level. With the coming of Christ, the teachings of Moses were no longer sufficient. The old wine was past its prime.

Old Wineskins. The old covenant, the worn-out traditions that needed to be fulfilled. The old covenant was too rigid, not pliable enough to contain the new wine of Jesus. The old system of animal sacrifice, ceremony and legal forgiveness was not able to contain the fresh movement of the Holy Spirit. Time has run out for the old covenant, the old wineskins could no longer be used. With the coming of Jesus it is now time to fulfill the prophecy of Jeremiah: “The day is coming,” says the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. This covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant, though I loved them as a husband loves his wife.” says the Lord. ” (Jeremiah 31:31-32). “If the first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no need for a second covenant to replace it.” (Hebrews 8:7).

New Wine. The teachings of Jesus Christ, with the fresh movement of the Holy Spirit. In the fulness of time, Jesus fulfilled Moses. This new spiritual movement reveals the Good News of forgiveness that is free from a external dependence on ceremony; a redemption free from animal sacrifice; a reconciliation with God free from reliance on a physical building. Yesterday’s good news of Moses is now completed in the brand-new Good News of Jesus. Moses and the Law were not ends in themselves, they were a holy shadow that pointed to the reality of Jesus. “I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. And I will put my spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations.” (Ezekiel 36:26-27). ” Don’t misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the Law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No. I came to accomplish their purpose.” (Matthew 5:17).

New Wineskins. The new covenant that contains the new wine of Jesus’ teachings and the work of the Holy Spirit. This is the “law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2) completing the law of Moses. This is the new, revised Faith that contains the eternal promises of God in Christ. This new life in Christ which produces a new kind of righteousness that doesn’t depend on external ceremony but on the internal work of the Spirit. The new life in Jesus involves a transformed heart, not mere legal compliance. The new wineskin is pliable enough to contain the new movement of God, the new righteousness, the new life in Christ. The new completes and fulfills the old. This new wine must be put into the new wineskin of Christ. “This is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel in those days,” says the Lord. “I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.” (Jeremiah 31:35).

New Creature. “But no one who drinks the old wine seems to want the new wine. ‘The old is just fine,’ they say.” (Luke 5:39). Jesus anticipated the stiff resistance of the legalistic Pharisees, and by extension all of us, and our experience when confronted with the new kind of righteousness, the new movement of the Holy Spirit. Many will find it difficult to accept the new covenant in Christ. Many are not looking for a replacement of the old. Many will resist being transformed into a new creature. Many will not want to give up the Old Self, the sinful life of the Old Self. Many find comfort in what has been experienced, in the old way of doing things. The human heart is stubborn and resistant to anything new, especially if it costs something, if it means changing something about yourself. But if the old is obsolete and incomplete, it makes sense to take a deep breath and accept the new life in Christ, who sitting on the throne says, “Behold, I make all things new. Consider this! I am making everything to be new and fresh. In fact, I will be making the whole of creation new!” (Revelation 21:5).