Preaching this morning on the
subject, the shadow and the body. The shadow and the body. Verse
15 of Colossians 2, and having spoiled principalities and powers,
he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it. Now this verse is a continuation
of a telling of the benefits of Christ and his cross to his
people. And so in that aspect of this
verse, how wonderful it is. Remember verse 11. In verse 11,
we're told that the body of the sins of our flesh are put off
by Christ and his precious blood, pictured by circumcision in the
Old Testament. When I think people avoid talking
about that, and you hear the word circumcision, you shy away
from that a little bit. That's talking about what Christ
accomplished for us on Calvary. The putting off of the body of
the sins of our flesh. That happens by his precious
blood. The outward sign is just a picture of that. And so there
we have the benefit of what he did for us. Our sins are put
away. In verse 12, it says, we're dead
to sin and alive unto God. Through Christ crucified, we're
buried with him, we're risen with him. Alive unto God. Verse 13, our sins forgiven. Forgiven, what a wonderful word. We're forgiven of our sins by
virtue of that same precious blood. In verse 14, rendered
innocent before the law. How wonderful is that? The law
of God, the only thing that's against us. I mean, we've done
wrong to people and you've done wrong to others and they've done
wrong to you, but sin is against God. All sin is against God. And if he says not guilty, that's
freedom. free from the law. Oh, happy
condition. All of the holy commandments
of God in their condemnation of us nailed to his cross, showing
that it is by his atonement there that we are free from his own
law. And now in this verse, all of
our enemies destroyed. all powers and principalities. And we hear those words and we
sort of get some idea in our minds that it's, you know, powerful
figures in high places. And that's right, that's true.
But to look at the actual meanings of the words is very instructive. All of our enemies are rendered
harmless to us. His enemies are our enemies. As he is, so are we in this world. Does God have enemies? Clearly
in the scripture, do we have enemies? Same ones, same exact
ones. And they're vanquished by the
power of his blood. That's the word there, they're
put down, they're rendered harmless. Principalities and powers does
certainly refer to Satan and all of the fallen angels, but
also it includes religious evil that has great
authority in this world. Always has, always has. If you look at the upper echelons
of religion, you'll find the greatest evil that walks this
earth. Always been that way. Principalities though, these
things, powers, you know what else it includes? Our evil nature. Our evil nature that rules us
as we come into this world without God and without hope. Principalities means someone
who originates. In other words, the buck stops
with them. If you trace it back, they're
the ones that started it. That can be good or bad, right?
And powers means those with power of choice. This is important
because, yes, it means elevated. It means having authority. having
ability, but in referring to Satan and us, think of the context
here with regard to these words. It of course, in referring to
Satan and us, it refers to those who presume to have these abilities,
who presume to be the originator, who presume to have power of
choice. because the only true principality
and power is the Lord Jesus Christ. But all those who are rivals
of him in this, that's who it's referred to. And Satan is called
the prince of the power of the air because God has given him
some dominion here on this earth for the time being because of
our sin. But think about this, Christ,
is head of all of them, verse 10, which means supreme over,
master of. And so when you think of a principality
as someone who originate, who actually Like I say, the buck
stops with them. That's kind of the phrase that
we use with that kind of thing. The one in power, the one in
authority, the one who says and it's done, who speaks and they're
obeyed. And also powers being the one
with power of choice, All who take upon them that power in
this world, all who are given any power like that in this world,
Christ is their master. He's the one that truly is the
first cause of everything and has the only free will in all
of the universe, principalities and powers. It is in our presumed and self-appointed
powers of originating and choosing that we particularly are rebels
against God and therefore enemies by nature of God. Any rival to
God's throne in anything. People talking about creating
this and creating that. You know, you have these quaint
sayings about mothers. I created you, but I can't do
this for you. No, you didn't. You didn't even
do that. God blessed mothers, but you didn't create anything.
That's a miracle of God. I gotta think up one for men now.
I ain't got time. But enemies of God in these things. enemies By nature we fancy ourselves
to be the rightful inventors of a God of our choice We can
just decide it God originates with us in our minds Not the
other way around we make a God instead of God making us And our power of choice How do
people in religion especially, but in this world, how do they
think of their power of choice as supreme? Even God can't violate
our free will. Oh yes, he can and does. He can and does. I started to
say that's probably God's favorite thing is to violate our free
will. I wouldn't be far off with that
because God loves to save sinners. He loves, he delights to show
mercy. And the way he does that is by
running all over your free will. That's the only way you can be
saved. He's gonna trample all over your free will and delight
in it. And you're gonna delight in it when he has mercy on your soul. It began this, Principality and
powers thing began with Satan Saying I will I will I'll choose
I'll decide And then we were infected with it in the garden
We're in utter defiance of the God who made us and put us in
his paradise we decided to do what we wanted to do instead
of obey God and That's the beginning of principalities and powers
as it's described in our text. It began with Satan. And Satan had something in us. And so we fell into sin. And that's how sin, that's what
sin is. It's me saying I will. It's me
doing as I please instead of what pleases God. It's power
of choice. When people talk about their
beloved free will, they're talking about sin, the essence of sin. Hug that up to your breast and
enjoy it while you can. So what Christ made an open display
That's what our text is telling me. He made an open display of
putting down principalities and powers. He did it spectacularly. He did it on the circle of the
earth. He did it where all of the universe
and all of time and eternity revolved in the place where everything
revolves around, on Mount Calvary. where he gave himself an offering
for our sin. There, by who he is and what
he did there, he made an open display of putting down all those
that presume to be out from under God as the first cause of everything
and as decider of all things. In other words, he showed there
openly and triumphed in the fact that he's God and you ain't. It's not the doctrine of election.
or the doctrine of predestination, both of which doctrines we love
and preach, and as the word of God reveals the truth, we delight
in the truth of those things. But it's not election or predestination
that destroys man's false free will gospel. It's the cross. The cross of our savior. We love
those doctrines, but we preach Christ crucified. We don't preach
election and predestination as a theological system that we
adhere to. We preach Christ. And he himself alone decided
everything worth deciding at Calvary. He decided time and eternity
and everything that happens in them on the cross, openly putting
to an end and putting to shame and showing the defeat of everybody
that presumes otherwise, that they might have a free will or
that anything starts with them. When he laid down his life for
his sheep and not the world, he made an open display of shaming
and destroying any concept of free will in man or ability in
man to choose, to decide, to originate, It ain't up to you. It never
was up to you. It's not going to be up to you.
Look to Calvary. And bow. I love what my pastor
used to say. Look to the cross until all that
is on the cross is in your heart. Look to Christ crucified. You
think your power to decide which again is quite literally what
powers means in our text. You think that your power to
decide has something to do with salvation. Christ triumphed over
that soul damning hell spawned lie openly, showing by his effectual
victorious atonement that salvation is not up to you. Salvation is
of the Lord. Verse 16, let no man therefore
judge you in meat or in drink or in respect of an holy day
or of the new moon or of the Sabbath days or any other religious
observance whereby you think you're being good and holy and
acceptable in the sight of God. Don't let any man judge you on
that basis because on that basis, God requires perfection, and
you're not it. You don't measure up. Don't let
anybody judge you. I don't want to be judged on
these things, on my observance of religion, my living the Christian
life as the Baptist put it, or how anybody else puts it. None
of us can stand up to judgment with regard to anything that
we do. Seeing, and this is the context
now, seeing that we are complete in him, which is right there
in our text, that we're complete in Christ himself and that by
his cross, you are all those things that we saw at the beginning
of this, sinless, spiritually alive, forgiven, justified in
the sight of God and his holy law and victorious in that all
of your enemies are conquered by him at his cross. Away then,
away then with the idiotic trappings of religion that try to include
some semblance of the old covenant laws that are done away with
in Christ. Away with that. Don't try to
incorporate that into the worship of God now. Paul said, don't
put a burden on us that our fathers or anybody else was able to bear.
Don't anybody judge me or anybody else on that basis. The Jews
condemned the Gentile believers because they were not circumcised.
And Paul is saying that regardless of an outward ordinance of any
kind, those who know the Lord Jesus Christ have had the body
of the sins of their flesh put away by him and the power of
his precious blood. The Jews called the Gentile believers
unclean because they ate bacon. I mean, that's what it boils
down to. They were unclean because of what they ate. But Paul is
teaching here, and the Lord taught Simon in Acts chapter 10, this
same truth by saying to him, what I have cleansed, don't you
call unclean. He cleansed us, he washed us
from our sins in his own precious blood. Ephesians 525, listen
to it again, because this is how we learn the scriptures,
by looking at them in light of the scriptures. Listen to Ephesians
525 from the lens of what we're looking at this morning. Husbands,
love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave
himself for it. and gave himself for it that
he might sanctify and cleanse. We're clean. Don't you call somebody
unclean that's been washed in his blood. that he might sanctify
it and cleanse it. Verse 27, that he might present
it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or
any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish.
Eatin' bacon, can't mess that up. How foolish religion is. And furthermore, not interested
in any of your other man-made religious rituals. or the ones
that God ordained and has abolished by his cross. Not interested
in those either. Even if the man-made ones or
the God ordained ones that have been fulfilled and abolished
by Christ. Not walking out, not counting
beads, not saying pre-written prayers, not droning repetitive
mantras, counting beads and wearing crosses and bowing to statues. which is just another word for
idols. What then? What then? What do
we do? Looking unto Jesus, looking unto
him, looking to his cross, looking to his throne, where John said, I saw a lamb
as it had been slain on the throne. The author and finisher of our
faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross,
counting the shame a small thing, and is set down at the right
hand of the throne of God, looking unto him. When you're looking
unto him, you're not looking to the manger. You're not looking
to the holy land. You're looking at a throne. And
he's sat down looking unto Jesus. Where is he? Sat down at the
right hand, which signifies power of the throne of God. Looking
unto him, not any religious ordinance or ritual, not any works, not
anything that man has dreamed up or does. And look at this beautiful verse
17. Even the ones that God ordained
now, some of this God ordained, but look, they're just a shadow. These Old Testament ordinances
that God did put in place, that God did require. But he said,
sacrifice and offering, I would not. It's the offering of those
things by faith in the one offering for sin. By faith, Abel offered
the more excellent sacrifice and not Cain. By faith. Faith just has one object, and
that's the Son of God, the Lamb of God. which are a shadow of
things to come. At the time, they were things
to come. When these shadows were cast,
the one who cast them was yet to come. Now we look at the Old
Testament and its covenant and its laws and its pictures and
its types, and we look back to what Christ did and at the same
time forward to where he is and where we shall be with him, where
the scripture says we're seated already in the heavenlies in
Christ. What a revealing illustration
this is, a body and shadows cast by that body. Which are a shadow
of things to come but the body the substance the one casting
the shadows and that's literally the meaning here the word body
there means that which casts a shadow as distinguished from
the shadow itself What a beautiful illustration This is Of who Christ is in relation to
these ordinances and the things that religion imposes upon people
now. And not all of it, because some
of it's just made up. Some of it's not even a shadow.
It's less than a shadow. Most of it is now, wouldn't you
say? Don't trust shadows. Trust the
one who casts the shadows. You know, the bad thing about
a shadow is it's just a shadow. You can't lay hold of a shadow. It's not the real thing. The
good thing about a shadow, though, is that you can follow a shadow
to whatever's casting it. The shadow will point you to
the body, ultimately. The law was our schoolmaster
to bring us to Christ. All of the ordinances of the
Old Testament law were shadows, the shadows. The blood of bulls
and goats was a shadow that can't take away sin, Paul said in Hebrews,
never take away sin, but the one who cast the shadow can and
does. There's God's lamb that takes
away sin. He did take away sins by the
sacrifice of himself. That's what our text saw a while
ago. He put off the body of the sins
of our flesh by the sacrifice of himself.
The brazen serpent lifted up in the wilderness was just a
shadow. It was just nehushtan, which
means a piece of brass. That's all it was. But our Lord
said, as that serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, so must
the son of man be lifted up. There's the substance. There's
the substance that cast that shadow. Follow the shadow through
the years, through the centuries. How do we see the shadow, by
the way? By the light of the sun. The S-O-N, sun. By the son of God. By his light, the light of the
world. The shadow is beautiful by virtue
of the one who it is a shadow of. But don't stop at the shadow. Don't worship the shadow. The
shadow is there to draw your eye of faith to Calvary, to the
one who gave himself for your sin. Where the son of man is lifted
up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish. but
have everlasting life. Look to Him and live. Look to Him and live forever.
Look to Him and find out what life is. Turn with me please to Hebrews
chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10, verse one. Notice that every verse Hebrews
10 1 And notice that every verse of
this What it does the purpose the simple message of every verse
is to point Directly to the Lord Jesus Christ crucified for his
people for the law having a shadow of good things to come. Good
things such as actual redemption, the forgiveness of sin, the satisfying
of the law of God, the perfect obedience of Christ in whose
righteousness we stand. Good things to come and not the
very image of the things, Not the body, but a shadow. Can never
with those sacrifices, which they offer year by year continually,
make the comers therein too perfect. They're just shadows. Oh, but
they're good shadows. They're good shadows if rightfully
used. Remember when Paul talked about
the rightful use of the law? For then, if they had been actual
atonement made by those sacrifices, would they not have ceased to
be offered? How many times do you have to atone for sin? How
many times does sin have to be put away? They didn't put away
sin. That's why they were repeated
over and over. God by those ordinances saying,
Christ, Christ, Christ, look to him. This is my beloved son,
hear him. Because the worshipers once purged,
should have had no more conscience of sin. There just needs to be
purging one time. And there was. Not then, not
in those things. Verse three, but in those sacrifices,
there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. A remembrance. This do in remembrance of me. If we drink a cup of wine and
eat a piece of bread in remembrance of him, what do you think slaying
a lamb and offering it, taking it to the priest and watching
that lamb be consumed by the fire, what did that do? Remembrance. Remembrance. That Christ is the
only, that our sins can be put away
by the sacrifice of himself, remembrance. Verse four, for it is not possible
that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Wherefore? Because everybody
that ever offered a bull or a goat is still in their sins, if that's
all that's happened for them. Wherefore, when he cometh, when
he cometh into the world, he said this, he said what Paul
just said. Paul was just saying what Christ
said by his entrance into this world, by him coming where we
are to do what we couldn't do, to save us from our sins. Sacrifice
and offering thou wouldest not, not for the actual putting away
of sin. God did ordain those things. But that's not the be
all end all. What is? A body. You see our
text? A body. A body which casts shadows, beautiful
shadows of him. But not the body. A body thou
has prepared me. Me. If sin's gonna be put away. In burnt offerings and sacrifices
for sin, thou hast had no pleasure in that actual physical activity
of that. If offered by faith though, in
the Son of God, if offered by faith in Him who a body was prepared
for and who came and actually put away sin, then that faith
is counted for righteousness. That's what the Lord said about
Abraham. His faith was counted righteousness. Not that faith
is so wonderful that it makes up for all your sin. No, not
at all. But faith unites you to the one who put away sin by
the sacrifice of himself. Then said I, lo, I come. Sins haven't been put away. Of
course, in eternity, in the mind and heart of God, in the eternal,
Estimation of God they've been put away, but he's got to come
and actually put them away. I Come in the volume of the book
and that's what this whole book is about. Yeah Coming where we
were and do it everything for us. This book is about the Good
Samaritan In the volume of the book it
is written of me and What needs to be done in order to save us? The will of God. It's that simple. Everything God wants done, that's
what. And you ain't done a single one of them. Nothing. You hadn't
begun to begin to get started to do the first thing when it
comes to the will of God. But Christ came to do all of
the will of God. Above, when he said, sacrifice
and burn offering, and offering and burn offering, and offering
for sin thou wouldest not, neither has pleasure therein, which are
offered by the law. They were God's law, but not
satisfactory for sin. Then said Christ, lo, I come
to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first. He
takes away the old covenant. the covenant that depended on
you and your obedience to the law. He took that away that he
may establish the second. And look what a beautiful inclusion
here in verse 10. What is the will of God? I can
tell you part of it. First of all, God requires obedience. I know that much, don't you?
Christ obeyed. He said, I do always those things
which please my Father. But you know what else wonderful
thing was included in that will that Christ accomplished? By
the wish will, we are sanctified. God wanted to save sinners. He
wanted to make them holy in his sight. Aren't you glad, because
he gets what he wants. Christ accomplished all of the
will of God. What does God want? He wants
to save a wretch like you, if you know him, if you believe
on him. Not if you qualify by believing
on him, but that's how we know. Are you one of them? Well, do
you believe on him? Do you love him? If you love him, it's because
he loved you first. Now we know as much as we can. By the witch will, we are sanctified
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once. You see how that goes back to
what he was saying year after year after year, remembrance
made every year, got to be done over and over. but Christ came
and offered his body and soul. We're told the body of Jesus
Christ here because we're talking about the body as opposed to
the shadows. But he made his soul an offering
for sin, we're also told in the scripture, so we know that. Once
for all, all who are sanctified, all whom he bought with his precious
blood, all that he was talking about when he said, I lay down
my life for the sheep." Not the ones to whom he said, you're
not my sheep. That's why you don't believe
on me. But those who he was talking about when he said, I lay down
my life for my sheep and they shall never perish. Every word of that passage points
right to Christ. And every word of our text this
morning points right to Christ. I would to God that everything
I ever say or anyone ever says from this pulpit will point you
straight to the Son of God. The victorious sacrifice for
sins.