Shadows of the Real and True

"But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit" (1 Cor. 6:17). As real as the sexual union between a man and a woman so is our spiritual union with the Lord Jesus. There is the consummation and that is the reality. Until we have experienced that joining for ourselves all we have is second-hand knowledge of the subject. It is common to see folks "going to church" and getting involved with all of the church activities and thinking that this is the reality rather than uniting with the One to whom all of these things point. We think that God expects us to follow a system rather than to be united with a Person. The result is that we begin to venerate the system and think that our ability to conform to it is the standard of our righteousness. We fail to realize that these are only shadows of the real and true.

Horatius Bonar, writing for another purpose in his book The Rent Veil never-the-less has some wise words about this danger. He reveals how Israel came to venerate the sacrificial system of the First Covenant and lost sight of the One to whom these sacrifices pointed. We see the same thing today (not just in the traditional churches but in the so-called evangelical churches) when other things--religious things--are substituted for union with Christ, when we see ourselves as separate from Him and are simply fulfilling religious obligations to please Him. We have yet to realize that there is no life apart from Him and that the reality is that He dwells in us and lives His own life out through us as a vine expresses its life through a branch. Anything else is not reality.

This is from the chapter "The Removal of the First Sacrifice and the Establishment of the Second":

". . . it had become necessary, on other grounds, that the first [sacrifice] should be taken away. It was beginning to defeat the very ends for which it was set up. Men were getting to look upon it as a real thing in itself; and to believe in it instead of believing in Him to whom it pointed. It was becoming an object of worship and of trust, as if it were the true propitiation; as if the blood of beasts could pacify the conscience, or reconcile God, or put away sin. It was becoming an idol; a substitute for the living God, and for His Christ, instead of showing the way of true approach and acceptable worship. As men in our day make an idol of their own faith, and believe in it instead of believing in the Son of God, so did the Jews of other days make the sacrifice their confidence, their resting-place, their Messiah. And as Hezekiah broke in pieces the brazen serpent when Israel began to worship it, so did God abolish the sacrifice.

"That sacrifice was not in itself a real thing, nor did it accomplish anything real. It was but a picture, a statue, a shadow, a messenger,--no more. It was but the sketch or outline of the living thing that was to come; and to mistake it for that living thing itself was to be deluded with the subtlest of all errors, and the most perilous of all idolatries. And what can be more dangerous for a soul than to mistake the unreal for the real; to dote upon the picture, and lose sight of the glorious Being represented? Ah, we do not thus deceive ourselves in earthly things! No man mistakes the picture of gold for gold itself, or the portrait of a loved face for the very face itself. Yet do we daily see how men are content with religious unrealities; the unrealities of a barren creed, or of a hollow form; the unrealities of doubt and uncertainty in the relationship between them and God. We find how many of those called religious men are satisfied with something far short of a living Christ, and a full assurance and a joyful hope.

"Nay, they make this unreality of theirs an idol, a god; not venturing to step beyond it, not caring to part with it. They have become so familiar with it, that though it does not fill their soul, it soothes their uneasiness; it gratifies the religious element in their natural man; it pleases their self-righteousness, for it is something of their own; and it saves them from the dreaded necessity of coming into direct contact with the real, the living Christ, of being brought face to face with God Himself.

"Thus it comes to pass that a man's religion is often a barrier between his soul and God; the unreal is the substitute for the real; so that a man, having found the former, is content, and goes no farther; nay, counts it presumption, profanity to do so. To be told that the world, with its gay beauty and seducing smiles, comes between us and God, surprises no man; but to learn that the temple with its sacrifices, the Church with its religious services, does so, may startle some, nay, may exasperate them, as it did the Jews, to be told that their multiplied sacrifices and prayers were but multiplied barriers between them and God: not channels of communication, nor means of intercourse. The Jewish altar stood between the Jew and God; and that which was simply set as the ladder up to something higher became a resting-place. All the more, because it looked so real to the eye; while that to which it pointed was invisible, and therefore to sense unreal. But real as it looked, it was cold and unsatisfying. It was a real lamb, and a real altar of solid stone and brass; it was real blood and fire and smoke; and to take away these might seem to take away all that was substantial. But, after all, these were the unrealities. They could accompish nothing for the filling of the heart, or the pacifying of the conscience, or the healing of the soul's deep wounds. Yet they pointed to the real; and their very unreality was meant to keep man from making them his home, or his religion, or his god. Men might admire the holy symbols and majestic ritual; but the true use of such admiration was to lead them to reason thus. If the unreal be so attractive, what will the real be; if the shadow thus soothes and pleases, what will not the divine substance do; if the picture of Messiah, thus sketched in these ceremonies, be so fair and goodly, how much fairer and goodlier will be the living Christ Himself; if the porch of the temple, or the steps leading to that temple, be so excellent, what must the inner sanctuary be; and who would stand thus, all a lifetime, shivering in the cold without, when the whole interior, with its warmth and spendour and life and vastness was thrown open, and every man invited to enter and partake the gladness?

"Thus the 'taking away of the first' was not the mere removal of what had done its work and become useless; but the abolition of that which had become an idol; a barrier between the Jew and God; quite as much as if the brazen altar had in the process of time become so enlarged as to block up the entrance into the holy place of the holiest of all. We read in Jewish history that once and again, during the seventeen sieges of Jerusalem, the gate of the temple was blocked up by the dead bodies of the worshippers. So did the access into the true tabernacle, not made with hands, become blocked up by the very sacrifices that were intended to point to the open door; and so in our day (long after that altar has been overturned and the fire quenched), is entrance into the holiest blocked up by our dead prayers, our dead works, our dead praises, our dead sacraments, our dead worship, our dead religion, quite as effectually as by our total want of these. A lesson hard for man to learn, especially in days when religion is fashionable and forms are exalted above measure. Greatly is that text needed amongst us, 'If the blood of bulls and of goats and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?' (Heb. 9:14).

". . . How wide the difference, how great the contrast between the first and the second! . . . The first gave no certainty of acceptance and laid the foundation for no permanent assurance; the second said, 'Let us draw near with a true heart in the full assurance of faith'; 'let us come boldly to the throne of grace.' The first was never finished, even after many ages; the second one was finished at once. The first was earthly, the second heavenly. The first was temporal, the second eternal. The first was unreal, the second real. The first pacified no conscience; the second did this at once, purging it effectually, so that the worshippers once purged had no more conscience of sins. The first was but the blood of one of Israel's lambs; the second the blood of the Lamb without blemish and without spot,--the precious blood of Christ!"