Copies and Shadows

[HKHaugan]

“Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the LORD is near
in the valley of decision. The sun and moon will be darkened, and the stars no longer shine. The LORD will roar from Zion and thunder from Jerusalem; the earth and the heavens will tremble. But the LORD will be a refuge for his people, a stronghold for the people of Israel (Joel 3:14-16).”

All Old Testament prophecy has to be viewed through Jesus since He was the ‘prophet-priest-king’ figure fulfilling all earlier prophecies. He is the prophet like Moses, the King that David prefigured and the High Priest that Melchizedek imaged in Abraham’s presence. Remember the gripping descriptive title of the Messiah in Jewish history---Lord---was that person Thomas recognized in Jesus and approved by Jesus (John 20:28-29). This was the good news, the Gospel, given to the disciples---Jesus is the Lord, the One from the Old Testament now appearing in His resurrected body.

What this means is that all the physical descriptions of life in the Old Testament are to be read spiritually. They are copies and shadows of Heaven’s reality. Take all the battles for instance. They lay the groundwork for the battles that take place in the human heart, in relationships and in how the devil operates through evil spirits and demons in secular society. The world therefore, is seen as the evil spiritual compound of its prince, the devil and his activities in that unseen dimension. You can see this in Joshua (the same name as the Hebrew Yeshua, Jesus) who God commissions to take the Promised Land back from the evil spirit influenced people that had populated and polluted it after the Adam and Eve debacle. This was done to prepare the way for the coming of Jesus in the Promised Land, the physical land, which was a copy and shadow of the Heavenly Land from which Jesus came to rescue humanity and bring them into its precincts.

So let’s look at the transfer of terms from physical to spiritual. The Promised Land becomes the land of the heart, the heartland, finally Heaven. The New Israel centers in Jerusalem, the community of hearts and Heavenly Jerusalem is the Body of Christ. The Temple is the heart and Jesus is the sacrificed Lamb of God who takes away the sins that are the prior curtain that keeps us separate from God. The altar in the Temple is our mind and the incense is our spirit lifted up and bonded by the Holy Spirit in the heart of Jesus.

In the history of the wanderings of God’s people the strongholds that they were called to take like Jericho point to the spiritual and emotional strongholds in our hearts. They are the product of our attempt to control our lives outside of God. They are conclusions we make about God, others and ourselves not based on Scripture. These are to be broken down until the Lord becomes our only stronghold.

Until Jesus came all mankind had was religion. For the Jews specifically religion was the Law, the Aaronic priesthood, the liturgical system, the Pharisaic control of Scripture, the socio-political compromises of the leadership, the strict observance of feasts, dietary restrictions, bloodline preservation and the curtain in the Temple that kept worshipers from personal access to God. It was the high priest who alone had ritual access to God. He would go behind the curtain into the Holy of Holies with its altar and incense to perform the annual animal sacrifice to make up for his sins and the sins of the people.

When Jesus died on the Cross the curtain of the Temple was torn, note this carefully, from top to bottom. It was God replacing forever the need for religion with its demand for structural conformity. Now it is personal faith in Jesus His Son, not legal conformity, which gives us direct access to God our Father. Jesus became, through His Resurrection, our personal mediator and advocate in whom we see the Father and the Holy Spirit, all three in One God in whose image we were created.

When all of our ‘religious structures’ grasp this core truth of being ‘copies and shadows’ then we will see the Body of Christ emerge as the instrument of God’s love and mercy. Then every person in every pew in every building looks to Heaven and the Holy Spirit fills the world with the truth and the presence of Him who died and rose again for each and every person. Then the hymn, “Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus” will be realized.