Colossians 2:17

Which are a shadow of things to come,.... By Christ, and under the Gospel dispensation; that is, they were types, figures, and representations of spiritual and evangelical things: the different

Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ. Things to come - blessings of the Christian covenant. Compare "ages to come" - i:e., the Gospel dispensation (Ephesians 2:7; Hebrews 2:5, "the world to come").

Which are a shadow of things to come; which, as they were but obscurer representations or shadowy resemblances of future benefits procured by Christ, 9:11 10:1, whatever temporary glory they had from the former institution, till the time of reformation, , yet that was done away, and they now had none, in respect of the glory that excelleth and remaineth, ,11. So that this doth no way gainsay the sacraments now of Christ’ s own institution, which may be called figures and shadows, not of things future, of Christ not yet come, but as already exhibited, whom they manifest to the mind and faith to be present, to those who rightly partake of them: we cannot say he condemns all distinctions of meats and drinks, viz. bread and wine in the Lord’ s supper; or of days; only the decrees and ordinances of Moses, or any other which the false teachers cried up, that were not after Christ. But the body is of Christ; who is really the substance and antitype of all the Old Testament shadows, which have completion or accomplishment in him, ; as all the promises were in him yea and Amen, ; all was consummated in him, , who came in the place of all the shadows. He is Lord of the sabbath, , and therefore, having broken the devil’ s head-plot by his propitiatory sacrifice, and entered into his rest, ceasing from his own works of redemption by price, as God did from his of creation, , he did away all that was typical and ceremonial of the old sabbath, (as other types of himself); keeping only that which was substantial, for a holy rest of one day in seven, and appointing that in commemoration of the Father’ s work and his to be, from his resurrection, observed on the first day of the week, for the edification of his church; which he honoured by his appearance amongst his apostles on that day, and that day seven-night after, which proceeded originally from his instituting of that day (to prevent dissension) for public worship in Christian assemblies. Some have observed that the Jewish doctors did foresay: That the Divine Majesty would be to Israel in a jubilee, freedom, redemption, and finisher of sabbaths: and that four sabbaths did meet together and succeed each other at the death and the resurrection of Christ, viz. 1. The sabbatical year of jubilee, . 2. The high sabbath, . 3. The seventh-day sabbath, when his body rested in the grave. 4. The first day of the week, when he rose a victorious conqueror of the devil, and had all put in subjection to him, unto whom all the rest did refer, and therefore they were to disappear, upon his estating his people in a rest which the law could not; whereupon his people are obliged in public adoration and praise to commemorate him on the first day of the week, or the Lord’ s day, to the end of the world, ,.

17 Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ. Ver. 17. Which are a shadow] And so a sign of Christ, obscurely and imperfectly representing him to the old Church, and now abolished by his coming in the flesh. In the twelfth year of our Saviour’ s age (the same year wherein he taught in the Temple, Luke 2:42) the sanctuary was polluted by the casting about the bones of dead men through every part and porch thereof, at the very feast of the Passover, in the night time. This Josephus saith was done by the Samaritans, out of hatred to the Jewish services. But God had surely a special hand in it, to show that people that those shadows were to vanish, now that Christ the body was come and showed himself.

(17) Which are a shadow . . . but the body (the substance) is of Christ.—The spirit of the passage is precisely that of the argument which runs through the Epistle to the Hebrews. “The Law had a shadow of good things to come, not the very image (or, substance) of the things” (Hebrews 10:1). When St. Paul deals with the legal and coercive aspect of the Law, he calls it “the schoolmaster to bring us to Christ.” (See Galatians 3:24, and Note there.) When he turns to its ritual aspect, he describes it as simply foreshadowing or typifying the substance; and therefore useful before the revelation of the substance, useless or (if trusted in) worse than useless, after it. In every way “Christ is the end of the Law” (Romans 10:4).

Verse 17. Which are a shadow] All these things were types, and must continue in force till the Christ, whom they represented, came; the apostle therefore says that the body - the substance or design of them was of Christ - pointed him out, and the excellent blessings which he has procured. The word σκια, shadow, is often used to express any thing imperfect or unsubstantial; while the term σωμα, body, was used in the opposite sense, and expressed any thing substantial, solid, and firm. The law was but the shadow or representation of good things to come; none should rest in it; all that it pointed out is to be sought and obtained in Christ.

17. a shadow] Cp. Hebrews 8:5; Hebrews 10:1. The word suggests the idea of “an image cast by an object and representing its form.” (Grimm’s N.T. Lexicon, ed. Thayer.)things to come] from the point of view of the Old Dispensation. The Epistle to the Hebrews is a large apostolic expansion, so to speak, of this sentence; giving us at full length the assurances that the Mosaic ordinances were adjusted with a Divine prescience, to the future of the Gospel; and that the fulfilment of their true import in Christ abrogates their observance.—Render exactly, the things to come.the body is of Christ] The Fulfilment, the shadow-casting Substance, is “of Christ,” is “Christ’s,” because it consists of Him in His redeeming Work. His atoning Sacrifice, His Gift of the Spirit, His Rest, are the realities to which the old institutions pointed.

Which are a shadow of things to come - See the notes at Hebrews 8:5; Hebrews 10:1, note. They were only a dim outline of future things, not the reality. But the body is of Christ - The reality, the substance.

17. Things to come—Not future when Paul wrote, but when the law was given. They all pointed to Christ; all their virtue was derived from him, and they who are united to him realize all the good which they foreshadowed.