Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Colossians 2:17
Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body [is] of Christ.
17. a shadow ] Cp. Heb 8:5; Heb 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.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Which are a shadow of things to come – See the notes at Heb 8:5; Heb 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. All that they signified is of or in Christ. Between those things themselves which are in Christ, and those which only represented or prefigured them, there is as much difference as there is between a body and a shadow; a solid substance and a mere outline. Having now, therefore, the thing itself the shadow can be to us of no value; and that having come which was prefigured, that which was designed merely to represent it, is no longer binding.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
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 , shadow, is often used to express any thing imperfect or unsubstantial; while the term , 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.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Which are a shadow of things to come; which, as they were but obscurer representations or shadowy resemblances of future benefits procured by Christ, Heb 8:5; 9:11; 10:1, whatever temporary glory they had from the former institution, till the time of reformation, Heb 9:10, yet that was done away, and they now had none, in respect of the glory that excelleth and remaineth, 2Co 3:10,11. So that this doth no way gainsay the sacraments now of Christs 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 Lords 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, Joh 1:17; Rom 10:4; Gal 4:10-12; as all the promises were in him yea and Amen, Dan 9:24; 2Co 1:20; all was consummated in him, Joh 19:30, who came in the place of all the shadows. He is Lord of the sabbath, Mat 12:8, and therefore, having broken the devils 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, Heb 4:10, he did away {2Co 3:7,11} 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 Fathers 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, Luk 4:19.
2. The high sabbath, Joh 19:31.
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 Lords day, to the end of the world, 1Co 16:1; 2Ki 1:10.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
17. things to cometheblessings of the Christian covenant, the substance of which Jewishordinances were but the type. Compare “ages to come,” thatis, the Gospel dispensation (Eph2:7). Heb 2:5, “theworld to come.”
the body is of ChristThereal substance (of the blessings typified by the law) belongsto Christ (Heb 8:5; Heb 10:1).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
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 “meats and drinks”, clean and unclean, allowed or forbidden by the law, were emblems of the two people, the Jews and Gentiles, the one clean, the other unclean; but since these are become one in Christ, the distinction of meats is ceased, these shadows are gone; and also of the different food of regenerate and unregenerate souls, the latter feeding on impure food, the ashes and husks of sensual lusts, or their own works, the former on the milk and meat in the Gospel, the wholesome words of Christ; and likewise the clean meat was a shadow of Christ himself, whose flesh is meat indeed, and whose blood is drink indeed. The “holy days”, or “feasts” of the Jews, the feasts of tabernacles, of the passover and Pentecost, were types of Christ; the feast of tabernacles, though it was in remembrance of the Israelites dwelling in tents and booths when they came out of Egypt, yet was also a representation of the people of God dwelling in the earthly houses of their tabernacles here on earth; and particularly of Christ’s dwelling, or tabernacling in human nature, and who likewise was born at the time of this feast; [See comments on John 1:14]. The passover, as it was a commemoration of the deliverance of the Israelites out of Egypt, and of God’s passing over their houses when he smote the firstborn of the Egyptians, so it was a type of Christ our passover sacrificed for us, and was kept by Moses in the faith of him, Heb 11:28; there is a very great resemblance, in many particulars, between Christ and the paschal lamb; [See comments on 1Co 5:7]. The feast of Pentecost, or the feast of harvest and firstfruits, was a shadow of the firstfruits of the Spirit, which Christ having received, gave to his disciples on that day; and of the harvest of souls to be gathered under the Gospel dispensation, of which the conversion of the three thousand on the day of Pentecost was an earnest and pledge. The “new moon” was typical of the church, which is fair as the moon, and receives all her light from Christ the sun of righteousness; and of the renewed state of the church under the Gospel dispensation, when the old things of the law are passed away, and all things relating to church order, ordinances, and discipline, are become new. The “sabbaths” were also shadows of future things; the grand sabbatical year, or the fiftieth year sabbath, or jubilee, in which liberty was proclaimed throughout the land, a general release of debts, and restoration of inheritances, prefigured the liberty we have by Christ from sin, Satan, and the law, the payment of all our debts by Christ, and the right we have through him to the heavenly and incorruptible inheritance. The seventh year sabbath, in which there was no tilling of the land, no ploughing, sowing, nor reaping, was an emblem of salvation through Christ by free grace, and not by the works of men; and the seventh day sabbath was a type of that spiritual rest we have in Christ now, and of that eternal rest we shall have with him in heaven hereafter: now these were but shadows, not real things; or did not contain the truth and substance of the things themselves, of which they were shadows; and though they were representations of divine and spiritual things, yet dark ones, they had not so much as the very image of the things; they were but shadows, and like them fleeting and passing away, and now are gone:
but the body [is] of Christ: or, as the Syriac version reads it, “the body is Christ”; that is, the body, or sum and substance of these shadows, is Christ; he gave rise unto them, he existed before them, as the body is before the shadow; not only as God, as the Son of God, but as Mediator, whom these shadows regarded as such, and as such he cast them; and he is the end of them, the fulfilling end of them; they have all their accomplishment in him: and he is the body of spiritual and heavenly things; the substantial things and doctrines of the Gospel are all of Christ, they all come by him; all the truths, blessings, and promises of grace; are from him and by him, and he himself the sum of them all. The allusion seems to be to a way of speaking among the Jews, who were wont to call the root, foundation, substance, and essence of a thing, , “the body of it” n: so they say o,
“the constitutions concerning the sanctification of the offerings and the tithes, are, both the one and the other,
, “the bodies”, or substantial parts of the law:”
and again p, that
“the constitutions or rules about the sabbath, the festivals and prevarications, they are as mountains that hang by an hair; for the Scripture is small, and the constitutions are many; the judgments and the services, the purifications and uncleannesses, and the incests, they have, upon which they can support themselves, and these, and these, are , “the bodies of the law”:”
they say q of a small section, or paragraph, that all the bodies of the law depend upon it: once more r,
“the sabbaths, and the good days (the feasts or holy days) are , “the bodies” of the sign;”
which the phylacteries or frontlets were for; but our apostle says, that Christ is the body and substance of all these shadows, in opposition to these sayings and notions of the Jews: some connect this last clause with the former part of the following verse, rendering it as the Arabic version thus, “because of the communion of the body of Christ, let no man condemn you”; and the Ethiopic version thus, “and let no man account you fools, because of the body of Christ”, but there is nothing in the text to support these versions.
n Vid. Misn. Abot, c. 3. sect. 18. & Bartenora in ib. & Halicot Olam, par. 2. c. 1. p. 48. o T. Bab. Sabbat, fol. 32. 1. p Misn. Chagiga, c. 1. sect. 8. T. Bab. Chagiga, fol. 11. 2. q T. Bab. Beracot, fol. 63. 1. r T. Bab. Menachot, fol. 36. 2. Vid. T. Bab. Ceritot, fol. 5. 1.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
A shadow (). Old word, opposed to substance (, body). In Heb 10:1 is distinguished from (picture), but here from (body, substance). The (body) casts the (shadow) and so belongs to Christ (, genitive case).
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Which are. Explanatory. Seeing they are. Referring to all the particulars of ver. 16.
Shadow of things to come. Shadow, not sketch or outline, as is shown by body following. The Mosaic ritual system was to the great verities of the Gospel what the shadow is to the man, a mere general type or resemblance.
The body is Christ ‘s. The substance belongs to the Christian economy. It is derived from Christ, and can be realized only through union with Him.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “Which are a shadow,” (ha estin skia) “which things are a shadow,” which things of the law constitute a shadow. While the Law resembled the body, it was still insubstantial, ephemeral, in comparison with Christ, the Redeemer, and his church body, Heb 8:5; Heb 9:8-9; Heb 10:1.
2) “Of things to come,” (ton mellonton) “of things coming,” progressively approaching, the Christian dispensation or the church age. Jesus Christ was, in shadow form, seen darkly, enigmatically, thru the Law sacrifices, feast days, types, and passover, etc. all of which then pointed to Jesus Christ and a new body, a new order of worship and work.
3) “But the body is of Christ,” (to de soma tou Christou but the body (is) of Christ,” or “the body (casting the shadow) belongs to Christ;” He was pre-existent to and co-existent with and personally fulfilled and supplanted the law of Moses and the Hebrew (Jewish worship) with the church which he established, commissioned, empowered, and over which he is head, in the Christian and church age, Mat 4:19-21; Mat 5:15-16; Mat 16:18-19; Mat 26:31-32; Mat 28:18-20; Act 1:8; Act 2:1-4; Act 20:28; Eph 1:21-22; Eph 3:8-11; Eph 3:21; Eph 5:25; 2Co 11:1-2.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
17. Which are a shadow of things to come. The reason why he frees Christians from the observance of them is, that they were shadows at a time when Christ was still, in a manner, absent. For he contrasts shadows with revelation, and absence with manifestation. Those, therefore, who still adhere to those shadows, act like one who should judge of a man’s appearance from his shadow, while in the mean time he had himself personally before his eyes. For Christ is now manifested to us, and hence we enjoy him as being present. The body, says he, is of Christ, that is, IN Christ. For the substance of those things which the ceremonies anciently prefigured is now presented before our eyes in Christ, inasmuch as he contains in himself everything that they marked out as future. Hence, the man that calls back the ceremonies into use, either buries the manifestation of Christ, or robs Christ of his excellence, and makes him in a manner void. (387) Accordingly, should any one of mortals assume to himself in this matter the office of judge, let us not submit to him, inasmuch as Christ, the only competent Judge, sets us free. For when he says, Let no man judge you, he does not address the false apostles, but prohibits the Colossians from yielding their neck to unreasonable requirements. To abstain, it is true, from swine’s flesh, is in itself harmless, but the binding to do it is pernicious, because it makes void the grace of Christ.
Should any one ask, “What view, then, is to be taken of our sacraments? Do they not also represent Christ to us as absent?” I answer, that they differ widely from the ancient ceremonies. For as painters do not in the first draught bring out a likeness in vivid colors, and ( εἰκονικῶς) expressively, but in the first instance draw rude and obscure lines with charcoal, so the representation of Christ under the law was unpolished, and was, as it were, a first sketch, but in our sacraments it is seen drawn out to the life. Paul, however, had something farther in view, for he contrasts the bare aspect of the shadow with the solidity of the body, and admonishes them, that it is the part of a madman to take hold of empty shadows, when it is in his power to handle the solid substance. Farther, while our sacraments represent Christ as absent as to view and distance of place, it is in such a manner as to testify that he has been once manifested, and they now also present him to us to be enjoyed. They are not, therefore, bare shadows, but on the contrary symbols (388) of Christ’s presence, for they contain that Yea and Amen of all the promises of God, (2Co 1:20,) which has been once manifested to us in Christ.
(387) “ Inutile et du tout vuide;” — “Useless and altogether void.”
(388) “ Signes et tesmoignages;” — “Signs and evidences.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(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 (Heb. 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 Gal. 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 (Rom. 10:4).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
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.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Col 2:17. Which are a shadow, &c. “Which things were only a shadow or type of things that were to come, and which are now actually come; Christ being the real and substantial blessing obscurely shadowed forth by them; and while you retain the substance, you will have no need of the shadow.”
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Col 2:17 . [116] An epexegetical relative sentence, assigning the ground for what has just been said.
, which (see the critical remarks), is not to be arbitrarily referred merely to the observance of feasts and days (Flatt and Hofmann), but to the things of the law mentioned in Col 2:16 generally, all of which it embraces.
] not an outline ( , ), as in the case of painters, who “non exprimunt primo ductu imaginem vivis coloribus et , sed rudes et obscuras lineas primum ex carbone ducunt,” Calvin (so also Clericus, Huther, Baumgarten-Crusius, and others), which does not mean even in Heb 8:5 ; Heb 10:1 , and which is forbidden by the contrast of , since it would rather be the perfect picture that would be put in opposition to the outline. It means nothing else than shadow . Paul is illustrating, namely, the relation of the legal ordinances , such as are adduced in Col 2:16 , to that which is future , i.e. to those relations of the Messianic kingdom , which are to be manifested in the (neither from Heb 10:1 , nor anything else, is to be supplied with ), and in doing so he follows the figurative conception, that the , which therefore, locally considered, are in front , have cast their shadow behind, which shadow is the Mosaic ritual constitution, a conception which admirably accords with the typical character of the latter (Heb 8:5 ; Heb 10:1 ), of which the constitution of the Messianic kingdom is the antitype . It is to be noted further: (1) The emphasis of confirmation lies not on (Beza), but on , in contrast to . If, namely, the things in question are only the shadow of the Messianic, and do not belong to the reality thereof, they are in accordance with this relatively non-essential, because merely typical nature of theirs not of such a kind that salvation may be made dependent on their observance or non-observance, and adjudged or withheld accordingly. (2) The passage is not to be explained as if stood in the place of , so that would denote the Christian relations already then existing, the , the Christian plan of salvation, the Christian life, etc. (so usually since Chrysostom); but, on the contrary, that which is spoken of is shadow, not, indeed, as divinely appointed in the law (Hofmann) for of this aspect of the elements in question the text contains nothing but in so far as Paul sees it in its actual condition still at that time present . The have not yet been manifested at all , and belong altogether (not merely as regards their completion , as de Wette thinks, comp. also Hofmann) to the , which will begin with the coming again of Christ to set up His kingdom a coming, however, which was expected as very near at hand. The could only be viewed as having already set in either in whole or in part, if and not were used previously, and thereby the notion of futurity were to be taken relatively , in reference to a state of things then already past (comp. Gal 3:23 ; 1Ti 1:16 ), or if were meant to be said from the standpoint of the divine arrangement of those things (Hofmann), or if this present tense expressed the logical present merely by way of enabling the mind to picture them (Rom 5:14 ), which, however, is inadmissible here, since the elements indicated by still continued at this time, long after Christ’s earthly appearance, and were present really, and not merely in legal precepts or in theory. (3) The characteristic quality , in which the things concerned are meant to be presented by the figurative , is determined solely by the contrast of , namely, as unsubstantiality in a Messianic aspect: shadow of the future, standing in relation to it, therefore doubtless as typically presignificant, but destitute and void of its reality. The reference to transitoriness (Spencer, de legit, rit . p. 214 f., Baumgarten-Crusius, and others) is purely imported.
] scil . , but the body of the future. [117] Inasmuch as the legal state of things in Col 2:16 stands to the future Messianic state in no other relation than that of the shadow to the living body itself , which casts the shadow, Paul thus, remaining faithful to his figure, designates as the body of the future that which is real and essential in it, which, according to the context, can be nothing else than just the themselves , their concrete reality as contrasted with the shadowy form which preceded them. Accordingly, he might have conveyed the idea of the verse, but without its figurative garb, in this way: , .
] scil. , belongs to Christ . The , namely, viewed under the figurative aspect of the which casts the shadow referred to, must stand in the same relation to Christ, as the body stands in to the Head (Col 2:19 ); as the body now adumbrating itself, they must belong to Christ the Head of the body, in so far, namely, as He is Lord and ruler of all the relations of the future Messianic constitution, i.e . of the Messianic kingdom, of the (Col 1:13 ; Eph 5:5 ). Whosoever, therefore, holds to the shadow of the future, to the things of the law (as the false teachers do and require), and does not strive after the themselves, after the body which has cast that shadow, does not hold to Christ , to whom as Head the ( ) belongs as His own . This view, which is far removed from “distorting” the thought (as Hofmann objects), is required by the natural and obvious correlation of the conception of the body and its head , as also by Col 2:19 . There is much inaccuracy and irrelevancy in the views of expositors, because they have not taken in the sense, or not purely in the sense, of the relations of the , but in that of the then existing Christian relations, which in fact still belonged to the , and because, in connection therewith, they do not take up with clearness and precision the contextually necessary relation of the genitive as denoting Him, whose the is, but resolve it into what they please, as e.g . Grotius (so also Bleek): “ad Christum pertinet, ab eo solo petenda est;” Huther: “the substance itself, to which those shadowy figures point, has appeared in Christ; ” Ewald: “so far as there is anything really solid, essential, and eternal in the O. T., it belongs to Christ and to His Spirit;” Hofmann: “the body of the future is there, where Christ is , present and given with Him” (consequently as if were used).
On in contrast to , comp. Josephus, Bell . ii. 2. 5: , . Philo, de conf. ling . p. 434: . Lucian, Hermot . 29. Observe, however, that invariably retains its strict literal sense of body , as a sensuous expression for the substantially real, in contrast to the unsubstantial shadow of it.
[116] Holtzmann, without assigning his reasons, regards the entire verse as an “extract from the Epistle to the Hebrews” (Heb 9:6 ; Heb 9:9 f., Heb 9:25 , Heb 10:1 ; Heb 10:11 , Heb 8:5 ); he thinks that the whole polemic of Col 2:16-23 was intended to introduce the more developed features of later heresy into the picture of the apostolic age. But the difficulty of Col 2:18 (which Holtzmann considers utterly unintelligible) and Col 2:22 f., as well as the alleged un-Pauline character of some expressions in Col 2:19 , does not furnish a sufficient basis for such an opinion. Comp. on Col 2:18-19 ; Col 2:22-23 .
[117] The explanation of Hilgenfeld, 1873, p.199: “the mere , a purely somatic Christianity, ” is at variance with the antithetical correlation of and , as well as with the apostle’s cherished conception of the of Christ, which is contained immediately in ver. 19.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
DISCOURSE: 2179
THE NATURE AND USE OF THE TYPES
Col 2:17. Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.
MAN is naturally addicted to superstition; partly from a consciousness of his needing mercy from God, and partly from a desire of reconciling himself to God by some meritorious services of his own. The Jewish economy had rather a tendency to foster this disposition, inasmuch as it prescribed many rites and ceremonies as means of acceptance with God. But from these the Gospel has set us free; and, in so doing, has introduced a more free and liberal spirit. Nevertheless, even under the light of the Gospel, we are prone to indulge the same servile desires, and to prefer a yoke of bondage to the freedom of Gods children. Such was the case with many even in the apostolic age. St. Paul is cautioning the Colossians against two sorts of teachers, who were endeavouring to mislead them; against the advocates for heathen philosophy [Note: ver. 8.], and against the Judaizing brethren, who insisted on the observance of the Mosaic ritual [Note: ver. 16.]. In opposition to the latter of these, he bids the Christians to assert their liberty from the observances of the ceremonial law, that being, in fact, no more than a shadow, of which they now possessed the substance.
We shall take occasion from his words to shew,
I.
The nature of the types
The Scripture sets before us several kinds of types
[Christians are in general but little acquainted with the types: yet the scripture abounds with them, and mentions various kinds of them. They may be reduced to three classes; natural, historical, and legal. The natural are such as may be seen in the works of nature (in this view, the creation of the universe is a type of the new creation, which the regenerate soul experiences through the word and Spirit of God;) the historical are such as Moses, Joshua, David, and others; and the legal are all the ceremonies of the Jewish law.]
These are shadowy representations of Christ and his benefits
[All of them relate to Christ in some view or other; either to his person and offices, or to his Church and the benefits he confers upon it. They are the shadow, whereof he is the substance: and as a shadow represents, though but faintly, the image of the substance, so they portray, though in a very indistinct manner, the character and work of Christ.]
In fact, they were instituted of God for this end
[The paschal feast, with all its attendant observances, was not merely commemorative of a deliverance that was past: it was to shadow forth an infinitely greater deliverance that was to come; as St. Paul says, Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us: therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth [Note: Heb 8:5. 1Co 5:7-8.]. In like manner, we are told, that all the ordinances relative to the priestly office served unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: For, see, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewn to thee in the mount [Note: Heb 8:5.]. The Law was the shadow; the Gospel the substance: the Law was the model; and the Gospel the edifice erected in perfect accordance with it [Note: We are not at liberty to consider every common similitude as a type, or to launch into the boundless ocean of conjecture: in some instances indeed observations drawn from analogy may be almost as convincing as the declarations of God himself: but it is safest to adhere to those points which Scripture has determined for us: in them we are in no danger of erring, and therefore can speak with precision and authority. Nor should we ever forget, that, as those things alone are sacraments to us which God has appointed to be so, so those things alone were types to the Jewish church, which God instituted for that express purpose.].]
The text, in connexion with the context, leads us further to declare,
II.
Their use
God would not have appointed them, if they had not been beneficial to his Church. But with respect to the Jewish and the Christian Church, we shall, as they subserved different purposes, notice their use to each:
1.
To the Jews
[The types served to shew them what sort of a person their Messiah should be: he was to be a Prophet, like unto Moses, a Priest, like Aaron, a King, like David. He was to be a suffering no less than a reigning Messiah. They further kept up the expectation of him in the world. The first promise had been nearly forgotten; and most probably the repetition of it would have made but a transient impression: but the multitude of observances, daily repeated, and continually directing the eyes of the worshippers to him, could not fail of exciting a general and increasing expectation of his advent. They moreover led the people to exercise faith on him. Every intelligent worshipper must see that the blood of bulls and of goats could not take away sin; and therefore (as we are sure Abraham, David, and others did) the devout Jews must look through the ordinances to Christ, and rely on him who was to come, just as we rely on him who is come.]
2.
To us
[The types are of signal use to us, in that they testify of Christ as the person promised from the foundation of the world, and prefigured in the whole of the Mosaic ritual. When we compare the account of Christ in the New Testament with the various ordinances of the Old, we see how impossible it was that such a coincidence of character should ever happen, but by the express ordination and appointment of God. But they are of further use to us also, in that they wonderfully illustrate the fulness and excellency of Christ. As there are myriads of stars, yet all of them together are no more than a taper in comparison of the sun; so all the typical exhibitions of Christ are but a shadow in comparison of him: and though they are exceeding glorious in themselves, yet have they no glory by reason of the glory that excelleth [Note: 2Co 3:9-11]. To this effect the Apostle says, If the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God [Note: Heb 9:13-14.]! This is the view which we are to take of the types, this the improvement we are to make of them. We could not have formed any adequate idea of Christs work and offices, if we had not been assisted by the typical institutions: these serve to embody our notions, and to make them, like a picture, visible to the eyes of men, and therefore intelligible to the meanest capacity: whereas, if we could not thus invest them, as it were, with matter, we could only offer to our bearers some abstract ideas, which, after all, would convey but little meaning, and leave no abiding impression.]
Infer
1.
How great are the privileges of the Christian Church!
[The Jews were oppressed with a yoke of ceremonies, which they were not able to bearthe import of which they could very faintly discernand the observance of which yielded no permanent satisfaction to their consciences [Note: Heb 10:1-2.]: but we are freed from that yoke, and enjoy a dispensation of light, and liberty Let us be thankful for our privilege, and stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.]
2.
What spirituality of mind should we possess!
[Our superior privileges doubtless demand a correspondent pre-eminence in our spirit and conduct. If we are no longer servants but sons, we ought to manifest a filial affection towards God, and a delight in his service. But do not many of the pious Jews reproach us? O let us walk worthy of our high vocation, and shew forth the praises of him who has called us out of darkness into his marvellous light [Note: 1Pe 2:9.].]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
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, Luk 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.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
17 .] which (if the sing. be read, the relative may refer either to the aggregate of the observances mentioned, or to the last mentioned, i.e. the Sabbath. Or it may be singular by attraction, and refer to all, just as if it were plural, see Mat 12:4 ) is (or as in rec. are : not, ‘ was ,’ or were : he speaks of them in their nature, abstractedly) a shadow (not, a sketch , or – , which meaning is precluded by the term opposed being , not the finished picture, but literally the shadow : see below) of things to come (the blessings of the Christian covenant: these are the substance, and the Jewish ordinances the mere type or resemblance, as the shadow is of the living man. But we must not, as Mey., press the figure so far as to imagine the shadow to be cast back by the going before (cf. also Thdrt., somewhat differently, , , ): nor with the same Commentator, interpret . of the yet future blessings of the state following the , for which (see above) gives no ground. Nor again must we imagine that the obscurity (Suicer, al.) of the Jewish dispensation is alluded to, there being no subjective comparison instituted between the two, only their objective relation stated); but the body (the substance, of which the other is the shadow) belongs to Christ (i.e. the substantial blessings, which those legal observances typified, are attached to, brought in by, found in union with, Christ: see on the whole figure Heb 8:5 ; Heb 10:1 ). We may observe, that if the ordinance of the Sabbath had been, in any form , of lasting obligation on the Christian Church, it would have been quite impossible for the Apostle to have spoken thus. The fact of an obligatory rest of one day, whether the seventh or the first, would have been directly in the teeth of his assertion here: the holding of such would have been still to retain the shadow, while we possess the substance. And no answer can be given to this by the transparent special-pleading, that he is speaking only of that which was Jewish in such observances; the whole argument being general, and the axiom of Col 2:17 universally applicable.
I cannot see that Ellicott in loc. has at all invalidated this. To hold, as he does, that the sabbath was a of the Lord’s day , is surely to fall into the same error as we find in the title of 1Co 10 in our authorized bibles, ‘The Jewish Sacraments were types of ours.’ The antitype is not to be found in another and a higher type, but in the eternal verity which both shadow forth. An extraordinary punctuation of this verse was proposed by some mentioned by Chrys.: , , . , and Aug. ep. 149 (59). 27, vol. ii. p. 841 f., has ‘corpus autem Christi nemo vos convincat. Turpe est, inquit ut cum sitis corpus Christi, seducamini umbris.’ No wonder that the same father should confess of the passage, ‘nec ego sine caligine intelligo.’
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Col 2:17 . This verse contains a hint of the fundamental argument of the Epistle to the Hebrews ( cf. esp. Heb 8:5 ; Heb 10:1 ). . Whether or be read, the reference is to the whole of the ceremonial ordinances just mentioned. is “shadow,” not “sketch” (as Calvin and others). It is cast by the body, and therefore implies that there is a body, and while it resembles the body it is itself insubstantial. . . means the Christian dispensation, not (as Mey.) the still future Messianic kingdom, for, if so, the substance would still lie in the future, and the shadow would not be out of date. It is future from the point of view of Judaism. : “but the body belongs to Christ”. is that which casts the shadow, therefore it existed contemporaneously with its manifestation, and, of course, according to the Jewish view, in heaven. It practically means what we should call “the substance,” and is chosen as the counterpart to , and with no reference to the Church or the glorified body of Christ. Since the substance belonged to Christ, it was foolish for Christians to hanker after the shadow. All that the most sanguine hoped to attain by asceticism and ceremonialism was possessed immediately in the possession of Christ.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
17.] which (if the sing. be read, the relative may refer either to the aggregate of the observances mentioned, or to the last mentioned, i.e. the Sabbath. Or it may be singular by attraction, and refer to all, just as if it were plural, see Mat 12:4) is (or as in rec. are: not, was, or were: he speaks of them in their nature, abstractedly) a shadow (not, a sketch, or -, which meaning is precluded by the term opposed being , not the finished picture,-but literally the shadow: see below) of things to come (the blessings of the Christian covenant: these are the substance, and the Jewish ordinances the mere type or resemblance, as the shadow is of the living man. But we must not, as Mey., press the figure so far as to imagine the shadow to be cast back by the going before (cf. also Thdrt., somewhat differently, , , ): nor with the same Commentator, interpret . of the yet future blessings of the state following the ,-for which (see above) gives no ground. Nor again must we imagine that the obscurity (Suicer, al.) of the Jewish dispensation is alluded to, there being no subjective comparison instituted between the two,-only their objective relation stated); but the body (the substance, of which the other is the shadow) belongs to Christ (i.e. the substantial blessings, which those legal observances typified, are attached to, brought in by, found in union with, Christ: see on the whole figure Heb 8:5; Heb 10:1). We may observe, that if the ordinance of the Sabbath had been, in any form, of lasting obligation on the Christian Church, it would have been quite impossible for the Apostle to have spoken thus. The fact of an obligatory rest of one day, whether the seventh or the first, would have been directly in the teeth of his assertion here: the holding of such would have been still to retain the shadow, while we possess the substance. And no answer can be given to this by the transparent special-pleading, that he is speaking only of that which was Jewish in such observances; the whole argument being general, and the axiom of Col 2:17 universally applicable.
I cannot see that Ellicott in loc. has at all invalidated this. To hold, as he does, that the sabbath was a of the Lords day, is surely to fall into the same error as we find in the title of 1 Corinthians 10 in our authorized bibles,-The Jewish Sacraments were types of ours. The antitype is not to be found in another and a higher type, but in the eternal verity which both shadow forth. An extraordinary punctuation of this verse was proposed by some mentioned by Chrys.: , , . , and Aug. ep. 149 (59). 27, vol. ii. p. 841 f., has corpus autem Christi nemo vos convincat. Turpe est, inquit ut cum sitis corpus Christi, seducamini umbris. No wonder that the same father should confess of the passage, nec ego sine caligine intelligo.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Col 2:17. , a shadow) Heb 8:5; Heb 10:1. A shadow, without life.-, the body) the very truth shadowed forth by the old ceremonies. The body, as well as the shadow, to which it is opposed, is the predicate; and therefore it may be thus resolved: meat, drink, etc., are the shadow of things to come; but the body of Christ is the body [the substantial thing], or, in other words, that which belongs to Christ is the body. Allusion is made to the very body of Christ, but Christianity is understood; . If you suppose that body is to be supplied in the subject, it will be a Ploce.[15]
[15] See App. A word put twice, once in the meaning of the simple word, then to express an attribute of it. The body of Christ is the body, i.e. the substance, the essential thing.-ED.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Col 2:17
Col 2:17
which are a shadow of the things to come; but the body is Christs.-The whole system and prohibitions of the Mosaic dispensation had a typical significance, pointing to the coming of Christ. They were only a shadow of the realities which came through him.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
a shadow: Joh 1:17, Heb 8:5, Heb 9:9, Heb 10:1
the body: Mat 11:28, Mat 11:29, Heb 4:1-11
Reciprocal: Lev 11:24 – General 2Ch 31:3 – for the new moons Son 2:9 – he standeth Isa 66:23 – that from Mat 5:17 – but Joh 14:6 – the truth Rom 10:4 – Christ Rom 14:3 – judge Rom 14:5 – esteemeth Rom 14:17 – is 1Co 10:4 – that Rock 2Co 3:13 – to the Gal 3:24 – the law Gal 4:10 – General Heb 9:23 – the patterns
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
BODY AND SHADOW
Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.
Col 2:17
To every one naturally, that is, till they are religious, that is, till they have faith, this world is the reality, and the other world is, to say the least, very shadowy.
The great question now to every one of us is: Which is the substance and which is the shadow to me?
I. But St. Pauls words have yet a stricter meaning.He is speaking of ordinances and he says that all ordinancesthe Jewish first but also the Christianare the shadows, the substance is Christ. He does not mean that the shadows are nothing; but they are nothing without the substance. God forbid that we should make little of ordinances. They are amongst our most precious inheritance. But, after all, their worth is in the Christ we find in them.
II. Take any ordinance you like:
(a) Preaching. Without Christ it is mere shadow; Christ is the body of every good, useful sermon that ever was preached.
(b) Prayer. Prayer is the lung of the soul. But it must be offered in the Name of Christ. That is the body of the prayer; the rest of the prayer is only prayers shadow.
(c) The reading of the Bible. If you do not find Christ in your daily study of the Bible, you have founds if you like, words, interest, instruction, pleasure, but not life. The letter is the shadow, but the body is Christ.
III. But there is one more view the text presents.The Old Testament was almost entirely the shadow of the New. It was a typical dispensation. But are there no shadows of things yet to come in the New Testament? Are we not still typical? May we not well believe that many things which we are doing and loving, which belong to our Church now, and which are essential parts of our religion, are also types of other things which shall be in another dispensation? Our services, our sacraments, our converse, our work, our love, our best joys, have they not a higher substance yet to come, of which they may be now only the earnests, and the representatives, and the preparations?
Rev. James Vaughan.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
(Col 2:17.) -Which are a shadow of things to come. The plural form of the relative has higher authority than the singular, which is adopted by Lachmann, and is found in B, F, G, and in several of the Latin Fathers. The relative is not to be restricted to , as Richter argues; nor does it simply connect itself with those festive days, as Flatt takes it. The entire ritual is alluded to-the ritual as God appointed it, and not as overloaded by its self-willed votaries.
The noun may bear two different meanings. It may either signify a shadow projected from a body by its interception of the light; or it may signify, as here, a dim and shadowy sketch of an object, in contrast not only with a full and coloured likeness, but with the object itself. Meyer contends strenuously for the former, viz. that is not , but simply shadow, as if the Christian economy threw its shadow back, and this shadow was ritual Mosaism. This idea brings out, indeed, the typical relation which Judaism bore to Christianity. But perhaps the apostle had the figure before his mind which he has elsewhere employed; the law, he says, had a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things. In this expression he distinguishes and , as being both likenesses, though of a different kind; and in the passage before us, he distinguishes from the reality or substance–which it represents. The nouns and are thus also contrasted by Josephus, when he makes Antipater say of Archelaus- , . Photius vaguely renders by . The things to come are the spiritual blessings of the Christian dispensation, not as Meyer, in accordance with his favourite theory, supposes, blessings to be enjoyed at the Parousia, or second coming. Heb 10:1. The apostle employs in the present, not because, as Meyer argues, the blessings are yet future to the present point of time; but either because, as Davenant supposes, he gives a definition, or because the apostle transports himself ideally to a period when ritual Judais m was of Divine obligation, and when it was really the shadow of things yet to come. The connection of with the genitive . forbids the notion of Zanchius and Suicer, that the reference may be to the comparative darkness of the former economy.
-But the body is Christ’s. A few Codices change the passage by a glaring amendment, and read , while A, B, C prefix the article , a reading which Lachmann prefers. But the body is Christ’s, that is, of Christ’s provision and possession. Meyer, taking in the sense of body, that is, the concrete reality of those things to come, supposes that Christ is here supposed to be its head. But the term body, with its correlative organ-head, invariably refers in Paul’s writings to the church-a meaning which cannot in this place be admitted. Chrysostom adopted this sense, and to support it, altered the connection, and clumsily joined this clause to the following verse-You who are the body of Christ, let no man deceive you of your reward. The same construction is approved by Photius, and also by Augustine, who has corpus autem Christi, nemo vos convincat. The meaning is not that Christ is the body, but that He possesses it. The realities so long shadowed out are His-all that composes them belongs to Him.
The clause then contains the great truth that the Mosaic economy was no empty congeries of useless and meaningless observances – infantine in character and design; but an organism at once Divine in its origin, and fraught with lessons of striking form. It was a dim outline–of those substantial blessings which are of Christ, and it served a gracious purpose during its existence. It was a rudimentary sketch. Its temple with its apartments, vessels, and furniture; its priesthood, in their imposing robes and duties; its altar, with the fire on its hearth, and the cloud of smoke resting over it; its victims, in their age, kind, and qualifications; its rubric, with its holidays, and their special observances; its minute ritual in reference to diet, dress, and disease-all were the faint lines of a sketch which was limned by the Divine pencil for the guidance and government of Hebrew faith and worship. The eye of faith might, as it gazed, be able to fill in the picture, and see in distant perspective the sublime group of a tabernacle filled and inhabited by the Great Spirit; a Priest offering the most costly of victims-the God-man presenting Himself; an altar consecrated by blood precious beyond all parallel; and a sabbatism not only serene and joyous on earth, but stretching away into eternity as a rest remaining to the people of God. Thus the hieroglyph and substance exactly correspond, though the former be only an adumbration and a miniature.
But not only was there this close and preordained relation between the shadow and the substance, there was also a predictive correspondence. The sketch is taken from the reality, and implies the existence of it. The shadow is the intended likeness of the substance. In other words, Christianity was not fashioned to resemble Judaism, but Judaism was fashioned to resemble Christianity. The antitype is not constructed to bear a likeness to the type, but the type is constructed to bear a likeness to the antitype. It is, in short, because of the antitype that the type exists. The Mosaic economy being a rude draught of Christianity, presupposed its future existence. If it had been an institute without ulterior object, if its rites had contained no prospective delineations, or if its whole design had terminated in present observance, then it could not have received the apostolic designation. But it was a typical system. Now, a type not only pictured out the nature of a future reality, but it foretold its certainty. It showed, and it foreshowed. The sacrifice not only showed that the offerer was under sentence of death, and that only by the substitutionary shedding of blood the awful sentence could be repealed; but it also foreshowed that the great and final oblation of infinite efficacy would assuredly be presented in the fulness of the time. It not only portrayed the mode, but it gave assurance of the fact-it was at once a symbol and a prophecy. The entire Jewish ritual was so organized, as not only to exhibit a faint and distant likeness to Christianity, but it established the certainty that the new dispensation of which it was an early and elementary copy should be at length organized in perfection and symmetry. The figure for the time then present guaranteed the introduction of the figured reality in the time to come. The sign not only preceded, but certified the advent of the thing signified.
Still, the shadow is in itself nothing-it is empty, baseless, and indistinct. The Hebrew ceremonial could not give full instruction by its symbols, and it could only purge as pertaining to the flesh. It had no power to enter into the conscience, and impart peace and the sense of forgiveness. The blood of an animal could not secure Divine favour. The thief, after restoring fourfold to the man whom he had wronged, and so satisfying him, must also offer a victim on the altar to God, in order that the penalty incurred from Him might be remitted. The man who had been contaminated by any ceremonial impurity, who had touched a corpse, or come into accidental contact with a leper, was by means of an appointed ordeal of ablution and sacrifice restored to his previous status. But the whole apparatus was wanting in spiritual power, and its only virtue was in its connection with the substance to come. That it was a shadow so designed, and not a fortuitous and unmeaning system, is plain from its correspondence with the body which is Christ’s, and its consequent fulfilment in Him. The harmony is universal and complete. The great High Priest has come and clothed Himself in humanity-a living vestment far more costly than the robes of Aaron, made for glory and for beauty; and all other victims have been superseded by His oblation of Himself. Omniscience is His, and therefore no formal Urim and Thummim glitters on His breast. The Self-sacrifice He presented was pure as the fire from God by which it was consumed, and it has been visibly accepted. He has gone through the starry vail, and into heaven itself, with the names of all His clients inscribed upon His heart; and He pleads the merit of His blood before a mercy-seat not canopied by a cloud, but enveloped in the Majesty of Him who sits upon it. The woven and metallic cherubim disappear in the reality, for the angels having performed their allotted parts in the mystery of redempti on, are ministering spirits to them who shall be heirs of salvation. There is no need now that the law be engraved on stone, for it is written indelibly on the fleshy tables of the heart. It is no longer required that there be a bath, or a sea of brass, for believers are washed in the laver of regeneration. The golden lampstand has been extinguished, for the lustre of the Enlightening Spirit fills the House of God. Nay, the entire church on earth is a spiritual priesthood, engaged in appropriate ministrations, serving now, indeed, in the outer court, but soon to be called up into the inner sanctuary.
The argument of the apostle, then, is-why go down to the weak and beggarly elements? Who would listen to any sophistry urging him to prefer the shadow to the substance? Such a relapse would be an attempt to roll back the Divine purpose, and impede that religious progress which Christianity had introduced; an effort to restore an intolerable yoke, and rob the new religion of its spirituality and vigour. The result would be to stifle devotion by a periodical mechanism, and degrade obedience into a service of trifles. And therefore the apostle solemnly warns the Colossians not to be imposed upon by such pretences, and not for a moment to submit to teaching which would supplant the real by the ritual, and give them a religion of obsolete externalities for one of vital freedom and spiritual jurisdiction.
Fuente: Commentary on the Greek Text of Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians and Phillipians
Col 2:17. The lexicon explains the original for shadow to mean, “an image cast by an object and representing the form of that object,” and body is from SOMA, which the same lexicon of Thayer defines as, “the thing itself which casts the shadow.” The ordinances of the Mosaic law were types or shadows of those to be given through Christ, and that is the reason He is said to be the body that casts the shadow. By insisting on the ordinances of the old law, the Ju-daizers were preferring the shadow of something to the thing itself.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Col 2:17. Which are a shadow of the things to come. All the matters spoken of in Col 2:16 are referred to; the whole system of prohibitions and festivals has a typical significance, pointing to the things to come, namely, the new dispensation. Meyer limits this to the future kingdom of Christ after the Second Advent, but this deprives the next clause of its proper meaning.
The body is Christs, belongs to Him; the reality of these observances is found in the new dispensation. In this substantial reality there is a place for the Lords Day, which is now to be a season of loftier joy, as it commemorates a more august event than either the creation of the universe, or the exodus from Egypt (Eadie). On the thought in its details, comp. Heb 8:1-5; Heb 10:1-18.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Verse 17
The body; the reality.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
2:17 Which are a shadow of things to come; but the {z} body [is] of Christ.
(z) The body as a thing of substance and physical strength, he sets against shadows.