The Everlasting Covenant

The Use of a Likeness

One word further as to the shadow and the substance. As we have seen, the law delivered to the people in the wilderness of Sinai was but the shadow of the real law, which is the life of God. This is often urged in depreciation of the law; many people seem to think that since the law is but the shadow of good things, therefore we should choose that which is as opposite to it as possible. Not so do men argue in temporal matters. If we have a photograph—a shadow—of a man whom we wish to find, we do not light on a man whose features bear no resemblance to the likeness, and say, “This is the man.” No; we find a man of whom the photograph is the exact likeness, and then we know that we have the one we seek. Now the real law is the life of God, and the law delivered to the children of Israel—the shadow of good things—is the photograph of God’s character. EVCO 354.2