MMCLXXtX.
Col. ii. 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 dispo- sition, inasmuch as it prescribed many rites and cere- monies 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. Never- theless, 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 God's 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 a, and against the Judaizing brethren, who insisted on the observance of the Mosaic ritual b. 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 crea- tion 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.]
a ver. 8. b ver. 16.