The End of Types and Shadows

At the time of the death of Jesus, the scriptures tell us that the veil of the temple was rent. The way into heaven to the Father had been opened. The fulfillment of all things by Christ had been accomplished. The law and the prophets, that is, the whole Old Testament was fulfilled in Christ.
 
All the types and shadows, laws and feasts and ceremonies were complete in Christ. That’s why He is called reality itself. Everything these things pointed to were brought to reality in Him. Because of this, all of these things have no more use to us other than the fact that they existed temporarily until He came to fulfill them. Now that He has, they are no long significant in any way.  Yet throughout church history we still have clung to those types and shadows as if we needed them in addition to Christ.  

One obvious example is the concept of the temple. The church never met in special places or buildings, only in homes. Yet most Christians today meet in a building and erroneously call that building a “church.” This is totally unscriptural. These pagan buildings were first used in this way when Constantine, the ruler of Rome in the 4th century a.d., built them.  Even though the scriptures tell us that God doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands, many go there as if He does.  The Jewish temple, that was a shadow of Jesus and His church, was destroyed in a.d. 70 as prophesied by Jesus. There was no stone left, now the true living stones were dwelt in by God through the Holy Spirit. This type is gone forever, now the reality is here.  

The same goes with special types of clothing people may wear. When Jesus was on the earth He wore no special clothes to separate Him as different from His followers. Even after preaching all those years, the authorities needed Judas to go and point Him out to them, that’s how inconspicuous and normal He was.  Even though the Jewish high priest would wear unique clothes in the Old Testament, all of these clothes were types that, again, Christ fulfilled. Jesus strongly rebuked the Pharisees for making additions to their clothing so that they could impress people. Yet today we see people wear costumes as if there is some type of holiness attached to these things.  

No one has a right to revert back to types and shadows or outward shows. All things have been summed up in Christ.  

All of this temple worship and special clothing was straight out of paganism, created by one of the worse megalomaniacs in history: Constantine.  
Now that we have Christ, there is no other way to the Father; there is no one but Christ that gives us access to God. Because Jesus Himself made this claim, He was crucified.  

Types, shadows, and symbolism are dead. They all pointed to the Messiah that was to come. Now that Jesus has been revealed as the Christ, we know Him as complete reality. We are no longer to go back and participate in pre-Christ anticipations.  
 

Gary