(1) For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. (2) For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshipers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. (3) But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. (4) For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.
I detain the Reader, at his entry on this most precious Chapter, to beg of him to remark with me, the striking expression, which the Holy Ghost is pleased to make use of, when he calls the Law a shadow. For what is a shadow? It cannot be formed, but from some substance. And the substance must be before the shadow. My hand, or my body, placed between the light and the earth, forms a shadow. But on the supposition, that either be removed, no shadow remains. Now then, to apply this to the subject of these verses. The Law is said to have been a shadow of good things to come. But the very existence of the shadow implied the pre-existence of the substance. And accordingly we find Christ is said to be the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, Revelation 13:8, hence, therefore, the Law acted as a shadow of this substance. And very evident it is, that Christ was set up from everlasting, and in all things he hath the pre-eminence. But Reader! think, if it be possible, how infinitely great most be his Person; and how infinitely momentous his redemption, introduced as both have been, in a way so wonderful, and with such vast preparation?