He Takes Away the First
by Terry Wane Benton
Hebrews 10:9 says, “…He takes away the first that He may establish the second.” What is the first, and what is the second? The first is the law of Moses and its system of animal sacrifices. Paul agrees in Colossians 2:11-16 that the old system with its food laws, sabbaths, circumcision, and festivals were “shadows” of the good things that would come in Christ, and that Christ is the “substance” those things were pointing toward. Once the “substance” (Christ) arrived, we would have the proper sacrifice, the proper spiritual food, the proper sabbath (rest), and the better things the old only darkly illustrated.
Illustrations and shadows get absorbed into the substance. This is like you seeing your shadow on the ground, and you follow that shadow right up to your body. Your body is the substance that casts the shadow, but the shadow is only a dark form of your body. Your body is far greater than your shadow. The shadow fades into the substance's light.
Back to Hebrews 10, we find that the “first” is the shadow-filled law. “The law, having a shadow,” which includes the animal sacrifices (Hebrews 10:1-4). But God wasn’t interested in those animal sacrifices when all they were for was to be dark illustrations of the better thing, Jesus, the final and all-sufficient sacrifice. The Old Testament already confessed the insufficiency of its system of animal sacrifices. In Psalms 40:6-8, it admits, “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire.” He commanded it for a temporary purpose, not a purpose sufficient of itself, and certainly not the real answer to our sin problem.
God technically desired the Israelites to obey and offer the illustration offerings, but “shadows” have no substance in themselves. So, “the first” is the Law (of Moses) with its shadowy illustrations of sacrifice for sin, and that was not God’s objective or end-goal. God had in mind a far better and sufficient sacrifice that would never need to be repeated. It would be a sufficient, one-time-for-all-time-and-all-people, sacrifice for all sins.
He removed the first system of shadows and types so that He could establish the real thing we truly needed. Justice and mercy rolled together in Jesus, in His being wounded for our transgressions (Isaiah 53). The first system was “nailed to the cross” (Colossians 2:12f; Ephesians 2:11-18). We are not to be judged regarding foods and sabbaths. The old system was only illustrating the need to be discerning of our spiritual food and our need for internal rest in Christ (our true Sabbath rest). He has established a better system with a better covenant built on better things.
If someone teaches that we must retain all the shadows of the Old Testament, they cannot select just one thing, such as circumcision or Sabbath keeping. That would cause us to fall from the sufficient grace that is now offered to us in Christ. Stand fast in that liberating blessing (Galatians 5:1-6). We are complete in Jesus (Colossians 2:10). We need to be established in this better covenant with Jesus. He took away the first because the end-goal was the second and better covenant in Jesus.
