{"id":70340,"date":"2024-10-16T09:48:48","date_gmt":"2024-10-16T14:48:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=70340"},"modified":"2024-10-16T09:49:26","modified_gmt":"2024-10-16T14:49:26","slug":"in-spirit-and-in-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/in-spirit-and-in-truth\/","title":{"rendered":"In Spirit and in Truth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t

by Jon W. Quinn<\/p>\n

\"\"I cast a shadow if I were walking down the street and the sun was shining. Its size and shape mimic my own to some degree. It is a lot shorter than I really am at midday. It is a lot taller than I am when the sun is low on the horizon. If you were standing around the corner from me, and the sun was at my back as I was walking toward the corner, you would likely see my shadow before you saw me. But you would not think that the shadow was me. Not in truth. It is just the shadow. The real me (or the true me) is still around the corner.<\/p>\n

In this instance, truth is not so much a contrast with something false as it is with something without substance. The shadow has no substance. When Jesus was talking with a Samaritan woman at a well, He used the word “truth” in this way. He contrasted the spiritual shadow of the old with the new spiritual reality that He was bringing to the world.<\/p>\n

Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth<\/em>” (John 4:21-24).<\/p>\n

Now, Jesus was definitely not saying that the time had finally come to worship God correctly and sincerely. That had always been so. God has never accepted anything less than that. When Jesus said, “But an hour is coming, and now is<\/em>,” He was announcing the arrival of something new, and that new thing, He said, is worshipping God “in spirit and in truth<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

The New Testament of Jesus Christ refers to the Law of Moses as a covenant being replaced by His own covenant. Jesus is the mediator of a new covenant (Hebrews 12:24), which makes the old one obsolete (Hebrews 8:13). In fact, the regulations of the Old Covenant served as mere copies, or shadows, of the New Covenant. Using the priesthood as an example, the Scriptures insist that those priests under the Law of Moses “serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, just as Moses was warned by God when he was about to erect the tabernacle; for, ‘See,’ He says, ‘that you make all things according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain.’ But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, by as much as He is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises<\/em>” (Hebrews 8:5-6). Other Scriptures affirm the same thing as well.<\/p>\n

“For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near<\/em>” (Hebrews 10:1).<\/p>\n

“Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day — things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ<\/em>” (Colossians 2:16-17).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, as Jesus was talking to the Samaritan woman, He affirmed that Jerusalem had been the correct place to worship under the Old Law. But now, the hour had arrived when the shadow of the old would give way to the new spiritual reality of His new covenant. It would now be pleasing to God to worship Him in spirit and in truth, and no longer by the shadow. The substance belongs to Christ.<\/p>\n

The Old had fulfilled its purpose. It had led us to Christ, but it had only been the shadow of the New. The faithful of the Old Testament had worshiped God in the shadow of Who was coming.<\/p>\n

But now Jesus has arrived, the substance that had cast the shadow, so we now worship in spirit and in truth, and no longer in the shadow.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Jon W. Quinn I cast a shadow if I were walking down the street and the sun was shining. Its size and shape mimic my own to some degree. It is a lot shorter than I really am at midday. It is a lot taller than I am when the sun is low on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[959,799,268,1712,441],"class_list":["post-70340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-john","tag-new-testament","tag-old-testament","tag-shadow","tag-truth"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":15831,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/does-the-bible-say-the-spiritual-world-is-more-real-than-the-physical-world\/","url_meta":{"origin":70340,"position":0},"title":"Does the Bible say the spiritual world is more real than the physical world?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 22, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I remember reading in the Bible that \"the spiritual world is more real than the physical world.\" I have tried to find it again and cannot. Do you know what the reference for this is? Answer: I recall reading a short book by C.S. Lewis that had this idea\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":88684,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/he-takes-away-the-first\/","url_meta":{"origin":70340,"position":1},"title":"He Takes Away the First","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 16, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton Hebrews 10:9 says, \"\u2026He 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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":33424,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/limits-of-the-old-testament\/","url_meta":{"origin":70340,"position":2},"title":"Limits of the Old Testament","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 19, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton The Old Testament was the inspired, God-given rule of law for the nation of Israel. It was not given to all people. \"The Lord did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us\" (Deuteronomy 5:2-3). Nehemiah spoke to God about the history of Israel:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27295,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/can-you-help-me-reach-my-son-i-cant-even-understand-what-he-wrote-to-me\/","url_meta":{"origin":70340,"position":3},"title":"Can you help me reach my son? I can’t even understand what he wrote to me","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 20, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I wrote to you about\u00a0my son who started worshipping on Saturday. Below is the lastest note I received from him. It does not make any sense to me, but I may not be intelligent enough to understand it. All I want to do is help him. He is highly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":67248,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-sabbath\/","url_meta":{"origin":70340,"position":4},"title":"The Sabbath","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 29, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton The Sabbath day was for Israel to have a day of rest. Paul, by the Spirit, said that sabbaths, among many other things, were a \"shadow\" of the good things to come (Colossians 2:13-16). Since the shadows lead up to the substance that cast the shadow\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49302,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-bible-is-right\/","url_meta":{"origin":70340,"position":5},"title":"The Bible Is Right","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 6, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton It is right because it not only claims to be the word of God (II Timothy 3:16-17) but because it proves to be the word of God. How? 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