For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.
What is the law? Sometimes, the term is used to refer to the first five books of the Old Testament, the Torah (Acts 13:15). At other times, it refers to the specific regulations contained in those books (Phil. 3:6). But here in Hebrews, it refers to what we might call the religious practice defined in the Torah: the Tabernacle, the priests, and the sacrifices.
A shadow is not the real thing. It is a transitory image of a real thing. It is cast when a light shines from behind the object. But when the light fully shines, the shadow disappears.
In Hebrews 10:1, the author tells us that the law was only a shadow of the realities to come. Leviticus 16 provides a good description of this shadow. Once each year, the high priest would offer a sacrifice of atonement for the people. He would take some of the blood into the Most Holy Place and sprinkle it on the Mercy Seat, the throne of God.
The author of Hebrews went to great lengths to affirm Jesus as the great High Priest, showing that the Levitical priesthood was a shadow of Him. The sacrifice that Jesus offered was superior to the animal sacrificed on the day of atonement. And that he took the blood of the sacrifice into the heavenly Tabernacle rather than the shadow.
As a shadow, the sacrifices offered under the law could not take away sin (Heb. 10:11). But the sacrifice offered by Jesus did have that power. He provided for all time one sacrifice for sin (Heb. 10:12). What the shadow could not do, Jesus did. And by his sacrifice, he has opened a way through the curtain into God’s presence (Heb. 10:19-20).
The Tabernacle built at Sinai, the priests who served there, and the sacrifices they offered were all good. But they were merely shadows of the reality that has now come. Jesus is the reality that the law was merely a shadow of. And now that the reality has come, the shadow has been done away with (Heb. 10:9).
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