Copies

 Read Hebrews 10

What is your reality?

Is your reality what is actually happening all around you? Or is it how you perceive what’s around you?

So, we go to Plato’s Cave. It’s a place where the inhabitants are incarcerated facing a wall. There is a fire behind them so as people or creatures pass behind them, all they see are the shadows of what is happening behind them.

The shadows are their reality. Should you release these prisoners, they might turn away from the fire or the sun—remember, these people are in a cave and haven’t seen the sun—which illuminates much of the world. Those things are real but not the reality of the one in the cave.

So, read the Analogy of Plato’s Cave when you get a chance. Remember that sometimes all we can see is a shadow or a copy or something other than the original.

Now consider that the things that people knew by the law were only a copy—a shadow—of the heavenly things. This analogy is mainly for the temple but it also applies to offerings, sacrifices, and our lives as a whole.

We can’t see directly the things and ways of God. We see shadows. We see copies. Perfection awaits us but for now, what we know is imperfect. It is a copy.

For now, we must trust. In a world full of sin, we must trust God.

The law was only a shadow of the good things to come. What we know in this life is only a copy of heavenly things of greater grandeur and importance.

For now, we must trust.

The sacrifices of goats and bulls were as prescribed by God but not pleasing to God. We know that blood is required for the forgiveness of sins but these countless sacrifices were not pleasing to God as they were not complete.

A once and for all sacrifice was what God required and he provided it himself in the person of Jesus. The imperfection of all the sacrifices up to the point where Christ went to the cross were at best shadows of what came from God.

The law mitigated the evil in our hearts. The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross was to remove our sinful hearts and replace them with one of perfection, one governed by love.

The law was but a copy of the salvation that would come through Jesus.

I have used the term moving forward many times in the course of studying Hebrews. Again, we move forward towards that which is perfect, leaving the imperfect behind us. It served its purpose.

The law is still good. It was given for our own good. It just won’t get us to salvation. We can’t be completed—perfected—through the law.

The author’s message is that we are not there yet.  What we see now is but a shadow or a copy of what is in store for us.

Anyone my age remembers the days of copies that you could tell were copies. Those copiers had big ole drums on them and when they were not in perfect mix of toner and drum and everything else that went into those old copiers, the copies did not need to be labeled copies.

They had that gray haze where it should have been white. The black and white were not as distinct as they were on the original. They just were not quite the same.

Many of you have grown up with copiers that make copies just about as good as the original. Even color copiers make a really good duplicate. It’s not exact, but about as close as you can get in this world.

The author of Hebrews dealt with copies of heavenly things being perfect and our copies here on earth, something less than perfect.

We are moving towards the perfection that awaits us.

In this life we experience glimpses of divine perfection. We get a taste of the goodness of God. We know that what is in store for us is beyond our imagination.

But for now, we live with the imperfect. The law and the sacrifices required by the law were imperfect. Only the sacrifice of Jesus was perfect.

Because of his sacrifice and his perfection, we know—we are assured of the heavenly things. We are not there yet, but we are moving forward.

So, for the rest of our lives, the question remains are we there yet?

The answer is the same to the end. No, but keep moving forward.

Keep moving forward. As we draw near to God, we draw near to perfection. The copies behind us. The Original before us.

No turning back. No turning back.

Now, just to get you primed for next week. Let’s say together, Hebrews 11:1 .

Amen