which are a shadow of the things to come; but the body is Christ’s.
Parallel Translations
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which are a shadow of the things to come; but the body is Christ’s.
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which are nothinge but shaddowes of thynges to come: but the body is in Christ.
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Which are but a shadowe of thinges to come: but the body is in Christ.
Cross-references (6)
Passages linked to Colossians 2:17 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Hebrews 10:1 For the law, having a shadow of the good to come, not the very image of the things, can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make perfect those who draw near.
- Hebrews 8:5 who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, even as Moses was warned by God when he was about to make the tabernacle, for he said, “See, you shall make everything according to the pattern that was shown to you on the mountain.”
- John 1:17 For the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.
- Hebrews 9:9 This is a symbol of the present age, where gifts and sacrifices are offered that are incapable, concerning the conscience, of making the worshiper perfect,
- Hebrews 4:1-11 Let’s fear therefore, lest perhaps anyone of you should seem to have come short of a promise of entering into his rest. For indeed we have had good news preached to us, even as they also did, but the word they heard didn’t profit them, because it wasn’t mixed with faith by those who heard. For we who have believed do enter into that rest, even as he has said, “As I swore in my wrath, they will not enter into my rest;” although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he has said this somewhere about the seventh day, “God rested on the seventh day from all his works;” and in this place again, “They will not enter into my rest.” Seeing therefore it remains that some should enter into it, and they to whom the good news was preached before failed to enter in because of disobedience, he again defines a certain day, today, saying through David so long a time afterward (just as has been said), “Today if you will hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts.” For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken afterward of another day. There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For he who has entered into his rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from his. Let’s therefore give diligence to enter into that rest, lest anyone fall after the same example of disobedience.
- Matthew 11:28-29 “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you will find rest for your souls.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (15 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 17. Which are a shadow of things to come.…
17. Which are a shadow of things to come. The reason why he frees Christians from the observance of them is, that they were shadows at a time when Christ was still, in a manner, absent. For he contrasts shadows with revelation, and absence with manifestation. Those, therefore, who still adhere to those shadows, act like one who should judge of a man’s appearance from his shadow, while in the mean time he had himself personally before his eyes. For Christ is now manifested to us, and hence we enjoy him as being present. The body, says he, is of Christ, that is, IN Christ. For the substance of those things which the ceremonies anciently prefigured is now presented before our eyes in Christ, inasmuch as he contains in himself everything that they marked out as future. Hence, the man that calls back the ceremonies into use, either buries the manifestation of Christ, or robs Christ of his excellence, and makes him in a manner void. Accordingly, should any one of mortals assume to himself in this matter the office of judge, let us not submit to him, inasmuch as Christ, the only competent Judge, sets us free. For when he says, Let no man judge you, he does not address the false apostles, but prohibits the Colossians from yielding their neck to unreasonable requirements. To abstain, it is true, from swine’s flesh, is in itself harmless, but the binding to do it is pernicious, because it makes void the grace of Christ.
Should any one ask, “What view, then, is to be taken of our sacraments? Do they not also represent Christ to us as absent?” I answer, that they differ widely from the ancient ceremonies. For as painters do not in the first draught bring out a likeness in vivid colors, and (εἰκονικῶς) expressively, but in the first instance draw rude and obscure lines with charcoal, so the representation of Christ under the law was unpolished, and was, as it were, a first sketch, but in our sacraments it is seen drawn out to the life. Paul, however, had something farther in view, for he contrasts the bare aspect of the shadow with the solidity of the body, and admonishes them, that it is the part of a madman to take hold of empty shadows, when it is in his power to handle the solid substance. Farther, while our sacraments represent Christ as absent as to view and distance of place, it is in such a manner as to testify that he has been once manifested, and they now also present him to us to be enjoyed. They are not, therefore, bare shadows, but on the contrary symbols of Christ’s presence, for they contain that Yea and Amen of all the promises of God, (2 Corinthians 1:20,) which has been once manifested to us in Christ.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain The body as a thing of substance and pith,…
The body as a thing of substance and pith, he setteth against shadows.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 17 Which are a shadow of things to come;…
17 Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.
Ver. 17. Which are a shadow] And so a sign of Christ, obscurely and imperfectly representing him to the old Church, and now abolished by his coming in the flesh. In the twelfth year of our Saviour’s age (the same year wherein he taught in the Temple, Luk 2:42) the sanctuary was polluted by the casting about the bones of dead men through every part and porch thereof, at the very feast of the Passover, in the night time. This Josephus saith was done by the Samaritans, out of hatred to the Jewish services. But God had surely a special hand in it, to show that people that those shadows were to vanish, now that Christ the body was come and showed himself.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Which are a shadow of things to come; which,…
Which are a shadow of things to come; which, as they were but obscurer representations or shadowy resemblances of future benefits procured by Christ, Heb 8:5; 9:11; 10:1, whatever temporary glory they had from the former institution, till the time of reformation, Heb 9:10, yet that was done away, and they now had none, in respect of the glory that excelleth and remaineth, 2Co 3:10,11. So that this doth no way gainsay the sacraments now of Christ’s own institution, which may be called figures and shadows, not of things future, of Christ not yet come, but as already exhibited, whom they manifest to the mind and faith to be present, to those who rightly partake of them: we cannot say he condemns all distinctions of meats and drinks, viz. bread and wine in the Lord’s supper; or of days; only the decrees and ordinances of Moses, or any other which the false teachers cried up, that were not after Christ.
But the body is of Christ; who is really the substance and antitype of all the Old Testament shadows, which have completion or accomplishment in him, Joh 1:17; Rom 10:4; Gal 4:10-12; as all the promises were in him yea and Amen, Dan 9:24; 2Co 1:20; all was consummated in him, Joh 19:30, who came in the place of all the shadows. He is Lord of the sabbath, Mat 12:8, and therefore, having broken the devil’s head-plot by his propitiatory sacrifice, and entered into his rest, ceasing from his own works of redemption by price, as God did from his of creation, Heb 4:10, he did away {2Co 3:7,11} all that was typical and ceremonial of the old sabbath, (as other types of himself); keeping only that which was substantial, for a holy rest of one day in seven, and appointing that in commemoration of the Father’s work and his to be, from his resurrection, observed on the first day of the week, for the edification of his church; which he honoured by his appearance amongst his apostles on that day, and that day seven-night after, which proceeded originally from his instituting of that day (to prevent dissension) for public worship in Christian assemblies. Some have observed that the Jewish doctors did foresay: That the Divine Majesty would be to Israel in a jubilee, freedom, redemption, and finisher of sabbaths: and that four sabbaths did meet together and succeed each other at the death and the resurrection of Christ, viz.
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1. The sabbatical year of jubilee, Luk 4:19.
2. The high sabbath, Joh 19:31.
3. The seventh-day sabbath, when his body rested in the grave.
4. The first day of the week, when he rose a victorious conqueror of the devil, and had all put in subjection to him, unto whom all the rest did refer, and therefore they were to disappear, upon his estating his people in a rest which the law could not; whereupon his people are obliged in public adoration and praise to commemorate him on the first day of the week, or the Lord’s day, to the end of the world, 1Co 16:1; 2Ki 1:10.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Which are a shadow of things to come,.... By…
Which are a shadow of things to come,.... By Christ, and under the Gospel dispensation; that is, they were types, figures, and representations of spiritual and evangelical things: the different "meats and drinks", clean and unclean, allowed or forbidden by the law, were emblems of the two people, the Jews and Gentiles, the one clean, the other unclean; but since these are become one in Christ, the distinction of meats is ceased, these shadows are gone; and also of the different food of regenerate and unregenerate souls, the latter feeding on impure food, the ashes and husks of sensual lusts, or their own works, the former on the milk and meat in the Gospel, the wholesome words of Christ; and likewise the clean meat was a shadow of Christ himself, whose flesh is meat indeed, and whose blood is drink indeed. The "holy days", or "feasts" of the Jews, the feasts of tabernacles, of the passover and Pentecost, were types of Christ; the feast of tabernacles, though it was in remembrance of the Israelites dwelling in tents and booths when they came out of Egypt, yet was also a representation of the people of God dwelling in the earthly houses of their tabernacles here on earth; and particularly of Christ's dwelling, or tabernacling in human nature, and who likewise was born at the time of this feast; See Gill on . The passover, as it was a commemoration of the deliverance of the Israelites out of Egypt, and of God's passing over their houses when he smote the firstborn of the Egyptians, so it was a type of Christ our passover sacrificed for us, and was kept by Moses in the faith of him, Heb 11:28; there is a very great resemblance, in many particulars, between Christ and the paschal lamb; See Gill on Co1 5:7. The feast of Pentecost, or the feast of harvest and firstfruits, was a shadow of the firstfruits of the Spirit, which Christ having received, gave to his disciples on that day; and of the harvest of souls to be gathered under the Gospel dispensation, of which the conversion of the three thousand on the day of Pentecost was an earnest and pledge. The "new moon" was typical of the church, which is fair as the moon, and receives all her light from Christ the sun of righteousness; and of the renewed state of the church under the Gospel dispensation, when the old things of the law are passed away, and all things relating to church order, ordinances, and discipline, are become new. The "sabbaths" were also shadows of future things; the grand sabbatical year, or the fiftieth year sabbath, or jubilee, in which liberty was proclaimed throughout the land, a general release of debts, and restoration of inheritances, prefigured the liberty we have by Christ from sin, Satan, and the law, the payment of all our debts by Christ, and the right we have through him to the heavenly and incorruptible inheritance. The seventh year sabbath, in which there was no tilling of the land, no ploughing, sowing, nor reaping, was an emblem of salvation through Christ by free grace, and not by the works of men; and the seventh day sabbath was a type of that spiritual rest we have in Christ now, and of that eternal rest we shall have with him in heaven hereafter: now these were but shadows, not real things; or did not contain the truth and substance of the things themselves, of which they were shadows; and though they were representations of divine and spiritual things, yet dark ones, they had not so much as the very image of the things; they were but shadows, and like them fleeting and passing away, and now are gone:
but the body is of Christ: or, as the Syriac version reads it, "the body is Christ"; that is, the body, or sum and substance of these shadows, is Christ; he gave rise unto them, he existed before them, as the body is before the shadow; not only as God, as the Son of God, but as Mediator, whom these shadows regarded as such, and as such he cast them; and he is the end of them, the fulfilling end of them; they have all their accomplishment in him: and he is the body of spiritual and heavenly things; the substantial things and doctrines of the Gospel are all of Christ, they all come by him; all the truths, blessings, and promises of grace; are from him and by him, and he himself the sum of them all. The allusion seems to be to a way of speaking among the Jews, who were wont to call the root, foundation, substance, and essence of a thing, "the body of it" (n): so they say (o),
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"the constitutions concerning the sanctification of the offerings and the tithes, are, both the one and the other, , "the bodies", or substantial parts of the law:
and again (p), that "the constitutions or rules about the sabbath, the festivals and prevarications, they are as mountains that hang by an hair; for the Scripture is small, and the constitutions are many; the judgments and the services, the purifications and uncleannesses, and the incests, they have, upon which they can support themselves, and these, and these, are , "the bodies of the law":
they say (q) of a small section, or paragraph, that all the bodies of the law depend upon it: once more (r),
"the sabbaths, and the good days (the feasts or holy days) are "the bodies" of the sign;
which the phylacteries or frontlets were for; but our apostle says, that Christ is the body and substance of all these shadows, in opposition to these sayings and notions of the Jews: some connect this last clause with the former part of the following verse, rendering it as the Arabic version thus, "because of the communion of the body of Christ, let no man condemn you"; and the Ethiopic version thus, "and let no man account you fools, because of the body of Christ", but there is nothing in the text to support these versions,
(n) Vid. Misn. Abot, c. 3. sect. 18. & Bartenora in ib. & Halicot Olam, par. 2. c. 1. p. 48. (o) T. Bab. Sabbat, fol. 32. 1. (p) Misn. Chagiga, c. 1. sect. 8. T. Bab. Chagiga, fol. 11. 2. (q) T. Bab. Beracot, fol. 63. 1. (r) T. Bab. Menachot, fol. 36. 2. Vid. T. Bab. Ceritot, fol. 5. 1.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Which are but a lifeless shadow; but the body,…
Which are but a lifeless shadow; but the body, the substance, is of Christ.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 17. Which are a shadow] All these things…
Verse 17. Which are a shadow] All these things were types, and must continue in force till the Christ, whom they represented, came; the apostle therefore says that the body - the substance or design of them was of Christ - pointed him out, and the excellent blessings which he has procured. The word σκια, shadow, is often used to express any thing imperfect or unsubstantial; while the term σωμα, body, was used in the opposite sense, and expressed any thing substantial, solid, and firm. The law was but the shadow or representation of good things to come; none should rest in it; all that it pointed out is to be sought and obtained in Christ.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Which are a shadow of things to come -…
Which are a shadow of things to come - See the notes at Heb 8:5; Heb 10:1, note. They were only a dim outline of future things, not the reality.
But the body is of Christ - The reality, the substance. All that they signified is of or in Christ. Between those things themselves which are in Christ, and those which only represented or prefigured them, there is as much difference as there is between a body and a shadow; a solid substance and a mere outline. Having now, therefore, the thing itself the shadow can be to us of no value; and that having come which was prefigured, that which was designed merely to represent it, is no longer binding.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain things to come--the blessings of the Christian covenant, the…
things to come--the blessings of the Christian covenant, the substance of which Jewish ordinances were but the type. Compare "ages to come," that is, the Gospel dispensation (Eph 2:7). Heb 2:5, "the world to come."
the body is of Christ--The real substance (of the blessings typified by the law) belongs to Christ (Heb 8:5; Heb 10:1).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 17. Things to come—Not future when Paul wrote, but…
17. Things to come—Not future when Paul wrote, but when the law was given. They all pointed to Christ; all their virtue was derived from him, and they who are united to him realize all the good which they foreshadowed.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 17. a shadow] Cp. Heb_8:5; Heb_10:1. The word suggests…
17. a shadow] Cp. Heb_8:5; Heb_10:1. The word suggests the idea of “an image cast by an object and representing its form.” (Grimm’s N.T. Lexicon, ed. Thayer.)
things to come] from the point of view of the Old Dispensation. The Epistle to the Hebrews is a large apostolic expansion, so to speak, of this sentence; giving us at full length the assurances that the Mosaic ordinances were adjusted with a Divine prescience, to the future of the Gospel; and that the fulfilment of their true import in Christ abrogates their observance.—Render exactly, the things to come.
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the body is of Christ] The Fulfilment, the shadow-casting Substance, is “of Christ,” is “Christ’s,” because it consists of Him in His redeeming Work. His atoning Sacrifice, His Gift of the Spirit, His Rest, are the realities to which the old institutions pointed.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (17) Which are a shadow . . . but…
(17) Which are a shadow . . . but the body (the substance) is of Christ.—The spirit of the passage is precisely that of the argument which runs through the Epistle to the Hebrews. “The Law had a shadow of good things to come, not the very image (or, substance) of the things” (Heb_10:1). When St. Paul deals with the legal and coercive aspect of the Law, he calls it “the schoolmaster to bring us to Christ.” (See Gal_3:24, and Note there.) When he turns to its ritual aspect, he describes it as simply foreshadowing or typifying the substance; and therefore useful before the revelation of the substance, useless or (if trusted in) worse than useless, after it. In every way “Christ is the end of the Law” (Rom_10:4).
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Which are a shadow of the things to come,…
Which are a shadow of the things to come, but the body is of Christ (Gal_3:23-25 Gal_4:4; 2Co_3:11, 2Co_3:13; Heb_7:18, 19 9:11-14 10:1-4) The apostle"s opponents, we imagine, taught in Platonic fashion that these things were shadows of ideal truth and of the invisible world, (comp. Heb_8:5) forms necessary to our apprehension of spiritual things. With St. Paul, they shadow forth prophetically the concrete facts of the Christian revelation, and therefore are displaced by its advent. The singular verb (literally, is) quite grammatically combines the particulars of ver. 16 under their common idea of a foreshadowing of the things of Christ; and the present tense affirms here a general truth, not a mere historical fact. How this was true of the "sabbath," e.g., appears in Heb_4:1-11; comp. Joh_19:36, for the Christian import of the Passover feast. The figurative antithesis of "shadow" and "body" is sufficiently obvious; it occurs in Philo and in Josephus: to refer to ver. 19 and Col_1:18 for the sense of body, is misleading. For "the things to come" (the things of Christ and of the new, Christian era, now commencing), comp. Rom_4:24 Rom_5:14; Gal_3:23; Heb_2:5 Heb_10:1. This substance of the new, abiding revelation (2Co_3:11) is "Christ"s," inasmuch as it centres in and is pervaded and governed by Christ (Col_1:18 Col_3:11; Rom_10:4; 2Co_3:14) Nothing is said here to discountenance positive Christian institutions, or the observance of the Lord"s day in particular, unless enforced in a Judaistic spirit. The apostle is protecting Gentile Christians from the re-imposition of Jewish institutions as such, as impairing their faith in Christ (comp., Gal_5:2-9) and as, in the case of the Colossians, involving a deference to the authority of angels which limited his sovereignty and sufficiency (vers. 8-10, 18, 19). This verse contains in germ much of the thought of the Epistle to the Hebrews.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 17. Which are a shadow of things to come.…
17. Which are a shadow of things to come. The body, or substance, which casts the shadow is Christ. We are to pay no attention to the shadows since Christ has come, but to observe what we find in him and the gospel.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 2:17 The reality of Christ was anticipated by the…
2:17 The reality of Christ was anticipated by the Old Testament rituals, which Paul calls shadows (see also Heb 10:1).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.