Paul didn’t say they were wrong or bad. Didn’t say they had no value. But he did warn that they were not the way nor the best. Warned that they shouldn’t be embraced as the things above all things or settled for as the prize above all prizes. Rather, they were but shadows. And, says Paul to the Colossians, we have the Shadow-Caster.

Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

(Colossians 2:16-17 ESV)

The substance belongs to Christ . . . That’s what I’m chewing on this morning.

The wisdom of man and the works of religion — those where the sources of the philosophy, empty deceit, and human tradition which were vying to take captive the Colossians’ affections and energies (Col. 2:8). The Gnostics, who claimed they knew the right things, and the Judaizers, who said they worshiped in the right ways, were both just “puffed up without reason by a sensuous mind” (Col. 2:18), yet they were successful, in measure, in infusing their minds within those who had the mind of Christ (1Cor. 2:16). But these believers possessed not just the mind of Christ, they had also the fullness of Christ — and, in Him, the fullness of deity.

For in [Christ] the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in Him, who is the head of all rule and authority.

(Colossians 2:9-10 ESV)

So, warns Paul, don’t get hung up and tripped up on majoring in the minors. “Don’t put up with anyone pressuring you” (MSG) when it comes to demanding fidelity to world-wise dictates rather than walking in the fullness of heaven-sent deity. Let no one pass judgment on you.

Because these things are, at best, a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

Even those details which might be right and good and even profitable, perhaps, are but signposts and not the substance. They are shadows but not the Shadow-Caster.

Oh, how easy it is to be fixated on shadows. How prone we are to focus on the proclaimed “whats” of wisdom and righteousness and not the Who. How quick to find our identity and our mission in things that have no real materiality and to lose sight of pursuing the One who alone really matters.

The substance belongs to Christ . . . The substance is Christ (CSB). He is they body (NKVJ) of all that bears witness to faithful living.

Why settle for shadows? Why allow ourselves to be bound by things and thinking that are, at best, samplers of something so much better and appetizers for a way of life so much fuller?

Instead, let us pursue the way and the wisdom of the Shadow-Caster, of Jesus Himself. Not in theory, but in reality. For we are in Him and have been filled in Him.

The shadows or the Shadow-Caster?

I know who I want to be taken captive by. I know who I want to pursue. I know which image I want to be bear — the image of eternal substance.

By His grace. For His glory.