In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things come into being by Him; and apart from Him nothing came into being. In Him was life;and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness; and the darkness did not comprehend it...John 1:1-5

We humans are a funny lot. In winter we long for warmer days, and when summer finally arrives we seek relief from the heat in the shadows. In some ways this reminds me of a response to God's call. We all want to entre the Promise Land, but when God calls us to come not too many of us are prepared for the heat of the wilderness - the refiners fire is hot, who can endure it? God is well aware of the difficulties we will face, and realizes how daunting it is for us to make a pilgrimage on a road we have not walked before. To this end He has provided many signposts to help us find The Way.

Unfortunately, people being people, we have mistaken these signposts as the destination and have set up camp in the shade of their shadow, and we have taken our comfort before we have reached journey's end. As more and more people have gathered under these shadows we have become quite confident that we have arrived; 'after all these signs and shadows are God given, surely this is what God has called us to'. Now these camps have grown over the years and while many have wanted to move on with God few have grasped the fact that to do so you have to leave the comfort of these visible signposts, and continue your pilgrimage under direction of an invisible guide.

I'm sure many of you are aware that God's dealings with Israel were as a signpost for us, always pointing to the Messiah. The Tabernacle of Moses, the Temple of Solomon, and the various Jewish festivals - to name but a few - were a type, a pattern of something greater that was to come. All these things were only a shadow, a forerunner of what God intended to establish in Spirit and in Truth. The children of Israel added a physical dimension to these shadows, by their observance they added form to that which was written. These shadows were the foundational bones, on which the house of Israel was built.

By their observance they added flesh to the bones; but there was one essential element missing from their religious body - the breath of life. Their foundation of shadows was one of dry bones. The words on which they built their lives were dry, they were a mere shadow of what was to come; the substance of that shadow belongs to Christ - Colossians 2:16-17. There is no life to be found in shadows, life is only found in the substance of Jesus Christ the Son of God. Jesus is the Rock, and from His mouth flow river of Living Words, and these Living Words are the substance on which those who are wise build their lives.

The children of Israel built their lives on the shadow of the Word of God. They could not do no more for the substance - the Messiah - had not yet come. That is a pretty valid reason for being bound up in religion when you think about it. No Jesus, no life. They had to be content with shadow, for that is all that they had been given. But today we really do not have any excuse for not having life, the Messiah has been given, Jesus has come, life is avaliable.

Therefore it troubles me when I find that there are still people in this day and age that continue to live their lives in the shadows. Ah, I hear you ask, what are these shadows that you are talking about? Open your Bible and you will find them. Go to any church and they will teach you all about them. Remember what I said about the shadows being the signpost to point to The Way. Well, the Bible is a book of signposts, and in this book is found a multitude of shadows.

The Bible was only ever meant to be a book of instruction pointing men to the Living Word, and it is a relationship with Jesus the Living Present Word of God that brings life. The children of Israel failed on this very point. They were to be a people led by fire and by cloud; that is, they were to be a people led by the very presence of God. But they became a people of the letter of the law, the written word, and when Jesus - the long awaited Messiah - finally came to live amongst them they would not accept Him as their King and cried, We will not have this man to reign over us.

It is still the same today and nothing has changed. The Good News that the early believers preached can be summed up thus: Jesus, the Living Present Word of God, has come to rule as King, repent and submit to His rule. But this simple message has been perverted to the point that multitudes of people now embrace the Bible as their Word of God. They read it and study it, isolated from the light of the Holy Spirit, and allow its letter to rule their life. The truth that Jesus has come to rule, as King in our hearts is no more a reality in these people's lives now than it was back then. Yes, Jesus came as our Saviour - but He also lives as our Lord and King.

Whenever God has given mankind a gift, man has corrupted and perverted it. Take the very gift of life, since the fall of Adam and Eve mankind has been born into this world - DEAD. That is perverted, and so it goes on. The Bible is full of examples of God giving to His people, and the subsequent perversion of His gift. When the children of Israel left for the Promised Land, God commanded them to take the Egyptian's gold; but it didn't take long for God's people to turn that blessing into an idol. I am sad to say that the same is true today in regards to the Bible; what God intended as a blessing, to point people to His Son, has for much of Christendom become a substitute and people are bowed down in bondage before it. It grieves me to say it, but the Bible has become the golden calf of religion. Men have become scholars of the Bible, instead of becoming one with its Author.

While God without a doubt inspired the writing of the Scriptures, I believe that the written word is but a shadow of the Living Word. Sadly, the shadow of the Bible has become the benchmark foundation for much of Christendom, but without the in-breathed Spirit of God it is a dry bone foundation. Can you have a body without the breath of Life? Yes you can! But it's DEAD, and if this dead body could have been brought to life by written words then Jesus Christ would never have had to come and die on the Cross.

It is for this reason that the Bible never has been and never will be the final, authoratative, Holy, Sacrosanct, inviolable, life giving Word of God on earth, it is but a shadow that points to the giver of life. There is only one person who can give life and only He is worthy to bear the title The Word of God, and that person is Jesus Christ the Son of God. No one will ever convince me that after Jesus died and was buried, and rose again from the dead that He came back as a book. NO WAY.

And this is not a cheap shot at the Bible. The Bible is an amazing book, it should be for the Author was God Himself. In it is found a wealth of knowledge, past, present and future, but though a man spends a lifetime studying this book unless he has a personal relationship with the Author of Life, it profits him nothing. Using Scripture in isolation from the Author is mankind once again seeking self-rule, the very fruit that the serpent used originally to entice Adam and Eve to disobedience in the garden.

To live life ruled by the written word, isolation from Jesus the Living Word, is to live in the shadows. It is written that, The people who were sitting in darkness saw a Great Light. And to those who were sitting in the land of shadow of death, upon them a Light dawned - Matt. 4:16. That Light was Jesus. The Light of the world has come, and the darkness did not comprehend it, and while the written word cannot be seperated from The Living Word, just remember it is but a shadow.

The substance belongs to Jesus, and to reject the rule of Jesus in favour of the written word is to be like the Pharisees who continually used the Scriptures to challenge the authority of Jesus - the Author. However, Jesus used the Scriptures correctly to highlight a better way - He used them to point to a living way - Oneness with God, under His rule and even though the Pharisees tried to use the Scriptures against Him, Jesus was vindicated in the end being found righteous (without sin) through His obedience to the voice of His Father. This is the lesson that Jesus came to teach mankind.

When Jesus said, My sheep hear my voice and follow me, and, man shall not live on bread alone but by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God, I believe that He meant it literally. Jesus said it and His life proved it. We are literally to be ruled by the voice of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, and when men reject the rule of His voice and choose instead to live their lives rules exclusively by a book they practice the ancient art of idolatry. Idolatry is a religion of substitution. That is, having a substitute in place of God and that substitution can be anything; for anything that controls you and rules your life outside of Christ is an object of idolatry, including the Bible.

I am not advocating the rejection of the Bible. No! I'm merely saying we need to recognize that the Bible is but a shadow, a signpost, and it is Jesus who is the Living Word of substance, and we need to accord each their proper place. It's time for the Body of Christ to move on from the milk of the shadow and learn to enter into the Promised Land of Light that proceeds from the mouth of God. This Living Word is to be the source of our life and this Living Word can only be found through a personal relationship with Jesus the Christ, the Son of the Almighty Living God.

And what of the Bible; should we throw it away? How foolish it would be to despise any such gift from God. No, we keep it and treasure it, asking the Holy Spirit to enlighten God's "current up to-date" Word to us as we read it; never forgetting that its purpose is to lead us into a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit of God conveys revelation to us at the appropriate time, from both the Bible and the Living Present Word that we might walk as children of the Light in obedience to the revealed will of God. And you will find that they compliment and confirm each other. If in the reading of this article you have recognized that you have been camped under a great shadow I encourage you to ask Jesus for help, then allow Him to train you to recognize the voice of the Holy Spirit in your heart - just as He trained Samuel.

The Light of the Holy Spirit unveils life, and unless we learn the life application of the lesson unveiled at each signpost, moving on at the appointed time, we shall surely die in their shadows. At each signpost the Holy Spirit wants to teach us a lesson on how to live life in the Kingdom of God. When we were children our parents trained us in the ways of life, but there comes a time when training must cease and we must grow up and walk in the ways we have been taught. So it is also with the Body of Christ, we cannot spend our lives forver learning in the shadows of the signposts. Death is creeping through the camps and it is time for the Body of Christ to move on. God has given us a choice, life of death. He has even instructed us on which one to choose. Choose Life.

(In the next issue we will examine the life application of some of the New Testament signposts).