Many think of Moses and Jesus Christ as opposing figures. And yet, the LORD Jesus told the Pharisees, who elevated Moses above Christ, “For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed Me: for he wrote of Me,” John 5:46.

When the Holy Spirit directed John to write what he did comparing the law with grace and truth, and Moses with Christ, it is more with the law and Moses being the blue print, and grace and truth by Jesus Christ being the reality. Paul wrote to the Colossians stating, “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ,” Colossians 2:16,17. Take note of the contrast between the first being the ‘shadow,’ and the last being the ‘body.’ Both are connected because where there is a shadow, it is cast in the light of some object that is casting the shadow. The LORD Jesus Christ is the Object of all that God has purposed for His glory. The law is the ‘foreshadowing,’ of Him coming in the flesh to accomplish the salvation of sinners whom God the Father purposed to save from eternity.

All that the law represented is ‘of’ or ‘in’ Christ. Between all those things that are in Christ, and those that 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. Such is the relationship of the law by Moses, to the grace and truth by Jesus Christ.

Rather than oppose one another, the law complements the grace and truth, because the law condemns, and prepares the way for the grace and truth embodied in the LORD Jesus, and His perfect obedience to the law, having satisfied it, there remains nothing but grace to show because the law has been fulfilled in truth by Jesus Christ. When Stephen was preaching to the Sanhedrin in Acts 7, it was an answer to their accusations that he was speaking blasphemous words against this the temple and the law. They argued, “For we have heard him say, that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us.,” Acts 6:14.

In their blindness, they were bound up with the shadow, that cannot save, nor provide any refuge before a holy God. The LORD Jesus, having come in the flesh, was sent of the Father to fulfill all that was written of Him in type, picture and promise. Rather than being blasphemous words then, it is the Gospel of God, that Christ has once for all fulfilled all the law on behalf of those He came to save. Only a rebellious heart would drive a sinner to continue to look to the law for help, when the help and satisfaction are in Christ and what He has already accomplished. Christ did not come to destroy the law, or set it aside, but fulfill it, Matthew 5:17.