Summary of the New Covenant Use of the Old Covenant Rituals

The new covenant doesn’t turn buildings into temples, Sundays into sabbaths, water into circumcision, and bread and wine into sacrifices. It tells us that these are shadows that did not point to more shadows but to the body, the substance, the Person and work of Jesus Christ; and all who are in Him have no need for shadows. However, the body will still cast shadows. So we gather when called because we are the temple of Christ. Sometimes this is in buildings and on particular days. We are baptized to proclaim our regeneration and renewal in Christ. But like the thief on the cross, one is saved by faith not water. We partake of communion to declare that the gospel binds us to Christ and one another in love as a testimony to our sanctification. But a poor church that has no bread and wine to eat during famine, but proclaims Christ as Lord, is saved by the new covenant all the same. The new covenant does not return to the shadows as their evidence of faith and hope. Shadows now look back upon salvation, not forward to it, and as such, are not the necessary evidences of salvation and Christian maturity.