Blend Layers with hidden layers

Okay this is a problem that is bugging me big time.

I have 3 layers

TEXT
SHADOW
BG

the blending options are normal for TEXT and BG, but I have soft light for SHADOW. Now the BG layer actually contains an illustration which makes my shadow look realistic, however what Im trying to do is, save the picture with a transparent background with only TEXT and SHADOW showing, but as soon as I hide BG, the SHADOW layer will go back to the black color I drew and not look like a shadow. I tried merging text and shadow but either the TEXT gets soft light and gets ruined or SHADOW becomes normal and gets ruined. Its very late, ive been trying to figure it out for the past 4 hours so I hope I explained it clearly.

Thanks in advance for the help.