And Jesus said unto them, What things? And they said unto him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people: 20And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified him. 21But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, to day is the third day since these things were done. 22Yea, and certain women also of our company made us astonished, which were early at the sepulchre; 23And when they found not his body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive. 24And certain of them which were with us went to the sepulchre, and found it even so as the women had said: but him they saw not. 25Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: 26Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? 27And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
Luke 24
We return to the theme again of reading the Scriptures Christocentrically. We do so because we are convinced that we too often slip into a moralistic reading of the OT that focuses on the behavior of the Saints as a kind of guide for our own behavior whereas the passage in Luke finds Jesus expounded the Scriptures in such a way where it is seen that he is present. The emphasis that Jesus unfolds is on how the Scripture proclaims Himself. The emphasis thus is not primarily about us and our behavior.
Now that doesn’t mean that there are not moral lessons we can take from the OT saints. It does mean though that those moral lessons that are to be gleaned must be seen only in a penultimate fashion. I’ve tried to preach this way over the years. For example, even in that OT text that speaks most clearly about our behavior, the Ten Commandments, I have said repeatedly primarily preaches Christ. The Ten Commandments preaches Christ inasmuch as, if by the Spirit, we see the absolute impossibility of our meeting those standards of behavior we are forced to look outside of ourselves for one who can meet those standards in our place and then will bring us under the safety of the umbrella of His law-keeping behavior in our place. Only once we realize our the ten Commandments are about Christ’s obedience in our place can we then seek to increasingly walk in terms of the behavior required of the 10 commandments. The Moral Law, like all of the OT preaches Christ… and it is this idea that Jesus unfolds in Luke 24 when He
began at Moses and all the prophets, expounding unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
Well, of course this way of reading Scripture doesn’t stop with the 10 commandments. We read the OT Scripture to understand Christ as for us. As such the OT’s primary emphasis isn’t what many of us grew up in Sunday School with. The primary emphasis isn’t
David was brave… you be brave also
Absalom was proud and vain … don’t you be vain and proud
Moses Lost his temper … don’t you lose your temper
Lot’s Wife looked back … don’t look back
Daniel’s friends trusted God… you trust God also
As I have said in previous sermons in this series that is reading the Bible like it is a book of Aesop fables. And the Bible isn’t a book of Aesop fables. The Scripture are about all the things concerning Christ.
Now, again, I need to say that the point here is that the Scripture doesn’t have anything to say about our behavior. The point here is that we only get to our behavior after we have said the necessary things about the person of Christ and His behavior on our behalf, in our stead.
Of course none of this is original with me. I’ve never had an original thought and it’s likely in your lifetime you’ll never meet anyone who has had an original thought. No… what I am teaching here has a long and storied history in the Church. A couple examples;
The whole Scripture is about Christ alone everywhere, if we look to its inner meaning, though superficially it may sound different.” Martin Luther
We ought to read the Scriptures with the express design of finding Christ in them. Whoever shall turn aside from this object, though he may weary himself throughout his whole life in learning, will never attain the knowledge of the truth; for what wisdom can we have without the wisdom of God?”
Calvin
Comm. John 5:39
Sidney Greidanus warns from his book on preaching,
Unable to preach Christ and him crucified, we preach humanity and it improved.
So, the principle this series is concerned with has long been understood but it has also long been abandoned. This was proven by a recent Preaching Pulpit Digest survey the results of which said that 85% of sermons heard by folks are man-centered.
The abandoning of Christ-centered preaching is sure to produce either on one hand people who despair of God’s favor because some people are honest enough to know about themselves that they can never meet the kind of holiness required by God, or on the other hand it produces people who are hypocrites who convince themselves that they really have met God’s standard for behavior. Bad theology hurts people.
So, we are seeking to avoid reading the Old Testament as disconnected fables, concerned with a simple moralistic point.
We are contending instead that we must read the Old Testament as it actually is, and that is as an integrated running narrative building a coherent theological point. It is all one story driving home a main point—man has fallen, but God is providing a chosen seed who will redeem humanity. God has made an unbreakable vow to this chosen seed and his line, and even human sin and rebellion will not stop God from fulfilling His promise. Reading the Scriptures in such a way thus requires a method that demands for continuity across the pages from OT to NT.
Now, lets see if we can bring forth a few concrete examples so that you can see that I am getting at.
We might take the life of Joseph. Joseph is treated cruelly at the hands of his brothers. Beaten, and sold into slavery they seek to annihilate their Father’s chosen one. Eventually, the one that was beaten by his brothers is put into a position to potentially get pay back. However, instead He forgives His brothers noting that what they had intended for evil God had intended for good.
Now, if we were reading the Joseph account as an Aesop fable or a morality tale we might say … “Joseph as forgiving you be forgiving also.” And we should be a forgiving people but I submit to you that lesson is not primarily what this Joseph story is about. We need to read it Christocentrically. God is using Joseph as a movie trailer here to gives us a foretaste of the whole film… Joseph is the favorite son of the Father who when he came unto His own His own brothers, His own brothers received Him not, but instead He was smitten, oppressed and afflicted by His people. Upon ascending to the right hand of the great King, Joseph forgives His brothers and delivers them from the curse of famine and sure death by welcoming them into a land that was set aside for them by the great King.
Joseph is giving us a foretaste of the coming of Jesus who likewise came unto His own but His own received Him not. Joseph is also a picture of what divine forgiveness looks like. There is no sin so treacherous as those committed by Joseph’s brothers and yet there was Joseph forgiving His brothers and reassuring them that God intended all for good.
Now, it is certainly the case that we are told over and over again in Scripture that we should be a forgiving people but that is only penultimately what the story of Joseph is about. Ultimately it is about the great forgiveness that is found in our Lord Jesus Christ. It is about the incredible compassion that the Lord Christ has for His people… it tell us that we cannot out sin the grace of Christ and given that amount of grace/favor why would anyone try to out sin the grace of Christ?
So, we must pause to ask here… do you continue to be amazed at that grace… a grace that daily forgives you of your sin because you have been forgiven once for all and reminds you that you have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ?
Joseph preaches Jesus Christ.
If we consider the book of Esther we find Christ in the OT. Interestingly enough the word “God” is not found in the book of Esther and yet we can see that the book of Esther preaches Christ’s salvation.
You remember the book. Haman was descended from King Agag of the Amalekites — long sworn enemies of Israel – who historically sought to destroy Israel. Haman is a true Amalekite and so is a descendant of the seed of the Serpent spoken in Gen. 3:15. Haman seeks to destroy God’s people and to that end Haman spends a great deal of time plotting in order to snuff out God’s promise of a coming Redeemer by snuffing out the people from whom the Redeemer would come. Interestingly, enough Haman, the seed of the Serpent, is even intending to end his rival Mordecai by hanging him on a tree. Now, I don’t have the time to go into detail but there is good reason to think that it was the intent, of Haman to impale Mordecai on a “pole.” If this is accurate it would have looked more like a crucifixion than what we envision as a hanging.
In the book of Esther read in a Christ centered fashion we find Haman as the seed of the Serpent striking at and bruising Christ’s heel but in the end Christ through His people crushes the head of the serpent Haman and so captivity is led captive.
Remember, the Scriptures are concerned with one major plot line. That major plot line is the idea that a Messiah — a Kinsmen Redeemer will come and will deliver God’s people — a confederated people from all tribes, tongues, and nations in their tribes, tongues, and nations from an enemy that seeks to destroy God’s people. The book of Esther tells that story. In all honesty, it is the only way the book of Esther makes sense in terms of belonging in the Canon of Scripture.
God’s enemy, the seed of the serpent plots to destroy God’s people
God’s enemy falls himself into the hole he dug for God’s enemy
God’s people resists the enemy and put him to flight
God’s people, by God’s providence, against all odds, are delivered by God
A quick overview of the book of Boaz (sometimes called Ruth) teaches us again that Christ walks through the OT. The OT is a movie trailer for the NT which is the fulfillment.
The key word in the book of Ruth which highlights the work of Boaz is ga’al. It appears 12 times in the short book. The word has a dual thrust meaning of relation and redemption. From the word we get the idea of Kinsmen redeemer. In Lev. 25 of the OT we read that the role of the Kinsmen redeemer is to secure the line of a deceased relative so that his line might continue and so that the land may not be forfeited. In such a way the dead man’s name carries on.
Boaz is Ruth’s Kinsmen redeemer. The book is not primarily about the need of our being kind to strangers. The book preaches Christ. Ruth is like us, she comes to Boaz empty handed and w/ nothing to offer. She has been reduced to poverty gleaning the corners of the fields. Status wise she is nothing and a nobody. However, Boaz, like Christ shows a loving kindness (3:10-13) towards this outcast who has nothing to offer and Redeems her and Naomi from their great peril. Ruth, who may well have been an ethnic Israelite living in the land of Moab, had departed from Israel and returned empty handed but Christ only receives those who come as burdened and heavy laden.
Boaz bespeaks Jesus Christ, the ultimate kinsman redeemer who will redeem a bride for himself—the church. A bride, who like Ruth and Naomi had nothing to offer.
So, yes, we need to practice kindness. It is one of the fruit of the Spirit. But if we only teach Ruth as a book that teaches us to be kind or if we primarily teach Ruth as a book that is teaching a moral lesson, then we have damaged the testimony of Scripture.
I submit that this is the way that the NT authors read the OT. Matthew for example is often cited as a book that hermeneutically is revisiting the narrative of the OT. This is called “recapitulation.”
In the book of Mt. Jesus is the faithful son in contrast with Israel the faithless son. We see here in reading the OT there is not only instances where there is complimentary typology but also places where there is antithetical typology. In other words, we read the NT not only to see Jesus Christ but also to see where faithful Jesus is contrasted by faithful Israel.
Jesus is set as a contrast to faithless Israel and Jesus is what Israel failed to be. Israel failed to be a light that was to be a beacon to all the nations, but the Messiah comes to fulfill all that God had called Israel to do but failed.
For example whereas Israel fails in the wilderness, even though they have manna to eat, Jesus wins out in the wilderness temptation refusing to turn the stones into bread.
In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) presents Jesus as the greater prophet than Moses that Moses promised. Jesus, like Moses goes up on a Mount and sets forth God’s law consistent with its original intent wiping away all the errant accretions that the scribes and Pharisees had put upon it.
Jesus’ miracles, such as healing the sick and raising the dead, reflect the prophetic traditions of the Old Testament, showcasing Him as the promised Messiah who brings the promised restoration that is so often showcased and promised in the prophets.
So we read the Scriptures understanding that they have a motif. The Scriptures are not a bunch of disconnected stories. They are telling the uniform tale about men broken by sin but who have been promised one who will take up our infirmities. That one who bears our iniquities grows and is illuminated in the OT accounts. It is Jesus the author and finisher of our faith who for the joy set before Him despised the cross enduring the shame. The OT reveals His character, His person and His work. The OT Scripture is not primarily about us. It is not primarily about the rebuilding of a third temple that has to happen so that Jesus comes back. It is about how people can be rescued, redeemed, and delivered from all their brokenness that God graciously reveals to them about themselves.
Yes, yes … there is much more. Scripture gives us the character of God, His attributes, it tells us about the nature of sin, it speaks a great deal about anthropology. It does speak to us about morality and ethics. But its grand theme is to put on panoramic display our great Captain… the Lord Jesus Christ.
Conclusion
This past week David Gergen died. Gergen was a political insider who was an advisor to four American Presidents — Nixon, Ford, Reagan & Clinton. I found him to be far too moderate. However in reading his obit I came across this line from him;
I learned from President Nixon, that points had to be made over and over: “Nixon used to tell me, ‘About the time you are writing a line that you have written it so often that you want to throw up, that is the first time the American people will hear it.’”
Would that Christians would learn the line that the Scriptures teach Christ.
