Category: Devotional Grist

We’ve been trying to gain in the past few weeks what it means when the Scriptures teach that Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s Old Testament promise. He is the one who is to crush the serpent’s head. He is the one who is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He is the one who comes as David’s greater son to rule that which David was given only a down payment of. He is the one through whom all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. He comes to destroy the works of the Devil. He is the end of sacrifice because the promise of the sacrifice is fulfilled in Him. In Christ the garden of Eden is restored in principle and in Christ God’s Kingdom arrives.

He is the culmination of all that God promised in the Old Covenant.

Having looked at how Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s Old covenant promise we want to spend just a few minutes looking at how the concept of “promise” itself aids us in a better understanding of the Scriptures.

We should note first off that a promise is more than a “prediction.” We note that here because there are so many who want to see the Old Covenant as merely a book we rummage around in looking for predictions. However, if all we see are predictions in the Old Covenant w/o realizing that God’s promise is much more significant than a prediction we will not appreciate the depth of God’s work.

A Promise Involves Commitment to a Relationship

God’s promise is at the heart of God’s covenant w/ His people. The promise, as part of the covenant premises a relationship between two parties. We could go as far as to say that a promise cement’s or establishes the relationship between two parties.

Ill. — Marriage

We can clearly see this is much more involved than mere prediction. This is personal.

To say that the OT declares God’s promises, is another way of saying that at a particular time in history God entered into a commitment to a relationship between himself and a people which involved mutuality, blessing and protection.

However, as we have been emphasizing, this promise involved something else as well … it involved God’s unswerving commitment to bless all the nations through the Promise He made to His people. The promise was particular means (to Israel) to a universal goal (for the nations).

For example in Gen. 18:19, the immediate promise that Abraham and Sarah would have a son w/i a year is quickly subsumed under the much longer term and ultimate promise that God would bless all the nations through the community that was yet to emerge from the loins of Abraham.

So in light of this, we must understand that the Promise God makes to OT Israel is in reality a Promise that God makes to all mankind, not just to Israel. God’s promise is Global in its intent and this OT promise is why the NT writers can speak of Christ coming to save the “world.” Because God keeps His OT Promise to bless all the nations through Abraham God saves the world.

Because all this is so it is perfectly appropriate that when the NT authors speak of Jesus as the fulfillment of the promise of the OT, they think not just of Israel but see Jesus as the savior of the World, or rather see God keeping His promise to save the world through His vice regent Jesus.

Paul for example has his whole theology of mission hinged on his understanding of the crucial importance of the promise to Abraham. Paul sees this promise having universal significance,

Galatians 3:8

And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be blessed.”

Because of this Paul can say a few vs. later

Gal. 3:14

that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

Then after further discussion of the relationship between God’s fundamental promise based on grace and other aspects of the OT, specifically the law, Paul concludes his words to the Galatian Gentile believers

Gal. 3:29

And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

So everyone hearing my voice today who enjoys his son-ship because of Christ enjoys it as living proof of the fulfillment of the OT promise in Jesus the Messiah.

We’re still talking here about the difference between a promise and a prediction. We’ve noted that a promise, unlike a prediction, is personal and involves a relationship. Now we want to mention that

This Promise requires a response of acceptance.

There is no evidence that Cyrus ever acknowledged Yahweh or that he knew anything of the predictions that God made concerning King Cyrus (Is. 40-45). Still, Cyrus fulfilled the predictions regarding himself remarkably even if unwittingly.

But Cyrus’ action carved out the historical and political space w/i which the promise of God for the future of His people could operate, and that called for the response of His people. Indeed the whole burden of Is. 40-55 is to stir up a response among a people who were fearful that they were finished forever as a people. There was no point in God having promised a return from exile if nobody actually got up to return.

This meant exercising faith in God’s Word, uprooting from a generation of settled life in Babylon, and setting out on a long journey back to Jerusalem. W/o faith and action, the promise that cements the relationship is pointless.

We find this pattern throughout scripture.

Abraham believes and leaves Ur
Israel believes during Exodus and embrace God’s promise by following Moses
The land is taken because based on response to God’s promise of the land

The promise comes at the initiative of God’s grace and always depends on his grace but that grace has to be accepted and responded to by faith and obedience.

And it will because what God’s Grace promises God’s Grace achieves so that we can say from the promise to the fulfillment of the promise God receives all the glory.

Five scenes that cover our glimpses into the early life of Jesus. Five statements that some aspect of the Old Testament was fulfilled in this early life of Christ. Five indication that Matthew wants us to know that Jesus is not just the end of the Old Testament story as His recording of the genealogy indicates but more importantly five literary hints that for Matthew Jesus is the Old Testament come to bloom. With his close attention to Jesus fulfilling of the OT Matthew is telling us that Jesus is not only the completion of the story but also that the OT declares the promise which Jesus fulfills.

Ill. — Plant that has not bloomed yet

i.) The assurance to Joseph concerning the child conceived in Mary (1:18-25 corresponds to Isaiah 7:14).

ii.) Jesus birth in Bethlehem (2:1-12 corresponds Micah 5:2)

iii.) Escape to Egypt and return (2:13-15 corresponds to Hosea 11:1 which is a reference to God having brought Israel, his son, out of Egypt at the Exodus).

iv.) The murder by Herod of the boys in Bethlehem (2:16-18 corresponds to Jeremiah 31:15 which is a lament for the Israelites who were going into exile.

v.) The settlement of Jesus family in in Nazareth (2:19-23 corresponds to no one OT text but rather a smattering of OT illusions.)

In the OT, as we have seen, God has declared His purpose to Redeem a people to be a light to the nations whom He intends to Redeem via His people’s witness. In the OT he has put this promise to Redeem a people on display in a plethora of different hints, metaphors, types, historical events and fore shadowings to and through Israel. For those w/ eyes to see the OT is a book that is like a great symphony where a theme has been developed and played over and over again in minor chords but now that theme is rising to its crescendo in the major chords so as to relieve the tension that has developed in the work.

I.) Matthew’s Concrete Intention In His Choice of OT Scriptures As Applied To The Messiah

Note that there is a geographical sense that comes out in Matthew’s Old Testament Scriptures. Matthew’s OT texts explains how it is that the Messiah who was born in Bethlehem ended up in Nazareth, after a stay in Egypt.

If you will remember there had been some debate between Christians and Jews whether or not a prophet could come from Nazareth (John 1:46, 7:41ff). What Matthew’s fulfillment passages do is they show that the Messiah was indeed born in Bethlehem as Scripture called for and that the Messiah ending up in Galilee after a stay in Egypt was what the OT Scripture taught should be expected. So, by doing this the “fulfillment” passages serves the same end as the genealogy passage and that is to portray Jesus as the completion of God’s story and the fulfilling reality of what God promised in the OT.

But we can press this geography motif a bit more. If we look at the geography as a whole that Matthew gives us in chapters 2-4 we see that either by His travels or by His reputation Jesus had an effective ministry which spanned the whole of the ancient boundaries of the Old Davidic Kingdom (note esp. Mt. 4:24-25). Matthew is telling us that the one who was the greater son of David who was the promised Messiah King of the Davidic line has a claim was wide as the ancient kingdom of David itself.

And the focal point of that ministry is the region of Galilee and that it should be expected to be so Matthew vindicates by quoting Is. 9:1-2 in Mt. 4:13-16.

“In the past God humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the Gentile, by the way of the sea, along the Jordan.

The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light,
on those living in the land of the shadow of death
a light has dawned.”

So, by giving this geography lesson Matthew has corroborated the point of his genealogy lesson in Chapter 1. Both the history lesson by way of completion and the geography lesson by way of fulfillment give us “King David’s greater Kingly Son claiming his Kingdom.”

Now just as the genealogy is not only particular but also hints at the universal ramifications with its inclusion of the Gentiles with its listing of the Gentile mothers so there is a geographic counterpart. True Jesus is the Greater son of David but also true this greater son of David is visited by Kingly Gentile ambassadors from the East who pay homage to their greater King but also the Greater son of David, with His court, pays visit to to Egypt in the West. The stories, in their geography, thus embrace both extremes of the OT world — east and west. Even further both regions are included within various OT prophecies concerning the extent of God’s work of salvation.

for example Is. 19,

23(A) In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and Assyria will come into Egypt, and Egypt into Assyria,(B) and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians.

24In that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria,(C) a blessing in the midst of the earth, 25whom the LORD of hosts has blessed, saying, “Blessed be Egypt(D) my people, and Assyria(E) the work of my hands, and(F) Israel my inheritance.”

Matthew is telling us here that God’s purpose for Israel, and for the Messiah who would embody Israel, was the blessing of all the nations.

And this takes us back to Jesus as the son of Abraham through whom all the nations of the earth will be blessed.

Matthew, then, who writes the most Jewish of the Gospels wastes no time at all going all global on us. He wastes no time telling us that when the Messiah came He received Eastern visitors bearing Kingly gifts who paid Him homage, and was personally, if only temporarily, a resident in Egypt.

Beyond this the worship that the Magi bring is almost certainly an echo of Psalm 72:10

May the kings of Tarshish and of the coastlands
render him tribute;
may the kings of Sheba and Seba
bring gifts!

And this is reminiscent of the visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon. In addition the gifts of Gold and Frankincense recall Is. 60:1-6 where they are brought by kingd, from Arabia, to greet the dawning of God’s new light in Zion.

1Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you.
2For behold, darkness shall cover the earth,
and thick darkness the peoples;
but the LORD will arise upon you,
and his glory will be seen upon you.
3 And nations shall come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your rising.

4 Lift up your eyes all around, and see;
they all gather together, they come to you;
your sons shall come from afar,
and your daughters shall be carried on the hip.
5Then you shall see and be radiant;
your heart shall thrill and exult,
because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you,
the wealth of the nations shall come to you.
6A multitude of camels shall cover you,
the young camels of Midian and Ephah;
all those from Sheba shall come.
They shall bring gold and frankincense,
and shall bring good news, the praises of the LORD.

Through his use of geography Matthew clearly wants us to see the Messiah as not being a provincial Messiah but rather a Messiah for the nations. Matthew desires us to see that the salvation that God had promised was a Salvation while starting with Israel is not complete until it expands to cover the globe. The theme we find throughout the Scriptures that Israel is God’s people for the sake of the nations is re-articulated here by giving us a Messiah who is the faithful Israel and son of God who accomplishes what unfaithful Israel failed to accomplish as God’s son.

Now the point of application that we must not miss is that the Church is now the Israel of God and the Church is that institution that is saved for the sake of bringing the Gospel to and living out the Gospel before the nations. The Church is now a Kingdom of Priests and as we are now prophets, priests and kings under sovereign God our purpose is to apply what Christ has accomplished in the establishing of His Kingdom.

We have been taking a look at this genealogy in Matthew and we have been trying to probe why it is that Matthew begins His Gospel with this genealogy.

Some of the answers we’ve given thus far are that,

1.) Matthew wants us to know that while Jesus is the climax of the story Matthew is now continuing to tell at the same time there is a good deal of context that must be understood in order for the climax to make sense. The genealogy is a shorthand way of establishing the context.

2.) In giving the genealogy Matthew at the same time reminds us of the unitary nature of the Scriptures. The New Testament cannot be understood apart from the Old Testament and the Old Testament can not be understood apart from the New Testament.

3.) In giving the genealogy Matthews has, in an abbreviated form, laid out the problem to which Jesus is the answer. Those that knew their Old Testament history would remember, through the citing of this genealogy, that God had not yet fulfilled His promise to send a deliverer to rescue not only Israel but also the world. Jesus is that deliverer.

4.) In giving the genealogy Matthew thwarts any attempt to wrest Jesus by those who want their own “personal Jesus,” or their own “Jesus for a cause.” Matthew’s genealogy forces us to deal with a very particular Jesus that can’t be understood apart from his lineage.

The telling of God’s story that has Jesus as the culminating and completing point of this genealogy is the story from which Jesus acquires His identity and mission and it is the story to which He gives significance and authority. Without this Jesus this genealogy is just one more list. Without this genealogy Jesus is just one more baby with an interesting birth narrative.

Metaphors

If the genealogy is the setting of a royal table with all of its finery and precision then Jesus is the meal for which the royal table has been prepared.

If the genealogy is all the music that leads to grand finale then Jesus is the grand finale.

If the genealogy is all the planning, preparations and decoration that goes into a wedding then Jesus is the wedding ceremony itself.

As we continue to consider the relationship of the prologue to God’s story (the promises of the Old Testament) with the climax of God’s Story (the fulfillment that is the New Testament) we must be careful that we don’t de-contextualize or deflate God’s story into a bunch of abstractions (Here is the promise [OT] — there is the fulfillment [NT]). We must take the story in its concrete reality reminding ourselves that in this story we have real history with real people with a real God who is unfolding salvation history.

When we read Scripture as one whole then … when we read the genealogy in the light of Christ several benefits in our understanding of Scripture are realized,

1.) Whatever significance a particular event had, in terms of Israel’s own experience of God is affirmed and validated. Those historical events aren’t spiritualized away. When we understand and affirm the import of the redemptive event for God’s old covenant people it will give us a more profound understanding of the import of the Cross for us. The Old will shed light on the new.

2.) Now that we have the end of the story in Christ shining back on the earlier part of the story we are able to find even more significance in the earlier story. The new will shed light on the old.

The new is in the old concealed and the old is in the new revealed.

Example — The Exodus

New shedding light on the old — The Exodus teaches us what God calls deliverance. In the Exodus we see that God is characterized by care for His people who are oppressed and is motivated to action for justice on their behalf. This character of God and His redemption are so central in the Exodus story that they become definitive of the character of God and all that redemption and deliverance comes to mean.

Now w/ the coming of Christ what we learn of God and how He redeems and delivers His people does not go away. In deliverance and redemption God remains concerned for His people who are oppressed and God still desires justice. With the coming of Christ the redemption we expect in Christ must not be totally divorced from the kind of redemption that was defined in the Old Testament.

However when we read the Exodus event with the light of the fullness of the redemptive work of Christ shining upon it we see that the Exodus deliverance is not about political, social, or economic freedom before it is about the lifting of Spiritual oppression. Israel was in bondage in Exodus not primarily because they were suffering from economic disparity, or social inequity, or political tyranny. Israel’s bondage and oppression were what they were because they were in subjection to Egypt’s gods. The economic disparity, social inequity and political tyranny were the fruit of spiritual bondage. The Redemption that God conferred them rescued them economically, socially, and politically precisely because it delivered them from their spiritual chains.

Evidence God’s telling of Pharaoh “Let my people go THAT THEY MAY WORSHIP ME.” The explicit purpose of Israel’s Redemption and deliverance was that they would know YAHWEH in the grace of redemption and covenant relationship.

So, the Exodus, for all the comprehensiveness of what it achieved for Israel in terms of economic liberty, political freedom, and social release, points beyond those realities to a greater need for deliverance from spiritual bondage to covenant accord with God. Such a deliverance was accomplished by Jesus Christ (prefigured in the Passover Lamb) and can only be known by looking to Christ. This is so true that we can say apart from trusting in Christ of the Bible the pursuit of other freedoms amount to just so much windmill tilting.

Yet if at the same time we allow the old to shed light on the new we must insist that though redemption is first personal and individual it is not only personal and individual. God’s mighty act of the exodus was more than just a parable to illustrate personal and individual salvation. It is true that the redemption of the Cross breaks the bondage of my personal sin and releases me from the effects of sin but it is also true that Redemption, when it is widely unleashed, delivers God’s people from the cruelty, and oppression brought upon God’s people by those who are of the seed of the serpent and are alien to the covenant. Spiritual freedom when widely disbursed never fails to bring social, economic, and political freedom because spiritual freedom is the well out of which the water of social, economic, and political freedom flows. Forgiveness of sin delivers us from the Kingdom of darkness both in its spiritual dimension and in how that spiritual dimension manifests itself concretely in space and time.

The point here is that atonement and forgiveness of one’s individual sin is not the only word on what the Exodus redemption was about. It was also a deliverance from an external evil and the suffering and injustice it caused, by means of a shattering defeat of the evil power of the seed of the serpent that was holding Israel in bondage.

And here is the kicker …

If, then, God’s climatic work of redemption through the cross transcends, but also embodies and includes, the scope of all His redemptive activity as previously displayed in the Old testament our Gospel must anticipate the Exodus model of liberation once a tipping point of Spiritually delivered people trusting Christ is reached.

The light of the Old Testament upon the New teaches us the inadequacies of relegating the redemption God brings to some spiritual individual realm. The light of the Old Testament upon the New teaches us that the redemption God offers in Christ is a redemption that though it begins in individuals moves out from there to touch every area of life so that redeemed individuals being set free in themselves, by the power of the Holy Spirit, visit that freedom that Christ visited upon them to every area of life in which God has called them.

So then we can see that when we take OT history seriously in relation to its completion in Jesus Christ, a two-way process is at work, yielding a double benefit in our understanding of the whole Bible. On the one hand, we are able to see the full significance of the OT story in the light of where it leads — the climatic achievement of Christ; and on the other hand, we are able to appreciate the full dimensions of what God did through Christ in the light of His historical declarations and demonstrations of intent in the OT.

In the Exodus we have used just one example but the examples could be multiplied many times over.

Matthew 11:25-30 is set in the context where it is recorded how Jesus has been rejected despite the impressive character of John The Baptist’s witness. Both the religious leaders and certain communities had rejected Jesus and that despite the miracles wrought by Jesus in those cities.

In the midst of this rejection Jesus offers up Thanksgiving.

I.) Jesus’ Gives Thanksgiving For The Father’s Giving & Hiding Of Revelation

This is a fulfillment of passages like Psalm 19:7

Hidden (ness) of Revelation — The Thanksgiving offered up for the Hidden(ness) of the revelation should be understood as a Thanksgiving that God’s revelatory word was in control of God. Christ is giving thanks here that it is the Father’s job to make Himself known and that that knowing can not be gained by the proud and arrogant.

When Jesus thanks the Father that the the truths of the Gospel are hidden from the “wise” and “prudent” we should understand that those people were “wise” and “prudent” in their own eyes. They were, as we might say today, the “Elites” or the “wizards of smart,” which is not to say that they weren’t wise in some measure but only that they were “to smart by half,” as the proverb goes.

One point to take here is that the Thanksgiving of Jesus is not a blanket warning against wisdom or intelligence but only wisdom and prudence that has a certain arrogant and snobbish quality about it, for even in the matter of wisdom God resists the proud by gives grace to the humble.

Revealed(ness) of Revelation — Jesus’ Thanksgiving for God’s revelation has a flavor of astonishment about it. Early Church Father Chrysostom put it this way,

“What wise men knew not was known to babes”

Once again the implicit recommendation in all this is not a warning against being wise or prudent but rather being wise in our own eyes. The “Babes” referred to in this passage were likely those that had not been rigorously schooled in Oral Law as the “wise and prudent” had.

If we were to put this in 21st century terms it would have been the ministers and Doctors of the Church whom Jesus was hidden from and the laymen to whom he is revealed … and such remains often the way things are.

In any case the passage in question clearly sets forth that understanding of God’s Word is not so much a matter of intellectual pursuit as it is a matter of God making himself known. Jesus Thanksgiving here reminds us again why we are Reformed.

It is God who opens the eyes of the blind and shuts the eyes of the seeing. Here is a statement regarding God’s sovereignty. What causes one man to embrace Christ and another man to reject Christ? Ultimately only God’s good pleasure.

It is only those whom God has set apart to see who will see. Here is a statement regarding election. Why does one man embrace Christ and another man reject Christ? Ultimately only because one has been set apart to salvation while the other has been passed by.

Those who are set apart to see will see. Here is a statement regarding irresistible grace. Why will one come of his own free will while the other won’t? Ultimately only because God loosens the dead will to become free to pursue him while the other one’s will is left where it desires to be.

All of this reminds us that we have no reason to boast. Our salvation is completely Christ dependent. What good do we have that we have not gained from another? None.

But let us press on here and ask the Text “what ‘things’ is it that have been hidden from the wise and revealed to babes.”

The context here tells us the “things” that are being spoken off are the words and miraculous works of Jesus (cmp. Mt. 11:20-24). What has been missed is that the Kingdom of God is present in the person and ministry of Jesus. This is what has been missed by the “wise and prudent” and embraced by babes.

II.)Jesus’ Thanksgiving For Being Known, Knower, & Revealer Of The Father

This next statement reveals the co-extensive nature of the work of Salvation between Father and the Son.

First we should understand that the mutual knowledge of the Father and the Son is for the benefit of the elect. It is because there is this intra-trinitarian knowing of the Father and Son that we can now know the Father. Note that the way we know the Father is by knowing the Son.

We are not far from the similar truth communicated in John 1:18, 14:9 here.

Second, understand that because of the nature of the Trinity it is the case that when we know the Son and the Son knows us we not only know the Father but we are known by the Father. There is the sense of a great communion of the Trinity that we are taken up into by our salvation. We become not only knowers of God but also those who are known by God.

The Father is that which is revealed, The Son is the Revelation and the Spirit is the one who does the revealing.

“Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

Matthew 22:21

The question that begs being asked here is, “what exactly belongs to God?”

Clearly the answer is everything, including the State.

The next question then becomes, “what exactly belongs to Caesar?”

Clearly the answer is only one thing and that is the authority to enforce God’s law, for His glory and the good of His church.

Romans 13 causes us to lean in this direction as it calls Caesar ‘God’s minister’ to do us good. As long as they ACT like God’s minister, by doing us good we are to obey them. When they begin to act like Satan’s minister, by doing us evil, then we must obey God rather then men.

Anything less then this view is impotent gnostic pietism. The Presbyterians of 1776 would not recognize the Presbyterians of today.

Hat Tip — Randall Gerard for so succinctly stating this.
I’ve only marginally modified how he originally put this.