Category: Devotional Grist

We are continuing to look at this matter of the harmony of the Scriptures in terms of the Old and New Covenant. We remind ourselves that as we come to the New Testament we are coming to the final development of the covenant of grace that has been unfolding in the Old Testament administration by administration of the one covenant of Grace.

This continued fulfillment and extension of the Promises that are constitutive of the covenant of grace that we find in the Old Testament is called by theologians “the progress of redemption,” or “salvation history.” This history recorded in Scriptures is real history but it is also a unique history inasmuch as that history is uniquely concerned with what redemption is, looks like, and means.

the Old Covenant is so concerned with Israel and the life of the Nation of Israel because the tribes of Israel is where God gives us this unique salvation history. This is so true that we can say that Israel’s unique experience as God’s chosen people to be the container which God would incrementally and increasingly fill with the meaning of redemption is unmatched by the history of any other people. This unique experience of Israel whereby they receive the law, the covenant(s), and the promise(s) is important to the flowering of redemption that comes in and through Jesus Christ in the New Testament the way that exposition, conflict, and rising action in a story or novel, are important to climax, falling action, and resolution of that novel. This is important to say because so many in the Church in our country today want to believe that they can understand the story of redemption’s climax (New Testament) w/o understanding its exposition, conflict, and rising action in the Old Testament. And as we have said before by peeling off the climax of salvation history from its exposition, conflict, and rising action in the Old Covenant the consequences is that the climax is reinterpreted (usually in a humanistic direction) in order for it to remain consistent with the previous story line that is now retold with a completely different narrative line then Gods. The result is then that we have a different story and so a different salvation history then the story that God tells in Scripture.

All of this explains why we must understand what happens in all of Scripture as being God’s salvation history, thus being one story.

Now, in this story, Israel’s experience is unique as is clearly set before us in the passage read this morning (Deuteronomy 4:32-40). No other people as a people were called and raised up by God to be the players in the progress of redemption. No other people were known by Yahweh and were to know Yahweh the way the people of Israel were known and did know. They are unique. This does not mean that God was absent in the histories of other people but his presence in the histories of other peoples is not a presence that is unfolding His story of salvation. Only in Israel did God work within the terms of the covenant of grace as that was initiated and sustained by His covenantal relationship with them.

The passage in Deuteronomy 4:32f communicates that the history of Israel as being absolutely sui generis in all of space and time.

32 “For ask now concerning the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether any great thing like this has happened, or anything like it has been heard. 33 Did any people ever hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and live? 34 Or did God ever try to go and take for Himself a nation from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? 35 To you it was shown, that you might know that the LORD Himself is God; there is none other besides Him. 36 Out of heaven He let you hear His voice, that He might instruct you; on earth He showed you His great fire, and you heard His words out of the midst of the fire. 37 And because He loved your fathers, therefore He chose their descendants after them; and He brought you out of Egypt with His Presence, with His mighty power, 38 driving out from before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in, to give you their land as an inheritance, as it is this day. 39 Therefore know this day, and consider it in your heart, that the LORD Himself is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other. 40 You shall therefore keep His statutes and His commandments which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which the LORD your God is giving you for all time.”

In this passage some of the peculiar elements of God’s relation to Israel that comprise integral parts of Salvation history are heard. Here we find the ideas of election, redemption, covenant, and inheritance to name but a few. We even find in the emboldened passage above that the uniqueness of Israel’s national experience points to the uniqueness of Yahweh Himself as God.

As such it is easy to see why Christians would contend that the revelation of God and His method of redemption are bound up with the history of tiny Israel. God told the history of salvation in the unfolding of the history of Israel. This is something that is not true for any other nation.

However, this peculiarity of election for Israel that provides the meaning of redemption — and which causes so much resentment among other peoples and gods — was not a peculiarity that was to insular. Their unique calling and function in the world was to facilitate God’s promises to the nations. Israel’s role was to be Priest to the nations — doing what a Priest does by representing the nations before God.

6 And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.”

Israel was to be the means by which the saving knowledge of God would be brought to the nations. Israel was to be the nation leaven that leavened the whole world. In order to fulfill that assignment Israel’s national life was to be Holy (separated) unto God, exemplified by their taking seriously God’s Law.

For I have known him (Abraham), in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the LORD, to do righteousness and justice, that the LORD may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him.”

And because of this reality the Deuteronomy text in vs. 39-40 can give us the moral necessity that is built upon the theological reality that God is God alone.

So in this salvation history Israel’s one of a kind position was one that spoke of missionary duty as much as it spoke of privilege. If Israel failed in its missionary duty and moral high calling then it’s special status became festooned with heavier judgments then the other nations. (To whom much is given, much is required.)

The book of Amos reveals this truism.

Amos recounts the blessings and privileges of Israel as God’s salvation history people but this recounting of blessings and privileges is used by God through Amos to indict them for their societal injustice and cultural corruption. A people who had the privilege that Israel had, by walking crosswise to those privilege would be inflicted w/ even greater penalty (Amos 2:6-16, 3:2).

2 “ You only have I known of all the families of the earth;
Therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.”

So God calls upon Amos to bring covenant lawsuit against Israel and the verdict is that Israel would be severely chastised and the land left deserted. And in the face of possible protest that God would never do such a thing to His special people God says through Amos,

7 “ Are you not like the people of Ethiopia to Me,
O children of Israel?” says the LORD.

“ Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt,
The Philistines from Caphtor,
And the Syrians from Kir?

Now keep in mind that God is not saying here that Israel’s history is not unique. The point seems more to be that if Israel will violate the covenant then Israel’s uniqueness is forfeited and they become not substantially different then the other nations. The point here is not that the other nations are like Israel in terms of God’s salvation history but that Israel has become like the other nations as seen by their covenantal degradation. The point here is not that God has worked in the other nations redemptively the way He worked w/ Israel but rather that Israel has become altogether corrupt like the other nations.

What Amos says in 3:1-2 reveals the unchanging uniqueness of Israel,

1 Hear this word that the LORD has spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying:
2 “ You only have I known of all the families of the earth;
Therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.”

Note here that it is precisely because of God’s unique relationship w/ Israel that they will be punished because of their iniquities.

All this to say that the uniqueness of Israel, as the telling of salvation history is clearly part of the teachings of the OT. God is indeed sovereign over all the nations as Amos clearly teaches but He is intimately sovereign over the affairs of Israel. However, keep in mind that this intimate sovereignty of God over Israel was always w/ the purpose of calling the nations. Israel unique position existed only to be a vessel to accomplish God’s intent to call all the nations to Himself.

Now … in light of all of this when we consider Jesus in the New Testament he is presented to us as the Messiah — Jesus the Christ. And this Messiah was individually what Israel was to have been corporately. As Israel was to be for the calling of the nations, so Jesus, the Messiah is for the gathering of the Nation. Where Israel failed in its calling the Messiah succeeds. The Messiah was the success of all that Israel had been a failure at in God’s setting them apart. The Messiah is God’s self-revelation for the work of the redeeming of the nations. Because Christ is all that God called Israel to be, like Israel Christ is absolutely unique and it is still the case that should the nations desire to come to God they must, like the nations in the OT were to come through Israel to God, come through the one that has been uniquely set apart to be the revelation and redemption of God. This explains why the synoptic Gospels are so given to a kind of recapitualation story of Israel when they tell the story of Jesus Christ.

As God’s true Israel, Christ is the successful High Priest to the nations that Israel never was. This explains the Christian faith’s insistence, to this day, that Jesus is the only way to the Father.

So, in this OT history God concentrates the uniqueness of Israel’s salvation history into one man and from this Messiah God opens the way to the universal offer of salvation to the nations. Israel’s salvation history was unique because God has a universal design for them. Jesus embodies the unique salvation history of Israel and achieves God’s universal goal that through His faithful Son all the nations of the earth would be blessed. He is, indeed, the savior of the world.

And so, because we have all this history of redemption and because we find its climax in Christ we command all men everywhere to repent so as to taste and see that the Lord is Good.

Promise Involves Ongoing Levels of Fulfillment

When the Scriptures deal with God’s Promises we see the fulfillment of those Promises to be dynamic and not static. Whereas in a prediction the fulfillment of the prediction either comes true or doesn’t come true w/ God’s covenant promises you have fulfillment that come true but often in a way different than anticipated when looking at the original Promise.

Ill. – Promise of Engagement / Fulfillment of Engagement promise leading to Wedding Promises leading to fulfillment of Wedding Promises.

The Promise made my two 20 year old in getting engaged are fulfilled on their Wedding day but those promises are fulfilled by the act of other Promises exchanged on the Wedding day so that the original engagement promises are extended and intensified. In turn those wedding day Promises are fulfilled over the course of a married life in a myriad of ways — ways that are dictated by the ebb and flow of the relationship. 65 years later could either of the two young people who originally made promises of engagement have had any idea how that original engagement promise would have ended up being fully fulfilled?

God’s Promises in the Old Covenant are like this except God’s fulfilled promises cover millennium and not mere decades. They are Promises made and Promises kept but they are made and kept in ways that might not have been expected when the Promise was originally made. There is a great deal of this keeping of promises that results in extending and intensifying the original promise.

Ill. – Father Promising 5 year old son all the books in his magnificent library when he turns 18 but between 5 and 18 the Kindle is invented and so at 18 the Father gives the son a Kindle w/ all his library books downloaded instead of the library itself. Has the Father kept the Promise? Would the Son accuse the Father of going back on the promise?

This is the way much of the OT Promises work. God’s relationship w/ Israel was founded on the promises to Abraham in Genesis 12. But even in the OT itself the Promise God made to Abraham is fulfilled in unanticipated ways only to see the promise extended and intensified so that it is fulfilled over and over again in unexpected ways.

For example in one sense God’s promise to Abraham of “seed” is fulfilled with the Birth of Isaac. But of course we all know that the Promise once fulfilled was extended and intensified. A major theme of Genesis is how from one man the posterity of Abraham grows to a community of 70 people — a number that communicates that God is building His own Nation and People to rival the 70 nations mentioned in the Table of Nations. (Gen. 10-11)

Yet the promise fulfillment doesn’t stop there. In Ex 1:7 suddenly we see a people who are ‘exceedingly numerous.’ God’s Promise fulfillment to Abraham to have a seed continues past the OT as we see Jesus as being the singular seed that God had in mind when He made the promise of seed to Abraham. (Gal. 3:16, 19)

Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many, but as of one, “And to your Seed,”[i]who is Christ.

What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator.

But even when the original Promise is fully fulfilled in an ultimate sense there are ripple fulfillments to the original promise that wash up on the shores of history. God’s promise to Abraham is also fulfilled in God’s bringing in of believing Gentiles into the covenant so that Father Abraham really does have many sons…. ‘I am one of them, and so are you …”

Here we see a pattern that we find throughout Scripture when it comes to God’s covenant Promises. God fulfills promises in ways that we might not expect (like the Father w/ a Kindle instead of a Library) and then extending and intensifying that promise so that it is fulfilled many times over in more and more glorious fashions.

Consider Abraham again and God’s Promise to make his name great.

Over and over again we find this Promise fulfilled, extended and intensified. When Abraham becomes wealthy in the land his name becomes great as God promised to Abraham in Genesis 12, but God is not finished yet. Abraham’s people go into the Exodus and eventually are brought into bondage. Their name is hardly great and yet God leads them out and once again He fulfills the promise to give Abraham a great name. This promise fulfillment ebbs and flows. As Israel is disobedient their name is brought low. As they are obedient God lifts them up and gives them a great name again. However, we all know that the ultimate fulfillment of this original promise to Abraham is fulfilled in Christ. Christ is the one who is given such a great name that at his name every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord. However, once again, there are ripple effects to the ultimate fulfillment of giving Abraham a great name. Now, God conspires to give His Church a great name that His Church might glorify Him.

We could do the same with God’s promise to Abraham of the Land in Genesis 12. Once Israel occupies the land through Joshua God fulfills his promise and yet that promise finds its ultimate promise fulfilled in the Lord Christ who was the great Son of Abraham with the greatest of great names who has occupied for His people the Heavenly Canaan land. However, from the that full fulfillment of the original promise there ripples other fulfillments out from that fulfillment. Today God’s people are told they will inherit not just a piece of real estate in the Middle East but the whole earth (Mt. 5:5).

The repeated extending and intensifying of the original promise prepares us for the expectation that the final fulfillment will not be in terms of the literal details of the original promise like the Kindle analogy.

And here we have rubbed up against the problem of much “literal” readings hermeneutics employed by dispensationalists and others. There are those who don’t understand the idea of extending and intensifying of the promise and so they are still looking for the whole library when the Kindle is staring them clearly in the face.

The clearest example of this is the idea that National Israel still has a future as God’s uniquely covenant people. The promises to Israel were fulfilled completely in the Church. The Church is the Kindle and yet many people still read the Scriptures looking for the whole library that is in their minds National Israel to make some kind of comeback.

However, the Church upon reflecting on God’s Promises in light of Jesus resurrection came to understand as Paul put it, ‘that all the Promises of God are ‘Yes’ and Amen in Christ Jesus.’ The Church, following Scripture has understood that the Old covenant promises only make sense in light of how they have been extended, intensified and fulfilled in Christ. He was the singular seed of Abraham. He was the seed promised to David.

12 “When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be his Father, and he shall be My son.

The Lord Jesus is the one in whom all nations of the earth would be blessed. To be in Christ was to be a child of Abraham and therefore to share in the inheritance of God’s people. He is the Passover lamb protecting God’s people from the wrath of God. His death and resurrection has achieved the ultimate Exodus and so is our Moses leading us out of the bondage of our sin and the tyranny of the Devil. Returning to Christ is the ultimate return from Babylonian Exile. In him the Church has been given the inheritance of both the whole earth and the Heavenly Promised Land as fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham to give him a land. (This is why we aren’t consumed w/ what happens in the Middle East.)
Christ is the mediator of a new covenant. The sacrificial death and risen life of the Lord Jesus has fulfilled and surpassed all that was signified in the Tabernacle, the sacrifices and the priesthood. He was the temple not made with hands, indeed He was Mt. Zion itself – the one where the focus of the name and presence of God rests.

So what we see in all this is that Promises made by God in the Old Covenant are of such a nature that by the time they are fulfilled the fulfillment looks different then the way the original hearers of the Promises might have anticipated. The promises were made in terms of the way the original recipients could understand but the fulfillment as it comes ultimately in Christ is at a different level of reality, though a level of reality that still legitimately corresponds to the original promise.

Throughout the centuries all of this has been misunderstood from time to time.

Ill. – Book of Hebrews

Ill – Dispensationalists who look for a rebuilt temple, reconstitution of the Israel Priesthood and sacrificial system or a battle between biblically identified enemies or a revival of the throne of David.

All of this is to seriously misconstrue the Christian faith and if pursued intently enough it is to pursue a different religion.

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.