Chapter 4
Reason Four: The Old Testament Explains the New Testament.
While this argument arises naturally from the previous point, we should not take it for granted. Many today view the Old Testament entirely negatively, as if it is the problem that the New Testament intends to fix. But this cannot be! Most evangelical Christians agree that all the Scriptures were inspired by God. This means that they are all true, but it also means that God neither speaks untruth nor issues revelation at an earlier time that is false or needs to be corrected at a later time. Anyone who’s read Psalm 119 or the book of Deuteronomy with both eyes open knows that saints in the Old Testament perceived the Torah as the key to life, not the way of death. Since that is the case, if it sounds to us like Paul was fixing Moses, or correcting the Old Testament, or replacing it with a different Gospel and a different God, then we must not be reading Paul correctly.
In reality, rather than being in opposition to each other, the Old and New Testaments tell one grand story that begins with creation and God’s installation of human beings as his agents to administer the world for him. Then it recounts our rebellion and fall as the reasons for God’s just condemnation, the call of Abraham and his descendants as agents of blessing in a cursed world, and the elevation of David as king over Israel, through whose descendant finally the righteous reign of God would be restored. This story climaxes in Jesus Christ, the new Adam and the new Messianic David who destroys the universal problem of sin and will ultimately renew the heavens and the earth and all their contents. This is one story. The New Testament does not offer an alternative story, but declares the fulfillment of the old story in Jesus Christ. Unless we read the Old Testament, we will neither recognize the big story of sin and redemption, nor grasp the full significance of the New Testament as the climactic chapter in this grand narrative of God’s redemption.
As is the case with any book we read, whether a novel or a historical work, we must read the Bible forward, rather than backwards. Before we read the last chapters, we must read what comes before. And we must let the earlier chapters have their own voice. The books of the Old Testament made sense to the original audience, and we must seek that same understanding before we get to the New Testament or begin to explore how the New Testament used Old Testament texts. Otherwise we will not only remain ignorant of the Old Testament, but we will also get the New Testament wrong. We will either misinterpret any given New Testament text or we will under–interpret it—that is, fail to grasp its full significance. I have room here for only a couple of examples.
In Matthew 1:20–21, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph and said:
“Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
Because “Jesus” is the Greek form of the Hebrew name “Joshua,” many view Jesus as a second Joshua, or Joshua as a type of Christ. However, when we look at the Old Testament background to this statement, we find that this approach to understanding the significance of Jesus’s name is very inadequate. The name Jesus / Joshua means so much more. The Old Testament never presents Joshua as a “savior” figure, like the deliverer judges in the book of Judges. As reported in the book of Joshua, Joshua was the aggressor in the battles against the Canaanites; if anything the Canaanites wanted salvation from him!
The Old Testament associates the notion of salvation primarily with Israel’s exodus from Egypt. That was the supreme act of salvation (Exodus 14–15). So far as we know, Joshua played no role in that event. In fact, the point of the signs and wonders in Egypt was to declare to Israel, the Egyptians, and the world who the LORD (YHWH) was. This fact is memorialized in a formula that appear dozens of times in the Old Testament: “I am the LORD your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery” (Exodus 20:2). In Numbers 13:16, Moses recognized that this goal had been fulfilled. That’s why he changed Joshua’s name, Hoshea, which means “He [any god] has saved,” to Yehoshua (Joshua), which means, “YHWH [the LORD] has saved!” The name says nothing about Joshua, but it says everything about God. The one who rescued Israel was the LORD God himself. Neither Moses nor Joshua would have been pleased to hear us link Joshua to the exodus and then forget that the One who’d rescued them from the Egyptians was the LORD.
Remarkably, while the Old Testament is full of language about “being saved from slavery in Egypt,” it never talks about “being saved from sin.” In Matthew 1:21 the angel of the LORD linked the word “salvation” to “sin” for the first time in the entire Bible. Using the language of Israel’s rescue from Egypt, the angel announced a salvation far greater than Israel’s rescue from slavery to Pharaoh: Jesus came to rescue his people from their sins! But there is more. The One who’d been conceived in Mary’s womb was the same God as the One who had introduced himself by name to Moses in Exodus 3–4. Just as the events surrounding Israel’s exodus from Egypt had revealed the LORD as God in all his grace and glory, so the birth of Jesus and his saving work would reveal him as God in all his grace and glory (John 1:14).
This close identification of Jesus with God is confirmed by the other title that Jesus was given in Matthew 1:23: he is Immanuel, which means “God is with us!” And this was what the angel of the Lord announced, “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the LORD” (Luke 2:11, emphasis added). I interpret “Savior” as a reference to YHWH, the covenant God of Israel, whose name is preserved in “Jesus” (Hebrew, “Yehoshua”), which means “The LORD (YHWH) saves.” Among many other significant themes, the New Testament makes two fundamental points about Jesus: He is the Davidic Messiah (“Christ”), and he is God. This statement by the angel to the shepherds on the hills of Bethlehem reinforces both points (Luke 2:11). Unless we were thoroughly steeped in the Old Testament, we could not connect these dots.
For a second example, I mention the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist/Communion) which Jesus instituted, as reported in four texts: Matthew 26:26–30; Mark 14:22–26; Luke 22:14–20; 1 Corinthians 11:23–26. The link between the Lord’s Supper and the Israelite Passover is firmly established in the New Testament texts. Paul speaks of Christ as “our Passover lamb” (1 Corinthians 5:7), using the same word (pascha) that the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, used for the Passover lamb in Exodus 12:21 and Deuteronomy 16:2, 6. The first three Gospels note that the timing of this meal coincided with the Jewish Passover and Festival of Unleavened Bread (Matthew 26:2, 17; Mark 14:1, 12, 14; Luke 22:1, 7, 11, 15). Jesus deliberately timed this last meal with the disciples before his crucifixion to signal a significant new moment in history! Here he transformed the foundational Jewish festival celebrating Israel’s release from slavery in Egypt into a new Passover meal. This would become the church’s foundational festival celebrating Christians’ release from slavery to sin and death. Unless we’ve read the Old Testament, we won’t grasp the association of the Lord’s Supper with the Passover. By making this connection Jesus also highlighted his substitutionary role—like the Passover lamb, he died in our place.
However, it is clear from two short phrases—“my blood of the covenant” (Matthew 26:28; Mark 14:24) and “for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28)—that the bread and the cup represented much more than Passover. Both expressions deserve comment. According to Exodus 12–13, the Passover was celebrated in Egypt three months before the covenant was established at Sinai (Exodus 19, 24). At the first Passover, there was no mention yet of a covenant. However, by adding “my blood of the covenant,” Jesus intentionally linked his death with the original covenant ceremony at Sinai by which Israel formally became the LORD’s covenant people.
According to Exodus 24, after Moses had sprinkled blood from a sacrificial animal on the altar and on the people, he declared, “This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words” (v. 8). Just as through this symbolic act the Israelites were bound by covenant to YHWH, so through Jesus’s own sacrificial blood God binds himself to us, his new covenant people. And by drinking of the cup, God’s people bind themselves to him. The Lord’s Supper is a covenant meal, open to those who accept his gift of covenant relationship and commit firmly to fulfilling his will.
In the New Testament accounts of the Lord’s Supper, only Matthew links this meal to Old Testament sin offerings, which he does by adding one small phrase: “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (26:28, emphasis added). The original Passover sacrifice described in Exodus 12–13 had nothing to do with sin. But like John the Baptist’s declaration, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), this addition presents Jesus as a sin offering and links the Lord’s Supper with Isaiah 53. By drinking the cup, worshipers celebrate the gracious forgiveness of the Lamb of God, who bears the iniquities of many (Isaiah 53:11).
Unless Christians read the Old Testament, their understanding of a practice as fundamental as the Lord’s Supper will be flat. Fully aware of what he was doing, Jesus brought together three important Old Testament notions and combined them in one rich religious practice.
You Might Also Like