Old Testament

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Old Testament

The heavens declare the glory of God,

and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

Day to day pours out speech,

and night to night reveals knowledge.

(Ps 19:1-2)

By Stephen W. Hiemstra

God reveals himself to humankind through general and special revelation. General revelation reveals his existence while special revelation reveals his character. When you feel close to God in nature or music, you are talking about general revelation, but God’s character is revealed primarily through scripture. Niehaus (2014, 223-24) further distinguishes common grace covenants (those applying to all people) from special grace covenants (those applying to God’s chosen) both of which exist in perpetuity. These distinctions are helpful in understanding Old Testament expectations and prophecies concerning Jesus as messiah.

A messiah is someone who has been anointed with oil. The Old Testament depicts priests, prophets, and kings as anointed. The New Testament greek term for messiah is Christ.

Salvation

Salvation in the Old Testament is normally pictured as primarily a physical, not spiritual, concept. The Exodus is a story of God’s salvation of the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt, which has been retold many times in the Old Testament (e.g. Ps 105) as in Isaiah:

“But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.

For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you.” (Isa 43:1-3)

Here the crossing of the Red Sea and the Jordan River is retold in a generic form suggesting a spiritual truth, but it is expressed as a concrete, physical event.

This salvation occurs in a pattern outlined in Deuteronomy 30:1-3 that Brueggemann (2016, 59) describes as the Deuteronomic Cycle. Here the pattern is: collective sin, scattering and enslavement, crying out to the Lord, and the sending of a deliverer. This pattern is repeated throughout the Old Testaments, but especially in the Book of Judges.

Christ Figures

The Deuteronomic Cycle culminates with God’s sending of a deliverer. The Old Testament has many such deliverers—figures such as Joseph, Moses, Joshua, David, and even a gentile: Cyrus king of Persia, who rebuilt Jerusalem (Ezr 1:1). The common characteristic of these deliverers was charismatic leadership—a kind of messianic job description.

One popular example of charismatic leadership is Gideon, whose story begins: “The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and the LORD gave them into the hand of Midian seven years.” (Jdg. 6:1) The people of Israel call out to God (Jdg 6:6) And God sends an angel to Gideon to call him into leadership. With only three hundred men, Gideon then defeats the army of the Midianites almost miraculously (Jdg 6:25).

Genealogies

A key prophecy of Christ is given in God’s covenant with David:

“The LORD declares to you that the LORD will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” (2 Sam 7:11-13)

The inference of building a house here is that David will begin a dynasty that will live in perpetuity. A dynasty is itself a statement of a human family, but the idea of an everlasting kingdom suggests divinity, which Psalm 110 appears to reiterate. The genealogies of the New Testament in Matthew 1 and Luke 3, like the Old Testament genealogies before them, are normally interpreted as king lists as with a dynasty.

Servant Songs

As mentioned earlier, Jesus took the text of his call sermon (Luke 4) and a portion of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5) from Isaiah 61, but the influence of Isaiah on Jesus’ ministry is enormous. Consider the prophecy:

“There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.” (Isa. 11:1-2)

Jesse was, of course, King David’s father, which is consistent with the prophecy cited in the Davidinic covenant above.

Isaiah’s influence evokes a tension between the expectation of charismatic military leader and the humble person that Jesus was as we read: “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” (Isa 53:3) This tension runs throughout the four Servant Songs of Isaiah: Isaiah 42:1-9, 49:1-13; 50:4-11; 52:13-53:12 (e.g. Oswalt 2003, 45). These divergent trends in the Old Testament suggest that Jesus, both as a human and divine person, is a much more complex figure than anyone anticipated.

Old Testament

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