More on this book
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
August 25 - October 29, 2020
The malpractice of some, however, should not lead to the nonpractice of others.
Why would God have given us the majority of the Bible in the Old Testament?
Jesus told them the Old Testament was all about Him.
Jesus then gave the disciples a full interpretation of the Old Testament Scriptures in the light of recent events.
Jesus Himself used New Testament light to interpret the Old Testament scriptures.
Rather we first come to Christ, and he directs us to study the Old Testament in the light of the gospel. The gospel will interpret the Old Testament by showing us its goal and meaning.”
In other words, the whole Old Testament was about Him, specifically His sufferings and His glory.
Right from the start He presented Himself not as a complete contrast to the Old Testament but as its climax and fulfillment.
Abraham had more than a general belief in God; he had a joyful, Messiah-centered faith.
“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.’”
Paul repeatedly presented Abraham as the prototype and example of saving faith, which is not exactly motivational if he and we believe different gospels. But we don’t.
but the core, the essence, the focus was the same. His faith wrapped itself around the promised Satancrushing, world-blessing, life-giving Seed of the woman, just as ours does.
“You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. . . . For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me.”11
“The Old Testament scriptures testify of Me . . . Moses wrote about Me . . . Believing Moses’ teaching is the same as believing Me.”
What did the apostles think the Old Testament was all about?
Peter totally agreed with Jesus: the Old Testament was all about Him.
Yet all these verses are only a beginning, for they do not include the “acted-out prophecies” seen in the historical events of the Old Testament, where in the lives of people like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon, Jonah, and often the nation of Israel generally, God brought to pass events which foreshadowed a pattern of life that would be later followed by “one greater than Solomon,” one who was David’s greater Son.4
Because it was not always immediately or entirely clear to the prophets what their predictions meant, they “inquired and searched carefully” into the salvation they prophesied.
Their diligent and careful research into their own and previous prophecies was not vague and aimless but Christ centered.
‘Christ’ is a name to Peter rather than a title, and he writes as if the prophets viewed matters in the same way.”7
Old Testament scholar Walter Kaiser demonstrated from these verses in Peter that the prophets knew these things: 1. Jesus would come. 2. Jesus would suffer. 3. Jesus would be glorified (in kingly splendor). 4. The order of events was that the suffering came first, and then the glorious period followed. 5. This message had been revealed to the prophets not only for their own day, but also for a future generation.8
Peter then said the prophets knew their predictions would be even better understood by future generations.
Peter told us they knew their predictions would fully make sense to their readers only when they happened.
As I read and reread the Old Testament, I saw that while the New Testament is more detailed in some respects, the Old Testament is actually more detailed in other areas.
For example, nowhere in the New Testament are we given such insight into the emotions and feelings of the Lord Jesus during His sufferings
Even Christ’s disciples had limited understanding of the person and work of Christ until after His resurrection.
The prophets ministered the same “things” that the apostles “now reported.”
distinction between the Old Testament as rightly understood and the Old Testament as warped and perverted by Judaizing legalists.
Paul was not negative about the Old Testament as designed by God but about the Old Testament as perverted by man.
The Galatians did. They allowed false teachers from the Jewish synagogue to persuade them that faith in Jesus was not enough.
He then pointed them to Genesis 15–17 to show that it was never God’s intention that sinners be saved by their own best efforts.
The birth of Ishmael is a vivid illustration of relating to God by using the best human reasoning plus the best human effort.
The birth of Isaac is an illustration of relating to God by trusting in His promise alone.
But Paul was not looking back at the Sinai covenant and portraying it as a legalistic bondage. He was looking at the way most Jews of his day had misunderstood the originally gracious Sinai covenant and perverted it into a covenant of works, resulting in bondage.
God intended grace and revealed grace in the covenant with Israel at Sinai.
if it’s a legal covenant, a covenant of “do this and live,” then we must slam the door on any hope of finding and enjoying Jesus and His salvation in the Old Testament.
But if it is a covenant of grace, a covenant of “believe and be saved,” then truly we have a key to seeing Jesus on every page of the Old Testament.
Although I was swimming against the tide of all I had been brought up with and most modern Christian views of Moses and Sinai, I gradually came to be totally and absolutely convinced that the Sinai covenant is a revelation of Jesus and His gracious salvation.
First, the Sinai covenant painted pictures of grace.
God book-ended the obedience He required with multiple-picture sermons of the coming suffering Savior.
Second, the Sinai covenant is set in the context of grace.
Redemption brought the Israelites into a relationship with God, which they were to respond to with grateful obedience. Rather than “obey and you will be brought into relationship with Me by a great redemption,” it was, “As you’ve been redeemed and brought into a relationship with Me, here are some rules to help you show your gratitude and keep our relationship happy and healthy.”
Again, redemption and relationship come before rules to help express thankfulness.
The law was given to people whom God had already redeemed. . . . Grace comes before the law. There are eighteen chapters of salvation before we get to Sinai and the Ten Commandments. . . . I stress this because the idea that . . . in the OT salvation was by obeying the law, whereas in the NT it is by grace, is a terrible distortion of Scripture.10
Third, the Sinai covenant points to our need of grace.
He began by asserting that the gospel of Abraham was a gospel of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus.
whatever the Sinai covenant did, it did not cancel or change the saving promises of grace to Abraham.
Apart from revealing grace through the pictures of grace and the context of grace, as I have already stated, it also points to our need of grace:
A large part of the law’s purpose, especially the moral law element, was to bring us to see our desperate need for the promise and to lead us, as a disciplinary teacher, to the Promised One, “that we might be justified by faith.”
Fourth, the Sinai covenant shows how we are to respond to grace.
