Theology & Worldview

Jesus in the Old Testament

God, the amazing creator of all the universe, made people for a relationship with him. The first people lived in communication with God. But Adam and Eve decided that, despite God giving them everything they needed, they wanted more. After disobeying God, Adam and Eve were no longer perfect – they were sinners deserving death and isolation from God. Yet, God still loved humanity so much He would send his Son to ransom his people and share a relationship with them again. Even as Adam and Eve were banished from the garden, God gave them hope of the Savior (Gen. 3:15, English Standard Version). For thousands of years God’s people waited for the Redeemer. During that time, God gave his people prophesies and signs which pointed toward Jesus. In fact, when Jesus came, he explained a group of Jews who wished to kill him that, although they searched the Scriptures to find eternal life, “they bear witness about me,” (John 5:39, ESV). Jesus is the long-awaited Savior who fulfills the scriptures, and it is he who brings restoration with God.

After hundreds of years as slaves in Egypt, God brought a series of plagues on the Egyptians to display his power, knowing that the stubborn pharaoh would refuse to release the Israelites in response to the first nine plagues. In the tenth plague, God would kill the firstborn son of all Egyptians and their cattle (Exodus 11:5, ESV). Yet, God gave his own people a way to escape their children’s otherwise grim fate. God instructed the Israelites to kill a lamb and put its blood on the doorposts. God promised them “when I see the blood, I will pass over you… no plague will … destroy you… when I strike the land of Egypt,” (Ex.12:13, ESV). In the New Testament, Jesus is called “our Passover Lamb,” and, in the same way the blood of the lambs in Egypt saved lives, Jesus’ blood saves people so they do not have to be forever separated from him (1 Corinthians 5:7; Romans 5:9, ESV).

Later, as the Israelites were wandering in the desert after leaving Egypt several years before, they sinned by complaining and speaking “out against God,” (Numbers 21:5, ESV). In response, God sent snakes to the Israelites, a punishment that took the lives of many. Israel recognized and confessed its sin and Moses prayed for them. God then commanded Moses elevate a pole and position a bronze serpent on it. After the bronze serpent was erected, whoever was bitten by a snake had only to look up at the metallic replica, and they would live. In his conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus explained that “just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life,” (John 3: 14, ESV). Jesus paid for sin while being literally lifted up on the cross. The bronze serpent saved people from physical death, but Jesus saves people eternally.

After Moses died, the Israelites’ leader in the conquest of Canaan was Joshua. The first city to be conquered was Jericho. Before acting, Joshua sent two spies to survey, and they stayed in the house of Rahab, a Jericho citizen (Joshua 2:1, ESV). She hid them from her king’s messengers, and asked that the Israelites to spare her life when the true God gave Jericho into their hands. The men promised this protection, and instructed her to tie a red rope in her window. Rahab and her family gathered in her house spared though all others were killed. The red cord in the window corresponds to Jesus’ saving blood. God spared this non-Israelite and she then lived with the Israelites and even became an ancestor to the Savior. In the same way, Jesus takes people who were in the “domain of darkness” and transfers them to “the kingdom of his beloved Son,” (Colossians 1:13, ESV).

At Christmas, we celebrate that the wait for the Savior is over. He came and fulfilled the Scriptures and provided the only way for people separated from God to be restored to him. Unlike the annual Passover lambs of the Old Testament, Jesus “offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins,” (Hebrews 19:12, ESV).  Like Rahab, all of us were not one of God’s people, but, through Christ, “you are God’s people,” (1 Peter 2:10, ESV). Just as the Israelites had only to look at the bronze serpent and live, so God is astoundingly merciful and loving even to us today, for he offers all of us life as one of his own people at his own expense. Nothing besides looking at the bronze serpent was required for healing. Similarly, it is only Jesus’ sacrifice that, when accepted through faith, saves people (Romans 5:9; Ephesians 2:6, ESV). To be rescued, simply “believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved,” (Acts 16:31, ESV). The Passover Lamb, Rahab’s cord, and the Bronze Serpent pointed to Jesus. These fulfilments validate Jesus’ claim of being the Messiah, for only he could fulfill all the Old Testament signs. This Christmas, celebrate that God did not lie for the thousands of years before he fulfilled his promises and signs. Jesus “emptied himself… being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” and he “brought us peace, and by his wounds we are healed,” (Philippians 2:7-8; Isaiah 53:5, ESV).

 

Works Cited
The Bible. English Standard Version, 2011 ed., Crossway, 2001.

Artwork Credit: Jared Stark

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