CHAPTER 7CHAPTER 7

ALL ROADS LEAD TO CHRIST PORTRAITS, OFFICES, CREATION, AND SALVATIONALL ROADS LEAD TO CHRIST PORTRAITS, OFFICES, CREATION, AND SALVATION

The prophets searched. Angels longed to see. And the disciples didn’t understand. But Moses, the Prophets, and all the Old Testament Scriptures had spoken about it—that Jesus would come, suffer, and then be glorified. God began to tell a story in the Old Testament, the ending of which the audience eagerly anticipated. But the Old Testament audience was left hanging. The plot was laid out, but the climax was delayed. The unfinished story begged for an ending. In Christ, God has provided the climax to the Old Testament story.

—IAIN DUGUID AND MATTHEW HARMON¹

GOSPEL PORTRAITS

As the overarching theme of the Bible and its history revolve around God’s redemptive plan for mankind, it stands to reason that Jesus Christ, the only One through Whom we can attain salvation, is the focal point of Scripture. “It follows that if the purpose of Scripture is to guide men to the Lord and if the only way to the Lord is through the redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ,” contends Old Testament Professor Michael Barrett, “then the revelation of Christ should be the grand and predominant theme of the Scripture. Indeed it is. All revealed truth in one way or another relates to and is ultimately defined by the central truth of the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed.”²

As the New Testament writers taught, Christ is the key that unlocks all the mysteries of the Old Testament.³ It is neither speculation nor hyperbole to say that all Scripture centers on the Person of Jesus Christ. Christians are certainly instructed to learn about God and glean everything we can from His revealed Word to better understand His nature, but ultimately we must get to know God through Jesus Christ. Paul captures the essence of it when he writes to the Corinthian Church, “And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2).

Now that we’ve examined God’s promise-plan of redemption and the major covenants by which He implemented that plan, we will turn to some of the other evidence of Christ in the Old Testament, first looking at what Pastor Kurt Strassner refers to as “gospel portraits” of Jesus. In his book Hints and Signs of the Coming King: Pictures of Jesus in the Old Testament, Strassner notes that in the Bible, particularly in the Old Testament, God sometimes paints word pictures—metaphoric ways of describing spiritual concepts—because He knows this sort of visualization can enhance our understanding. One example we’ve noted is John 1:29: “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Jesus’ parables showcase other examples, such as “the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed” (Matt. 13:31).

In addition, Strassner posits, it’s not just in the Bible’s teaching that we see metaphors, but in biblical events, too. Sometimes God “has worked out biblical history to show us (as in the Passover Lamb of Exodus 12).”⁴ I am quite receptive to that idea. As I remarked earlier, I believe that God, in addition to His other methods of instructing us in Scripture, teaches us through events He sovereignly orchestrates in history and reveals to us in Scripture.

Strassner cites eight examples of gospel portraits. I’d like to summarize a few of them to illustrate how God uses these Old Testament events to point to Christ and His saving work on our behalf. I won’t dig deep into these but would encourage you, if you are interested, to read Strassner’s book to get a more complete picture.

The first portrait is of Noah’s ark, “aboard which we may climb, escaping the flood waters of God’s judgment.” The flood was God’s ordained judgment on mankind due to his sinfulness. This event truly happened in history and, as Strassner points out, will happen again, though next time God’s judgment will be administered by fire instead of water (2 Peter 3:5–7). But just as God provided an escape for the righteous (Noah and his family), He has provided a way for all who believe in Him to be saved from present and future judgments on sin. Like the ark, says Strassner, faith in Jesus is the one and only remedy that will hold up on the Day of Judgment.

Here are some other Strassner gospel portraits:

          •   The passionate love King Solomon has for his wife, a simple village girl (Song 1–8), which reflects Christ’s infinite love for mankind.

          •   A ram (Gen. 22) that God allows Abraham to use instead of his son Isaac as a sacrifice, which points to Christ laying down His life for our sins.

          •   A bronze serpent (Num. 21), which God instructs Moses to make and set on a pole so that each person who was bitten by actual fiery serpents, “when he sees it, shall live,” and which points to Christ’s work on the cross.

We will examine some of these foreshadowings of Christ in detail when we discuss how events in each Old Testament book point to Christ. For now, I just wanted to share Pastor Strassner’s helpful insight that God uses word pictures in actual historical events as one of many ways He demonstrates the centrality of Christ to the Old Testament and to all of Scripture.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE LAMB AND PROGRESSIVE REVELATION

One of my favorite Christian writers is Australian pastor and theologian J. Sidlow Baxter. I first came across his work more than twenty years ago when I bought his classic Explore the Book, a 1,760-page tome that examines every book of the Bible. I was particularly impressed with Baxter’s illuminating insights at a time when, as a fairly unknowledgeable Christian, I was seeking to accelerate my learning curve on the Bible and Christianity. I have discovered that Baxter’s writing is not just accessible for the beginning Christian, but also enlightening for those who have more than a few hours of study under their belts.

Some people have a unique gift for grasping biblical truths and communicating them, and Baxter is among the best. That’s why I was pleased when, doing my research for this book, I came across another work of his that seemed relevant to my inquiry, The Master Theme of the Bible.⁵ In this book, Baxter looks at two Christ-centered threads running through the Bible that demonstrate its God-inspired unity: the Lamb of God and the Cross of Christ. I want to briefly address the first of these because I find Baxter’s discussion to be fascinating and unique.

In his introduction to the topic, Baxter writes, “To my mind, the most satisfying proofs that the Bible is divinely inspired are not those which one ‘reads up’ in volumes of religious evidences or Christian apologetics, but those which we discover for ourselves in our own study of the Book. To the prayerful explorer the Bible has its own way of revealing its internal credentials.” In Jesus on Trial I made a similar observation: “Indeed, for me, theology and the Bible are the best apologetic of all. As I’ve said throughout this book, I find Christ’s teachings, the letters of the New Testament writers, and the history and teachings in the remainder of the Bible intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually attractive, and probative of the truth of Christianity.”⁶

In introducing his thesis on the Lamb, Baxter discusses progressive revelation, which I touched on earlier. Generally, this is the idea that God reveals in Scripture His message and plan for humanity in stages. This is one of the things Bible teachers mean when they say God sometimes presents shadows and types of truths in the Old Testament that become much clearer as God’s revelation progresses through Old Testament Scripture into the New Testament. As R. C. Sproul puts it, “The revelation within Scripture unfolds in an ever-deepening and broadening way.”⁷ Remarkably, not only does God reveal His truths progressively through the Bible, He actually revealed these truths progressively in history. So the Bible, in recording and conveying that history, reflects its progressive nature.

My favorite quote explaining progressive revelation is by Sidney Greidanus. In his book Preaching Christ from Ecclesiastes, he relates that when one of his colleagues saw the title of his manuscript he accused him, lightheartedly, of “trying to find Christ under every rock.” Greidanus later explained, “It’s not a matter of trying to find Christ under every rock but it’s a matter of connecting the dots—the dots that run from the periphery of the Old Testament to the center of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ. Redemptive-historical progression is the basic, foundational way of connecting the dots. Because redemptive history progresses from its earliest beginnings after the Fall into sin (Gen. 3:15), through God’s dealings with Israel, to the incarnation of Christ, his life, death, resurrection, and ascension, and finally to his Second Coming, Christian preachers must understand an Old Testament passage in the light of redemptive history.”⁸

Baxter refers to progressive revelation as the “progress of doctrine.” He is quick to point out that the progressive nature of revelation doesn’t mean God’s truth ever changed or was improved upon; only that He revealed it to us more clearly as He went along. When we speak of this, says Baxter, “we do not mean . . . a groping progress from error to truth. . . . We mean . . . progress from the dimness of dawn to the brightness of the noon. It is the same divine light which shines through all the pages, but the degree of the light increases as the revelation unfolds.”⁹ He observes that teachings that first appear in Scripture are often repeated in subsequent pages, their meaning and significance developing with each additional reference until they reach their full fruition in the New Testament, “in which there is either a classic summary or a completive culmination.”

When these subjects are first mentioned, they don’t necessarily seem to be incomplete or require further development, nor do the Old Testament writers seem to have any awareness that the revelation entrusted to them for transmission to us is, in any way, unfinished or part of a progressive unfolding. This fact, notes, Baxter, “only makes such progress of doctrine the more obviously supernatural and fascinating.”¹⁰ Chew on that for a moment and you’ll see what he means. The biblical writers are relating their stories and prophecies in ways that make sense to them, perhaps having no idea that years, centuries, or even a millennium later, another biblical author will expound on the earlier revealed doctrine in a way that elucidates it—without nullifying it—for current readers and for posterity.

Baxter then explains the Bible doctrine of the Lamb as an outstanding example of progressive revelation, the highlights of which I will share with you because this is the very type of thing Jesus might have explained on the road to Emmaus.

There are ten passages in the Bible in which the Lamb is conspicuously mentioned, writes Baxter. The first is Genesis 4:3–7, which relates the story of Cain offering God “the fruit of the ground” while Abel offers Him the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions. Cain’s offering is beautiful but bloodless, so God rejects it while accepting Abel’s. Among other things, notes Baxter, this shows the necessity of the Lamb.

The next passage is Genesis 22, where Abraham, after God releases him from the command to sacrifice Isaac, immediately sees a ram in the thicket that he can offer instead. Here the emphasis shifts from the necessity of the lamb to God’s provision of it. (Through Jesus Christ, God provided the Ultimate Sacrifice for us.)

Next is Exodus 12, where God instructs all His people to slay a lamb without blemish and put some of its blood outside the doors of their houses. When God passes through the land of Egypt to strike all the firstborn, He passes over those houses that show the blood. The stress here is on the slaying of the lamb because the lamb, no matter how perfect, would be of no sacrificial use unless it was slayed and its protective blood administered to the house.

Baxter then takes us to Leviticus which, as we indicated earlier, is a worship manual of sorts that contains instructions on administering sacrifices, the feasts, and other things. Throughout the book, he says, the focus is on the character of the lamb, noting that it is stated some twenty times that the offerings must be “without blemish.” The Hebrews are not permitted to offer flawed animals, as that would not be a true sacrifice: “To be accepted it must be perfect; there shall be no blemish in it” (Lev. 22:21).

Isaiah 53 is one of the most famous messianic prophecies (prophecies pointing to Christ) in the Bible. This short section from that chapter makes the point: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?” (53:6–8). This rendering of the Lamb shows a monumental progression, for in the previous examples “Lamb” always signified an animal, but now we learn that the Lamb that God provides is a person.

Moving on to the New Testament, Baxter starts with John 1:29, where John the Baptist, recognizing Jesus coming toward him, declares, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” Here, argues Baxter, we see that the Lamb is not just any person, but he is that person: Jesus Christ. The next day, John sees Jesus again and exclaims, “Behold the Lamb of God!” (John 1:35). So now we know, says Baxter, “who is the typified Lamb.”

Now on to the Book of Acts—the history of the early Christian Church—to the scene where the evangelist Philip gets instruction from an Angel of the Lord to help an Ethiopian eunuch, who is an official of Queen Candace, understand parts of chapter 53 of Isaiah. The eunuch reads verses 7 and 8: “Like a sheep he was led to slaughter and like a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he opens not his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth?” When the eunuch asks who is being described here, “Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus” (Acts 8:35). Now we can see, notes Baxter, that Jesus the Lamb is the promised Christ.

Next, moving into the epistles, specifically 1 Peter, we read this passage: “Knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God” (1:18–21). Baxter says this is a pivotal passage in the progressive doctrine of the Lamb, which looks both backward and forward.

What he means is that Peter summarizes the different aspects of the Lamb that had been previously revealed in Scripture and then “adds a startling new truth which points us on to wonderful consummations in the future.” Peter reaffirms the necessity of the lamb (“not with perishable things”), the provision (“He was foreknown before the foundation of the world”), the slaying (“the precious blood of Christ”), the character (“without blemish or spot”), and that He is a person, specifically Christ (whom Peter explicitly identifies in this passage). Here we see a summary of progressive and cumulative revelation at its finest, as a foundation to the next revelation, the resurrection of the slain Lamb (“God . . . raised him from the dead and gave him glory”). This was a new revelation, for while there were hints at the resurrection in the Old Testament, it was nowhere clearly revealed. Baxter says that with the concept of the resurrection Peter also introduced the accompanying feature of hope (“God raised him . . . so that your faith and hope are in God”). “So,” asks Baxter, “what is this new hope?” The answer, he says, is in the next revelation.

That is in Revelation 5, where we see the enthronement of the Lamb in heaven: “And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints” (5:6–8). The Lamb now sits on the throne of heaven—the throne of the entire universe, the significance of which is revealed in the final revelation in this series.

Revelation 21–22, the last two chapters of the New Testament, reveal the climax of biblical salvation history: “No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever” (22:3–5).

Though Baxter doesn’t reprint the following passage, I think it adds immeasurably to his point. Going back to the beginning of chapter 21, John relates his vision of a new heaven and a new earth, “for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away’” (21:1–4). This final revelation, affirms Baxter, demonstrates Christ’s everlasting kingship.

Do you see how this kingship remarkably corresponds to the promise of the everlasting kingship in the covenants—beginning with the Abrahamic and through the Davidic to the New Covenant? When you put this string of revelations together, you see that even before creation, God knew we would sin and that He’d send His Son Jesus Christ, Who would spill His blood in substitutionary propitiation for our sins, then conquer death through His resurrection and sit on the throne of heaven everlastingly, where He joins saved sinners who will enjoy His presence forever.

Baxter goes on to show the expansive nature of the progressive revelations, but it is beyond my purposes to further explore that. His analysis, which I have attempted to summarize here, amply demonstrates the inspiration of God’s Word and the sheer beauty and genius of progressive revelation therein, which reflects God’s gracious, redemptive activity in history, from beginning to end, motivated by His incomparable love for us and by His plan to exhibit His glory.

PROPHET, PRIEST, AND KING

God’s redemptive work began before Adam sinned—in fact, before he was even created—and has continued throughout history. God, one imagines, could have just zapped mankind into a redemptive state, but in His infinite wisdom, He determined that this would either not get the job done or was vastly inferior to the method He chose. God created man in His image, which necessarily means He gave man free will. God doesn’t force people to love Him, and throughout all of history some have rejected Him. Love must be freely given, and simply zapping us into heaven would be inconsistent with our free will.

Additionally, we see in all of salvation history and repeatedly in the Bible’s teaching that man learns through his experiences, grows stronger through adversity, and with the proper mindset draws closer to God in the process. Old Testament scholar Iain Duguid comments that God’s “redemptive pathways” don’t lead us around conflict, hardship, and suffering. “Instead, his perfect plan for our lives often takes us right through the eye of the storm, where our dysfunction and sin, along with that of our families and friends, is on full and tragic display, so that the gospel of his powerful grace and sovereign mercy can be equally powerfully on display.”¹¹ We have already seen in the potter’s wheel analogy that throughout history God used this process to mold and refine the nation of Israel, and we learn through its example.

Indeed, while Christ’s crowning redemptive acts of His sacrificial death and resurrection are the crux of salvation history, they are not the entire story, and in this book I aim to tell the rest of that story. Professor W. Stanford Reid explains that “a long time of preparation preceded [Christ’s death and resurrection], and a period of explanation and interpretation” followed them.¹² Christ, says Reid, has been active in history to bring people to faith in Himself, both before and after His culminating redemptive acts.

To fully understand the totality and significance of Christ’s redemptive activities in history, it helps to view His work in a systematic manner.¹³ One of the ways theologians have facilitated men’s understanding of this is to look at Christ’s work through the prism of His offices of prophet, priest, and king. These were the three major offices among the Israelites in Old Testament times.

The prophet, beginning with Moses, communicates God’s message to the people; the priest, beginning with Aaron (Exodus 29:9), acts as intermediary and offers sacrifices and prayers to God for the people; and the king, best exemplified by David (2 Samuel 5:3), rules over the people.¹⁴ These three offices are distinct, yet sometimes certain people, as we have seen, serve more than one function. Though priests generally mediate between God and His people, prophets (and less frequently, kings) sometimes mediate between God and Israel as well. But priests are different from prophets because priests bring the people into God’s presence while prophets bring God and His Word to the people.¹⁵

The officeholders, being members of the fallen human species, perform their duties imperfectly and incompletely, yet we can see, in retrospect, that each of them is a prefiguring of Jesus Christ¹⁶—for in the outworking of His redemptive activities, Christ combines in one person all three Old Testament offices, serving as the consummate prophet, priest, and king.¹⁷ “Christ is prophet in that He perfectly reveals God to us,” writes Richard D. Phillips. “He is priest in offering himself for our sins, cleansing us, and interceding for us with God. He is our king, reigning now in heaven and ruling over us as our Sovereign Lord.”¹⁸

These comparisons are not latter-day contrivances. Bible interpreters as far back as Church Father Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea (260–340 AD), have regarded Christ’s ministry in terms of these three Old Testament offices. This is a logical association because, among other reasons, the Messiah is the Anointed One, and all three Old Testament officeholders are anointed into their positions: the prophets (1 Kings 19:16; Isaiah 61:1), priests (Exodus 30:30, 40:13), and kings (1 Samuel 10:1, 15:1; 1 Kings 19:15–16).¹⁹

As Eusebius explains, “And we have been told also that certain of the prophets themselves became, by the act of anointing, Christs in type, so that all these have reference to the true Christ, the divinely inspired and heavenly Word, who is the only high priest of all, and the only King of every creature, and the Father’s only supreme prophet of prophets. And a proof of this is that no one of those who were of old symbolically anointed, whether priests, or kings, or prophets, possessed so great a power of inspired virtue as was exhibited by our Savior and Lord Jesus, the true and only Christ.”²⁰ Eusebius bases his conclusion, in part, on three Old Testament passages:

          1.   “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him” (Deut. 18:18). This passage shows God telling Moses that another prophet like him will later arrive.

          2.   “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek” (Psalms 110:4).

          3.   “It is he who shall build the temple of the LORD and shall bear royal honor, and shall sit and rule on his throne. And there shall be a priest on his throne, and the counsel of peace shall be between them both” (Zec. 6:13).²¹

Now let’s look in turn at each of the three offices.

PROPHET

A fuller context of the above passage on Moses is that Moses is telling the people, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen. . . . And the Lord said to me, ‘. . . I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him’” (Deut. 18:15, 18). Based on this promise, the Israelites are waiting on God to raise up a prophet Who will be like Moses but much greater, and will deliver Israel into a new era.²² Again, the writer of Hebrews affirms the superiority of Jesus to Moses: “For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. . . . Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son” (Heb. 3:3, 5–6).

Unmistakably serving as a prophet during his earthly ministry, Jesus was often recognized as such by His disciples and others. Here are some examples: when Jesus makes His Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem the crowds exclaim, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee” (Matt. 21:11); the chief priests and Pharisees are furious at Him when they hear about His parables, for they figure He is condemning them, but they dare not arrest Him because they fear the people who regard Him as a prophet (Matt. 21:46); when He encounters the woman of Samaria at the well, she perceives Him to be a prophet (John 4:19); when He feeds the five thousand with five loaves of bread and two fish, the people cry out, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!” (John 6:14); when He raises a widow’s son, the crowd of people exclaim, “A great prophet has arisen among us!” and “God has visited his people!” (Luke 7:16); Jesus is well aware of His calling as a prophet (Luke 4:24, 13:33); and in His prophetic role He explains the significance of the Law (Matt. 5:17–18), continually preaches about the kingdom of God (Matt. 24:14; Mark 1:14–15; Luke 22:18), and, like the Old Testament prophets, foretells the future (Matt. 24:2–31; Luke 19:41–44).²³

Illustrative of the theme of salvation history culminating in Jesus Christ, we see that Jesus is not just a prophet, but the consummate Prophet. And illustrative of the notion of progressive revelation, the New Testament clearly affirms what the Old Testament only points to, noting Jesus’ prophetic superiority precisely because He is the Son of God. He doesn’t just speak on God’s behalf like other prophets. He is God, speaking for the Father and for Himself. “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,” declares the writer of Hebrews. “But in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power” (1:1–3).

PRIEST

Priests served the functions of representing men in their relations with God, and offering gifts and sacrifices for sins (Heb. 5:1). The priestly work of Christ, the perfect priest, includes His activities of atonement and intercession.²⁴ As we indicated earlier, the priests were incapable of making lasting sacrifices due to their own weaknesses, necessitating that they make sacrifices for their own sins as well (Heb. 5:2–3). Additionally, there was no perfect offering they could make to God that would satisfy His holy requirements for justice, “for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Heb. 10:4). But Jesus, as completely sinless, is fully capable of offering a perfect sacrifice and permanent atonement because He is the perfect Offeror of sacrifices, having no weaknesses Himself, and is also the perfect Offering. The Old Testament priests offer animals as sacrifices while Christ offers Himself as the spotless Lamb of God. According to the writer of Hebrews, “Every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (10:11–14).

Through Christ’s offering God’s wrath is satisfied, we are forgiven and liberated from sin, and we are restored into intimate fellowship with God.²⁵ Christ’s work of atonement is accompanied by His further work on our behalf, as intercessor. “Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them” (Heb. 7:25). This intercession, like His sacrifice, is perfect, active, and ongoing. “For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf” (Heb. 9:24). Paul adds, “Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us” (Romans 8:34). The apostle John affirms this truth: “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1).

The writer of Hebrews explains, “For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. . . . And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was. So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him, ‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you’; as he says also in another place, ‘You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek’” (5:1, 4–6). According to Carl F. H. Henry, “Everywhere the New Testament writers affirm a religion that centers in the mediator. . . . (John’s) Gospel unqualifiedly declares Jesus to be ‘the way, the truth, and the life’ (14:6).”²⁶

Jesus is the perfect priest, like no other before Him and vastly superior to Aaron in numerous ways. Aaron doesn’t just offer sacrifices for the people’s sins, but for his own as well because he, too, is a sinner. Christ, however, is sinless and atones for the people alone; Aaron performs his priestly duties in the manmade and perishable Tabernacle, but Christ appears directly to the Father on our behalf, in heaven (Heb. 9:1, 24); Aaron offers the blood of animals as sacrifice, Christ offers His own blood; and perhaps most important, Aaron’s sacrificial work is temporary and has to be repeated, but Christ’s is once and for all (Heb. 9:25).²⁷

KING

The psalmist tells us that “the Lord swore to David a sure oath from which he will not turn back: One of the sons of your body I will set on your throne” (Psalms 132:11). Similarly, the prophet Nathan says to 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” (2 Samuel 7:11–12). This promise of an eternal king from David’s line is to be fulfilled in Christ, as noted in our discussion of the Davidic Covenant. Paul records the fulfillment of this promise: “Concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 1:3). Paul writes again, in 2 Timothy, “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David” (2:8. See also Matt. 19:28, 25:31; Luke 1:32; Acts 2:30, 13:23; Romans 1:3; 2 Tim. 2:8; Heb. 1:8, 8:1, 12:2, Rev. 22:1).

Christ is the perfect and everlasting King of all creation, whereas His predecessors are imperfect mortals, no matter what level of earthly greatness they may achieve. Solomon is the wisest man in the world, but Christ is Wisdom—the One who answers Solomon’s prayer for wisdom. David is a man after God’s heart, but Christ is God: “And the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:30–33).

Through Jesus, we shall also fulfill God’s command to Adam that he have dominion over His created world. Scripture seems to indicate that while God is and will always be sovereign and supreme, we will get a little taste of reigning alongside Him and enjoying His kingdom. “If we have died with him,” writes Paul, “we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him” (2 Tim. 2:11–12). John affirms, “And you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth” (Rev. 5:10). Let’s not forget that Christ was not only present and active in the creation, but unlike the fictitious god of the Deists who abandons his creation after he sets it in motion, Jesus Christ, by His sovereign power, sustains the universe with His loving hands, which is a further manifestation of His everlasting kingly reign. As the writer of Hebrews puts it, “He upholds the universe by the Word of His power” (1:3). We’ll explore this further below.

CHRIST’S ACTIONS AS CREATOR

The Bible is clear that God created the universe—it did not spring into existence from purely materialistic causes, as many insist. Most Christians probably think of creation as being exclusively by the Father, but Scripture clearly points to all three Persons of the Godhead being active in that work. “The work of creation ‘is always applied in Scripture not partially but to the whole, entire, full, complete Godhead,’” notes theologian Thomas Oden.²⁸ Furthermore, the Nicene Creed attributes the work of creation to all three Persons of the Trinity.²⁹ As St. Thomas Aquinas affirms, “The power of creation . . . was common to the three Persons.³⁰

Concerning the Holy Spirit, we remember the words in the Bible’s second verse: “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” (Gen. 1:2). Likewise in Job we read, “The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life” (Job 33:4). And the psalmist says, “When you send forth your Spirit, they are created” (Psalms 104:30; see also Isaiah 40:12–13).

Paul acknowledges the Father’s (and Christ’s) work in his first letter to the Corinthians: “For us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist” (1 Cor. 8:6). For his part, John stresses the Son’s (Christ’s) role: “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:3). Referring partly to this verse, Oden observes, “The evangelist could not make any more dramatic affirmation than to identify Christ with the Word present in creation, by whom the world was made.”³¹ John further contends, “He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him” (John 1:10). In Colossians, Paul is even more emphatic about Christ’s role: “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him” (1:15–16).

CHRIST AS PRESERVER AND SUSTAINER OF HIS CREATION

Christ proactively superintends His creation. He sustains it, holds it together, and as noted previously, He tends to it with loving care. “He is the Creator of the universe and its Sustainer,” David MacLeod writes. “He is the one who in the end, will reconcile the universe. As Jensen says, Jesus Christ is ‘creation’s past, present, and future.’”³² Paul writes in the same vein to the Colossians, “And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:17; see also Heb. 1:3). John Walvoord points out that the Bible is replete with evidence of the providence of God. “Providence,” in this context, means God’s care for His creatures.³³ Hundreds of passages could be cited, Walvoord says, but usually the names of God that are used are not specifically associated with just one Person of the Trinity. When this occurs, he continues, we may fairly say that the work of the triune God is also a work of Christ.³⁴ Crucially, Christ was demonstrably involved in the preservation and guidance of Israel. References to the Angel of Jehovah (God) acting in that capacity are references to Christ that constitute “monumental proof that the Son of God preserved and guided Israel.”³⁵ We’ll look at this more closely below, in the discussion of Christophanies.

Further, there are many references to Jehovah as the Shepherd of Israel. These, says Walvoord, “may be taken as specific references to Christ.” See, for example, Genesis 49:24: “Yet his bow remained unmoved; his arms were made agile by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob (from there is the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel)”; and Psalms 23:1: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” Similar references include Psalms 80:1; Isaiah 40:11; Jeremiah 31:10; and Ezekiel 34:11–12, 23; 37:24. Walvoord reasons that while these references to “shepherd” could refer only to the triune God, Christ’s reference to Himself as the good Shepherd in John 10 would justify concluding that the references are to Christ. The same reasoning applies to the references in Psalm 22 (the good Shepherd died for His sheep); in Hebrews 13:20 (the great Shepherd); and in 1 Peter 5:4 (the chief Shepherd). Additionally, Isaiah 63:9 refers to the Son of God as “the angel of his presence” who saved God’s people, further demonstrating Christ’s work of providence and preservation in Old Testament times.

Finally, Psalm 72 indicates that God’s continued purpose is to bring all creatures of the earth under Christ’s authority. “Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to the royal son! . . . May he have dominion from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth! . . . May all kings fall down before him, all nations serve him” (Psalms 72:8, 11). Skeptics might argue this passage refers to an earthly king, but as Dr. Donald Williams notes, no earthly king could hope to fulfill this vision, and so the passage is clearly prophetic and messianic.³⁶ This theme is carried forward into the New Testament, with Jesus declaring, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matt. 28:18). In Philippians Paul echoes this sentiment: “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (2:9–11).

THE SAVING ACTIVITY OF CHRIST IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

I stated earlier that unless you believe in the inspiration of Scripture you will probably not acknowledge shadows of Christ in the Old Testament. If you believe the book was written by human beings unaided by God, then you are unlikely to believe there were any hints of Christ, much less divinely placed prophecies, in the Hebrew Scriptures. This holds true for the doctrine of salvation (the doctrine of Christ’s work in salvation)³⁷ in the Old Testament. “One of the major difficulties in the discussion of the Old Testament doctrine of salvation,” John Walvoord writes, “is that modernism and evolution have relentlessly invaded Old Testament teachings. If the primary religion of early man was polytheistic, animistic or reduced to a fetishism and totemism, obviously we shall look in vain for any true revelation of salvation. . . . (But), if the Scriptures are accepted as infallible, the revelation of salvation is not a late development of prophetic writers but a primary and basic revelation of God to the first man and succeeding generations.”³⁸

Due to the punishment of death that God administers against mankind following Adam’s sin in the Garden, man is lost and in need of salvation. One of the most transcendent lessons of the early pages of Genesis and throughout all Scripture is that man is depraved and helpless apart from God. His efforts to go his own way and become his own god began in the Garden and continue to this day. This is the essence of the conflict between biblical Christianity and secular humanism.³⁹

As noted earlier, however, at the same time God pronounces judgment on Adam and Eve, He also promises them—in rather shadowy terms—that He will provide a means of salvation, when He says the seed of the woman will bruise the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15). With the benefit of hindsight, and especially through subsequent Old Testament and New Testament revelations, we can see, without much difficulty, that God is promising a Savior Who will come from a woman and not a man, i.e., a suggestion of the virgin birth (Isaiah 7:14; Matt. 1:21–22).⁴⁰ I’m certainly not contending that readers of the Scriptures in Old Testament times could have readily understood the full ramifications of these revelations. As Dr. Walvoord explains, “The gospel of grace was given to Paul as new revelation (Romans 1:2–4). God does not hold the Old Testament saints to account for revelation given in the New Testament. . . . As the exact character and work of the Deliverer is only gradually unfolded in the Old Testament, faith took the form of trust in Jehovah Himself without necessarily specific knowledge of the way by which Jehovah was to provide an adequate salvation.”⁴¹ But we are not living in Old Testament times, and there is no excuse for our blindness to New Testament revelation.

In fact, the writer of Hebrews reveals that Moses, in effect, has faith in Christ: “By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. By faith he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the Destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them” (11:24–28). Moses in this situation can be likened to Paul, who says, “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him” (Philip. 3:7–8). Similarly, Peter writes, “If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you” (1 Peter 4:14). Most important, be aware that Christ Himself delivers a substantively identical message in the Beatitudes: “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matt. 5:11–12).

Again, reading the Old Testament alone, without the benefit of later revelation, we would have no way of knowing that Moses in any way looks to Christ, but Hebrews is pretty clear on the point. Additionally, if you believe that “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16), then it should be easy to believe that the writer of Hebrews isn’t placing his own thoughts into the mind of Moses and reporting them as revelation. Instead, the Holy Spirit inspired him to report what lay behind Moses’ actions. Leon Morris observes that the writer of Hebrews sees Christ to be the same yesterday as he is today (Heb. 13:8), meaning the writer probably thinks of Him as being identified with Israel in Old Testament times.⁴² Consider also Paul’s affirmation concerning the Israelites: “All were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ” (1 Cor. 10:2–4).

Whether or not the writer of Hebrews intends to convey that Moses sees the full picture of Christ’s role in salvation, we are clearly meant to understand that Christ was guiding and interacting with Moses and superintending Israel’s salvation from Egypt—and that is exciting. After all, God is the same and unchanging now and forever. The Savior of the Old Testament is—not might be—the Savior of the New Testament.⁴³ It’s also clear that in the quote above, Paul contends that Christ accompanied the Israelites in the desert and was the source of the supernatural water that sprang from the rock, as we’ll explore more fully later.⁴⁴ Paul, you will note, doesn’t say, “and the Rock was like Christ,” but “the Rock was Christ.” Also consider that in the Old Testament “rock” is often used to mean God, such as the “the Rock of Israel” referenced in Genesis 49:24; Moses’ depiction of God as a rock (Deut. 32:4, 14, 18, 30, 31); and the psalmist’s depiction of the same (Psalms 18:31, 62:2, 78:35, 89:26, 95:1). More significant, the term “rock” is sometimes associated in the Old Testament with Christ’s redemptive work, such as the rock of salvation (Deut. 32:15; Psalms 62:2, 95:1, 89:26), the rock as Redeemer (Psalms 78:35); and the rock who gave you birth (Deut. 32:18).⁴⁵ As we can see, Christ’s role in man’s salvation in Old Testament times was not limited to His work in redeeming man from sin, but also involved delivering God’s people from Egypt and from other dangers of all sorts.