CHAPTER 8CHAPTER 8

ALL ROADS LEAD TO CHRIST TITLES, CHRISTOPHANIES, TYPOLOGY, PROPHECY, AND ANALOGYALL ROADS LEAD TO CHRIST TITLES, CHRISTOPHANIES, TYPOLOGY, PROPHECY, AND ANALOGY

Jesus did not arrive unannounced; his coming was declared in advance in the Old Testament—not just in explicit prophecies of the Messiah, but also by means of the stories of all the events, characters, and circumstances in the Old Testament. God was telling a larger, overarching, unified story. From the account of creation in Genesis to the final stories of the return from exile, God progressively unfolded his plan of salvation. And the Old Testament account of that plan always pointed in some way to Christ.

—IAIN DUGUID¹

TITLES AND REFERENCES TO CHRIST IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

Christ is given many titles throughout the Bible, and here we’ll focus on those given to Him in the Old Testament. Bible scholars have long noted that the names of God both identify and describe—that is, they are more than arbitrary labels used to designate God. They also reveal something about God’s character and His work. This holds true for the biblical titles of Jesus Christ.

Titles applied to Christ in the Old Testament include Jehovah, Elohim, Adonai, Son of God, the First Begotten, and the Angel of Jehovah.² Let’s briefly consider some of these names. The word “Jehovah” is based on the Hebrew term for the God of the Hebrews, “Yahweh.” It is usually rendered in English Bibles as LORD in small caps. Many conservative theologians recognize that the term Jehovah typically applies to the Triune God collectively. But it also sometimes refers to the individual Persons of the Trinity, including Christ.

In a well-known messianic prophecy in Zechariah, Jehovah (rendered in our translations as “LORD”) is speaking and says, “when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him as one weeps over a firstborn” (Zech. 12:10). In essence, this is Jehovah calling Himself “Christ,” as it is Christ Who is pierced. Revelation 1:7 makes this clear: “Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him.” Jeremiah, just as directly, identifies Christ as Jehovah, for after declaring that God will raise up for David a righteous Branch—a clear reference to Christ—He says, “And this is the name by which he will be called: The Lord (Jehovah) is our righteousness” (Jer. 23:5–6). Paul echoes this language to the Corinthians: “And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30).

Christ, notes Walvoord, is also designated in the Old Testament as the Jehovah of the Temple: “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the LORD whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple” (Mal. 3:1). In his gospel, Matthew removes any doubt this is a reference to Christ: “And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, ‘It is written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer,” but you make it a den of robbers’” (21:12–13).

We cannot overstate the significance of the term Jehovah being applied to Christ, because Jehovah is the holiest of names applied to God in the Old Testament. Jews would not even say the name (originally YHWH, or Yahweh) aloud when reading the Scriptures, but would substitute another name for God in its place. That the term Jehovah was used of Jesus Christ “affirms beyond any question the deity of Jesus Christ and with this all the attributes of God.”³

Christ is also identified as Elohim, another name for God, in the Old Testament. In fact Isaiah 40:3 uses both “Jehovah” and “Elohim” to describe the same Person: “A voice cries: In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD (Jehovah); make straight in the desert a highway for our God (Elohim).” Mark cites this passage as explicitly referring to Christ (Mark 1:2–3). Isaiah refers to Elohim again in 9:6: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God (Elohim), Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” It’s hard to deny this signifies Christ and that, in addition to the other descriptions and titles given to Him in this passage, He is called “Elohim”—Mighty God. If Christ is indeed Elohim of the Old Testament, notes Walvoord, then He is the One introduced in Genesis 1:1 as the God of creation, which is consistent with our previous discussion of Christ’s involvement in the creation.⁴

The Old Testament features many other names and titles for Christ beyond those designated above, such as “Messiah” or “Anointed One” (Daniel 9:24); Branch (Jer. 23:5; 33:15; Isaiah 4:2, 11:1); “Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14); and “Holy One” (Psalms 16:10, 22:3, 89:18). In his first sermon in Acts, Peter quotes Psalms 16:10, clearly indicating it points to the resurrected Christ, about Whom Peter is preaching. Other Old Testament titles for Christ include “King of Glory” (Psalm 24); “Man of Sorrows” (Isaiah 53:3); “Precious Cornerstone” and “Sure Foundation” (Isaiah 28:16); “The Stone the Builders Rejected” (Psalms 118:22); “Prince of Princes” (Daniel 8:25); “Root of Jesse” (Isaiah 11:10); “Ruler” (Micah 5:2); “Seed” (Gen. 3:15, discussed above in the Covenants section); and “Star Out of Jacob” (Num. 24:17, also referred to earlier).

New Testament writers often identify Jesus as the God of the Old Testament by applying Old Testament texts to Christ that were originally written as applying to the God of the Old Testament. In the Old Testament Joel writes, “And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Joel 2:32). While teaching that salvation comes by faith in Jesus Christ, Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, “For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (10:13). In the Old Testament Isaiah writes, “To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance” (45:23). Addressing the same subject, Paul writes to the Philippians, “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” (Philip. 2:10).

Similarly, in the Old Testament Jeremiah writes, “Let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord” (Jer. 9:24). Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, applies this passage to Christ, writing, “So that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord’” (1 Cor. 1:31). In the Old Testament the psalmist declares, “You ascended on high, leading a host of captives in your train and receiving gifts among men, even among the rebellious, that the Lord God may dwell there” (Psalms 68:18). Paul tells the Ephesians, “Therefore it says, ‘When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men” (Eph. 4:8). In 2 Samuel it is written, “The Lord repay the evildoer according to his wickedness!” (3:39), and Paul writes of Alexander the coppersmith who did Paul “great harm,” “The Lord will repay him according to his deeds” (2 Tim. 4:14).⁵ There are many other examples as well.

CHRISTOPHANIES

A theophany is a visual manifestation of God to human beings.⁶ Old Testament theophanies involving Christ are called “Christophanies.” So a Christophany is a particular kind of theophany that involves a preincarnate appearance of Christ in human form. It does not include visions of God or metaphors involving God, but actual, temporary appearances of God in the form of a human being.⁷ In the Old Testament Christ appeared in His preincarnate state. But in the New Testament, God appears not as a temporary human being but as one Who is entirely permanent in the God-man, Jesus Christ.⁸

As Old Testament scholar G. Henton Davies notes, “In reality there are no true [Christophanies] in the New Testament, for their place is taken by the manifestation of God in Christ (John 1:14; Col. 1:15: Heb. 1:1–3).”⁹ The incarnation of Christ, explains Dr. J. Oliver Buswell, differs from the Christophanies because when Jesus is born in Bethlehem, He takes to Himself a permanent and genuinely human nature. In the Old Testament Christophanies He appears as a man at certain times and places but is not actually a member of the human race.¹⁰

There is another distinction, however, which is that the incarnation involves “a permanent union between God and complete manhood.”¹¹ Jesus, as we know, is fully God and fully man. Therefore, the incarnation is completely distinct from the Christophanies. So think of these Christophanies as occasions when the Second Person of the Holy Trinity appears as a man but is not actually a man—that is, He takes the form of a man, but is not in the nature of a man. In His incarnation, however, Christ becomes a man while retaining His full deity.¹²

Christophanies are a valuable component of God’s progressive revelation because they are a clear method for God to make Himself known while introducing the only Person of the Triune Godhead in Whom the invisible God would be visible. Not only do the Christophanies reveal information to man about God, His nature, His works (as a prophet, priest, and king), and His dealings with man, but they also set the stage for the actual bodily appearance of Christ as a human being (and as a God) in His incarnation.¹³

The most prominent Christophanies in the Old Testament involve the Angel of Jehovah (Angel of the Lord)—sometimes called “Messenger of the Lord”—which is the Son of God appearing as an angel.¹⁴ Not every Christophany invokes the Angel of the Lord, but every time the Angel of the Lord is mentioned, it refers to Christ.¹⁵ The Old Testament repeatedly records such appearances—a quick electronic search for “Angel of the Lord” in the Old Testament yields fifty-six examples from Genesis 16:7 to Zechariah 12:8. The Angel is especially prominent during the wilderness wanderings, during which God accompanies Israel as a cloud (Exodus 40:38) and a pillar (Exodus 33:9–23).¹⁶ Most Christophanies, however, involve short-term appearances.¹⁷

Let’s look at a few familiar examples. The Angel of the Lord appears to Abraham and tells him not to sacrifice his son Isaac (Gen. 22:11); the Angel appears to Moses from the burning bush (Exodus 3:2); and the Angel strikes down 185,000 Assyrians to protect Jerusalem and Judah (2 Kings 19:35). Additionally, there are other Christophanies in which the manifested God seems to be the Angel of the Lord, though He’s not expressly identified as such. Many scholars, for example, believe the “man” who wrestles Jacob is the Angel; after the struggle, the man blesses Jacob, and Jacob names the place Peniel, or “Face of God,” saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered” (Gen. 32:30). Though in the Genesis account Jacob doesn’t specifically refer to God as the Angel of the Lord, the prophet Hosea does identify Jacob’s opponent as the Angel (Hosea 12:4).

We should note that most conservative scholars, who are in accord with the most ancient view of the Church fathers, believe that all the Old Testament theophanies involve the appearance of the Son of God exclusively, not the Father or the Holy Spirit—thus under this view they are all accurately described as Christophanies. Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Theophilus, Tertullian, Cyprian, Cyril, Hilary, and Chrysostom all believed the preincarnate Christ was the one Who appeared.¹⁸

Some critics dismiss the idea that these appearances were by the Second Person, the Son of God, as “mere conjecture,” maintaining there is no conclusive evidence for the Trinity in the Old Testament.¹⁹ But if we can show that the Old Testament strongly suggests the plurality of the Godhead—that it is not reckless conjecture—then it is much easier to see how these appearances were actually Christ, in His preincarnate state.

Although the doctrine of the Trinity is not explicitly expressed in the Old Testament, James Borland convincingly argues it is strongly suggested by various references to multiple Persons of the Godhead, such as in Psalms 2:7 (“You are my Son; today I have begotten you”) and in Psalms 45:6–7 (“Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness; you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore, God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.”) The writer of Hebrews points to the second example as a clear reference to the Father and Son (1:8).

There are many other examples as well, such as Psalms 110:1 (“The Lord says to my Lord”); after speaking of God’s various activities in creation, the psalmist Agur asks, “What is his name, and what is his son’s name?” (Proverbs 30:4); the prophet Jeremiah says the Lord will raise up for David a righteous Branch who will be called, “The Lord is our righteousness” (Jer. 23:5–6); Isaiah 48:16 states, “The Lord God has sent me, and his Spirit”; and Isaiah 61:1 says, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,” which Jesus quotes and identifies Himself as “me” (Luke 4:18–21). Additionally, it is hard to deny that Isaiah 63:9–10 refers to all three Persons of the Godhead: “The angel of his presence saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them . . . but they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit.” According to Borland, “his presence” refers to the Father, “the angel” is the Son, and the “Holy Spirit” completes the Godhead.²⁰

Borland also provides several examples of New Testament writers referring to the Jehovah or “Messenger of Jehovah” of the Old Testament as Christ. These instances are not only Christophanies, but are further examples of the Old Testament pointing to the Trinity. These involve the activities of the Messenger of Jehovah, who is sent by Jehovah—a distinct Person. One example is Hebrews 12:18–26, read in tandem with Haggai 2:6, in that the former shows Jesus shaking Mount Sinai and the latter attributes it to Jehovah. Borland provides numerous other examples (compare 1 Cor. 10:4 with Heb. 11:26; and John 12:38–41 with Isaiah 6; and lastly, see Luke 1:15–17).²¹

Professor Michael Barrett agrees that the Old Testament suggests the Trinity, specifically in relation to some of the Christophanies. He notes that “the person of the Christophany is God, and yet He is distinct from God.” As proof, he says the Angel sometimes speaks as Jehovah in the first person, but also speaks of Jehovah in the third person—such is the wondrous mystery of the Trinity. Barrett cites Genesis 16:11 as an example: “And the angel of the LORD said to her, ‘Behold, you are pregnant and shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, because the LORD has listened to your affliction.’” Here, the Angel is telling Hagar what He, as God, will do. But He also says that “the Lord has listened to your affliction,” referring to God in the third person. A similar occurrence can be found in Genesis 21:17: “And God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, ‘What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is.’” Further, in Genesis 22:12 the Angel tells Abraham, “For now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me”—we see the suggestion of both first and third person here.²² These allusions to the Trinity are powerful evidence of Christ radiating forth from the pages of the Old Testament.

Borland advances five other lines of evidence to demonstrate Christ is the sole agent involved in the Christophanies:

          1.   The Second Person of the Triune Godhead is the manifestation of God in the New Testament via the Incarnation. Thus, it stands to reason that the same Person would be involved in God’s manifestations in the Old Testament.

          2.   The Messenger [or Angel] of the Lord from the Old Testament never appears again, as such, after the Incarnation, which warrants the inference that He is the same Person.

          3.   It is the Father who sends both the Angel of the Lord and Christ, which indicates it is either Christ or the Holy Spirit Who is sent, because the existence of a Sender implies there is another distinct Person in the Godhead Whom He sent.

          4.   John 1:18 reads, “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” When John asserts that no one has ever seen God, he is referring to God the Father, says Borland, which is clear from the second part of the verse. As God appears in the Old Testament Christophanies and was seen by people, it is obvious that God, in these cases, is not the Father but the Son, Who is seen during the Incarnation. The Holy Spirit, being Spirit, has not been seen as a person, but only in the form of a dove. (See also John 6:46 and 16:27–28).

          5.   There are parallels between the types of functions and loving services performed by the Old Testament “Messenger of the Lord” and by Christ in His incarnation.²³

Finally, we should note that the Christophanies impart a vital lesson about God: He is a personal Being, not some abstract force of energy. God’s appearances to man in the Old Testament demonstrate His personal and relational nature and His loving-kindness toward man. “These Christophanies introduce to man extremely profound theology concerning Christ and His place in the Trinity,” Professor Barrett writes. Then he reminds us, “And this is the Old Testament.”²⁴

OLD TESTAMENT TYPOLOGY POINTING TO CHRIST

Typology has been defined as “a method of biblical interpretation by which a person, event, or institution (‘type’) in the Old Testament corresponds to another one (‘antitype’) in the New Testament within the framework of salvation history.”²⁵ This means that God uses the Old Testament type in some redemptive activity for His people, and it foreshadows or prefigures what He would perfectly fulfill in Christ. What God partially accomplishes through the type corresponds to what He will fully accomplish through Christ, so that the fulfillment is superior to the type.²⁶ In short, the type is the shadow of Christ and the antitype is the substance of Christ in the fulfillment.²⁷ The Old Testament sacrifices, for example, are a type of Christ, but were vastly inferior and temporary. So these persons, events, or things in the Old Testament, while possessing true historical validity in themselves, also function as divinely appointed illustrations of what was yet to come.²⁸

Some scholars believe “types” also rightly include situations in which persons, events, or institutions in the Old Testament correspond to those in other parts of the Old Testament—not just in the New Testament.²⁹ Some of the most widely known examples of Old Testament types used by other Old Testament writers are those of the exodus from Egypt (Isaiah 51:9–11, 52:7–12), Sodom and Gomorrah (Jer. 23:14), and Eden as a type of future blessings (Ezek. 36:33–35).³⁰ Many writers insist that types include not just persons, events, and institutions, but also ceremonies, among other things.³¹

In this book we are more interested in situations in which an element found in the Old Testament prefigures Christ and His salvation work in the New Testament. There are many that fit this description.³² Consider Jesus telling Nicodemus, “And 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). Jesus here is referring to the event recorded in Numbers 21:9. Moreover, the Passover lamb in Exodus (12:1–13, 49) is a type of Christ (1 Cor. 5:7), as is the rock that Moses strikes in the wilderness to produce water for the people (Exodus 17:6), which anticipates Christ providing spiritual drink from the Spiritual Rock (1 Cor. 10:3–4). Such types of Christ are scattered throughout the biblical record, especially in Hebrews.

It’s important to distinguish between typology and allegory. Typology, as noted, involves a person, event, institution, or ceremony in the Old Testament as a foreshadowing or prefiguring of something in the New Testament. Both events are historical. Allegory, by contrast, is when a feature of Scripture is used as a symbol of some general spiritual truth.³³ So allegories generally spiritualize Bible history,³⁴ for example, Paul’s discussion of Sarah and Hagar in Galatians 4:21–31, in which he likens the two Old Testament women to “two covenants.”³⁵ Concerning types, scholars generally believe that God superintended the placement of types in history and, correspondingly, in the biblical text as part of His progressive revelation.

Admittedly, some Bible students avoid delving too deeply into types, believing it is too subjective—they say some people, including some of the early Church fathers, see types in everything, warranted or not. This area of study has indeed been tainted a bit, Professor Barrett admits, because some readers of Scripture “take the most obscure or seemingly theologically meaningless texts they can find and then preach or teach from them the most wonderfully profound themes of the gospel, declaring that those obscure statements are types of Christ.” Barrett used to wonder why he hadn’t seen the types in such examples until it dawned on him “that they are not there. Types do not exist just because someone thinks he discerned something in the text that reminds him about Christ when he thinks about it hard enough.” He cautions that typology is not a technique of interpretation that one can arbitrarily impose on an Old Testament text just to rescue it for Christian relevance.³⁶

Due to these concerns, typology has become one of the most neglected areas of theological study.³⁷ It’s unfortunate that some are gun-shy on this subject because it can produce rewarding insights. One technique Barrett suggests using to avoid interpretive errors is to study the use of types by New Testament writers not as an exhaustive list of legitimate types, but for insight into the proper way to identify and interpret them.³⁸ Dr. Norman Geisler points out there are many fitting pictures of Christ in the Old Testament that should not technically be classified as types, but which are appropriately applied to Christ. In succeeding chapters, I will cite more examples of prefigurings of Christ that don’t strictly satisfy the definition of “type.” These are fascinating to consider even if they don’t meet the narrow criteria of some theologians.

MESSIANIC PROPHECIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

Messianic prophecies are passages in the Old Testament that predict a future Messiah.³⁹ In his classic Messiah in Both Testaments, Fred John Meldau relates this wonderful quote by British pastor D. M. Panton:

          The most amazing drama that ever was presented to the mind of man—a drama written in prophecy in the Old Testament and in biography in the four Gospels of the New Testament—is the narrative of Jesus the Christ. One outstanding fact, among many, completely isolates Him. It is this: that one man only in the history of the world has had explicit details given beforehand of His birth, life, death and resurrection; that these details are in documents given to the public centuries before He appeared, and that no one challenges, or can challenge, that these documents were widely circulated long before His birth; and that anyone and everyone can compare for himself/herself the actual records of His life with those ancient documents, and find that they match one another perfectly.⁴⁰

As we go through the books of the Old Testament individually, I will cite both the Old Testament messianic prophecies and the New Testament passages recording their fulfillment. I hope this will convey the sheer enormity and specificity of this amazing phenomenon. For a striking visual side-by-side, see the chart of messianic prophecies and their fulfillment in the appendix on page 337.

Please keep in mind that many of the prophecies are promises made by God. This is only natural, as biblical prophecies are not really predictions like a typical human being would make—they are statements from God’s spokesmen (prophets). They are more than mere predictions because there is no uncertainty about their fulfillment. The prophecies are actually divine guarantees that certain things will take place in the future, both because in His sovereignty God is the Active Agent in fulfilling His promises, and because the mind of God is infinite; He exists outside of time. He sees the future as clearly as if it has already transpired.

CHRIST SEEN THROUGH GOD’S DEALINGS WITH ISRAEL

Another helpful way to see Christ’s footprints in the Old Testament is by observing God’s instructive dealings with Israel and then examining the uncanny parallels between the lessons God imparts to His people and the teachings of Christ to His people, i.e. the Church. Likewise, there are instructive parallels between God’s promises to Israel and Christ’s promises to the Church, and between the Law that God commands Israel to follow and the demands Christ makes on His Church.⁴¹

For example, God vows to give His people the Promised Land of Canaan as an everlasting possession, but this transaction involves more than a promise. As we’ve seen, He also demands that they claim the land for themselves—which they initially resist doing out of fear of the Canaanites—and that they conquer it wholly and completely. To preserve the purity of Hebrew worship, they are to leave no remains of the religious practices or rituals of the conquered peoples and are forbidden to intermarry with them. Just as God commands the Hebrews to wholly possess Canaan, by analogy, Jesus Christ requires His Church to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:18–20).

God’s dealings with His people and Christ’s dealings with His Church are sometimes quite different, which logically follows in the context of God’s progressive revelation. God institutes the requirement of circumcision among His people for every male, but that requirement becomes moot upon Christ’s death and resurrection, after which baptism emerges as the sign of covenant membership for the Church. The contrast between these two practices is wholly a result of the work of Jesus Christ and His once and for all blood sacrifice,⁴² and it is in this contrast that we are better able to see Christ’s perfection and His infinite love for us, and the imperative of our saving faith in Him.

Having examined the various Old Testament threads pointing to Christ, we now turn our attention to the Christ-centeredness of each specific book of the Bible.