Christ In The Old Testament 3
There is a rule of thumb I like to use that can help me in making sure I’m not interpreting a scripture, or a story, or parable, or event, or person out of context and making it about "me". None of the Bible is about me and not one event recorded in the Bible has my name on it. At the same time all of the Bible is for me and instructs me and guarantees me I can know the truth and the truth can set me free of sin and death. The same goes for everyone else who has ever lived since the last book was written and for everyone who will live until Christ returns. In recorded human history only a relatively few people had their name written in the Bible. Who can remember the names Euodia and Syntyche? These two names were mentioned by Paul the Apostle in Philippians 4 verses 2 and 3. Apparently they were good help to Paul and in spreading the gospel yet he’s telling them to settle a disagreement and asking others to help them. Their names are in the Bible for having a disagreement with each other and an Apostle is telling them to work it out. This is just an every day life occurrence that has happened to all of us at one time or another yet our names are not in the Bible as an example of life at the time in our local community as these two women from Philippi. We’ve all had disagreements with a brother or sister and we’ve all had to work it out. But not one of us have our names written by an Apostle as part of the Holy Scriptures inspired by God for everyone’s learning and growth as a Christian. Or as examples of two Christians having a disagreement that causes an Apostle to implore us we fix it. That would be worthy of a face palm huh?
I came to realize long ago the Bible is almost entirely about Jesus the Christ, the son of God, and the plan of salvation God had all along for all of us. And after studying passages in the New Testament which reference Old Testament people or events as types I began finding types of Christ in many places in the Old Testament that I hadn’t considered before. For now I’m staying with those which are referenced in the New Testament. I’ve already written about Adam being a type of Christ, the serpent on a pole fashioned by Moses as a type of Christ, and now this one will be about Jonah.
When the Pharisees rejected Jesus remember from scripture how they would try to trick Him, deceive Him, and play word games on Him but He was able to silence them with simple logic and truth. For example in Matthew 22 in verse 41 Jesus asked the Pharisees about the Christ “Who’s son is he?” They told him “The son of David”. Then Jesus asked them “Therefore David calls Him ‘Lord’; how is He then his Son?”
If we didn’t have the answer from the New Testament we too might not know how to answer it. The thing with them is, they were Jews who knew the Torah and all it had to say about the Christ. Yet when the Christ came the vast majority didn’t know Him. Peter tells us all how the question has a logical and prophesied answer in Acts 2. Peter tells us David was writing about a resurrected Christ who would sit at the right hand of God the Father.
In Acts 2 verses 29 through 33 Peter quotes from David and explains clearly the question the Pharisees couldn’t answer when Jesus asked them how is it King David called his son Lord? Peter said;
“Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.
“Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne“he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption.
“This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses.
“Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear.
David called the Christ Lord because he was speaking of the resurrected Christ that Peter and the other Apostles and many more were witnesses to. But the Pharisees could not comprehend it because they had hard hearts and didn’t want to comprehend it when they were talking to Jesus and He asked them the question.