Well, welcome. Tonight I want to start a new study. I hope you have the handout. If you don't have a handout, I'm sure we can, if we ran out of copies, we can make some more copies. But I want to start a new study this evening, maybe in a dozen or more lessons on biblical theology, what I want to call the big picture of scripture. We've all heard various types of theology and systematic theology, dogmatic theology, exegetical theology, maybe New Testament theology, Old Testament theology. Each of these has a particular focus that's taken up pretty clearly in its title. Well, so does the title of biblical theology. Biblical theology is a very important discipline and it's one that I think is really the basis for studying all of scripture in any fashion because it takes scripture as a whole book. The struggle with the Bible is a struggle so often found in the Old Testament. I got a quote from Graham Goldsworthy at the top of your page. He says, one could easily feel that reading the Old Testament is rather like hitting your head against a brick wall. It feels good only when you stop. Bearing in mind that it takes up about the first three quarters of our Bible, dismissing the Old Testament as irrelevant would save us a lot of time and effort. We find great struggle in reading through the Old Testament because we don't always understand how it relates to us. We don't always understand what God was doing and even as I mentioned this morning why the entire Old Testament is even there. I had a recent conversation with somebody and they were reflecting on some differences in the Old Testament. The fact that David had these various concubines and the fact that the Old Testament treated things in this way and the relationships were in that way. And they were reflecting on things that they did not understand. And the conclusion they came to was, it was a really different time back then. Which is true. Things were very different back then. That was really the conclusion. That was the summary. Basically, whatever that was, it was different. So glad we're not living in the Old Testament anymore. Glad we don't have to hang tassels from our garments. We don't have to grow our hair a certain way. We don't have to sew our fields. a certain way. We don't have to sew garments together in a certain fashion. How wonderful it is that we don't live in the Old Testament. And it's often the way that we look at the Old Testament. We're just glad we're not there. We're glad we're here. But why is it then, even as I reflected in the emails I sent out, why is it that God has given us so much of the Bible as an Old Testament? For New Testament Christians, it would make it a lot easier, as Goldsworthy says, if we could just skip past the Old Testament, ignore the Old Testament. And in fact, a lot of the church does ignore the Old Testament. A lot of the church considers it the Old Testament. And since we are in the New Testament, greater consideration is given for the New Testament text. And even if we have, as I mentioned, the discipline of reading through the Bible, do we even understand all that we're reading? Are we just reading the Bible? Are we just reading the text and making our way through various books and moving on and getting to the New Testament? There are, of course, lots of places in the Old Testament that we really enjoy. I trust we probably really enjoy the Psalms, I certainly do. We enjoy portions of the Old Testament. But the key is, do we really ever stop and think and do we understand what is going on and why God has revealed himself in a Bible that is largely in Old Testament? Why is the history always there? I'm always referencing Israel's history and pointing out that it's biblical history, it's redemptive history, it's God's history. But do we trace that well in our reading? Do we trace that well in our understanding of the whole Bible? Let's take up a few texts that are possibly very difficult to wrestle with. Let's look at the ones I've listed in your notes there. Let's begin with Exodus 23. There are a lot of problematic passages in the Old Testament. We have Exodus 23, verse 19. What's interesting, of course, is we come out of Exodus 20 with the giving of the law. That makes a lot of sense. We have laws about altars, laws about slaves in chapter 21, laws about restitution in chapter 22. All of these things make a lot of sense in the context of Israel. We're tracking with this and then we get laws about social justice in chapter 22. into chapter 23. Laws further in chapter 23 about the Sabbath and festivals, these all track well with us and make sense and all of a sudden we get at the end of verse 19, you shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk. What does that mean? Why is it there? It seems so out of place even in that section. And then the next verse, behold I send an angel before you, which is a wonderful passage, right? These kind of Our eyes pop at passages like this. I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place I prepared. Pay careful attention to him and to his voice. I'm gonna bring you into the land. Oh, that makes sense, right? Now we're back on track. Whatever that just was, we just kind of move on by and take up another passage. Turn to Leviticus 26. I almost read Leviticus 26 for this morning's scripture reading. I chose instead Deuteronomy 31, verses 16 to 22. But it was my first thought in putting together the liturgy for this morning's service. My first intention was to read the entire chapter of Leviticus 26. It's quite long. Not that long, but still. At the same time, what a great passage it would have been to read. But you can look at Leviticus 26 in your Bibles. Blessings for obedience, which take up 13 verses. But look at the punishment for disobedience begins in verse 14. and runs all the way through verse 39. And this, of course, if you recognize Leviticus 26, the Lord speaks again and again, if you walk contrary to me, I will walk contrary to you. And walking contrary to you, says the Lord, I will strike you sevenfold for your sins. He says several times. I will bring a sword upon you. I'll execute vengeance for the covenant. Think of this morning's sermon, Hosea. This would have been a great passage, as I said, for that. I will, contrary to you, in fury, I will discipline you sevenfold for your sins. I will scatter you, verse 33, there's Jezreel. I will scatter you among the nations. I will unsheathe the sword after you and your land shall be a desolation. There's the exile. And your city shall be a laid waste. Then, Lord says, in verse 34, then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate while you are in your enemy's land. Then the land shall rest. enjoy its Sabbaths. Why is God concerned about the land having a Sabbath? Why is God concerned that the land enjoy 70 years of Sabbaths while Israel, Judah particularly, is in exile? There's a reason for that. God's not concerned about land. There's something going on here, but what is it? Plus, we know that Leviticus, as we get to Leviticus in the context, we're at Mount Sinai here. Right? God has redeemed his people. He's brought them out of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. I've redeemed you. He gives them the law to govern the way by which they're to live in the land. But then he says, if you don't obey in the land and you break my covenant, I'm going to persecute you. I'm going to punish you. I'm going to slay you. I'm going to exile you. We ask ourselves when we read a passage like Leviticus 26, which is repeated for the second generation at the end of Deuteronomy, they get the same thing. Remember, the second, the children. Is this a covenant of grace or is it a covenant of works? Actually, I'll be having to wrestle with this in next week's sermon when we come to Hosea 2. Very important point that I need to make in that message is we need to understand that in the covenant of grace there is an unconditional element, God's part, but there's also a conditional element, your part. We know this very well. Think of even the fifth membership vow. Think of the element of discipline in a church. Every covenant, there's a conditional element, and it's that conditional element that comes to the forefront here in a passage like Leviticus 26. But what does that do for me? What does that do for us? How do I apply that to myself? It's a difficult passage. Turn to Deuteronomy 33, verse 22. Sorry, I don't want to take a whole lot of time here. I do want to move on, but I want to help us to see A lot of passages, we just don't know what's going on. Verse 22 is the blessings that Moses mentions, his blessings on Israel, verse 22. And of Dan, he said, Dan is a lion's cub that leaps from Bashan. What are we supposed to take away from that? Why does that matter? Why does the Lord include that? How do we understand that? Go to 2 Kings, and we could pick any number of passages, of course, as we walk through the Old Testament, but 2 Kings, I've just got a selection here, chapter two. 23 and 24. The Count of Elisha. Elisha went up there from there to Bethel and while he was going up on the way some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him saying, go up you bald head, go up you bald head. And he turned around and when he saw them he cursed them in the name of the Lord. Notice the covenant name of God. And two she bears came out of the woods and tore 42 of the boys. And there he went on to Mount Carmel and from there he returned to Samaria. I'm sure you heard lots of criticism against God about this verse. This is a favorite of unbelievers. What kind of a God is this? Who is this guy? He's a prophet of God and they call him bald and the Lord sends two she bears out of the woods on these boys? What kind of a God? What is God doing here? Go to Psalm 137. We could get a little more close to the issue here. Psalm 137 verses eight and nine. O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us. Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock. That's certainly a favorite of the critics of scripture, the critics of Christianity. Turn to Proverbs 30 verse 15. The leech has two daughters, give and give three things that are never satisfied, four never say enough. What are we supposed to take away from that? What application do we take away from the leech having two daughters? Give and give. Song of Solomon, Isaiah 65. Let's go to Isaiah 65, verse 20. This wonderful vision. This vision Isaiah has of the new heaven and new earth. Remember I talked about the writing prophets this morning, right? All the prophets are Their prophecies are made up of three things, right? Accusation of sin, threat of judgment, and an eschatological hope. And Isaiah has a lot of eschatology, a lot of future hope, but you know the passage in verse 25. He says, the wolf and the lamb shall graze together, the lion shall eat straw like an ox, and dust shall be the serpent's food, they shall not hurt or destroy, and all my holy mountains says the Lord. Now what do we do with that text? The wolf and the lamb shall graze together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The first question is, is that literal? Are we looking for that? Are we looking for a literal fulfillment of that? Or is there some symbolic fulfillment of that? Is there some spiritual fulfillment of that? What is the Lord saying there? What does that mean for us? If that's the hope of a new heavens and a new earth, what are we really looking for? And what is that going to look like? Is Isaiah getting a crystal clear picture of that which is thousands of years away? Or is he getting a different kind of picture? Maybe something that's symbolic. Maybe something that's spiritual. Maybe the clearest he can see from his vantage point. True, but yet also still symbolical. Great questions. So you see as we go through the Old Testament, particularly the Old Testament of course, sometimes the problem is what does the text mean in and of itself? Sometimes we think we understand the text well enough, but it's understanding and discerning how that meaning applies to us. Why am I supposed to read this? Why did God commit this to writing for all ages? Why is this handed down to the church? Why is this inspired scripture that Paul says is profitable in every way for the church today? What I want to argue is that the nature of the Bible is such that the way through these problems is to look at how the Bible holds together as one book with one message. You see in our reading of the Bible we tend to treat the books separately. That's Genesis, that's Isaiah, that's Hosea, that's Revelation. We tend to treat the books separately. We tend to treat the Testaments separately. Even as that conversation I had, well that was the Old Testament, this is the New Testament, that was then, this is now. As if there's all this demarcation and separation and disunity, and of course there's disunity. But there's unity, an underlying unity that explains the disunity, that even requires a certain element of disunity. But the unity is the key. It's the unity that holds everything together, one book with one message that helps us understand any one part of it. And this is the work of biblical theology, looking at the theology of the Bible as a whole. Biblical theology, Coming to your notes, I just want to give you this as an introduction, help you orient us. Biblical theology is in effect, it's the study of the unity of the Bible's message. It's the study, as I've titled this lesson, this series, it's the study of the big picture of scripture. That's what biblical theology is. It's looking at the whole. It's never forgetting that wherever you are in any one point in the Bible, you're at a point that is surrounded by all the rest. You're at a point that can only be understood by understanding where you are in the whole thing, right? Where you are in the whole message. The Bible is a verbal map, or biblical theology rather, is a verbal map of the overall message of the Bible. We all know how helpful maps are, right? Thinking being in a city, in a foreign city and thinking, trying to navigate, here's where I am, this is where I got off the bus, now how do I get from here to there? having a place of orientation, right? We can go anywhere in the city, in a foreign city. We can go anywhere as long as we know where we are and we have a map that shows us how to get from where we are to where we want to go. We can go there by any means of transportation, by any means of lefts and rights. Turn here, turn there, we can make our way through. Well, biblical theology is this kind of verbal map of the one message of the Bible. And it gives us a bird's eye view. And that's what a map does, right? It gives us a bird's eye view of the whole landscape. And I want us to understand, and don't forget, that the Bible covers a landscape. The message of scripture covers a landscape that begins with creation in the beginning when no man was, right? That covers a landscape that reaches from creation to new creation, only God knows when, right? But that's the landscape that the Bible covers. You need to remember that. It goes from beginning to end, which of course is no end at all, end of history, beginning of eternity, but that's where it goes. It goes from creation to new creation. The Bible takes in that whole landscape. That's the one message. We can find parts within the whole, but we need to understand the whole. Otherwise we're gonna misinterpret and misunderstand where we are in any one place. So as a map of the whole landscape then, Biblical theology gives us the tools to understand problematic passages. Something like the passages that we looked at. It gives us the tools to understand those problematic passages by showing us where they fit in the Bible and what part they play in the whole message. We might ask ourselves, where are we in the history of redemption? When God says, right, when God says don't boil a young goat in its mother's milk. Where are we in redemptive history? What's going on in the life of Israel? What's going on in the life of the people of God? What's going on in the church of God? What is God revealing at this point? What is God communicating? There's a lot of questions that we can ask to orient ourselves where we are to help us consider what's going on and then be able to place that in the right connection and understand how then we can find meaning. And since the whole picture Since the big picture of biblical theology includes us, right? We're part of that picture. We're in the New Testament era. We're New Testament Christians. We are even closer to that new creation than those before us were. But the whole picture includes us and where we are now between the ascension of Jesus and his return at the end of the age. Biblical theology enables us to see ourselves in relation to the far off events in the biblical narrative so that we can uncover its significance to us. You see, understanding, right, it's required as we come to the Old Testament text and we consider how to apply it to ourselves, we need to understand where we are. We're in the New Testament era, right? We're after the cross. We're after the ascension. We're between the ascension and the return, between the first and the second coming. That's where we are. And so understanding the Old Testament and its relationship to us requires that we know where we are in the story. And that's gonna tell us a lot about what the Old Testament means for us. So secondly then, another question that we can begin with is what can we make of the Old Testament? Well, the Old Testament has a lot of stories. In fact, the Old Testament is great for Sunday school, isn't it? It's great for Sunday school classes. Who doesn't know, who didn't learn the Bible stories in Sunday school? It has a lot of stories, great stories, but it's more than just stories. And as I mentioned this morning, in Sunday school, I'm reading this year through the Bible chronologically. I'm not doing the McShane this year, decided I wanted to read through the Bible chronologically. And if you read through the Bible chronologically, what you see is that the Old Testament is a lot more than all of these stories. It's this historical narrative, right? It is a lot of stories, but it's more than that because the historical narrative of the Old Testament is the framework upon which everything else fits. We read a particular psalm and my brother said earlier we're not quite sure who wrote Psalm 121 maybe it was David but let's say it was David. If Psalm 21 was written by David then we know where Psalm 121 fits don't we? In the life of David maybe not exactly right, in his life, maybe not at a particular point, but we know that it fits in the life of David, and therefore we know that it fits in the time of the monarchy, or previous to that, before David was king, possibly. But it fits in his life, and let's say it fit in David's life as a king. Well, then we know now we're in the monarchy, right? And that gives you understanding as to what was going on in the life of the church at that point, what their concerns were, what God was revealing at that point. It helps you, right? And so the Old Testament is more than a lot of, more than a lot of stories, because when you look at it chronologically, you see where the Psalms fit, right? You've got the Book of Psalms and the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Psalms. We get to these books after we finish the... You realize when you hit Ezra and Nehemiah, you're done with the Old Testament history? You're done. You still have a lot of Old Testament left to read, right? You've got all the wisdom literature, and then you've got all the prophets, but you're done. The history has ended. Ezra and Nehemiah, the people have come back, You get to the end of Ezra and Nehemiah, and you're really at the 400 years of silence. But we don't realize that because, well, we move from the history, and then we get, whew, now we're in the Psalms. Okay, easy moving now. You get into the Psalms and get into the wisdom literature, and then the prophets. We struggle a little bit with this, that, and the other. But we don't realize, or maybe we don't stop to think as much, wait a minute. As we saw from verse one this morning in Hosea's opening, where are we? Hosea prophesied in the days of Jeroboam II, and Uzziah, and Hezekiah, and Jotham, and Ahaz. We're at a particular point in history, so we need to place Hosea, mentally put Hosea there, and say, that's what was going on. So that's my excitement about reading the Bible chronologically, because I'll be able to see for the first time, as I read, how these prophecies, and Psalms, and Proverbs, and wisdom literature fit in the context of a particular king, maybe a particular instance of apostasy or rebellion or backsliding. It'd be a great help, I think. But what the chronological approach shows is that the historical narrative of Israel is the framework into which and upon which all the wisdom literature fits, all the prophetic literature fits. But this also presents us with numerous problems. When Christians read the Old Testament, just take some Candid facts, first of all, the Old Testament is pre-Christian. It never mentions the distinctives of the Christian faith. There's nothing in the Old Testament about justification by faith alone. Martin Luther got that from Romans, so did Augustine. There's nothing about sanctification. A lot of the distinctives of the Christian faith, the life, death, the resurrection of Jesus Christ isn't particularly mentioned there, is it? The people of the Old Testament aren't technically Christians, Christ followers, disciples of Jesus Christ. They can't be said to be living Christian lives. They're living pre-Christian lives. They're living the lives of Old Testament saints because they're simply not New Testament saints. They're pre-cross, they're pre-incarnation. It is different then. The Old Testament contains a lot of ceremonial judicial laws that we as Christians don't observe. We considered some of that as we went through the catechism as well as the marrow. There's a lot of laws that we don't observe, but yet they're there. The Lord has recorded them. The Lord wants us to read them, right? Coming through Leviticus and Numbers and Exodus, and you look at those books and all the laws laid out for Israel, for life in the land, right? The Lord has left those on record for us to read. Why are they there? It would seem that God could have just left those out. They don't seem to pertain to us in any real way. The prophetic view, take this honestly, right? Number three, the prophetic view of the final saving work of God, when you look at the Old Testament prophets, right, even as we'll see working through some of Hosea, makes no specific mention of Jesus Christ. Now we know where Christ is, we found him this morning, right? Gathering the people together under one head, we know where Christ is, but there's a reason for that. But take Hosea on its own, take Isaiah, take Jeremiah, take Isaiah 65 on its own, as I just read from verse 20. There's no specific mention of Jesus Christ and instead there's mention of this national destiny. There's a hope for a national destiny. That's what's being set before Israel. They're looking for their eschatological hope is a national destiny. The nation has a destiny and it's painted in temporal terms, right? The prophets anticipate a return from exile. They talk a lot about exile, but they anticipate a return. There's going to be a new exodus, they say. They use that very language. God says, I will bring you out of Egypt again. There's a new exodus coming. They also anticipate a restored temple, right? The glory of the temple. Think of the last eight chapters of Ezekiel, right? They anticipate a rebuilt Jerusalem. God says there, I'll put my name forever. Jerusalem, Zion. They anticipate David. David's coming back. And there's really nothing in the text necessarily that says whether David's gonna be resurrected and brought back or someone else. It just says David, my servant. Even in Ezekiel 34, the Lord says when he talks about the evil shepherds, I'm gonna raise up a new shepherd, David. Psalm 89, David. Furthermore, it doesn't offer any hope, the Old Testament, for those Old Testament saints who have already died by the time the kingdom of God arrives. In other words, those who have already died, the destiny is yet ahead, but there's no guaranteed or indicated way by which anybody who's left behind can actually share in that. It's just something for a future generation. This is how the Old Testament is written. This is how the Old Testament is laid out. The old people are told to look for these things. And if the Old Testament somehow prepares for the New Testament, as we know it does, then why is the religion of the one so very different from the other? Should we just ignore the Old Testament altogether? Because things have obviously changed radically. Biblical theology has the advantage for us of examining the development and the progression of the biblical story from the Old Testament to the New and it seeks to uncover the interrelationship between these two parts. Biblical theology examines the history and the progression of redemptive revelation. It considers where we are and where we're going. In fact, it considers where we are from the vantage point of where we're going. I'll talk about that more next time. Biblical theology studies the progressive nature of God's revelation to see what God's saving, what God's saying in each part. Biblical theology understands that God unfolds bit by bit. God has a big story to tell, and that story goes from creation to new creation. And the Lord tells that story little by little, like a parent reading a book to the child, one chapter each night. You have to stop on cliffhangers continually, but it's just one chapter at a time. Little by little, piece by piece, there's a whole story. In the mind of God, it's finished, because God is working from the end, right, as he begins. And so the Lord has already finished everything. What biblical theology does is it understands that God is working progressively. And he's not just working progressively, little by little. He's also working in history. That means God is working in time with a clock and a calendar. He's working with seasons. He's working with generations of people's lives. He's working with families looking forward to someone 10 generations, 20 generations, 50 generations out and making plans for that person. Indeed, what is the Old Testament but a progressive preparation through generation after generation for Christ. And God is preparing the entire time bit by bit by bit by bit for Jesus, right? For the true Israel, the true David. Biblical theology understands that progression and works with that progression and helps us see our place in that. The narratives, the laws, the wisdom sayings, the prophecies, the apocalyptic visions like in Daniel, all found in the Old Testament, they're all related. to the coming of Jesus Christ in some discernible way. We know this because we're on the other side of it, right? We know this very clearly. And it's the work of biblical theology to be a methodical approach to showing the relationship between the two testaments so that we can read the Old Testament as Christian scripture. Biblical theology helps us read the Old Testament as Christian scripture because that's what it is. That's why it's still here, that's why it makes up part of the Bible, which is one message. And in fact, that's why it makes up three quarters of the Bible. Biblical theology shows the relationship of all the parts of the Old Testament to the person and work of Jesus Christ, because it's hard to see that relationship sometimes. But the importance of that is this. By showing us how the Old Testament relates to Christ, it automatically shows us how it relates to us. Because here's what I want you to understand. Biblical theology helps you see that the Bible, the entire Old Testament is pointing to Jesus. He's it. And if it's pointing to Jesus, then we might ask, well, where am I? Right? How does it point to me? How does it help me? What's the point for me? It points to Jesus, but the great thing is Jesus is the head of a new race. He's an Israel of one, right? He's the true David. He's the head of the church. And so by pointing to Jesus and understanding how it points to Jesus, we can understand how it points to us because we're in Jesus, right? We're united to Jesus. We participate in Jesus' work for us. So what does the New Testament say about the Old Testament? The reason I ask this question is because the most compelling reason for Christians to read and study the Old Testament lies in the New Testament. It's easy just to skip the Old Testament. It's easy to fly through it. It's easy to ignore it. It's easy to go back to the New Testament again and again and again and just start reading that over and over, which is great. But the most compelling reason for us to read The Old Testament is in the New Testament, and I'll lay these out for you. First of all, the New Testament witnesses to the fact that Jesus is the one in whom and through whom all the promises of God find their fulfillment, 2 Corinthians 1.20. All the promises of God are yes and amen in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the answer to all of God's promises, the fulfillment of all of God's promises. And these promises are only to be understood in the context of the Old Testament when those promises were given. Even as they said in the sermon this morning, it's Christ who fulfills the Abrahamic covenant. It's Christ who fulfills the Davidic covenant. And particularly for Hosea's time, it's Christ who fulfills the Mosaic covenant, which they broke and could not keep. It's Christ who's faithful before the Father, faithful in the land and not forsaking the Lord. We saw that in Matthew 4 when he refused to bow down to the enemy. You shall worship the Lord God only. The New Testament gospel of Christ, another reason then is the New Testament gospel of Christ presupposes a knowledge of the Old Testament. Even just the gospels, look at the four gospels. Matthew introduces Jesus as descended from David and Abraham. David and Abraham are two of the most important characters in the Old Testament narrative because the Abrahamic covenant and the Davidic covenant. Two of the most important characters, we really go from We go from the Abrahamic covenant to the height of David, and then the exile, which leads to Christ. Those are the two most important figures in the entire Old Testament, right? Moses setting things up, but the Abrahamic covenant before that, and David. And Christ is from both. Look, go to Matthew 121. Wonderful gospel, we love Matthew's gospel. He begins the New Testament as the way it's arranged canonically here. But Matthew presupposes immediately, and you know that Matthew writes as a Jew to Jews. And his point is that Jesus is the king of the Jews. That's his theme. The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham. That's how he begins. Now we might say to ourselves as New Testament Christians, we don't need the Old Testament. We don't want anything to do with that. Matthew presupposes your knowledge of the Old Testament. Because when he says that I'm writing now a genealogy of Jesus Christ, The son of David, son of Abraham, he has just covered the entire, he's gone backwards through the entire Old Testament. The two highest points in the Old Testament. He's like, if you know your Bible, this is absolutely critical and important that I'm introducing Jesus Christ as the fulfillment and in the lineage of these two figures. It's absolutely critical, go to Mark 1. Mark 1, Mark says that the gospel of Jesus Christ Does it begin with him or his writing? He even says the gospel of Jesus Christ doesn't begin in the New Testament. He says the gospel of Jesus Christ begins in the Old Testament, particularly with the book of Isaiah. As you've heard me often call Isaiah the gospel, right? The gospel of Isaiah, the gospel of the Old Testament. He says in verse one, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet. That's where the gospel began, he might say. Behold I send my messenger before your face to prepare a way for you." Taking of course of John. But he says it begins, this gospel began in Isaiah and of course it precedes Isaiah. But he traces it back there. Mark presupposes you know Isaiah and you've been reading Isaiah's message and you've been waiting for this one to come that he speaks about. And Mark says he's here. Go to Luke. Luke does something very unusual, but very important. Luke links Jesus with a key aspect of the history of Israel, the throne of David, and even Adam in the garden. Look at chapter one, verses 32 and 33. He will be great and he will be called son of the most high, speaking of course of Jesus, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David. Now you know this as you read through especially the genealogies in the Old Testament. God has no problem skipping generations right. As I said this morning Judah's kings were rated on how well they compared to David and it's often said when it makes that comparison He walked in the ways, or did not walk in the ways, of David, his father, or his father David. Now, David's not his father, he's his great-great-great-great-grandfather. But it's his father, right? God has no problem in referencing. God skips generations all the time. Well, here's a big skip. The throne of his father, David. In other words, God is saying clearly, this is the son, in 2 Samuel 7, that I told David through Nathan the prophet, who would build my temple, who would build me a house that would be forever. And this is the son that I told David I would put on the throne. That's the one. He skips everybody else. Everybody else was a pointer, but here we've arrived. And of course then, verse 33, he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. The Abrahamic covenant is taken in there as well. But take also in Luke 3, verse 38. Luke gives Christ's genealogy in chapter three, Unlike Matthew beginning with the genealogy, he picks it up later. But he begins and he takes this genealogy from Christ and he backs up from Christ. Matthew started with the forefathers and led to Jesus. Luke starts with Jesus and goes backwards. And he goes through David and he goes through Abraham, but he also goes through Shem and Noah. And guess what? He goes back to Adam. Verse 38. Son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. What an important connection. You see what Luke is doing? Luke is saying that son of God, because Adam was the first son of God, right? That son of God who failed in the garden, this son of God will succeed in the garden. What happens next? The temptation in Luke 4. Jesus goes into the garden as the son of God, which is no longer a garden but a wilderness, faces the same serpent and succeeds, right? A very, very important connection. So Luke is saying, you know that old genealogy, you know that story, that narrative, and the genealogy is important, but with each of these people comes events and particulars and a history, right? Luke is taking in the entire Old Testament and saying it's all landed on Jesus. And John, of course, John 1, John recalls the Genesis account of creation, but asserts that Jesus was the creator of all things and that now, He tabernacles among men in the flesh, right? John 1, 1 to 3, in the beginning was the Word and the Word was God, right? And all things were made by him, the Word. And then he says in verse 14, the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us. John goes all the way back to the Mosaic narrative when the tabernacle was built as a sign of God's presence being with his people, filled with the Shekinah glory and the cloud rested upon the tabernacle as it traveled with the people, right? The tabernacle has come again and it's Christ. Christ is God tabernacling among us not in a tent of goatskin but in flesh. Jesus has satisfied and fulfilled and consummated all of that. John assumes when he uses that word tabernacle that you're mindful of the Mosaic and Israelite history of what that significance means and of course Everything that's a concern to the New Testament writers is part of one redemptive history to which the Old Testament witnesses and which begins with the Old Testament narrative. Jesus himself, go to John 5 and then Luke 24. Why do we read the Old Testament? Why do we need the Old Testament? Why is it important? What is it about? Jesus tells us definitively, it is Christian scripture, we need to be reading it, and by his help we need to understand it and see how it's all fulfilled in him. John 5 verse 39, he says, you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life and it is they that bear witness about me. Verse 45 and 46, do not think, that I will accuse you to the Father, there is one who accuses you, Moses, on whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me." Now that's interesting. Because if you go back to the Torah, it's hard to find Jesus there, isn't it? Think of the law we read about the goat's milk, right? Where is Jesus? And yet Jesus says Moses wrote of me. In fact, if you really knew what Moses was saying, you would see that I'm the one he spoke of. But more clearly, after his resurrection, turn to Luke 24. I want you to mark these scriptures. Mark those in John 5 and mark these in Luke 24. Very, very important scriptures. Luke 24, after his resurrection, you remember the two on the way on the road to Emmaus and they thought, oh, we thought he was the one and yet he's died. This is the third day now since he's dead. Verse 25, of course, Jesus opens our eyes and he said to them, Oh foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken." Okay, so the Old Testament has three parts, right? Prophets being one of them. Oh foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary according to the prophets that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets. Moses would be the first part of the Old Testament. Beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. It was all about him. The whole time, it was all about him. And interestingly, he even says that the prophets prophesied and declared that it was necessary that Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory. That these things were spoken of beforehand. Well, how? Where's the proof text? You see, what Christ is saying, what the New Testament authors show is that we need to read the Old Testament, and we can do this now, this is our privilege, to read the Old Testament from the perspective and the presuppositions of the New Testament. Jesus is giving us a hermeneutic, a way to interpret the Old Testament. Go to verse 44. Then he said to them, these are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me, here's the three parts of the Old Testament, the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms. That's the entire Old Testament, that everything written about me must be fulfilled. And then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures. That's a reference to all of the Old Testament. And he said to them, thus it is written, and again referencing the death of Christ, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all generations, all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. So here Jesus declares that the Old Testament Scriptures, the Law of Moses, the Prophets and Psalms, it was all about Him. Now when we talk about all about Him, we're talking about two aspects. All about His person and His work. His person and His work. Matter of fact, when you look at the Abrahamic Covenant, let me just give you this little tidbit. If you look at the Abrahamic Covenant and the Davidic Covenant, those covenants tell you more about the person of Christ. who he will be. The Mosaic Covenant tells you about the work of Christ, what he will do relative to all the laws, the ceremonies, the priesthood. Very important, very helpful way to understand those three phases, if you will, of the covenant of grace. So it's all about his person and work. So the New Testament bears witness to the fact that the Old Testament is all about Jesus, who he is and what he came to do. Scholar estimates that there are at least 1,600 quotes from the Old Testament in the New Testament, and that doesn't count all the allusions and references. 1,600. The New Testament's pretty short. 1,600 quotes. And you know, just reading through Matthew, this is written, or this happened, that it may be fulfilled, that it may be fulfilled, that it may be fulfilled again and again and again and again. The Old Testament was the only Bible the first Christians had. and it was the word of God to them as it is to us. And when the New Testament was written, it was added to the Old Testament as being part of it and on par with it as the one message of the one God, the one Bible, and recognized by the church to be the canon of scripture. Now, letter H there in your notes, the manner in which the Old Testament testifies to Christ is a question that can only be resolved on the basis of the New Testament, right? So the Old Testament, Jesus says the Old Testament is all about me. How? It's the New Testament's job to tell you how. You don't need to go back and try to find Christ, right? I remember a brother who said one time, wherever I see a piece of wood in the Old Testament, I make a beeline for the cross. It's a little over much maybe. Not every piece of wood is a type of the cross. But there are places, and indeed all the places in the Old Testament in which Jesus is pointed to, the whole Old Testament points to him in some way. But how the Old Testament? We're not left to go back to the Old Testament and try to figure it out. And that's what we tend to do. That's where we get into trouble. We go back to the Old Testament and we try to figure out how it applies to Jesus and we come up with all sort of fanciful interpretations. What we're supposed to do is to let the New Testament teach us how it's fulfilled in him because that's the answer, right? We've been given the answer key. Now we get to go back to the problems and work them out. The New Testament provides the Christian with the only authoritative and inspired interpretation of the Old Testament. Very, very important. God is interpreting himself, right? God is the one doing all of this and the New Testament Post-Cross, the New Testament is God's authoritative, inspired interpretation of everything, an explanation of everything he's been doing up until now. Because as Jesus said when he came, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The time is fulfilled. That's the gospel message. That's how Jesus preaches. That's what Paul said, in the fullness of time. So we need to look at the New Testament in order to look at the Old. To wrap this up, the significant point to take away then is that Jesus Christ is proclaimed in the New Testament as the answer to all the promises, all the divine promises of the Old Testament, all the expectations, all the prophetic predictions. Jesus is declared to be the answer of it all. In Mark 1, 14 and 15, when Jesus began his ministry, he began it with the words, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Everything in the Old Testament is about the kingdom of God, the kingdom coming, God creating a kingdom, God setting up a kingdom, right? And what do we see but the failure of the kingdom? He promises Abraham and the Abrahamic covenant a king and a kingdom in a land. And it looks like that's coming, as I said this morning, that came to its historical reality in David and Solomon. And no sooner did we arrive at the historical reality, we're here. Solomon is an idolater and Rehoboam splits the kingdom. And David's an adulterer. Everything declines. It shows us that we're not there yet. But where we are says something very important about where we're going. And that's how we need to understand that. And so Jesus answers all of that. If this is the case then there's a real sense in which Jesus is present in all those promises and expectations. Graham Goldsworthy says at one point, it's reading the Old Testament, looking for Christ is like looking for where's Waldo, right? Where is he? If you know those storybooks or those picture books, where's Waldo? When we look at the Old Testament, Jesus is there. He's in every promise, in every prophecy, in every type, in every shadow, he's there. The New Testament tells you how and in what way. They all point to him, they all prefigure him, they all prepare for him. Jesus is the fulfiller. Jesus is the fulfiller of the entire Old Testament. And if we know that at the outset, you see, and we do know that, because that's exactly what the New Testament tells us. If we know that at the outset, it'll help us greatly to understand exactly what it is that he fulfills. What is he answering? What expectations? What promises? What prophecies? Even this morning, again, we were able, right there in Hosea 1, gathered under one head. That word head is not being used arbitrarily. It's being used purposefully. by the Spirit of God. It's a pointer to Jesus. We know that because we know who the head is. But even as Hosea wrote that, Hosea knew enough. Again, think of where Hosea is in redemptive history. Hosea had a lot of knowledge about the coming Messiah. He had all that Moses had declared, right? He had all the expectations that had led up to the point where he finds himself, all that Elijah and Elisha declared. But even just look at the Torah and all of the references to the coming one, He had that, he knew a lot about the Messiah. He had the Davidic covenant, he had the Abrahamic covenant, he had the Noahic covenant. Hosea was very clear when he said that they'd be gathered under one head. Turn to Colossians 1.16, we just went through this recently. And I tried to draw this out at least a little bit in my sermon on this passage. I want you to understand how significant what Paul is saying here, how significant this is. Verse 15, of course, Christ is the image of the invisible God. He's the firstborn of all creation. Verse 16, 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. Let's take this text in. and he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Verse 20, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven. Christ gives meaning to the entire universe. Christ gives meaning to the entire universe. It is all for him and by him and through him. He is the creator. He is the one who gives meaning to it. God created all things, Ephesians 110 says, God created all things with a view to their redemption in Jesus Christ. I want you to understand here that the gospel is God's forethought, his blueprint for creation. It is not God's afterthought because of sin. When God created Adam in the garden, when God created Adam in the garden in fellowship with himself, God was declaring the end from the beginning. In the Garden of Eden, you had God in perfect fellowship with his people, Adam and Eve, in a holy place. God in perfect fellowship with his people in a holy place, the Garden Sanctuary. It was a kingdom. It was God's kingdom. God's Edenic kingdom. Sin entered into that realm. and everything was marred and corrupted and chaos ensued. What God is doing is building a kingdom. What this means is that the main character in the Old Testament narrative is not some Israelite hero or even antihero. The main character in the Old Testament narrative is God. God is the principal actor in the Old Testament. What is God doing? At any point with any character, in any event, what is God doing? Remember, this is what helped us approach the book of Job, chapters one and two. Imagine if we didn't have that backdrop. Now, Job didn't have that, which was the test of his faith, but God gives us that backdrop in approaching the story of Job to show us He's doing this. He's the actor here. He's the determiner. This is his plan. That's very important. All scripture is God's self-revelation. God is saying something about himself, and he's doing it through history. He's doing it in the lives and in a particular line of a particular people. All scripture is the outworking of God's purpose in real-time history. That's what God is doing. He's unfolding and working out His purpose, and He's doing it in history, not in a moment, but throughout time. He's creating a kingdom in which He will rule over His people in a paradise. He's creating a kingdom in which God will rule over His people in a paradise. That's what He's doing. That's where He's going. That's what He envisions from the beginning. That's what He envisions. And He will not get there by Adam. He will get there by Christ. Christ is the one who gives meaning to it all. After the fall, what is the rest of the scriptures? What is the rest of the Old Testament leading to Christ? God is restoring. God is recreating and restoring the kingdom in order to bring it to its consummation. This is why it's so important to understand that when Christ comes, he comes as the son of God. He comes as David. He comes as the true Israel. He comes as the second Adam. He comes as the head of a new race. Christ is going to do it right. God is revealing the nature of his kingdom progressively in history and he's using people's lives and people's experiences as redemptive or salvation history. This is why we need to pay attention when we read the stories of the Old Testament. There is far more there than meets the eye. What is going on, right? Who is this person? Take a person like Abraham, right? Who is he? And what does it mean that he's in covenant with God? And what does it mean that God made him promises? And what does it mean? What do those promises mean at this point? And what's being threatened at this point? Where is the covenant being threatened at this point, right? This is what Egypt, what was Egypt? Egypt was 430 years when it looked like the Abrahamic promise was never going to be fulfilled. God had made this grand promise. And even of course, you know, he told Abraham, Your descendants are gonna go into a foreign land for 400 years. It happened just as he said. But to the people themselves who were holding on to this promise, it looked like that promise had failed. That promise wasn't going to be fulfilled. And that's the point of the end of Exodus 2 verses 23 to 25. The Lord saw, the Lord heard, the Lord knew, the Lord remembered his covenant. Now's the time, at just the right time. Why does Israel get delivered from Egypt? God just suddenly decides to deliver them from Egypt? No. He's keeping covenant. There's a purpose. There's a reason. Something's going on. And understanding the narrative helps us keep track of all of that. And this whole redemptive history, the entire Old Testament, it finds its goal, its focus, and its fulfillment in the person and work of Jesus Christ. And it's the work of biblical theology to discern exactly how this is the case. How is Jesus the fulfillment of it all? And if he is the fulfillment of it all, then the crux of the matter is get in Christ, right? Just as we heard from Hosea this morning, right? Hosea's prophecy there in chapter one, as it begins, Hosea is saying to every Israelite, get yourself, if you want any hope, get yourself back to Judah. You were wrong to leave Judah. And nothing good will come to you for leaving Judah. Because like it or not, that's where the covenant is going to be fulfilled. That's where the line of David is. That's where God's at work. That's where the temple is. That's where God is manifesting and working out His will. Get back into Judah. And the Old Testament declares to us, as it finds fulfillment in Christ, its message is, get in Christ. Christ is the ark of refuge. in which alone there is real safety. Outside of Christ there's no salvation. We know that's the case theologically, but we could say it this way very quickly. Outside of Jesus Christ there's no salvation, because Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the entire Old Testament. He's the fulfillment of all the covenants. That's why there's no grace and no mercy and no salvation outside of Jesus Christ, because it's all come down to him. You have to be somehow related and connected to him to get any benefit, because it doesn't land on anyone else. And the Old Testament doesn't come into the New Testament, or the covenants don't come into the New Testament in a sort of broad way, just find your seat. It lands on Christ. You're either in Christ or out of Christ. You either belong to Christ or you don't. That's what it says, right? And that just, so you can see how biblical theology helps you understand why the gospel is the way it is and why the message of God is the way it is with regard to Jesus Christ. And so the key to understanding the Old Testament then, and we'll see this next time in more detail, the key to understanding the Old Testament and its relation to us is to be clear of its relation to Christ, right? So we apply to the, when we skip Christ, right, when we go to the Old Testament and we skip Christ and we apply to us We become moralists, right? We moralize, right? The Old Testament heroes are just moral examples for us. That's all they are, right? We pass by the gospel. They're not moral examples, right? They're not merely that. Of course, we find moral examples in them, but they're more than that. They're key figures leading to Jesus, especially all the key figures, all the judges, the priests, the prophets, the kings, they're all saying something very important about Jesus and what he will do, his person and his work, right? Person and work. Amen.