On this episode of the Evangelists Podcast, we're continuing in a series looking at difficult questions that crop up when we discuss Jesus. On this episode, we're thinking about what about the Old Testament?
SPEAKER_01The Evangelist Podcast from Revival. Find out what's new in telling people the good news about God, the world, and you with Andy Brinkley and Glenn Striver.
SPEAKER_00Welcome back to the Evangelist Podcast. And this time we're looking at what about the Old Testament, Glenn? Yeah. So what about the Old Testament?
SPEAKER_02What about the Old Testament? Yeah, how how does this question get asked? I think often it gets asked when, quite rightly, in evangelism, you are obsessed about Jesus, everything you're saying is about Jesus. Every question they answer, you give the answer Jesus, and they go, fine, whatever, but didn't he crop up 2,000 years ago in some backwater of a long-dead empire? Um, you know, what about you know, what about everything from the history of the universe up until, you know, 4 BC?
SPEAKER_00Where did Jesus spring from?
SPEAKER_02Where did he spring from? You know, it's i i is it basically that Jesus has been, you know, on the sidelines as a substitute? You know, we talk about Jesus being a substitute. Is he like a football substitute who's kind of been on the bench until the last twenty minutes of the game? And sure, he comes onto the pitch and he scores the winner, but where's he come from? What's he been doing? Has he been twiddling his celestial thumbs all this time? Or you know, has has God just sort of pointed his big finger down at all of humanity and said, Oh, I reckon Jesus, he'll he'll be my son. Um I I think this this question often crops up um for me when I'm doing evangelism. And uh and one of the things I I I do is is first of all, because usually we've been talking about the gospels and that kind of thing, and we just think about some of the things that Jesus says. So um in uh John chapter 17, uh just before Jesus dies, he's praying, and uh and and he talks in John chapter 17, verse five, uh uh about uh the existence he had with his father before the world began. Before the world existed. So this Jesus of Nazareth, he seems to think he's very old. And he goes on in John 17 to talk about how before the world began the Father has been loving me. Okay. So he thinks that the Father has always been loving him from before the world began. You know, when he ever whenever he talks about you know Abraham, like in in John eight, he keeps talking about how great it was when they met two thousand years ago.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And when he talks about um you know Moses, he says all all that Moses ever wrote was about me. John chapter five. Or in John chapter twelve, it's like, you know, Isaiah in the temple in seven hundred BC, he saw the Lord. And it's like, yeah, yeah, he saw Jesus. Um you know, he he can't look at Jerusalem without lamenting the way that they've been treating him for the last thousand years. You know, he's like, I keep sending you these prophets and you keep stoning them. You know, well, who do you think you are, Jesus? Yeah. Well, he's the one who was there in the beginning.
SPEAKER_00So w can you point us to sort of a few scriptures where uh Jesus is shows up in the Old Testament?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely. And I and I think the beginning of John's gospel gospel um actually flags this up for us. John's Gospel begins in the beginning. And and he's making us sort of turn back to Genesis chapter one, in the beginning. And where John said, In the beginning was the word, and through the word all things came. Well you start reading Genesis and and what do you see? But but through the Word, and God said, everything came. You you you look at Genesis chapter one, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, verse two, the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters, and then it's the Word of God that actually creates all things. And you get to the end of Genesis one, and you go, let us make humanity in our own image, says the persons of the Trinity. And then you in chapter two of Genesis, um you get uh this zoom in onto the Garden of Eden, where the Lord God is very hands-on and and creates Adam from the dust of the ground. And as as you read these kinds of verses, a great verse to have in mind is John chapter one, verse eighteen, which says, No one has ever seen God, but God the Son, who is at the Father's side, has always been making him known. No one has ever seen God the Father, but God the Son has made him known. So when you when you read about this walking, talking, visible Lord, who are you talking about?
SPEAKER_03Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_02You know, you're talking about Jesus. So Genesis two and Genesis three, he comes for a walk in the garden at the cool of the day. Who is this talking about? Flick on to Genesis chapter fifteen. And and with John's words ringing in our in our ears, Genesis fifteen, verse one, after this the word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision. And he said, The word of the Lord says things. He says, Don't be afraid, Abraham, I'm your shield, your very great reward. And then in verse four, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, and then he says some stuff, and then verse five, he, the word of the Lord, took him outside and said, Look up at the heavens and count the stars. So you've got this person who is the word of the Lord, and he is the Lord, he's got stuff to say, he takes Abraham outside, shows him s you know, shows him the stars, and then Abraham believes this Lord, and it's credited to him as righteousness. So Abraham trusts in, well, who is this Lord? He's the Lord who is from the Lord. You know, and and and the Nicene Creed says Jesus is God from God, light from light, true God from true God. Here is this Lord who is from the Lord, who is the word of the Lord, who takes Abraham outside. And and and so you get you get to see that Jesus is this sort of uh visible, um hands-on, present Lord with the people. So that when he shows up, when he shows up, uh you know, two thousand years after Abraham's time, uh and he said, you know, Abraham rejoiced to see my day. He saw it and he was really glad. Um he's just telling the absolute honest truth. Uh it's it's always been Jesus, who's been the Lord who deals with his people and mediates the business of God most high. It's always been Jesus.
SPEAKER_00So here we are in uh 2013 and we are looking to Jesus as the cornerstone of our faith. And they four thousand years ago, yeah. You're saying that they also look to Jesus.
SPEAKER_02They looked to Jesus, the Jesus they knew then, and also the Jesus that they you know they knew would take flesh in the fullness of time. So, you know, Martin Luther used to say, you know, our faith is in the same Jesus. We just look back at Jesus, they looked um to the coming of Jesus, which was yet future, but we both we you know, we both know Jesus and look forward to Jesus. And and one of the things that really um has built my faith amazingly when I when I first saw it, and I've seen lots of other people um be become uh will certainly have their eyes open to the wonders of the Bible a lot more when they say is in Genesis twenty-two, um it's the famous incident of uh of God testing Abraham and you know, will you will you sacrifice your son? And uh and and just when you take the details seriously, you see how the scripture is just full of Jesus. Um Genesis twenty-two, verse one, God uh tested Abraham, saying to him, Abraham, here I am, he replied. Then God said, Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love and go and sacrifice him. And you think, Oh, th those words, your son, your only son who you love. And of course, you know Abraham actually has Ishmael as well. But uh he's he's saying, No, not that child, not the child of the slave, not the child of human effort, the child of the promise, your son, your only son who you love. Go to the region of Moriah. Mount Moriah is where they built the temple. Mount Moriah is Jerusalem. So take him to a mountain in the region of Jerusalem, sacrifice your son, your only son whom you love, sacrifice him there as a burnt offering, which is a sacrifice of atonement in the Old Testament. Early next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey, he took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day, Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. Hebrews eleven picks up on that and said, Yeah, because Abraham ends up experiencing a resurrection, he gets his son back on the third day. Verse five, Abraham says to his servant, Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there, we will worship, and then we will come back to you. That's what Hebrews is picking up on. He has he has you know faith that God can raise the son of promise from the dead. I love this detail. Verse six Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife, and they climbed the hill. So what's you know, just picture the scene. What's I what's Isaac got on his back? You know, the wood and he's got the fire and the knife, the tools of judgment. The father has the tools of judgment, the son is carrying the wood on his back up the hill. As the two of them go on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father, Abraham, Father, yes, my son, Abraham replied. The fire the fire and the wood are here, Isaac said, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering? Abraham answered, God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son. And the two of them went on together. God himself will provide the lamb. Verse nine, when they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord, do a study on the angel of the Lord. That's that's fascinating, as we're talking about Christ in the Old Testament. Again, he is one who is of the Lord, and he is the Lord, and he's the sent one of the Lord. You know, it's you know it's Christ. The angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, Abraham, Abraham, here I am, he replied. Do not lay a hand on the boy, he said, do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son. Abraham looked up, and there in the thicket he c he saw a ram caught by its horns, a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So here's the summary verse, verse fourteen. Abraham called that place the Lord will provide. And to this day it is said, On the mountain of the Lord, it will be provided. And you think, what will be provided? The Lamb will be provided. Um on this occasion it was just the ram, but on one day the Lamb of God will be be provided, who will be the true sacrifice of atonement, he'll be the true beloved son, he'll be the true son of promise. He'll be provided, and they knew even the mountain on which it would be offered, this mountain, this very mountain, um, in the region of Jerusalem, th those things would would take place. God will provide the Lamb. So not only did they have, you know, Jesus before he became man, before he became flesh, they they they had the presence of Christ, but they also had the promise of Christ. Um and so in the Old Testament is not a Christless book. It's not as though sort of three quarters of the Bible is Christless, and then Jesus comes there, it's absolutely saturated with Jesus. And what you get to see in the Old Testament is the preparation for Jesus. You know, it it wouldn't really mean anything to people. It would j it would just be, well, that's an interesting gesture. But with the Old Testament in view, you go, Oh, it's a sacrifice of atonement. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And and so the Old Testament is that preparation for for the the incarnate work of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00And it just shows really that you know it's not just something that God did very quickly and and brought Christ. He prepared a long time beforehand for the coming of Christ, and his plan was there right from the beginning.
SPEAKER_02And yeah, and and his plan is on record as it unfolds, and you can go back and you can see the promises building up and building up and building up. Um and there's a there's a great book by um Walter Kaiser called Messiah in the Old Testament, and he he just goes through uh about sixty or seventy um Old Testament prophecies of Christ and the way that the promise was being developed and and focused and and and various aspects of Christ's work and ministry were being developed in these promises, and just it's a real faith builder. So when people sort of say, What about the Old Testament, you should rub your hands together with a glee and say, Oh fantastic, let's let's go back and have a look. Because I I think that seeing the way the Bible fits together and interprets itself and fulfills itself is one of the great evidences for for the truth of it.
SPEAKER_00So it's obviously very clear that uh Jesus uh appears in the Old Testament way before the he does in the New Testament, if you like.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And I I think he he sort of appears in three different ways, sort of three P's. I'm a preacher, so I I've got to deal in three P's. He He he is present. You know, who is the one walking in the garden in the cool of the day? He he is present. Um He's also pictured. So he's pictured in things like the temple, um, in the sacrifices, in the priests, in the kings. He's he's pictured in in all these kinds of types and signs of of of what he will do. And he's also promised. All these uh clear promises of what the Lamb of God will do when it when he comes again. So yeah, the Old Testament is not at all um absent of Christ, uh it's full of Christ, his presence, his pictures, and his promises.
SPEAKER_00Okay, very good. Well, we better leave it there, Glenn. Um on your blog there's uh you've done a number of studies about Christ in the Old Testament. Yeah, there's thirteen posts collected together on Christ in the Old Testament, so So we'll we'll give a link to that in the show notes, and uh the web address for this episode will be uh revivalmedia.org slash TEP fourteen. Thanks very much for listening for this week.
SPEAKER_02See you later.
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