Ep. 124 | Shadows & Sacrifice | ft. Chip Parker

In today's episode, Astin Kahnk is joined by Pastor Chip Parker for a conversation about our sermon series "Storyline." Listen in as they discuss week two's sermon focused on shadows and sacrifice, ultimately looking at God's redemption plan for creation. Let's dive in!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

There are so many different ways that we can see Jesus in the Old Testament. Is there anything in this passage that points directly to Jesus? Does anything in this passage foreshadow Jesus or anticipate Jesus? Right. So is there a picture in here that we need to see? Is there a symbol in here that we need to see? Is there a promise that I know is not going to be fulfilled until Jesus comes on? So those kind of help us get ready for Jesus. Is there anything in here that does that? And then maybe the last one is okay, if I don't see either of those, how does my understanding of Jesus, the gospel, the New Testament, change the way I read this passage? Okay. Right. So instead of just reading it and saying, oh, well, this is it. This is just a historical narrative with some moralistic points for me to live by. No. How does what I know about the gospel? How does what I know about who Jesus is and what he did make me reshape my understanding of this passage?

SPEAKER_06 0:58

Welcome to Let's Talk About That, the podcast where we deep dive into Sunday's message and explore your questions. I'm your host, Aston Kank, and I'm excited to share this journey with you. Whether you're a longtime member of The Orchard or a first-time visitor, Let's Talk About That is your space to explore, reflect, and connect. Join us as we navigate the intricacies of faith, spirituality, and daily life, seeking to understand how the wisdom shared on Sundays can be applied to our modern challenges. So, grab a cup of coffee, find a comfortable space, and let's dive in together. This is Let's Talk About That, where the conversation about Sunday's message never stops. Welcome back to Let's Talk About That. Chip, it's been a minute. How are ya?

SPEAKER_04 1:47

You know, I'm good. How are you doing? I'm doing pretty good. Now we say it's been a minute, but you know, if everybody listen to this, it's only been a week because we were on here with one more child last week. Yeah. But what they don't know is that we actually recorded that a little bit ahead of time because of like scheduling and yeah, all that stuff.

SPEAKER_06 2:01

But I feel like it's been a minute since it's just been you and I.

SPEAKER_04 2:04

Now it has. Because SCARS series, you know, we had a lot of counselors come on, and man, we really got good feedback from that series. It was it was good actually, was talking with Angie, and she was, you know, telling me about all the people that had reached out to her and she's been talking to. So I think that's good. And you know, that that was why we did that. Yeah. Is so that people had a resource to take it further, to realize, you know, there's help available to talk through these things and walk through these things. Yeah. But like we said in the SCAR series, you know, the only hope any of us have for real lasting change is to see Jesus, you know, to turn to him and see him. However, having somebody to talk to, having a counselor to walk through this with us, even sometimes medication, those are things that can help us see Jesus more clearly. And so that was good conversations. And then uh the One More Child episode, you know, that was that was good. Yeah, it was actionable. And I'm excited to have them, you know, kind of join with us and let people get to know more about what they're doing and how we as individuals can be a part of it. So good stuff.

SPEAKER_06 3:04

Good stuff. And now we're gonna jump right into our new sermon series, storyline. So we, you know, started it last week, part two is this week. So I kind of want to just start the conversation of what kind of sparked this idea for this sermon series.

SPEAKER_04 3:20

I honestly can't remember whose idea it was because what we do is around every October, we get together with the pastors and and even some of the other staff, and we, you know, say, hey, what is it that we need to lean into next year? And we plan out our calendar really around three different approaches to our sermon series. We call one up series, which means we want them to be more, John Piper would say Godward, which is more theological, doctrinal, whatever we want them to be in. Those are more, you know, practical about our spiritual formation and living. And then our out series are a lot more outreach focused, outsider friendly. So scars on the soul would have been maybe a combination of an in and out series, right? It was focused to be a broad net that we cast for people, but also very practical in how we approach some spiritual formation. This is an up series, and again, I can't remember which one of our pastors put it out there, but the idea was is that what if we, you know, kind of helped our people see the big picture of the Bible? It would one help them deepen their understanding in the scriptures, and then two, it would probably make them more confident to talk about it. Absolutely, yeah. And so that was really the idea. And we broke it down and you know, said five weeks. It does kind of a big, you know, challenge to tackle the storyline of scripture in five weeks, but yet, you know, thought it was doable and worked on it. I know the pastor Eddie actually helped me kind of get my head around it and how we would break it down into those five pieces, and he and I worked together and back and forth on that. And then when we really settled on it, you know, I'm like, man, I think this is this is it. This is going to be really helpful for people. And, you know, as we've got started on the series, you know, just reminding people that Jesus is the point of the Bible. Yeah. Right? Like it's about him. And so I'm not sure again exactly who was the one who who maybe threw that idea out there first, but once it got thrown out there, we talked about it, prayed about it, put it on the calendar, and Pastor Eddie and I threw it back and forth and worked on it. And here we are today. And and I'm I'm excited. It's been a good two weeks so far.

SPEAKER_06 5:29

Yeah. Yeah. No, yesterday, so we talked about shadows and sacrifice. And I love that we are spent, you know, there is so much in the old testament, but I love that you guys broke it down, at least you specifically broke it down in three different areas yesterday, patterns, promises, and presence to where we can actually see Jesus in that. So I'd love to kind of just dive deeper into patterns, promises, and presence.

SPEAKER_04 5:51

Yeah. So really, you know, when we do these messages, each of our pastors who are preaching, whether it be the location pastor or pastor Eddie, you know, kind of filling in for one of us, we all try to make sure that we stay close together. You know, we know the text we're working on, we know where we're headed. But, you know, I joke it's kind of like Apple maps where you like pull up the directions and there's like three different routes to get there. Mine's always the shortest route. But um, you know, there there's the routes to to get there, but really they're the same. Yeah. However, in this one, we even want to go further and make sure that we use that same language of, you know, patterns, promises, and presents, because we did feel like that would be helpful. Like it is far and away an oversimplication to look at just those three words of how we see Jesus in the old testament. But we we do feel like that was really good, three good umbrella terms that we could kind of keep in our head. You know, the alliteration helps you remember, pattern promises, presence. And then where those came from actually was an article off of John Piper's website, desiring God.org, by a young man named Glenn Shrivener. And he wrote an article called Where is Jesus in the Old Testament? And what he did in that article is talk about Christ patterned, Christ promised, and Christ present. And so that's kind of where we got the idea of patterns, promises, and presence. And, you know, there are so many different ways that we can see Jesus in the Old Testament, but that was like three big buckets, three big umbrellas. So when we talk about, you know, patterns, and we leaned into this a little bit yesterday. Really what we're looking at in those patterns are pictures, you know, of Jesus in the Old Testament, types of Jesus in the Old Testament. We went into that because of Romans 5.14, where Paul says that Adam is a type of the coming one. Yeah. So we dove into that. And then, you know, just these symbols and systems of the Old Testament, all of these patterns, themes that run throughout scripture help us to see Jesus. And so, you know, one of the ones that I really like that's a pattern is the pattern of the offices in the Old Testament of prophet, priest, and king.

SPEAKER_06 8:06

Yes. You said you mentioned on Sunday in the Elixi location that you want to dive deeper. Yes, let's do that.

SPEAKER_04 8:11

Yeah. So when we look at the offices, let's just start there of prophet, priest, and king in the old testament. What you see is the prophet was not somebody who would foretell the future all the time, right? We don't get that confused necessarily with prophecy. Yeah. A prophet was somebody who was anointed by God to speak to the people on behalf of God. You know, the thus saith the Lord, King James, right? And you see these prophets in the Old Testament who would bring these messages of this is the word of the Lord. This is what God says. And in that way, they would reveal God to the people through that. The priest was, you know, or this tribe of Levi who were set apart to serve God in the temple and really to serve as a mediator between God and man, right? Because you couldn't walk into the temple to do your own sacrifices. You had to take them to the priest. The priest would offer sacrifices on your behalf. So these priests were these men who were set apart to mediate between God and men as they serve God. And then the king, right? The king was the one who ruled over the people. Honestly, Israel did not have a great run of kings. Uh, they didn't always have kings, but the the king that gets the top billing, and rightly so, is King David, right? A king after God's own heart. Even he was not perfect, but he was one who ruled the people, looking for justice, you know, looking for equality uh among the people, taking care of the poor, protecting the nation. And what we see in the New Testament is that Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of all those patterns. Yeah. Right? Jesus is the prophet who ultimately and fully reveals God to us, who speaks on behalf of God. He is, John tells us in his gospels and in his letters, you know, that he is the word of God incarnate. So Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of the prophet. Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of the priest because he is the final and full mediator between God and man, who serves God, but in a way that we can't because of our sinfulness. He does it on our behalf as our mediator. Hebrews is like all about Jesus, who was our greater high priest in those first handful of chapters in Hebrews. And then ultimately we recognize that Jesus is the true king who is going to make the earth his footstool, who is going to set up a kingdom that will last forever and will not fade. And so, you know, even in those offices, we see this pattern that ultimately finds its fulfillment in Jesus. And so, you know, that's where, you know, we see a lot of those patterns play out. Those pictures, those systems, those types, all of that find their fulfillment in Jesus. But one thing I think maybe we should touch on, and this was really interesting to me, is that we can't allow types and symbols and patterns to become allegory. Yeah. Like that was that was kind of a big deal to me. So typology, right? And we'll just use that for that whole ball of whack. Yeah. Typology is a biblical interpretive method in which God intended people, events, systems, or institutions, whatever in the old testament foreshadow these greater realities that were going to be fulfilled in the New Testament. And this is key, we see those connected and confirmed in scripture. Like those roles of prophet, priest, and king. You can see that they are all referenced clearly. Jesus was this in the New Testament. Allegory is an interpretive method where we assign hidden symbolic or super spiritual meanings to biblical details, but we do it apart from the author's intended meaning. Right? We bring our own meaning to the text. And what we do is we wind up treating the words of God in scripture as not as significant as the true reality and the true truth that we find underneath it. Does that make sense? Yes. Yeah. It means that we value our hidden discovery more than we value the very words of God themselves. And so I think some of those key features of allegory that we have to watch out for are an imposed symbolism, right? Where we impose our own symbols, names, numbers, objects, you know, actions have spiritual meanings that aren't backed up by the text. It's a we have to watch out an allegory for a reader-driven interpretation. That means that we make ourselves the authority of this is really what this means, instead of leaning in that these God-inspired authors knew what this means and can tell us what it means. Allegory often disconnects from historical reality, you know. And that's one of the things I think that we, you know, have to watch out for is we have to make sure that we do not disconnect the old testament from the people and place historically that God revealed it and apply everything that we read in the old testament directly to us as a one-for-one correlation. That's that's not how it works. One of the verses that gets thrown around all the time now is the verse out of First Chronicles, you know, if my people, which are called by my name, will humble themselves and seek my face, then when I hear from heaven and heal their land, right? Yeah. Okay. What if I told you that was God's promise to the nation of Israel, not the nation of America? Yeah. Now here's the deal. That does not mean that we cannot learn from that text that God hears repentance of his people, that God seeks to forgive, right? That God is quick to do all of those things. But where we mess up is when we disconnect it from the old testament setting and place and make it a one-for-one application.

SPEAKER_07 14:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:16

Right. Yeah. And then we say, oh, well, I've been praying and turning from my ways. Why hasn't God given me a new job or why hasn't everything gotten better? You know what I mean? That because that was not God's promise to you. We disconnected that and super spiritualized it instead of actually learning from it in its historical setting. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_06 14:37

Which is why I love you guys take the time too on Sundays to teach us the historical like context of it for you guys read it. Just like in general at the order. I appreciate that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:46

Well, I think it's so important to understanding those things because again, with that chronicles passage, don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that we should not change our ways and cry out to heaven and ask God to heal our land. What I'm saying is we can't claim that promise for us in the same way God promised it to Israel.

SPEAKER_07 15:03

That makes sense, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:04

Does that make sense? Yes. And then another thing is allegory, it always has these very subjective outcomes. You know, like we I love how we like to hedge our bets to make sure God wins. You know what I mean? When if we would just say, hey, maybe that's not what the text means and that's not what God was doing there, it's it's okay. So, you know, with patterns specifically, I think we just have to be very careful not to super spiritualize all of that and make it something that the authors of scripture never intended. Yeah. That's patterns. Promises are a little bit different, right? Because there are some promises in scriptures that only you're gonna find their true and full fulfillment in Jesus. Like we see hints of these promises in the Old Testament, but they're not always fulfilled in the Old Testament, right? Where God promises this day of the Lord when He's gonna pour out His Spirit on the people. Okay, that was a promise that was only fulfilled after Jesus, right? That that wasn't a promise that, you know, happened then. Maybe one of my favorite examples of this is in Isaiah, when God promises the virgin birth of Emmanuel, right? We look at that, and that is a promise that was only ultimately fulfilled in Jesus because we know in Matthew's gospel he identifies Jesus with the Emmanuel that Isaiah prophesied about. However, in the immediate context of Isaiah, Isaiah had given that promise and prophecy to the king of Israel as a warning sign about when his reign was going to come to an end. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And so it is a yes, there was a fulfillment there in the Old Testament, but the greater fulfillment of that promise and that prophecy was fulfilled in Jesus. And so I think a lot of times those may be the easiest way to see Jesus in the Old Testament is seeing those promises and prophecies. But then the third way, and maybe this is the one that we want to, you know, nerd out on a little bit because it's a little bit more difficult, but it is the presence of Jesus in the Old Testament.

SPEAKER_06 17:10

Yeah, because you threw around some language yesterday. I'd love for you to kind of pull up my notes from yesterday. Yeah. The preincarnated Christ.

SPEAKER_04 17:18

It is, I say the seminary word, right? Is theophany.

SPEAKER_06 17:23

Theophany.

SPEAKER_04 17:24

Yes, you I wrote that down in my notes from yesterday. Which means that God makes a visible, tangible appearance in the Old Testament. Now, these theophanies can occur a couple of different ways. Okay. So for instance, a form of theophany in the scripture is when Moses was in the desert and encountered the burning bush. Okay. That is a theophany because that is God tangibly, visibly appearing to Moses. But we would not say that burning bush was Jesus. Yeah. Correct? Yeah. Okay. However, when those theophanies take on a very human form, that is where I believe personally these are Jesus. Gotcha. And we might more specifically refer to these as Christophanies. Okay. Okay. So I threw out Theophany, you know, yesterday. That's still a correct term. Christophany is maybe just a little bit more specific. Like this isn't just an appearance of God. This is an appearance of Jesus. Jesus. Gotcha. Yeah. And those happen, you know, several times in the Old Testament. The angel of the Lord, right? I said that. I think that is definitely worth looking at because you see it.

SPEAKER_06 18:42

So you're referencing the Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

SPEAKER_04 18:44

So the Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendigo is one. He was not referenced as the angel of the Lord there. He said the fourth man appears as a son of the gods or a son of God. The commander of the Lord's army in Joshua. That is not, he is not recognized as an angel of the Lord. He's recognized as the commander of the Lord's army. But there are several times where we see the angel of the Lord, specifically in Genesis, where we believe that was a pre-incarnate Christ. Okay. Um, we see, you know, not an angel, the angel, and this angel receives worship. The angels don't receive worship. Jesus receives worship. And then another common one is, you know, that Jesus was the wrestler who wrestled with Jacob when he talks about God wrestled with me, oh well, well, that was Jesus. And so one of the ways that we believe, one of the reasons we believe this is Jesus, is because God, right? God is incorporeal, which means he does not have a body. Even we read this in John's gospel that God is spirit, and those who worship him worship in spirit and truth. When we see God's presence in the Old Testament, it is manifest in clouds and in fire, right? But he does not have a body. He's incorporeal. Jesus is the corporeal manifestation of the Father. He is the physical, tangible, bodily manifestation of the Father to us. And that is where we see that the word that was God became flesh and dwelt among us. And so if this God in the old testament has flesh, then understanding it from a triune theological, you know, view, we understand, okay, the person of the Trinity who wears flesh is Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:26

That's how we know. Okay, that's Jesus. And then the matter of him existing before he was actually born, you know, he exists outside of time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 20:36

You know, and I love that you said that because I think it's so hard sometimes, especially for people that are just, you know, becoming Christians, like realizing like there is no time with God. So I love that you mentioned that yesterday because that's how Jesus is able to show himself in the Old Testament before his birth here on earth.

SPEAKER_04 20:52

Yeah, and we have to understand that Jesus has always existed. Correct. Right? He he is not just pre-incarnate Christ, like he is always existed Christ. Yeah. He existed before the foundations of the world. He, you know, existed in Genesis when God said, Let us make man in our image. Now I'll be honest with you, it gets to me a little confusing when you talk about, okay, did Jesus have the same earthly body before he was incarnate that he had after he was incarnate, or was it more of a glorified or temperate? I honestly that that gets a little too deep even for me sometimes. But I don't need to know the answer to that to believe that this is a pre-incarnate Christ in the Old Testament because Jesus is eternal, co-eternal with the Father, and that he has existed outside of time. And when he was born to a Virgin Mary in, you know, first century Jerusalem, uh Bethlehem, what he did is he entered into the timeline, right? He took on flesh and he entered into the timeline. And so, you know, maybe I've read way too many comic books and watched so many superhero movies that just doesn't dumb me up as much anymore, right? To think of time travel, but Anyway, I know that that's kind of confusing, but it is really neat when you realize, no, you can you can see Jesus in the Old Testament, not just in these patterns or promises. You can see Jesus in the Old Testament.

SPEAKER_06 22:12

Yeah. So were there any passages of scripture that you wish you could have like tapped into that maybe you weren't able to on Sunday in regards to our four categories of patterns, promises, and presence?

SPEAKER_04 22:24

So I don't know that I would say there was more passages that I wish I had gotten to. Because honestly, or more examples I should say. Yeah, more examples of this. We could have done a ton of examples from the scriptures. What I wish we would have had time for is to break down other ways that you see Jesus in the Old Testament. Not that they're inherently different than what we've talked about with patterns, promises, and presence, but that the way other authors, other scholars, other pastors have described them, I feel like could have been helpful maybe to different people because it broke it down a little bit more. So for instance, yeah, let's say let's let's talk about it.

SPEAKER_07 23:04

Yeah, let's talk about that.

SPEAKER_04 23:05

Nancy Guthrie is a great author. She writes on a very easy to follow, easy to understand level. And she wrote an article where she talked about seeing Christ in the Old Testament in ways that she learned it from other pastors, right? But then she said that her problem with all these lists are that they seem very, this is what she says. I knew that while these lists may be preacher friendly, they would likely not be layperson friendly, especially for those for whom the idea of seeing Christ in the Old Testament is a new concept. Yeah. I needed a lay-friendly list of ways the old testament points to and prepares us for Christ. So here's the list I came up with. And so this is her list. Okay. And I and I thought it was good. Yeah. She says that we can see Christ in the Old Testament through a problem that only Christ can solve, such as the curse of sin, our inability to keep the law, or our alienation from God, right? She says we can see Christ through a promise only Christ can fulfill. And we talked about that, right? Blessings, presence of God with us, et cetera. She said you can see Jesus in a need that only Christ can meet. That is salvation, rescue from judgment, life beyond death. We can see Christ in a pattern or a theme that only comes to resolution in Christ. And this is a big one that actually one of my favorite modern pastors, Tim Keller, talks about. He loves to talk about the themes of scripture that resolve in Jesus. And so what he would say is there are themes of kingdom, this kingdom in the Old Testament. Well, that theme of kingdom is resolved in Jesus. We're going to see that in two weeks. The theme of Sabbath rest, you know, the people of God looking for a Sabbath rest. Well, the author of Hebrews tells us that we find that Sabbath rest ultimately in Christ. So that's a theme: judgment, justice. Those are themes that we see. All of those themes resolve in Christ. And so themes are another great way that we can do that. We would probably put that under the umbrella of pattern. Yeah. But I think the idea of theme maybe makes it a little bit more clear. Nancy goes on and says, a story that only comes to its conclusion through Christ, right? So that's the storyline. That's the story of the people of God. That's the story of the lineage of David, all of these stories. A person, we can see Christ through a person who prefigures an aspect of who Christ will be or what he will do by he's she says analogy or contrast, right? And again, we want to be careful. Analogy is not allegory. Yeah. They're not, it's comparison and contrast. And so she looks at Joseph, Moses, David, an event or a symbol that pictures an aspect of who Christ will be or what he will do. And then she lists some great examples there. The ark, right? Noah's ark was a symbol of Jesus because it was the means of salvation from judgment for God's people. And they had to believe and act in obedience and faith to enter into the ark. As a matter of fact, there is an interesting word there where God shut the door to the ark. That same word is referenced in the New Testament to refer to our salvation. Really? Okay. It's interesting. The Exodus, right? That's that's hey, this is Jesus, the Passover lamb, all of that. And then she says the revelation of the pre-incarnate Christ. And that's what we talked about with Christophanes.

SPEAKER_06 26:11

Yeah. Okay. So I have a question for you. So we have this information. If someone's like, all right, I'm ready, ready to tackle the Old Testament. What would be like just some not strategies, but like ways that they could kind of, you know, I guess maybe choose a passage of scripture. Like, how would you talk with them through the process of be able to see Jesus in that? So how would you kind of teach them to Yes, how to read their like Old Testament, but now through these new glasses of like seeing Jesus, you know, in that storyline.

SPEAKER_04 26:42

Okay. All right. That's good. That's good. So maybe there's three questions that we can ask that would help us think through a passage that we're reading in the Old Testament. So say we're reading through somewhere in First Kings, right? Maybe here's some questions we would ask. Number one, does anything in this passage point directly to Jesus? Okay. Right. So that might be where we're looking for prophecies, for promises. Uh Christophany. Yeah, right. Is there anything in this passage that points directly to Jesus? Number two, does anything in this passage foreshadow Jesus or anticipate Jesus? Right. So is there a picture in here that we need to see? Is there a symbol in here that we need to see? Is there a promise that I know is not going to be fulfilled until Jesus comes on? So those kind of help us get ready for Jesus. Is there anything in here that does that? And then maybe the last one is okay, if I don't see either of those, how does my understanding of Jesus, the gospel, the New Testament, change the way I read this passage? Okay. Right. So instead of just reading it and saying, oh, well, this is it. This is just a historical narrative with some moralistic points for me to live by. No. How does what I know about the gospel? How does what I know about who Jesus is and what he did make me reshape my understanding of this passage? Okay. So maybe those are good, easy questions. You know, does anything point directly to Jesus? Does anything foreshadow or anticipate Jesus? And then how does my understanding of Jesus and the gospel make me understand this passage differently?

SPEAKER_06 28:17

No, those are good. All right, Chip, I got a question for you. In the Old Testament, thinking through the lens of all the amazing things in the Old Testament, where would you think would be the hardest place for people to see Jesus in the Old Testament?

SPEAKER_04 28:30

Well, number one, I might say the book of Leviticus, because that is where Bible reading plans come to die, right? It's hard. However, I really think in Leviticus, you might not be able to see Jesus in specifically every ritual law or whatever. Yeah. But you get a picture of holiness.

SPEAKER_06 28:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 28:51

And the standard of holiness that none of us can live up to. If you ever felt overwhelmed reading Leviticus and oh dang, you know, that that's kind of the point. Yeah. I think another one funny that enough that popped in my head is maybe like the Song of Solomon, right? If you read Song of Solomon, like it is Jesus in here? Well, yeah, actually he is. It's, you know, a romantic book of a husband and wife, but yet it is a picture of Christ and his bride. And I think that is it. But I mean, on a more serious note, maybe I think the hardest place to really see the Jesus that we know in the New Testament is when you see maybe the wrath of God in the Old Testament. Yeah. Such as when God says, Hey, go take the promised land and drive out the inhabitants and kill them all. You know, that's tough because we would not be the first people to say the Old Testament God does not seem like the New Testament God. Yeah. Right. That was a thing for a long time that people struggled with. Is this Old Testament God seems like a God of wrath, but the New Testament God seems like a God of love. You can't be both.

SPEAKER_07 29:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:56

Well, I think, yes, you can. Yeah. I think the scriptures prove that. Yeah. I think the scriptures show us that yes, the Old Testament God is a God of wrath because God is holy. Yeah. Right? That's the Leviticus thing, what holiness looks like. And I think so often we undersell God's holiness and what that is. Yeah. And just how important that is. And that a holy and just God does not tolerate sin. And though it may at times seem unfair to our human sensibilities, that's because we don't understand the level of holiness that God himself possesses and what that makes him feel towards sin. Yeah. You know, that doesn't change in the New Testament. It's just that God's holiness is now fleshed out through his love.

SPEAKER_07 30:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:52

Right. So that's why one of my favorite parts of scripture is Romans chapter three. Romans chapter three may have one of my favorite, you know, the best explanations of the gospel that we have inside of the New Testament, just starting in 321. It says, But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, attested by the law and the prophets. The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, since there is no distinction. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. They are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. God presented him, Jesus, as the mercy seat. You know what we just saw right there? We just saw another symbol picture from the Old Testament. He says he was the mercy seat. That's a reference to the Ark of the Covenant and the mercy seat on it. Anyway, God presented him as a mer as the mercy seat by his blood through faith to demonstrate his righteousness because in his restraint, God passed over the sins previously committed. Then look at this in verse 26. God presented him to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time so that he would be just and justify the one who has faith in Jesus. Yeah. And so what Paul's saying there is that what changed in the Old Testament is not that God finally started showing grace. Yeah. God had been showing grace all along because he could have been far more wrathful than he was. Yeah. You know, he it says that he, because of his restraint, held back in the Old Testament. But now God sent Jesus, now look at this verse 26, not to demonstrate his love, not to demonstrate his grace. God presented Jesus to demonstrate his righteousness. Why? Because in the suffering and death of Jesus on the cross, God demonstrated his justice, his holiness, that sin would be punished, that he would pour out his wrath upon sin. And that is why the suffering of Jesus goes so far beyond the physical suffering of the cross that we think about. Yeah. There was a spiritual, emotional suffering that we don't comprehend. And yet, God did it to demonstrate his righteousness, that he would be just in his punishment of sin. And yet, because he punished that sin in Christ, he is now also the one who justifies. So he is just in that he punishes sin. He justifies in that he takes that sin in himself, in the person of his son, and absorbs that wrath so that we don't have to face it again. Yeah. Right. So that is where the Old Testament and the New Testament meet, right? God is just, yes, Old Testament, also new, but God also justifies New Testament, also old. Yeah. Right? He is a God of both, and both meet in Jesus. And that's what makes the cross such a miracle. Yeah. It's because God upheld his holiness and his love at the same time. Yeah. It's crazy. And really, Jesus doing that for us is the only way that that was ever going to be possible. So I love that phrase, that he would be just and justify the one who has faith in Jesus.

SPEAKER_06 34:18

So as you were literally talking about the Ark of the Covenant, I was, you know, it just like dawned on me that yes, obviously, you know, the Ark of the Covenant, let me make sure I'm getting this correct. Ark of the Covenant is where like the presence of God was held.

SPEAKER_04 34:29

Yes, yeah. So the Ark of the Covenant was a big box. Correct. Right. Yes.

SPEAKER_06 34:35

We could physically carry like his presence for the tap to be able to have it.

SPEAKER_04 34:39

And there were several things inside the Ark of the Covenant, right? There, you know, that was kept there, the Ten Commandments, the you know, manna, Aaron's staff. Maybe it was Moses' staff. I think it was Aaron's staff. Anyway, the staff was in there. Yeah. But the lid of that box, that chest, yes, was called the mercy seat. And the reason it was called the mercy seat is because it was shaped in such a way that when we look at it, it probably looked much like a throne. And so really it did not hold the presence of God. I think the better way to think of it is that it was God's throne among the people, right? And so the innermost part of the tabernacle and ultimately the temple, which is where the holiest of holies was kept, that room contained God's presence.

SPEAKER_06 35:26

Which that in itself is a nerd out session of just the fact that the holiest of holies could go in there. Like not just your average Joe, like that just blows my mind.

SPEAKER_04 35:36

And that was because that's where God chose to dwell among his people. So you're ready for this. That was where God's presence would dwell temporarily. Right? His presence would dwell there.

SPEAKER_06 35:46

As they moved it, it wasn't. But as soon as the tabernacle was built, then you had the cloud, and that was where God's presence was.

SPEAKER_04 35:53

And guess what? That's what Jesus did.

SPEAKER_06 35:55

Correct.

SPEAKER_04 35:56

I was even thinking like it was the full presence of God.

SPEAKER_06 36:00

As they moved around. That's what my mind was blown. Yes, like blew my mind as you were talking about that. But I remember, and correct me if I'm wrong on this, because I remember hearing this somewhere. So when the you know the high priest would would go into there, did they have to tie a rope around their waist?

SPEAKER_04 36:16

So what they would do is when the high priest would go in once a year, they would tie a rope, and I believe with bells, I think it's around his ankle anyway. He would go in there because if he had supposedly any unconfessed sin in his life, he'd drop dead.

SPEAKER_06 36:30

And they'd have to pull him out. Yep. Like my mind was blown. I don't remember where I read that. And I was like, there's so much about like the Bible that's just like that's that was very fascinating to me.

SPEAKER_04 36:38

Yeah, it's crazy, but again, that's because we underplay God's holiness. Yeah, right. Yeah. And when we think of God's holiness in the Holy of Holies, yeah, in the Old Testament, I mean, that's not for God's sake, that's for ours. Yeah. Right. Because we can't confront the manifest presence of God without being struck down by it, right? Yeah. And yet, again, all this symbolism, all these imagery, all this pattern, when Jesus died on the cross, that veil in the temple that separated the Holy Holies from the rest of the temple, that veil was torn. Yeah. And it was torn from the top down.

SPEAKER_06 37:13

Again, God is so intentional. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 37:16

And it's saying that God is present with his people. Yeah. That he's going to be present because we have access to God now through Jesus. Yes. You know, I mean, and that's the whole thing. Like when you understand who Jesus is, like as I said in the message Sunday, and you know, I'm not sure if both Robert and Matt use this, but when you understand what Waldo looks like, right, you can find him. Yeah. But if you don't know what Waldo looks like, you're never going to find him. You're just going to make it up. Right. So I think that's what's so important there. When you see it, you see it everywhere. And maybe one other thing that I would say, because you asked, you know, and I was still thinking about it, you know, what would you do for somebody trying to read the old testament? How they see Jesus in it. Maybe the best way to start would just be reading the New Testament.

SPEAKER_07 37:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:58

And every time you see a reference to the Old Testament, just pause and chase it down. Yeah. Like run it down. Just like we did with the Mercy seat. Oh, Mercy seat. What's that? Yeah. Go run it down. Yeah. And most of our Bibles, no matter what kind of Bible they are, most of our paperback or hard copy Bibles, they're going to have cross references in it that tell you what passage that's referencing. And you can go chase that down. And then maybe that'll help you see examples from the New Testament that then flesh out in the old. Yeah. But then, okay, now when I read the old, I'm preparing because I know what this looks like.

SPEAKER_06 38:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:30

I don't know. But I think that could be helpful for sure.

SPEAKER_06 38:32

Yeah. I'm even thinking too, you know, for the parents out there, this immediately popped to my mind. But when you're, you know, if you have like a kid's Bible at home, whenever you're reading those stories, you know, of the Bible with your kids, challenging even them and yourself to say, okay, where is, you know, where is Jesus in this story? And reminding, you know, our kids that, you know, these aren't just cherry pick stories. They're telling the timeline of like, not timeline, but the storyline of Jesus all throughout it. But even to challenge yourself, even with your kids, like speaking through it together.

SPEAKER_04 39:00

One of the one of the Bibles that we give away, the Bible that we give away, it's not necessarily a Bible Bible, but at the baby dedication here in Lake City, yeah, is the Jesus Storybook Bible. And the Jesus Storybook Bible does just that.

SPEAKER_07 39:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:12

Every Bible story in that Bible points to Jesus. Okay. And it foreshadows Jesus and it gives you a hint of Jesus who's coming. So if that's one of the reasons why I love it so much. I found it years ago when the boys were little. I showed it to Mary Beth, and she's made that like a staple in late. Yeah, we got one last week.

SPEAKER_06 39:29

I haven't I haven't looked at it yet.

SPEAKER_04 39:31

But it's it's phenomenal because it really, it really does make that road very clear to Jesus and show kids early on, hey, Jesus is the point of the Bible. Yeah. You know, and it helps get get them in that mindset.

SPEAKER_06 39:43

Yeah. Yeah. Well, Chip, is there anything else you would like to add to this conversation?

SPEAKER_04 39:48

You know, I'm sure there is, but I cannot think of it at this time.

SPEAKER_06 39:51

Yes. Yes. Man, it was good. I love that we got to have a nerd out session. It's been a minute since we've had. Yeah, I'm looking forward to kind of next week continue this sermon series and we'll sit across the table and chat more about it.

SPEAKER_04 40:11

All right. See you then.

SPEAKER_06 40:12

Have a good one. Thanks for joining us for this episode of Let's Talk About That. We hope it encouraged and challenged you as we continue to grow on this journey of faith and embrace community together. If you have more questions, thoughts, or feedback, we want to hear from you. Be sure to reach out to us through our social media or visit our website to stay connected. If you found today's discussion meaningful, don't forget to subscribe, share, and leave a review. Until next time, we hope that this episode inspired you and will keep Sunday's message at the front of your mind. See you next week.

SPEAKER_04 43:28

Is there anything in this passage that points directly to Jesus? Does anything in this passage foreshadow Jesus or anticipate Jesus? Right. So is there a picture in here that we need to see? Is there a symbol in here that we need to see? Is there a promise that I know is not going to be fulfilled until Jesus comes on? So those kind of help us get ready for Jesus. Is there anything in here that does that? And then maybe the last one is okay, if I don't see either of those, how does my understanding of Jesus, the gospel, the New Testament, change?

SPEAKER_02 55:06

If we're gonna be followers of Christ, reconciliation should always be our goal.