Lesson #20

Excursus:
Christ in the Old Testament, Part 2
In Luke 24: 44-45 Jesus said:

These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that
everything written about me in the law of Moses and in the prophets and
psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the
scriptures.
(Luke 24: 44-45)

If the Law, the Prophets and the Psalmsthe three components of
the Hebrew Scriptures, or Tanakhspeak of Christ, how do we find
him there?

To begin with, we must recognize that although the 39 books of the
Hebrew Scriptures are identical to the same 39 books in the Christian
Old Testament, the Christian canon of Scripture is profoundly
different from the Jewish canon of Scripture.








In the Jewish canon the 39 books of the Tanakh are arranged by
genre as:
Torah (Law);
Neviim (Prophets)
Kethuvim (Writings)

Reading the Tanakh is analogous to watching a flower unfold.

The Christian canon adds 7 books (plus additions to Daniel and
Esther) to the Hebrew canon and 27 books to the New Testament
canon, for a total of 73 books. These books are then arranged as a
linear narrative, employing a variety of genres and structural
techniques. It is a narrative that has a beginning, middle and end, a
narrative whose main character is God, whose conflict is sin and
whose theme is redemption.

Reading the Christian Bible is analogous to reading a novel.









Consequently, reading the 76 books of the Christian
canon of Scripture produces a completely different
experience from reading the 39 books of the Jewish
canon of Scripture.

As Pope Benedict XVI observed, in the Christian canon
older texts *of the Hebrew Scriptures+ are re-
appropriated, reinterpreted, and read with new eyes in
new contexts. They become Scripture by being read
anew, evolving in continuity with their original sense,
tacitly corrected and given added depth and breadth of
meaning.














Recognizing this profound difference allows us to find
Christ throughout the Old Testament, bringing him out of
the shadows.

Lesson #20 offers three examples of how the older texts
of the Hebrew Scriptures are re-envisioned with new
eyes, in light of their New Testament contexts.

Christ in the Tabernacle
and the Five Great Sacrifices of Leviticus
Christ in the Suffering Servant of Isaiah
Christ in the Anointed One of the Psalms












Christ in the Tabernacle and
the Five Great Sacrifices of Leviticus

(The Law)
































In the New Testament,
Hebrews 8 tells us that the
Tabernacle in the Old
Testament is a copy and
shadow of the heavenly
sanctuary (8: 5). Hebrews 9
then goes on to say that when
Christ came as high priest of the
good things that have come to
be, passing through the greater
and more perfect tabernacle . .
. he entered once for all into the
sanctuary not with the blood of
goats and calves but with his
own blood, thus obtaining
eternal redemption (9: 11-12).






















As we have already learned, the
Tabernacle is the dwelling place of God,
where his glory fills the Holy of Holies
in the theophany of the Pillar of Cloud
and Fire.

In the Tabernacle, God is with humanity,
yet he is separated from us in his infinite
holiness, alone in the Holy of Holies,
separated by walls of pure gold, and
covered by exquisite tapestries. Only the
High Priest can approach God in his
sanctuary, and then only one day each
year, the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur.
The very structure of the Tabernacle,
with its many barriers between sinful
humanity and a holy God, highlights the
vast chasm between us and God.






















The five great sacrifices God
prescribes in Leviticus 1-5 enable the
chasm to be bridged, but only
through the mediation of a priest,
and only after the shedding of much
blood, for as our author of Hebrews
says, without the shedding of blood
there is no forgiveness (9: 22).




















The five great sacrifices in
Leviticus are:

Burnt Offering (1: 1-17)
Grain Offering (2: 1-16)
Communion Offering (3: 1-17)
Sin Offering (4: 1- 5: 13)
Reparation Offering (5: 14-26)

4 of the 5 are blood sacrifices.























We may divide the five great
sacrifices into two categories:

Sweet Savor offerings
Burnt offering
Grain offering
Communion offering
Sweet savor offerings portray the person of
Christ

Non-sweet Savor offerings
Sin offering
Reparation offering
Non-sweet savor offerings portray the work
of Christ.





























Sweet Savor Offering #1: The Burnt Offering (1: 1-17)
Person of Christ





The Burnt Offering pictures Christ offering himself wholly and
without blemish to God. Each type of burnt offering pictures
Christ in some aspect of his redeeming character:

the bull speaks of his strength and perfection;
the sheep speaks of his patience and unresisting abandonment to
deathHe was led like a lamb to the slaughter (Isaiah 53:7);
the goat typifies the sinner and, when used of Christ, it speaks of he
who was numbered with the transgressors (Isaiah 53: 12). As Paul
says, God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we
might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21);
the turtledove or pigeon speaks of mourning innocence (Isaiah 38: 14)
and the poverty of the one who though he was rich, yet for your
sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become
rich (2 Corinthians 8:9).


























Sweet Savor Offering #2: The Grain Offering (2: 1-16)
Person of Christ





The Grain Offering pictures the perfection of Christ's
humanity:

the flour speaks of his even personality, of the loveliness of Jesus;
the bread without yeast speaks of his total lack of corruption;
the bread mingled with oil speaks of his being anointed by the Holy
Spirit;
the lack of honey speaks of his honesty and forthrightness; there is no
sweetness in him;
the salt speaks of his faithfulness. Salt preserves; the salt of the
covenant binds ones word to an agreement.




























Sweet Savor Offering #3:
The Communion Offering (3: 1-17)
Person of Christ





The Communion Offering pictures Christ as our peace:

At peace with God through the redemptive action of Christ, we are
invited into communion with him, to share a meal. As Paul says, He
himself is our peace (Ephesians 2: 14), and when Jesus leaves his
disciples and goes to the cross he says, Peace I leave with you; my
peace I give you (John 14:27).
As the penitent sinner at the Tabernacle is invited to share a meal with
God in the Communion Offering, so are we invited to share in the body
and blood of Christ in the Eucharist.




























Non-Sweet Savor Offering #1:
The Sin Offering (4: 1 - 5: 13)
Work of Christ




The Sin Offering pictures Christ atoning for our sin:

The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place
as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. And so
Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy
through his own blood (Hebrews 13: 11-12). Or as Paul says, God
sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering
(Romans 8:3).

As the sin offering is substitutionary in Leviticus, so is the sin
offering of Christ substitutionary: The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of
us all (Isaiah 53:6).





























Non-Sweet Savor Offering #2:
The Reparation Offering (5: 14-26)
Work of Christ




The Reparation Offering pictures Christ atoning for the
damage caused by our sin:

This offering focuses not on the sin itself, but on its consequences.
Psalm 51: 4 expresses this aspect of the offering very nicely: Against
you [God], you alone, have I sinned. What is evil in your sight I have
done, and so you may be justified when you give sentence and be
without reproach when you judge.




























If we view the sacrifices in
Leviticus typologically, we see in
them a perfect portrait of the
Lord Jesus Christ.

As God takes common sacrificial rituals
from the ancient world and raises
them to a higher moral and ethical
plane in Leviticus, so too does he take
the sacrifices in Leviticus and raises
them to a higher moral and ethical
plane in the sacrifice of Christ. What
begins in the ancient world with the
blood of bulls and goats takes on a
profound meaning as it foreshadows in
Leviticus the Lamb of God who takes
away the sin of the world.





























Christ in the Tabernacle
and the Five Great Sacrifices of Leviticus




Francisco de Zurbarn. Agnus Dei (oil on canvas), 1635-1640.
Prado Museum, Madrid.
Christ in the Suffering Servant of
Isaiah

(The Prophets)
































After the birth of the Church at Pentecost,
A.D. 32, we read that Philip encountered on
the road to Gaza an Ethiopian eunuch, a
wealthy official of the Ethiopian royal court
who had been visiting Jerusalem.

While there he had acquired a scroll of
Isaiah, and he was reading Isaiah 53: 7-8.
Seeing Philip, the Ethiopian asked him
whether Isaiah was writing about himself or
about someone else. Philip then explained
that Isaiah was writing about Christ.

Listen to the story in Acts 8: 26-40.



















Isaiah contains four
Suffering Servant songs:

Isaiah 42: 1-9
Isaiah 49: 1-7
Isaiah 50: 1-11
Isaiah 52: 13 53: 12


























The prologue to the songs identifies
Gods Suffering Servant as Israel.


But, you, Israel, my servant,
Jacob, whom I have chosen,
offspring of Abraham my friend
you whom I have taken from the ends of the
earth and summoned from far-off places,
to whom I have said, You are my servant;
I chose you, I have not rejected you.

(Isaiah 41: 8-9)





























The suffering servant figure in all four songs
is clearly Israel personified, as in the
dramatic courtroom scene that opens the
book of Isaiah.

Yet, when we read Isaiah 53: 7-8, as Philip
instructs the Ethiopian eunuch to do, we
rightly see Christ as the suffering servant, if
we understand the passage as re-
envisioned in light of the Christian
experience and the broader Christian
canon. Such a reading does not contradict
the original textual intent of Isaiah; rather,
it adds additional depth and breadth to it.
Christ in the Anointed One of the
Psalms

(The Writings)
































The Hebrew verb to anoint is mashach,
and from it we get the noun messiah,
which means the anointed one.

Anointing elevates the status of a person
or thing from the ordinary to a higher
position, as when Moses anoints the
Tabernacle and everything in it, as well as
when he anoints his brother Aaron as High
Priest (Leviticus 8: 10-12), or when Samuel
anoints David as king (1 Samuel 16: 4-13).

The Psalms contain many references to
people and things being anointed, but
one reference is particularly notable.


























Anointing of David, Macclesfield Psalter (illuminated manuscript), c. 1300.
Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, fol. 39r.






















Psalm 2
Why do the nations rage,
and the people plot what is vain?
They stand together, the kings of the earth,
the leaders conspire against the Lord and his Anointed:
Let us break their bonds asunder;
let us cast off their cords.

He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord, he laughs them to scorn.
Then he will speak in his anger;
in his wrath he will strike them with terror:
Indeed, it is I who installed my king
upon Zion, my holy hill.






















I will announce the decree of the Lord,
The Lord said to me:
You are my Son;
today I have begotten you.
Ask and I shall bequeath you the nations,
put the ends of the earth in your possession.
With an iron rod you will break them,
shatter them like a potters jar.

Now, O kings, understand;
take warning, rulers of the earth:
serve the Lord with fear and trembling;
kiss the Son lest he be angry and you perish,
for suddenly his anger will blaze.

Blessed are they who trust in God.



















In the context of the Hebrew Scriptures,
Psalm 2 is technically a psalm for a royal
coronation, most certainly in reference to
David.

Through a Christian interpretative lens,
however, it is read as a messianic psalm, in
reference to Christ. The book of Revelation
clearly sees it this way. When Christ returns
in the end times as King of kings, we read:

Out of his mouth came a sharp sword to
strike the nations. He will rule them with an
iron rod . . . (19: 15), a direct allusion to
Psalm 2.

And when Judas betrays Jesus with a kiss in
the Gospels, we shudder at the chilling irony,
when read in light of Psalm 2.










Jesus Christ, Desis (mosaic), 13
th
century.
Hagia Sophia, Istanbul.










When Jesus said to his disciples
after his resurrection:

These are my works that I spoke
to you while I was still with you,
that everything written about me
in the law of Moses and in the
prophets and psalms must be
fulfilled (Luke 24: 44)

he established a hermeneutic for
reading Scripture in a new light, a
method of re-envisioning the
Hebrew Scriptures through a new














interpretative lens, a method that allows Scripture to be re-read, evolving in
continuity with its original sense, while providing a depth and breadth
unimagined in the old covenant.

1. What is the Scriptural basis for seeing Christ in the Old
Testament?
2. The five great sacrifices in Leviticus 1-5 may be divided
into two categories. What are they and what do they
represent?
3. A Jewish reading of Isaiah 53: 7-8 sees Israel as Gods
suffering servant; a Christian reading of the same verses
sees Christ as the suffering servant. Which reading is
correct?
4. How can the same passage in Scripture have a completely
different meaning, depending upon who is reading it?
5. Ultimately, how does one discern the truth in
Scripture?




Copyright 2014 by William C. Creasy
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