The book,
Jesus On Every Page by David Murry has
deepened my understanding of the Old and the New Testament as one continuous
story focused on Christ and redemption. It has opened my eyes to a new way of
understanding the Old Testament in light of the suffering and redeeming Messiah.
The book proposes that the main thrust of both the Old and
New Testament is God’s plan of redemption from the beginning to the end. The author
believes that the stories and characters of the Old Testament are to be
understood in the light of the New, and not just as moralistic teachings. It
illuminates that on every page in the Bible, Jesus is actively participating as
creator and redeemer. This book has shown me that a wide, holistic view of the
Bible is needed before examining the individual books and passages.
Our Bible study leader, Tim Chariot from Goodwill New Paltz, gave us this
illustration. When you
do a puzzle, you don’t just take out a few pieces
and try to fit them together. That would be futile and not give you an
understanding of the whole picture. To complete a puzzle successfully, you look
at the whole picture first and keep it in front of you, so then you can see
where the individual pieces fit. Most people start with the edge pieces first.
Like a framework they help to interpret the rest of the picture puzzle.
When I first became a Christian, I did just that. I read a book, What the Bible is All About by
Dr. Henrietta Mears. It helped me to get the big
picture of each book in the Bible. I think because of that, I grew to love the
word of God and not see God as the stern judge, but a patient loving father. If
you focus just on the details, for example the punishment and expulsion of Adam
and Eve from the garden of Eden, you may wonder why God allowed Satan and sin
to enter the world. Yet when you see the Bible as one whole work of redemption,
you can understand that Adam’s failure became Christ’s triumph as Jesus Christ
became the last Adam and triumphed over sin and death.
Christ is the blood sacrifice that all the Old Testament
sacrifices pointed to—the Paschal lamb who took all the punishment for our
sins. While Mear’s Book gave me an overall understanding of the Bible, Jesus
on Every Page has widened my view even further and bound together the Old
and the New Testament as one whole book. The ultimate purpose being the
suffering and redeeming Christ. It’s not that I never saw it that way, but it
has deepened my understanding of its continuity in every book of the Bible.
It’s easy to get caught up in the lives of the great heroes and moralize about
them. A number of preachers have done that and created sermons that focus mainly
on the good qualities of the Bible characters and how we can emulate them.
While this is not terribly bad, it can misrepresent the Old Testament, which is
a shadow of Christ. The examples of the men and women in the Old reveal the characteristics
and sufferings of Christ.
Moses led the people out of captivity just as Jesus leads us
out of the captivity of sin. Abraham believed God. He was willing and faithful
to offer up his only son Isaac, though God spared him. However, God offered us His
son Jesus and did not spare Him. Daniel faced the lion’s den as Jesus faced the
cross and did not relent from the purpose of the father. David was both a king
and a shepherd like Jesus Christ.
Yet the greatest revelation I’ve had is that the law of the Old Testament and the character of God are not separate from the New Testament, but a shadow of it. As
a shadow, the law foreshadowed not only judgment but also grace. The greatest
commandment was as Jesus summed it up. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). The focus is on
loving God. All the consequences of the law were laid out in the beginning in the
first five books of the Bible called the Torah. They were for the good of the
Israelites and pointed the way to Jesus. Just like a shadow, they did not hold
the full picture and light of Christ though they hinted to Jesus, who himself said, “Do
not think I have come to abolish the law and the Prophets; I have not come to
abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17).
By the time Christ arrived on the scene, the Pharisees
and Sadducees had warped the law by adding many man-made laws and restrictions.
It is why Jesus was so hard on them. They should’ve seen him in the Scriptures
as Jesus said, “You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in
them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me”
(John 5:39). The religious leaders of the day misunderstood the Old Testament and
the overall plan of God to bring salvation through Jesus. Their laws didn’t
reveal the heart of the law of Moses, but stood for a man-made religion rather
than a relationship with God.
But just because the powerful Sanhedrin misinterpreted the law,
doesn’t mean we throw out the law of the Old Testament. The law came from God into the hands of Moses. However, we need
to understand it as a shadow of Christ, while the New Testament shows the full
reality. Jesus on Every Page highlights this and many other points such
as Peter and Paul’s Answer to What the Old Testament is all about and Discovering
Jesus in the Old Testament Law, Old Testament History and the OT Prophets. If
you want to get a fuller understanding of it, I highly recommend purchasing the
book. I’m only halfway through and have gleaned a lot.
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