All the stories they recorded contributed to the one big story the Bible is telling – if you leave any one of them out, the story loses something. But what I want us to see this time is that if you take any one of these stories out and examine it, you find it is telling the big story. All the little stories are miniatures of the big story.
I don’t know if you went to Sunday School when you were a child. I did, and the way it typically went was like this – the Sunday School teacher would tell us a Bible story and then bring out lessons from it about Jesus and our need of salvation through Him. The Sunday School teacher was able to do this even if the story was in the Old Testament, and these lessons weren’t obscure or forced – they were right there, as if the Old Testament writers wanted to teach us lessons about the Lord Jesus, but of course they didn’t know about Him. They only intended to record history, but they were preaching the gospel.
Let me give you some examples.
At the beginning of the Sunday School year the teacher decides she is going to take her class through the book of Genesis. She tells the children about how Adam and Eve sinned. As a result, they felt ashamed and unfit for God’s presence. They tried to cover their shame with fig leaves that they sewed together, but their efforts wouldn’t do, and so God clothed them with coats of animal skin. The teacher then shows the pupils that our efforts to cover our shame and make ourselves acceptable to God won’t do; God provides the covering we need, and it required a sacrifice – the shedding of the blood of an innocent substitute. That’s the message of the gospel, that’s the story of the cross.
The next week she goes to Genesis 4 and tells her children about Cain and Abel, and about how Cain approached God with the fruits he had grown and was rejected, while Abel approached God with the sacrifice of the firstborn of his flock and was accepted. She is able to make the same point, that we can only approach God through the sacrifice of Christ.
Next week she tells them about Noah and the ark. God warned that judgement was coming and the only way to be saved from that judgement was by sheltering in the ark. Noah and his family are safe from the judgement because the ark bears it instead. That ark brings them into a new creation. The ark is a picture of Christ – we need to take refuge “in Him” and in doing so we will be saved from judgement and brought into God’s new creation.
She can go on through Genesis in this way:
- God promised to bless the world through a descendant of Abraham – Christ is the promised descendant.
- Abraham was to offer up his beloved son as a sacrifice – Christ is God’s beloved Son whom God gave.
- Isaac was spared from death because of the provision of a substitute – Christ is the substitute for sinners.
- Abraham sent his servant to get a bride for Isaac – God has sent His Spirit into the world to win a bride for His Son (the Church is called the bride of Christ).
- Jacob saw a ladder to heaven – Christ is that ladder.
- Jacob’s beloved son, Joseph, was despised and rejected by his own people, betrayed and sold, falsely accused, suffered like a criminal, but was then exalted and brought salvation to the nations, he then made himself known to his own people who had previously rejected him – that is the story of Christ – rejected by the nation of Israel, falsely accused, suffered like a criminal but was then exalted and has brought salvation to the nations, and will be revealed to and received by the nation of Israel in the future.
That is a skim through the first book of the Bible, and you can go through the rest of the Old Testament and find these clear parallels. For example:
- The way of approach to God through Christ is pictured in Israel’s ancient Tabernacle structure.
- The sacrifice of Christ is portrayed in their sacrificial system.
- His intervention in the world is illustrated in their annual feasts.
- His ministry is displayed in miniature in the great Old Testament characters:
- Moses – the miracle-working mediator who sets the captives free.
- Joshua – the one who conquers Israel’s enemies and brings them into their inheritance.
- The judges – the saviours of Israel.
- Boaz – the redeemer from Bethlehem who takes a Gentile bride.
- Samuel – the priestly prophet.
- David – the boy from Bethlehem who is God’s chosen king.
- Solomon – the glorious ruler.
- And so on . . .
All the Old Testament characters have certain virtues and perform great tasks, but they have their failures and limitations. Christ has all the virtues in perfection with none of the failures or limitations. He performs the tasks that their great works were only pointing to. The ancient Jewish ceremonies all have a purpose that is fulfilled by Jesus. They point to Him.
How do you explain that? The Old Testament writers certainly weren’t consciously giving pictures of Christ in their writings – they were looking backwards, not forwards, recording the past, not the future. And the New Testament writers certainly didn’t invent a figure to fit all of these Old Testament narratives or concoct a gospel message based on them – how could they? It would be the work of a genius to tell a story that fits these patterns and yet isn’t obviously manufactured to do so. And also, why would they? Why invent correspondences that didn’t exist? Why invent false Messianic evidence or a fake way of salvation based on historical narratives – what do they gain from doing that, other than God’s judgement?
I understand this argument might not be terribly easy to grasp, because in order to appreciate it you need to be familiar with the biblical story. But I hope this has shown you what I mean when I say the unity of the Bible is one of the greatest proofs that it came from God.
What to do
- Look at how Jesus said all the Old Testament was about Him – Matthew 5:17; Luke 24:27; John 5:39.
- Find a Christian who would be able to talk to you about this in more detail, go to Justin Pratt’s short series of articles here: What in the world was Jesus doing before Bethlehem?, go to YouTube and watch some messages by Bible teacher Mike Winger on How to Find Jesus in the Old Testament, or look at David Gooding’s teaching on the Tabernacle. For a more detailed study of the unity of the Bible, see The Riches of Divine Wisdom by David Gooding.
