Chip McDaniel: Building Blocks for Old Testament Study

Chip McDaniel, ThD

When we read the Old Testament, how can we avoid common pitfalls of interpretation? This lesson by Dr Chip McDaniel explains how the Old Testament is foundational to the New Testament, but we must exercise caution to use it as God intended.

Introduction: Approaching the Old Testament with Caution

In approaching the Old Testament, there are times when things we’ve learned about it are misguided. There’s a lot of unlearning that needs to be done when we approach a book that is so old, from such a different culture, and a different language, and with a different worldview. We need to be cautious, particularly since most of us don’t hear a lot of sermons about the Old Testament.

I know that when I asked my classes of maybe 50 students how many heard a sermon about the Old Testament in the past week, rarely more than 20% raise their hands. The New Testament is our finished theology. That’s where we go for the whole story and the guidelines that we, as church people, should follow.

The Old Testament is often foreign territory. Here are some guardrails for Old Testament study, or building blocks, or foundational blocks. These are principles that I follow when I come to the text, having taught it for 40 years, with just some observations that we make when we approach a text. This is a particular text that we’re going to work through, but when I come to a text, these building blocks are the things that I have in the back of my mind that help guide me in the decisions that I want to make as far as what the passage says.

All of these observations are based on the notion that God has spoken. Francis Schaeffer, a Christian philosopher in the 70s and 80s, had his first book come out that was The God Who Is There, showing that there must of necessity be a God. It was very well received. He followed it up with a book that said He Is There and He Is Not Silent, which puts together the two ideas: there is a God, and he has spoken. Everything that we come to when we study Scripture is predicated on that. There is a God who has spoken.

I won’t take time to try to prove or probe that. But rather, given that, what are some of the principles that I like to follow when I deal with the text? The first of these gets us right onto that heresy meter right away: the Old Testament is not a Christian book.

The Old Testament Is Not a Christian Book

There is usually an audible reaction when I say this. But stop to think about it. You didn’t even have Christians called Christians until Antioch. And you didn’t really have Spirit-baptized Christians until Pentecost. That’s when the church was born: “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body,” as 1 Corinthians 12:13 tells us. The baptism bringing us into the body of Christ was at Pentecost. That’s when the church started.

There was no church prior to that. There were believers prior to that—Old Testament saints, we call them. But they were not Christians until Antioch. They weren’t baptized into the body of Christ until Pentecost.

Were they trusting God for their salvation? Were they ultimately, though they might not have known it, looking forward to a Messiah who would die for their sins? Yes. But were they, generically, the same as New Testament believers? There’s a dividing line at Pentecost. Before then, the Spirit moved among Old Testament saints. His ministry tended to be episodic, for a particular task. He tended to be upon certain leaders, and it was temporary. In the New Testament, Jesus says to his disciples, “Heretofore the Spirit has been with you. But when I go to the Father and send the Holy Spirit, He will be in you.” (John 14:17) This means a residing, permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit acted in the Old Testament, but not with the permanent indwelling we have in the New Testament.

The idea that there is no church until the New Testament helps us with a passage in John, where it says there were disciples who followed Jesus. In John 6, they followed Jesus, but then he said some hard things—to eat his body and drink his blood. That was strange. And they no longer believed in him (John 6:66). So here we have disciples who lost their salvation, some would conclude.

That’s a major passage for those who believe you can lose your salvation. My grandmother was troubled in her final days, wondering, “Am I truly a believer?” We assured her, “Grandma, you’ve demonstrated the life of Christ in your family and community—there’s no question you’re a believer.” But she had that passage in the back of her mind, along with a couple of others that, if not understood correctly, seem to indicate you could lose your salvation. They fell away and did not continue on. So, were they New Testament believers like us, and they lost their salvation? No—they were near Christ, they heard Christ, but they were not Christians prior to that point. And they fell away.

We’re in the hands of Christ, and Christ is in the hands of God (John 10:28-29). We’re just not going to get out of that. Those are great hands to be in. Prior to Pentecost, you had Old Testament saints. We look at Hebrews 11 and see this parade of individuals from the Old Testament—men and women who trusted God—and they’re cheering us on in our walk. There were people following God, believers in God in the Old Testament. The New Testament says, now it’s our turn. They’re cheering us on because they succeeded, and you can succeed too. But they weren’t Christians as we know it, with the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the baptism in the Holy Spirit, until Pentecost, it seems to me.

Not Sub-Christian or Anti-Christian, but Foundational

Some would say the Old Testament is sub-Christian, with an ethic or morality inferior to the New Testament. They point to destroying non-believers, genocide, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth—God as the great cosmic meanie waiting to judge. In contrast, the New Testament has baby Jesus meek and mild. But in truth, God in the Old Testament is a spurned husband and lover, trying to woo his wife—Israel—back to himself, showing kindness over and over throughout the generations.

In the New Testament, we read the end of the story: Christ comes back riding on a horse (Revelation 19:11). The significance is that when a king rode on a donkey, he came in peace; on a horse, he came for judgment, for war. When Christ returns, he judges the living and the dead, the just and the unjust, and ushers in eternity. It’s not a “cosmic meanie” in the Old and baby Jesus meek and mild in the New. One is preparatory, and one is foundational to the church, but is all ultimately about Jesus.

When you think in terms of great epochs of time—before Christ and after Christ—everything before was preparatory to the death, burial, and resurrection. Everything following, including all history, is predicated on Christ as Lord. It is all about Jesus, but the Old Testament prepares for him, and the New Testament is built upon his work.

It is not anti-Christian. Martin Luther distinguished law from grace: that’s law, done away with. He criticized it and sometimes said things about the Old Testament construed as anti-Semitic because it was “the Jews’ book.” We are the church. Of course, he also preached on the Old Testament, concerning Christ and grace. But for those who didn’t fully understand him, it gave rise to anti-Semitism that eventuated in the Holocaust.

It’s not anti-Christian. It’s not sub-Christian. The Old Testament is foundational to Christianity. Think of the Gospel of Luke, written by a Gentile to Gentile believers. It quotes or alludes to the Old Testament hundreds of times, presupposing they knew the stories and understood this as part of God’s ongoing message.

The Old Testament pointed to Christ directly through statements—we’ll talk about that—and sometimes in pictures, looking forward to aspects of Christ’s life evident in his ministry and the church’s. No one in the Old Testament knew what would take place fully in the New Testament—not Abraham, not Moses, not Isaiah, nobody.

This is seen in the experience of John the Baptist. Think about it: John had his father’s testimony. “I was in the temple, saw an angel who told me we’d have a son—the forerunner of the Messiah.” Obviously, he shared that with his son. He had his mother’s testimony: when Cousin Mary came, John in the womb leaped in a way she recognized as unusual, because he heard the mother of the Messiah (Luke 1:41). He had God’s testimony: if you see this, that’s the Messiah. When Christ comes, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” He saw all these things. “This one comes after me but is before me. I’m not worthy to untie his sandals”—the most common servant task (John 1:27).

Jesus said John was the greatest of the Old Testament prophets. But then there’s difficulty: this Messiah doesn’t look like the predicted one, who would sit on David’s throne, kick out the Romans, and rule the world. There’s opposition in the New Testament time. John sends disciples: “Are you the one, or should we look for another?” (Matthew 11:3) If anyone should have known, it was John the Baptist. He didn’t, because Old Testament saints did not know what or when these things would occur. That was revealed in the New Testament. We have progress in revelation.

It wasn’t revealed all at once. It was pictured early on. Sometimes aspects were predicted, illustrated, or just patterns fulfilled in the New Testament. But nobody understood. Peter says no one understood the what or the when of the Old Testament—it was fulfilled in New Testament time.

The Road to Emmaus and Old Testament Passages Pointing to Christ

One aspect is the road to Emmaus. Jesus joins them on the way—it’s only a two-hour walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus, and he joins partway. He tells them from the Law, Prophets, and Psalms that the Messiah had to suffer first to be glorified. We’ve taken that to mean you can go into every Old Testament passage and find Christ, sometimes torturing the text.

Tony Merida [a pastor and contributor to the “Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary”] gives the example of the left-handed judge. He has a bronze dagger and shoves it into a foreign king’s belly; when pulling it out, the fat swallows the dagger, and he pulls out only the hilt. Now do you preach Jesus from that…How?

The question remains: what passages did Jesus talk about? Usually, the answer is we don’t know. I argue we do. Luke and Acts are by the same author, with parallelism from beginning to end, but also reverse parallelism—a chiasm—where topics mirror.

There’s a reverse parallelism between Luke and Acts. At the end of Luke, Christ says the Messiah must suffer first then be glorified. At the beginning of Acts, Peter’s sermons hit on: Christ had to suffer first to be glorified. That’s the sticking point in early Judaism: how can this guy be the Messiah if he died? He suffered, died, rose—he is the Messiah.

Luke says he told them from the Law, Prophets, and Psalms. What does Peter pick up? Deuteronomy (Law), Isaiah (Prophets), and Psalms passages—that the Messiah would suffer, die, and rise before glorification, what they anticipated. That’s a staple in the New Testament transition.

Peter in his epistles says you shouldn’t find suffering surprising because Jesus suffered first before glorification (e.g., 1 Peter 2:21, 4:13). You’ll suffer to be glorified. I submit it’s verses on the total work of the Messiah—suffering and exaltation—that Christ referenced in Luke, not a carte blanche for every passage.

Does the Old Testament all contribute to preparation for Christ? Does it all have a part in God’s redeeming story? Yes. But does every passage speak directly to Christ? I interned under a man whose grandfather wrote on the tabernacle with one-to-one correspondence to Christ’s ministry: silver loop means one thing, golden hook another. The goal was to exalt Christ—nothing wrong with that. But that’s not what the passage was about. The tabernacle pictures Christ’s ministry and our relationship with God, but not every detail.

We need to be cautious not to torture passages to say something directly about Christ. Not everyone in the Old Testament knew the when or what of Christ’s work (1 Peter 1:10). They did not know the what or the when. That’s elsewhere in the New Testament. Disciples ask: when will these things be, and what will be the sign? When and what? Even in the New Testament, they didn’t know beyond it. The Spirit informed them over years as the New Testament was written. Old Testament saints didn’t have that.

A cardinal point in Christianity—the inclusion of Gentiles—they were clueless about at the church’s beginning. The church born at Pentecost and it would be 15 years before realizing uncircumcised Gentiles not keeping Sabbath could be part of the church. Some early believers said, “Jesus is fine, but you must be circumcised.” New Testament passages argue against that.

The idea of a raw Gentile—not even a proselyte—accepted without circumcision or Sabbath was foreign. It took 15 years and Peter’s ministry. Peter on the rooftop waiting for lunch: a sheet comes down with unclean foods—crawdads, shrimp, pork barbecue. God says eat. Peter said, “No, unclean.” (Acts 10:11-16) Here’s the short version: God says, “don’t call unclean what I’ve sanctified—Gentiles, even Gentiles.”

Peter reports: “I began to preach, and the Holy Spirit fell on Cornelius and household. If the Holy Spirit fell on them as on us at the beginning, what’s ‘the beginning’?” When we first believed, Peter says. He says that true New Testament faith started at Pentecost; they, the gentiles, got the same faith, even though they are not Jewish, not circumcised, and not keeping Sabbath. God says it doesn’t matter.

Fifteen years—and we say, why couldn’t these knuckleheads figure it out? Because we have the complete New Testament and church history’s exposition. They didn’t. It was revealed over time through the Spirit, through New Testament prophets, giving a fuller picture of God’s intent in the church age.

Paradigm Shift: From Physical to Spiritual

When thinking of Old and New Testaments, there’s often a paradigm shift from physical in the Old to spiritual in the New. The physical points to principles true of the spiritual.

For example, physical Adam committed acts with spiritual significance; spiritual Adam—Christ—is the second, final Adam who undoes the first. His ministry is more spiritual with physical implications; Adam’s sin was physical with spiritual implications. We have that shift from physical to spiritual.

Look at the Priesthood of Aaron: through Aaron came high priests and temple ministers. If only a son of Levi, there was a priesthood, but not the “close priesthood.” God says Aaron’s priesthood is forever (Numbers 25:13). But Jesus is from Judah, not Aaron. What’s going on there? There will never be an Aaronic priesthood in Jerusalem sacrificing, if I am reading the New Testament correctly. Jesus is the spiritual priest who entered the heavenly temple, paid once for all; we boldly approach as believer-priests. Any Christian is a believer-priest, boldly entering God’s presence (Hebrews 4:16). Aaron’s was genealogical inheritance—physical animals on physical altar. In the New Testament, we have the priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ and the priesthood of believers, a kingdom of priests.

Old Testament it was circumcision of the body. In the New Testament, we have the  circumcision of the heart (Romans 2:29) —implanting God’s Spirit, bringing relationship so we have Abraham’s spiritual DNA, not just physical (Romans 9:7).

Old Testament: seed of Abraham and Sarah counted for promise (Genesis 12:1-4). In Galatians, we learn that it is our relationship with Christ, irrespective of birth— a new birth brings us in (Galatians 3:16, 6:15). And if we are relying only on physical ancestry, then Galatians tells us we are no better in our relationship with God than Ishmael, outside covenant (Galatians 4:22-31). With Abraham’s faith DNA, we inherit as Isaac (Galatians 4:22)

I want to pause and point out to say that it seems Romans 9–11 says ethnically Jewish will turn and embrace their Messiah as we have. I am not discounting God has a program for ethnic Jews trusting Messiah, coming into the church. It seems to me that Romans 9–11 is clear on that. But the idea that there will be a physical city exalted above every mountain on earth, and a physical Jerusalem, temple, sacrifices for atonement (as depicted in Ezekiel)—that was a physical picture fulfilled spiritually in Christ. But Hebrews 12:22-24 explains we Christians have come to this mountain, the church of Christ.

In the Old Testament, you have the Garden of Eden, and the land pictured as Eden—abundant, well-watered, minerals. In the New Testament, Christians follow Joshua (Jesus’ name, “Yeshua”) into promised land. We have hymns like “On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand” or “Crossing Jordan into campground”, ideas of dying to enter heaven’s promise. But New Testament (Hebrews 3–4) explains that a person becoming Christian enters God’s rest, his complete work’s repose.

We follow Joshua into promised land. The physical promised land pictures relationship with God spiritually, representing God’s garden relationship with man. We enter God’s rest and repose. Hebrews 4:9 tells us that the one entering his rest rests as he rested from works. Christians fulfill that picture. Physical things in the Old points to spiritual reality in New.

Perhaps the biggest, easiest thing to see in that shift has to do with warfare in Old Testament. Many see inferior ethic because the idea that they were to “go into land and kill everybody”— and that sure sounds like genocide! Aren’t we against genocide! There’s much that can be said: they, those nations, saw for 40 years Israel coming, knew what happened to kings across Jordan—they could move. Migration common in fertile crescent. Many did move! Many escaped; some embraced, like Rahab the harlot. Was she only one? We’re not told, but she certainly did. They had the opportunity to embrace Israel’s God.

This was not God demanding they kill everyone. We’ve gone from physical: God told them to eradicate the people of that land. Why? For God-man born in flesh, through family displaying his glory, and aspects about himself. He chose Israel, worked through history, to provide the Messiah.

The idea that there would be a Messiah to save from sin was determined before creation (a New Testament doctrine). Physical warfare in Old Testament, but in the New Testament: spiritual warfare. Weapons not physical, for pulling down strongholds — counteracting bad doctrine, ensuring church purity. (2 Corinthians 10:4)

We see from Ephesians 6:10-20 that we have personal armor that protects and fortifies for gospel work—spiritual warfare. Teachers mention resistance in Satan’s strongholds, especially teaching doctrines related to spiritual warfare; the Devil does not want that to be taught with clarity. Spiritual warfare answers to that physical warfare. Some of the principles from Joshua and Judges carry into spiritual life, understanding the physical picture of New Testament reality.

We aren’t about “physically killing off the opposition” who are not espousing God’s principles. But we are advancing the gospel to the world: those of our warfare weapons. Physical to spiritual: there’s a paradigm shift between Testaments.

Reunderstanding Old Testament Concepts & Terms

There are certain Old Testament concepts in a category that I like to call, “I don’t think that word means what you think it means.”

Salvation

The term “salvation” in the New Testament is freighted with all of the Pauline theology of substitutionary atonement, embracing Christ as the Messiah, and eternal life added to that. In the Old Testament, however, “salvation” meant deliverance from physical distress. It is the word that was used to describe victory in battle.

When David says, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation,” (Psalm 51:12) he wasn’t talking about the New Testament doctrine of salvation. He was referring to the times when he was in difficulty, particularly as we see in those early Psalms where he laments to God, and God delivers him, leading him to offer up thanksgiving to the Lord—joyous thanksgiving. He’s essentially saying, “Lord, do for me now what you did then. Restore the joy of my salvation—the deliverances that you’ve provided for me in the past. Make that available now. Do that for me now.” This is in the context where he’s just sinned with Bathsheba, been confronted by Nathan the prophet, and he knows that Saul has been removed from rulership while he’s been put in Saul’s place. When he says, “Don’t take your Holy Spirit from me,” (Psalm 51:11) he’s simply asking, “Don’t do to me what you did to Saul—removing me from kingship. I want to be your man in Jerusalem, and if you deliver me, I’ll tell people about the type of God you are.” That’s Psalm 51, where he’s confessing that he sinned and God forgave him, emphasizing physical deliverance rather than spiritual deliverance in the use of that word, “salvation,” in the Old Testament.

Earth

We also have the word “earth.” The same word that’s translated “earth,” referring to the whole shebang, is also used for “the land.” Sometimes it’s difficult to know whether it’s talking about the earth as a whole or just the land of Israel. For instance, in Jeremiah 4:23, he says, “I saw the earth and behold it was without form and void.” We’ve heard that phrase “without form and void” before—from Genesis. It’s the same words in English and the same words in Hebrew: tohu vabohu. “I beheld the earth and it was tohu vabohu.” Because in Genesis it’s referring to the whole enchilada, all of the earth, some people will say that Jeremiah 4 is talking about the end of the age, when the elements will melt away with fervent heat and be replaced by a new heaven and earth. But the context of Jeremiah is simply saying, “I saw the land of Judah. I saw Jerusalem. God is tearing apart His creation. There’s not going to be a priesthood. There’s not going to be a kingdom. There’s not going to be significant people to carry on the infrastructure of the land. It’s just Yahweh tearing apart His land. It’s going to be like the chaos of original creation.” By then, [when the Jewish people were first hearing and reading Jeremiah] they had the message of Isaiah, who was a century or so earlier, saying there will come a time when God will create again the land—a new heaven, a new earth—referring to coming back from Babylon and setting up the kingdom once again, setting up the nation once again. It’s not the whole world as though it’s eschatologically in our future; it’s already happened in the Old Testament time, because the word for “earth” can mean just that land.

Eternal

Then we have the word “eternal.” We think of it as “an infinity of time, without ends and without gaps.” Years ago, I think it was De Beers the jewelry company that had an ad campaign saying, “A diamond is forever,” meaning this is a token of love that’s going to last forever. Well, we know that’s not always the case. I mean, you’ve got the song “Who Wants to Buy This Diamond Ring? It doesn’t, she doesn’t love me anymore. It doesn’t mean a thing.” Because even with these tokens of forever, we realize there are limits on that word. (I remember the first time a student said, “I haven’t seen you in forever,” and I thought, does that mean you’ve never seen me at all? I didn’t understand what was being said there.)

“Eternal” means “as long as the conditions pertain.” Now, aren’t there verses that seem to be talking about things that are without end and without gaps? “From everlasting to everlasting thou art God.” (Psalm 90:2) There was never a time when God was not. There was never a time when God will not be. That’s without end and without gaps.

But consider the servant who wants to remain in the service of his master. He decides he wants to live and serve the master. They take him to the doorpost, they take an awl—they put a hole in his ear and put a ring in his ear, and he will remain a servant in the house of the Lord and the house of his master forever (Exodus 21:5-6). Well, Job 3:19 tells us that when a servant dies, his servitude is done. In what sense is this a servant forever? Well, as long as he lives—as long as the conditions pertain. That’s how we’ll put it: to perpetuity, we would say, but it’s conditioned by the circumstances that are being described. That’s normally the use of the term in the Old Testament, and it’s often the use in the New Testament as well. That “forever” just simply means as long as the conditions are in place.

Now, we have verses like, “I give to them eternal life and they shall never perish.” (John 10:28) Well, we have other passages that tell us that’s unto an eternity (John 3:16, 1 Timothy 6:12, 1 John 2:25, John 11:25)—throughout all eternity, when the symbols of time have been done away, no more sun or moon to show us the day and night cycles, the yearly cycles (Revelation 21:23)  That’s just forever and ever. In the New Testament, the Greek word more often suggests an eternity without end and without gaps, but not always. In the Old Testament, it primarily means unto perpetuity, as long as the conditions pertain, but sometimes means without end and without gaps.

Aaron is promised a forever priesthood (Numbers 25:12-13). David is promised a forever kingdom (2 Samuel 7:16,26). That’s not without end and without gaps because there’s no longer an Aaronic priesthood coming from Aaron. There was a huge gap between 586 BC to the present day of a ruler in Jerusalem—there is no king in Jerusalem. The way they envisioned those words when it was first given, there were gaps involved. But we can be assured that when it says we have eternal life, it talks about an existence with God that goes on without the limits of time—the passing of time is just an eternity (John 11:25). Life does not end with death because if we’ve been born from above, we will never die. Oh, the body is cast off—and as you get older, you say, “Lord, any time now you can take me home.” These bodies will decay, and we will shuffle off this mortal coil, I suppose. But there’s us—we live on, and it is an eternal life. Now, that’s suggested not simply from the word “eternal life” but from other descriptors in the New Testament (John 3:16, 36; Mark 10:29-30).

Messiah

The word “Messiah” simply means “anointed one.” So you have priests that were anointed. You have kings that were anointed. We have “Messiah” used of a foreign ruler—Cyrus the Persian is called a Messiah (Isaiah 45:1). The New Testament equivalent is “Christ.” Christ is not Jesus’ middle name—when he was filling out forms, he didn’t write “God, Jesus C.” It’s a designation of Messiahship; “Messiah” simply means king (1 Samuel 12:3; 24:6, 10). And when we come to the word “Messiah,” which is in the Old Testament, it’s a king that’s going to rule. It’s not a designation for God.

Son of God

We have the idea of “Son of God.” “Son of God” simply meant, in the Old Testament, a king. That’s found throughout the ancient Near East. It’s found in the Old Testament. When we come to the New Testament, that whole idea—“Are you the Christ?”—is often found in a context of, “Are you the king that’s coming? Are you the one?”

Often we teach “Son of Man” means human, and “Son of God” means divine, but that needs to be nuanced: “Son of Man” means that he’s the perfect fulfillment of humanity in flesh that has come to communicate God to us. “Son of God” means “king” – the legitimate, rightful ruler.

Now, the New Testament adds to that—very often—that he has an ontological relationship with the divine. By that, I mean that God will say to Mary, “You’ll be overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, and that which is in you, that which will be born, will be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1:35) A miraculous birth, suggesting a relationship that is without example, without any sort of precedent. That promise is followed by, “I will give to him the throne of his father David” (Luke 1:32).  “Son of God” equals legitimate, rightful ruler, especially in the New Testament.

All

“All” does not mean all. And so, “all the nations submitted to Nebuchadnezzar?” (Jeremiah 28:14, Daniel 3:7) No—just all of those that were in their normal, everyday commerce. They probably knew of India. They certainly knew of Africa and parts of Asia, parts of Europe. But all nations submitted to it? No—just that fertile crescent that Nebuchadnezzar controlled. “All” does not always mean all. “In Adam, all died” (Romans 5:12) —how many? Everybody…except two exceptions (Enoch in Genesis 5:24, Elijah in 2 Kings 2:11).

Consider also “In Christ, all are made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). Well, in our theology, to be made alive is to be a Christian (see Ephesians 2:5 ‘made alive’ while passages such as  John 14:6,  Revelation 20:14, Matthew 25:41 warn of the death awaiting those outside Christ.)  “All” does not always mean all without exception: it sometimes means “all without distinction among the group that I’m talking about.”

LORD and Lord

And then we have the word “LORD” in all capital letters. This is the covenant name for God, probably pronounced “Yahweh.” There’s another word, “Lord,” Adonai, and for a dignitary. You call him “Lord, our Lord.” And it’s illustrated for us in Psalm 110: “The LORD said unto my Lord.” Yahweh said to my Adonai. Who is the Lord of that second phrase? Personally, I would argue that in its first fulfillment, it was referring to Solomon. The LORD, Yahweh, said to my Lord, the king, because there was a time when David was no longer king and Solomon was his Lord. And in that transition in 1 Kings, we have this language of the Lord. Who is the Lord? The king. When it says that David bowed on his bed (1 Kings 1:47), I think he’s showing submission, and I think it’s the expression of submitting to the lordship of his king, who is the “Son of God” now. But Solomon is a picture of a “greater than Solomon” who is going to come.

• Solomon was a man of peace; Jesus is the Prince of Peace.
• Solomon collected wisdom; Jesus has become wisdom for us.
• Solomon ruled over a tiny kingdom, the size of Vermont, maybe expanding a little beyond that. Jesus is the ruler of the entire world.

So I personally think that Psalm 110 is referring to, by typology, also to the Lord Jesus Christ, but in the context, referring to the physical king.

Because there are two authors in Scripture: the Holy Spirit, who knows the end from the beginning, and we can picture him as being up in heaven, and prophets down here receiving a word. They often have a message that was appropriate for that day, but they couldn’t see further than that. And it would be in a progress of revelation that the Holy Spirit would reveal to New Testament prophets what was being taught. And so you have that Solomon is going to be the Son of God: “I will be a father to him, and he will be a son to me.” (2 Samuel 7:14) That’s repeated in Chronicles three times (1 Chronicles 17:13; 22:10; 28:6) . So, I think that’s saying this is a bona fide fulfillment of those words. But who is the Son of whom it is said, “I will be a father to him, and he will be a son to me”? Well, certainly that’s looking to the Lord Jesus Christ. A dual fulfillment—a complete self-contained fulfillment in the Old Testament, and the Chronicler and David said it’s Solomon. But there’s a greater fulfillment too – there’s the Holy Spirit who is saying those words are going to be of added significance, because God wanted to give a preview of coming attractions as well as specific prophecies that people, [considering the life of Christ,] could look back and say, “Oh, born of Bethlehem—oh, that’s Micah. Oh, he’s like Moses. He’s like Samuel. He’s like Jeremiah. He’s like the temple.” He’s like all of these pictures that were pointed forward by indirect prophecy—previews of coming attractions.

How the Old Testament Points to Christ

The Old Testament quotes will speak of the Lord Jesus Christ in various ways. Yes, he’s going to be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2). He’s going to be raising up a tabernacle (Amos 9:11). The New Testament tells us Jesus was born in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:1). And when the church is being established, even including Gentiles, it was the raising up of the tabernacle of David that’s cast down (Acts 15:16). Sometimes there are dual fulfillments, as we’ve just seen. But sometimes there are typologies. By that, I mean God put certain patterns in place—previews of coming attractions—so that when we see things that are similar, when they saw things in the New Testament that were similar, they said, “Wait, this has got God’s fingerprints all over it. I mean, this guy is doing works like Moses—or like Elijah. Elijah is here in our midst.”

Every miracle that Elijah and Elisha did is repeated in the ministry of Christ. (you may ask, What about fire from heaven? I don’t recall any in Christ’s experience. But remember when Christ was rejected by certain cities, the disciples said, “Can we call down fire from heaven? Can we do that?” And Jesus says, “No, that’s not what we’re here for.” But I think that’s showing he could have done that, Luke 9:51-56).  Elijah heals an only son (2 Kings 4:11-17, 32-37; see Luke 7:12-15).  Elisha takes some meager food and gives it to 100 plus people with some left over (2 Kings 4:42-44; see Matt. 14:18-21). There are similarities at work between the ministry of Elijah/Elisha and Jesus.  An observer at the time of the New Testament might have said, “I’ve heard this before. What’s going on here? It must be God at work again. Because it’s like the way God worked before; it’s God at work today.”

In the New Testament, we have a teaching that no prophecy of Scripture came from just the thinking of people (2 Peter 1:20)—it was the Holy Spirit informing the heart of the prophet. And we would argue, when you look at the disciples, some of them wrote Scripture—they were not only apostles, they were prophets. And they spoke these prophetic words. You had prophets in Corinth (1 Corinthians 14:31) and elsewhere—they were receiving from the Holy Spirit insight into what God was doing. Some of that made its way into the Scripture that we have in the New Testament. It had to come from the Spirit of God informing the heart of the prophet or the prophetess to give us these words in the New Testament. And in the New Testament, we have new revelation that’s being given.

Peter will say, “No prophecy of Scripture came from anyone just thinking about it or putting it together—holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” The New Testament tells us there were prophets at work in the New Testament age, giving us the Word of God as well. How do we know this? Well, it says God first gave to the church apostles, then prophets, then evangelists and pastor-teachers (Ephesians 4:11). These are New Testament prophets giving us New Testament material, which is built upon the Old Testament but might differ from it in that transition from physical to a spiritual message. Some of the apostles were prophets, and the prophets were foundational to the church.

The Interpretive Process: From Then to Now

We also have, in the relationship between the Testaments, that when we read the Old Testament, we need to say, “What did it mean then?” before we say, “What does it mean for me now?” And there’s a process that we have to go through. What did it mean then?

(Many of us know the song, “Every promise in the book is mine, every chapter, every verse, every line—all the blessings of his love divine, every promise in the book is mine.” But not everybody knows this song – that’s why they call me the Old Testament Professor. I used to say, “Ask your father; he remembers that song, he remembers that commercial.” Now I’m saying, “Ask your grandfather; he remembers.” I’ve crossed a demographic line.)

When studying the Old Testament,

• We first must say, “What did it mean then?” For example, the word “eternal” did not mean an infinity in time. You have to factor that into our interpretation. What did it mean then?
• And then, particularly with earlier material, what did the Old Testament do with this material as it developed over the thousand years from Moses to the end of the Old Testament time? What’s going on then?
• And then we need to say, “What does the New Testament tell us? Is it brought forward without nuancing, without adjustment, or does the New Testament say, ‘Wait a second, this is no longer valid, and this is the modus operandi today’?”
• And then, after going all through that process, “What does it mean for us today as New Testament believers?”

So, we can’t just go back to the Old Testament and say, “Here’s a verse; it applies to me today.” We need to be careful—run it through the Old Testament, through the grid of the New Testament, and then how does it apply to today? (Just as a commercial, our teachers, our elders that have taught—they’re into this process, and they’re really showing us the way that this applies to our lives. I appreciate it very much.)

The New Testament as Continuation and New

We have as well that the New Testament is sometimes a more complete continuation of the Old and sometimes it’s something new. This more complete continuation of the Old is seen for us in Hebrews 11: here’s this “by faith, by faith, by faith, by faith.” Now it’s your turn—“by faith.” You need to exemplify the life of faith even as they did, and it’s as though they are in a stadium (Hebrews 12:1) and they’re cheering us on, saying, “You can do it because we did it.” It’s a more complete continuation of the story of God. This is one story that began at creation—and really before creation—of all things, and we’re a more complete continuation of it.

But there’s a sense in which the New Testament is something new. We are no longer under law; we are under grace. They had to be circumcised and observe the Sabbath day. Paul and others in the New Testament say that’s off the table—let’s go on. That was a constitution that was given at Sinai and continued on until the work of Christ, and now that covenant is abrogated—it is no longer in effect. It’s almost passing away—the writer to Hebrews says it’s almost gone (Hebrews 8:13), and in 70 A.D. it was gone. No temple, no king—it was gone.

The New Testament will tell us, “Where sin abounded, grace abounded.” (Romans 5:20) There’s a sense in which that has been done away. The law came in alongside—the same verse will say, “The law came in alongside.” Well, what did it come in alongside? I would argue it came alongside the other covenants. God made a promise to Noah—still in effect; it’s unconditional (Genesis 9:17). God made a promise to Abraham. God made a promise to David (Psalm 132:11, 2 Samuel 7:13,16). He promised the new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31), which has been fulfilled in Christ (Hebrews 9:15). All of those have been fulfilled in a covenantal stream. But the law came in alongside for a particular time, and at the cross it came to an end.

Now, the New Testament picks up on many of those principles—it repeats nine of the ten commandments, but it does not repeat the Sabbath. We’re not told that we have to rest from Friday night to Saturday night, because it’s been replaced by the spiritual fulfillment of Sabbath, which is our entrance into the land of rest, following our Joshua into the repose of God (Hebrews 4:1,8-9; cf. Colossians 2:16-17)

There’s a sense in which the New Testament is a more complete continuation of the Old. There’s a sense in which the New Testament is something new. And it seems to me that Romans 5:20 speaks to that—it came in alongside of [not simply that “the Law entered”], but at a point in time it’s completed.

I know that this is the 5,000-foot overview and there’s a lot that can be said. These principles have been culled for 40 years since teaching Scripture, and I think that they’re very helpful for investigations of Scripture.

Concluding Prayer

Father, we love you. We love your word—even the parts that are hard to understand. I thank you for the opportunity that we have to worship you freely in this country. We do not take that for granted. And I pray that you might help us to understand your word better—as importantly, to live out this word today and always. Display the love of Christ. Display the heart of God to those around us, particularly those that are closest to us, where it’s often very hard to display the Christian virtues. I ask that you would bless us and our families. We ask in Christ’s name. Amen.

This lesson was first offered in a North Wake Adult Discipleship Course (ADC) Special Seminar. The transcript has been lightly edited and scripture references have been added.