Jesus Christ in the Old and New Testaments
COVID-19 cut off Equip adult Christian education meetings mid-March. Their eclipse cut short answers to two question. First, was the messianic concept of the Old Testament the same as New Testament faith in Messiah Jesus? Secondly, what was Jesus’s self-understanding of his Messiahship in light of the Old Testament? These two questions are far more important than rational proofs for the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies in the life of Jesus. Followers of Jesus want to know “the same mindset as Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5). Showing the mind of Christ Jesus was the goal of our survey of the entire Bible.
To make up for an interrupted survey, I would like to point to an excellent book on Old Testament prophecies in the New Testament. Richard Hays presents a high view of Jesus’ Messianic self-consciousness through a figural reading of Old Testament prophecies. Figural readings of prophecy work both ways, from Old Testament to New and from New Testament to Old. Citing Erich Auerbach, Hays writes:
Figural interpretation establishes a connection between two events or persons in such a way that the first signifies not only itself but also the second, while the second involves or fulfills the first. The two poles of a figure are separated in time, but both, being real events or persons are within temporality. They are both contained in the flowing stream which is historical life, and only the comprehension, the intellectus spiritual, of the interdependence is a spiritual act.
Figural interpretation aims higher than a simple prophetic-fulfillment scheme, for it is in the comprehension of mutual interactions between two events or persons that spiritual meaning is comprehended.
Hays uses figural interpretation to open new vistas on the four Gospels. Mark’s Gospel is Hays’ favorite because it presents Jesus’ Messianic consciousness in the allusive language of irony. Old Testament references abound in the Gospel without proof texts specifying a particular prophet, but readers familiar with prophetic texts catch the hint that Jesus consciously saw himself fulfilling these prophecies. Mark’s Gospel contains the most forthright disclosure of divine self-consciousness at the trial of Jesus (Mark 14:61-62), associated with the most abject descriptions of Jesus’ agony in Gethsemane (Mark 14:32-41) and abandonment at Golgotha (Mark 15:34). Mark’s Gospel ends in stunned silence before the empty tomb (Mark 16:8). Mark used the Old Testament to show Jesus’ witness to his hidden identity as the Son of God could only be understood by those who follow him by taking up the way of the Cross.
At the other extreme from Mark’s allusive Gospel is John’s Gospel, which discloses the pre-existent deity of Jesus Christ in the first verse. Between Mark’s Gospel and the Johannine witness lies the common thread of a high view of Jesus’ Messianic self-consciousness. That theme means the Gospels of Mark and John interpret Old Testament prophecies to show Jesus is God’s Only Begotten Son, even though John used Old Testament prophecy to tell the story of Jesus’s Messianic self-consciousness in a different way. John’s Gospel has significantly fewer specific Scriptural citations, but the narrative structure captures the broader implications of the Old Testament story of redemption through symbolic meanings. The test case for Hays is the reference to Moses:
For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. (John 1:16)
But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say? (John 5:45-47)
These references raise the question for Hays about how John reinterpreted Torah. According to Hays’ enumeration, few references to Moses or Mosaic Law appear in the Gospel. This curious fact is offset by the symbols of Temple and Feast Days incorporated into the story of Jesus’ ministry. To cite just two, the cleansing of the Temple placed early in John’s Gospel transfers the site of God’s presence from the Temple to Jesus’ body (John 2:13-22), which is the resurrected and glorified body of Jesus for the reader of John’s Gospel. Another incident unique to John is Jesus’ self-identification with God as the one who provides food and drink during the Festival of Tabernacles (John 7:37=Lev 26:36). Also prominent is John’s appropriation of the symbol of the Passover Lamb to Jesus’ sacrificial death through the dating of the crucifixion on the Day of Preparation when the Lamb was slain, and the comparison between the piercing of Jesus’ side to unbroken bones of the Pascal lamb (John 19:31-37). Through the use of symbols like Temple and Feast Days, John’s Gospel places Jesus’ death and resurrection within the framework of an eternal plan of divine redemption which encompasses the prophetic history of Israel beginning with Creation.
Hays enhances our understanding of the Messianic concept implied in the Old Testament and the self-understanding of Jesus in light of the Old Testament. Prophetic allusions in the Gospels can sometimes be used to dispense with the Old Testament by using it simply as a source book for fulfilled prophecies. Hays shows how the Gospels retain their connection with the Old Testament through Jesus, who unlocked the meaning of Messiahship embedded in the prophecies. At the same time, figural readings strengthen faith today in Israel’s God who encounters us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
At this time of year, the church celebrates the miraculous birth of Jesus according to the Scriptures. The miraculous birth of Jesus in a Bethlehem stable confounded many expectations of the Messiah based on contemporary Jewish interpretations of Old Testament prophecies. Jesus’ Messianic identity was still problematic to his followers even after the resurrection. Like the disciples on the Road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35), we need Jesus to come alongside and “explain what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself” through the Holy Spirit so that our hearts will burn again with all that He opened to them. In a short book, Hays does a really good job of showing how the Gospels do just that.
Richard B. Hays, Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness (Baylor University Press, 2016)
Book Review, by Bruce McCallum, December 8, 2020