Essentials of Old Testament Theology - Lesson 4

I’m glad to see you tonight and hope you’ll open your Bibles first to Genesis 3, which will be our first text. We’ve been working on a series entitled, “Putting the Pieces Together and Old Testament.” Having done some groundwork, the first week we talked about God, the Creator. Noting that, as we look through the Bible, creation theology shows us the power of God. Our security in him shows us that we can take comfort in him and in his strength in the most difficult of situations, and that we receive guidance from the Creator. The same wisdom he used to make the world he will make available and does make available to us. So that even when James says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God,” and he will supply it (James 1:5). And you think the very wisdom God used to create the world he puts in us so that we might live for him—that’s our Creator. 

Last time we talked about God and his people. God redeems his people. He lets and redeems the people and instructs the people through his Law. The Law that reflects the relationship we have with him doesn’t create it; it reflects the relationship. God has a future for his people. This is our God. 

Tonight, I want to talk about God and his anointed one. The Hebrew word for ‘anointed’ sounds like our word for ‘Messiah.’ It’s—we get the idea of a messiah [inaudible] one. And next time, not next week, but the week after (I know that you’ll all want to know this and invite your friends and everyone to come), we’ll talk about God who judges.

Some of you got a short list of people you’d like to bring to that. But why pick these themes? I’m not so sure I knew myself for quite a while but, in effect, those are the elements that get stressed in the text in the New Testament where the gospel is shared. We’re talking about sharing the gospel tonight. Well, when you read the book of Acts in the sermons in Acts 13 or 17 or the others—if we put them all together, it goes something like this: the New Testament preaches that God, the Creator—that’s where the apostles start with a Gentile audience, God the Creator—sent to and through his people, Israel, an anointed one, a messiah whose resurrection means he will judge the world. It’s very interesting in the book of Acts. Christ’s resurrection is victory over death, but it also shows God will judge the world. Judgment is on the agenda. Those who repent—it’s a nice phrase in Acts 20:21—those who repent toward God and have faith in Jesus receive forgiveness, receive the Holy Spirit to guide and to give power to live for God according to his standards, not ours, and that we receive eternal life instead of divine wrath on the day of judgment. God reveals himself and his plans for his people in the gospel. But it’s the same revelation he’s been putting forth from the beginning. For the Jewish audiences, all the pieces were kind of put together then where they could see it whole, so when we talk about God, the Creator, working through his people, Israel—[inaudible] hit those themes so far—and that God has sent his anointed one. That’s tonight’s topic. As we look at tonight’s topic, “God and His Anointed One,” as we’ve been doing, I want to work through the Scriptures first seeing the roots of the promise of the anointed—the roots of the promise will be in the Law, the expression of the promise will be from the Prophets, and the application of the promise we will see from the Writings. We will see the roots, expression, and application of the promise that God would send his anointed one. 

I. Roots of the Promise: The Law

The roots of this promise begin in Genesis 3, a passage that you know very well is the fall of the human race, as the human race believes Satan rather than God, and follows the serpent’s way. Sin enters the world. The second thing that God tells a serpent is in 3:15, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.” From her offspring will come someone who will bruise the serpent’s head. Evil will not triumph. We have a rather broad angle lens to look at this. Somebody from the woman will come and perform this task. 

We looked at Genesis 12 last week. It is in 12:1–9 where God makes particular promises to Abram. We know from verse one that God tells Abram to go from his kindred and go to a place where he’ll be shown. In verse 2, he says he will make of Abram a great nation. We know about that promise, and I will bless you and make your name great so that you’ll be a blessing. “I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3). This means we now are kind of going from wide angle to less wide angle, from the woman to Abraham’s family, all nations being blessed. 

All nations have been affected by sin. When we see missionaries or when you go, whether it’s a [inaudible] trip or permanently, the truth is you’re fulfilling a promise made 4,000 years ago that God’s going to bless all nations according to his promise. You’re part of a very old program when you do that. 

But now we’re kind of focusing on Abraham and his clan, and these roots are picked up elsewhere in the Bible. But a third root is in Genesis 49. Jacob is blessing his sons. Of course, for a couple of them, you’ve got to wonder if it’s a blessing. Who wants to be cursed? But Jacob wasn’t known for sugarcoating things, best I can tell. But look at 49:8, “Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father’s sons shall bow down before you.” So, Judah’s going to have prominence. Then in verse 10, “The scepter shall not depart from Judah.” That tribe is going to rule, “…nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.” Without spelling out every detail here, Judah, his family, will rule in Israel. In fact, the obedience of the peoples—‘peoples’ is plural—will come to him. 

We focused on Abraham’s family and now we focused a bit on Judah’s. It keeps getting on down. Then finally, one other root of the promise that the New Testament picks up on is found in Deuteronomy 18:15, “The Lord your God,”—this is Moses speaking to Israel—“…will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen.” Then he goes on to express to them how they are supposed to spot true and false prophets then and in the short term. So, one of the things the New Testament picks up on is that Jesus is not only a priest and a king (we’ll see those later), but he is also a prophet. He fulfills every sort of role that’s necessary. These are roots, and I think sometimes it’s good to go over them so we can write down the passages, so we can remind ourselves that from the very beginning, defeat of sin was what God was going to do. He was going to bless all nations through Abraham. He said he was going to use Judah to rule the peoples, and that, indeed, he would send one like Moses. 

No wonder, in the New Testament, one of the sorts of messiahs they were looking for was a new Moses. That’s what they’re looking for. We see already—let’s give the 1st century people a little bit of a break. They got to see some great things, but they had some things to piece together. One of the reasons I say “putting the pieces together” is that they’re looking for somebody who can defeat sin. Bless the nations, be from Judah, be a successor of Moses. No wonder that by the time of some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, they were looking for two or three messiahs to come at once. Kind of messiah-by-committee. There’s always somebody who prefers a committee over one, but that’s another issue that shouldn’t be dealt with at all. But these are some of the routes. 

II. Expression of the Promise: The Prophets

Now, the expression of the promise in the Prophets—moving there. The mother of these promises is really in 2 Samuel 7. I mentioned that passage last week. Here, David wants to build a temple for God. But God says he would rather build a house for David. Look at 7:12. The whole chapter is about this subject of God’s grace and kindness to David and his response. But in 7:12, he tells David, “When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you…” David didn’t quite get it. “…who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.” That’s Solomon, unlike Saul whose son didn’t succeed him—David will have a dynasty. Then in verse 13 it says about the temple, “He shall build a house for my name”—and now here comes the stunner, kind of unexpected, and read along without knowing what’s coming—“…and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” Now it’s a massive promise in 1 and 2 Kings when God tells some of these kings, the kings of the Northern Kingdom, that they will have a dynasty for four generations, that’s a big deal. It would be. I mean, some of you are gamblers, I suppose, at least at heart, if not in actuality. And you could turn down a blessing of four generations, hoping you’d get more. But I got to tell you, if someone comes up to me and says, “Okay, here’s a deal: four generations.” I will take that deal. I’m the kind who wants to be a millionaire. I’m [inaudible] at 32 grand. I’m going to take it. Now, on the other hand, in this text he’s pushing David and making him think beyond what he can imagine. That is, there will always be one of his descendants ruling. In a lot of ways, the rest of the prophets wrestle with how that could be true. And the people who see Jesus wrestle with, if he’s a king, what sort of king is he? How does somebody rule forever? 

He goes on to make other promises to David, but this is the one that boggles the mind. It starts here that the people now understand. It’s not just Judah’s tribe. It’s from David. See, we’re looking and focusing on David as they think about this theme of God as the anointed one. Then turn to Isaiah 9. Isaiah has several promises of the “coming one,” but Isaiah 9 is one of the most extraordinary. Isaiah 9:1–5 gives hope to Galilee, the most war-ravaged part of Israel, specified in 9:6, “For to us a child is born to us, to us a son is given.” We hear this at Christmas all the time. It says, “and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor,” he is wise, “Mighty God,” is powerful, “Everlasting Father,” he’s enduring, “Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end.” And here’s the phrase, “…on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this” (Isaiah 9:7). This is an extraordinary list. The most extraordinary thing in 9:6 is that the text says this individual will have deity. That is just an extraordinary thing in the Old Testament, where the pagans, the Egyptians, and others often said their kings were divine somehow. But the Old Testament stays away from anything close to that. And yet here it says this one, who will be on the throne of David forever, will be “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace,” including Mighty God. I submit to you that if you have those phrases in your mind, even if you’re seeing Jesus creating miracles and things, you need the power of the Holy Spirit and you need faith to be able to put those pieces together. 

In fact, the portrait’s going to get big enough and you’re going to need so many pieces that eventually it goes something like this: only Jesus fits the picture. One of the things you do in a job search—I’ve seen personnel issues and you have to handle them a zillion different ways. In my discipline, if you have an opening in New Testament, you need an assistant professor of New Testament. If you want 200 resumes, you can get them. It’s astounding—I’m not saying this to discourage anybody’s initiative decision. But if you want, we did a search at Taylor University, and I was running the search. It was very interesting. I finally decided the best way to sort this out was to put seven or eight criteria together that would be so difficult, it would pare the list down. That’s what I did. I had six or seven criteria. I was embarrassed because your throwing out good people. Well, he’s not recommended by somebody I know—six or seven or eight of these criteria. And finally, you say these must be the people. It’s a bit like that with the Messiah. By the time he put all these things together, you look at Jesus, the qualifications just about eliminate anyone pretending. 

Well, okay, there’s the king side of it. God repeatedly calls David his servant. We go to Isaiah 52:3—you know this passage. But Isaiah 52:13—it’s the passage where the servant suffers on behalf of others. I’m going to assume you know some of these verses, “Behold, my servant shall act wisely; he shall be high and lifted up and shall be exalted.” I never noticed before the day when my colleague, Richard Schultz, pointed it out in a sermon that there are only two instances of that ‘high and lifted up.’ It’s in Isaiah 6 then in Isaiah 57, both times describing that description we just read, the God. He’s saying something about this servant that you only said about God elsewhere in this book once. It goes on to describe death for others and having no sin of his own. The servant. So, in Isaiah 53, if we just had time there, so many times where the New Testament quotes this along the lines of what Jesus was doing and how he was working not just the cross, though they vary significantly, but other times that this is who Jesus was and this is what he was doing. He is a complete sacrifice for the sins not only of Israel, but according to 52:15, of “many nations.” God the Creator is setting about to redeem his creation. Israel was an instrument for that purpose. They weren’t the sole object of that purpose. So, the sacrifice for the sins of the nation is God’s servant. Then in Isaiah 61:1–2—the reason I read these is because these are the verses Jesus read when he started his public ministry, when he said, this is what I’m about. This is what he said, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn.” And it goes on. Jesus says in Isaiah 61:1–3, recorded for us in Luke 4—Jesus said, this is what I’m here to do. These words are fulfilled in your hearing today. The priest sat in his home synagogue in Nazareth and they made a fairly quick decision that they probably ought to kill him because he was taking on saying of himself that he is the anointed one, the one the Lord has put his spirit upon to do all these marvelous works for the people. So, the expression of the promise of this anointed one is that God would give David an eternal kingdom, that this person would be a perfect ruler for Israel and the nations, a complete sacrifice for the sins of the nations, and a teacher-healer for the poor. Again, you have to ask who is able to do all this stuff? Who’s able to manage the job description? Whose resumé fits this task? 

III. Application of the Promise: The Writings

Now a bit on the application of the promise. We know that certain ones of the Psalms, not all of them, but particularly Psalm 2, where the text says that God has chosen his king, David’s heir, and has made him king and given him the nations and the ends of the earth as his kingdom. He says in verse eight, “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.” That’s a bigger kingdom than David ever had. He’s making promises to give the entire world to this one who comes from David’s lineage. Remember, the Psalms were the songs and the prayers of the people of God. We go on in Psalm 110, and the text says he will be a priest after the order of Melchizedek. Again, this is extraordinary because the Old Testament tried to keep the king and the priest separated. Those were all separated. But in Psalm 110 he’ll be a priest after the order of Melchizedek. In other words, he won’t be a Levite, but one who comes from ancient stock, and he will be a priest. And again, this is a prayer, a song that the people are praying and singing. Then in Psalm 132, the text calls this person a servant of God. Once again, the servant imagery comes in. So, you look at Psalms 2, 110, and 132. 

Now, why do I call this the application of the promise? Now, let’s go try out an idea here for the first time and it could be dead wrong. Please don’t throw things. I’m thinking along the lines that this is anticipatory worship. I never thought about this before. Before the Messiah ever came, the people were praying and singing and celebrating him. It’s what I mean by the applications of the promise. They’re acting like it’s already true the same way we would sing and celebrate about the second coming. We believe it. It’s part of our worship, but it hasn’t happened. Or at least I hope it hasn’t! 

But this is anticipatory worship, and then a couple of other brief passages, and I’ll close with these. The book of Daniel is not in the Prophets in the Hebrew canons. It’s in the Writings of the last section. But in Daniel 7:13–14—we’ll start with verse 9, “As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took his seat…” God is there. I just love that phrase, ‘the Ancient of Days.’ Time’s not an issue with him. In verse 13, “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man…” In other words, he has the appearance of a human being. “…and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom…” Do you remember what we read in Psalm 2? And we read in Isaiah that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and his kingdom is one that shall not be destroyed. All nations, all people. An everlasting dominion. The pictures that we gained already from our study tonight—it’s very interesting to me that I read the scholarship on Daniel 7:13 –14. There’s a lot of debate about who the son of man is. I remember reading this one scholar who is not known at all for being conservative. He just said, given the Old Testament, who else would the son of man be except God’s anointed, the coming king from David’s lineage? All these images are there. You know, half of what you read in those verses we’ve already seen tonight made promises. And the ‘Ancient of Days’—we’ll give this one to the Son of Man. Now, no wonder in Mark 14:62, when Jesus says to them that he is the “Son of Man” and you’ll see him coming on the clouds of heaven, that they heard Daniel 7:13–14 and wanted to kill him. They didn’t hear “Son of Man” as just another guy. He says when they asked, are you the sort of man? And he says, I am, and you’ll see me doing these things. He’s saying, I’m the Son of Man to whom the Ancient of Days gives kingdom and dominion that will last forever. Now, that’s the kind of thing that’ll get you in trouble in the context in which Jesus was. 

But you see, Daniel was an exile. He was out of his homeland. This is a lively living hope in desperate days. That’s how he applied this promise. And finally, at the end of the Hebrew canon is Chronicles. First Chronicles 17 is a repetition and expansion of 2 Samuel 7. Chronicles is built on the Davidic Promise and David’s prominence and how important he is and how that all of Israelite history revolves around David and what he did. And right there, near the beginning of the Davidic accounts in 1 Chronicles 17, you have it repeated that God’s going to give David an eternal kingdom. The temple will be built, and David does a lot to get the materials together and to organize the priests and do all these other things. But the point is, God’s giving David an eternal kingdom. And right there at the end of how the Hebrew Bible unfolds, you have Chronicles. This is belief and faith entrenched, anchored in historical reality. David was a real person. We even know that by archeology now. We think David was a real person to whom God made a real promise that the Incarnation fulfilled Jesus coming in the flesh. 

One of the things I want to remember as I think about these promises and how they unfold in the Bible and all these other things that happened so long ago, that one of the reasons the Bible anchors these things in historical reality so that we would know it’s just as real as if it was happening to us today. And it is. This is reality. So, when they wrote the Bible and they anchored their theology of the history of their people in the book of Chronicles, it revolves around David and the promise that was made to him. 

Now, I want to be clear: every verse in the Bible doesn’t talk about the Messiah. There is much that tells us how to live for him, much that tells us other things. But it’s certain that when the New Testament writers came to their task and they looked at Jesus and they began to write about him and they began to talk about him and they began to preach him, one of the things they had to do in the synagogue, spread out through the Greco-Roman world, was to show the people how Jesus could possibly be the Messiah according to the Scriptures. Probably none of the people they preached to had ever seen Jesus do a miracle; they had never seen nor heard Jesus talk, never had had the experience of seeing him in person. So, what they had to do was, as it says, on more than one occasion, “they showed from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah.” So, we see some of the passages that they must have been using and some of the ideas that they shared to understand. I would say for us today, as we apply the teaching of God and his anointed one, it’s a good week for us to remember as we’ve been emphasizing the missions—it’s a very good week for us to remember that the promise of the Messiah through God’s people came from the Creator. He is interested that his glory and his salvation reach the ends of the earth to every inch of what he created. And he will do so. 

The last book in our English Bible is Malachi, and in chapter 1—and I’ll close with this. Malachi 1 is being very critical of the priests here, so I want to skip over that pretty fast. But you hear what God says in Malachi 1:11, “For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts.” The Creator has set Israel to be a light to the nations, and he sends his anointed one to bring salvation to the ends of the earth. And that’s why we preach him.