Essentials of Old Testament Theology - Lesson 4

Essentials of Old Testament Theology

Dr. Paul House

ot190-04

God and His Anointed One

Lesson Transcript

Glad to see tonight and hope you'll open your Bibles first to Genesis chapter three, which will be our first text. 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, and noting that as we look through the Bible, that creation theology shows us the power of God and 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. Same wisdom he used to make the world he will make available and does make available to us. So that even when James says any of you lack wisdom, let him ask God and he will supply it. 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. And last 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 that we have with him doesn't created or reflects it. God has a future for his people. This is our God. And 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 corrupted 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 come. We're going to talk about God who judges.

Some of you got a short list of people you like to bring to that, but why pick these themes? And I'm not so sure. I knew myself for quite a while, but in effect, those are the elements. That gets stressed in the text in the New Testament or the gospel shared part about sharing the gospel tonight? Well, when you read acts in the sermons that are there in Acts 13 or 17 or the others, if we put them all together, it goes something like this. The New Testament preaches the God, the Creator. That's where the apostles start with the Gentile audience, God the Creator. Sent to and through his people, Israel and anointed one a messiah whose resurrection means he will judge the world. It's very interesting. The Book of Acts, Christ Resurrection is victory over death, but it also shows God will judge the world. He's the judgment is on the agenda. Those who repent. It's a nice phrase in Act 2021, 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. So that 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. And that for the Jewish audiences, all the pieces were kind of put together then where they could see it whole. And so when we talk about God, the Creator working through his people, Israel really hit those themes so far and that God has sent his anointed one. And that's tonight's topic. And as we look at tonight, a topic God and his anointed one.

As we've been doing, I want to work through the scriptures. First of all, seeing the roots of the promise of the NOI when 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 will see from the writings. So roots, expression and application of the promise that God would send His anointed one. The roots of this promise begin in chapter three of Genesis, 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 serpents way. Sin enters the world. And the second thing that God tells a serpent is Chapter three, verse 15 I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring, and he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. But from her offspring will come. Someone who will bruise your head. Evil will not triumph. And we have a rather broad angle lens to look at this. Somebody from the woman will come and perform this task. Chapter 12 of Genesis we looked at last week. Chapter 12 and verse one through nine, where God makes particular promises to Abraham. And we know from verse one, God tells Abraham to go from his kindred and go to a place where he'll be shown. And verse two, I will make of you 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 who dishonors you all workers and in you, all the families of the Earth shall be blessed. 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. And when we sin missionaries or when you go, whether it's a stamp trip or permanently, the truth is you're fulfilling a promise made 4000 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. Genesis 49. Jacob is blessing his sons. Of course, for a couple of them. You got to want it. That's blessing. Who wants to be cursed? But Jacob wasn't known for sugarcoating things, best I can tell. But look at 49 eight, Judah, Your brother shall praise you. Your hands shall be on the neck of your enemies. Your father's sons shall bow down before you. So he's going to have prominence. Verse ten. The scepter shall not depart from duty. That tribe is going to rule, nor the ruler 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 is going to rule in Israel, and in fact, the obedience of the people's plural will come to him. And so we focused on Abraham's family and now we focused a bit on Judas. Family keeps getting on down. And then finally, one other root of the promise that the New Testament picks up on is found in Deuteronomy chapter 18, 1815. The Lord, your God 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 test picks up on is that Jesus is not only a priest and a king. We'll see those later, but but a prophet. He fulfills every sort of role that's necessary. So these are roots and I think sometimes it's good to go over them so that 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 nation through. Abraham said he was going to use Judah to rule the peoples, and that indeed he would send one like Moses. No wonder the New Testament, one of the sorts of messiahs they were looking for was a new Moses. So what they're looking for, we see already. Let's give the first century people a little bit of break. They got to see some great things, but they had some things to try to piece together. So I one of the reason I say putting the pieces together. So there's but they're looking for somebody who can defeat sin. Bless the nations be from due to 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. And there's always somebody who prefers a committee over one, but that's another. Shouldn't be deal with that at all. But these are some of the routes now, the expression of the promise in the prophets moving there. The mother of these promises is really second. Samuel seven. Mentioned that passage last week. Second, Samuel seven. David wants to build a temple for God and God, Rather says, I will build a house for you.

Look at chapter seven and verse 12. The whole chapter is about this subject and God's grace and kindness to David in his response. But in 712, he tells David. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you. He didn't quite get it. Who shall come from your body? And I will establish his kingdom. That Solomon. Unlike Saul, whose son didn't succeed him. David's going to have a dynasty. Verse 13. As for 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 first and second kings. When God tells some of these kings, the kings of the North, you're going to have a dynasty, you're going to 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 say, okay, here's a deal, for generations, I will take that deal. I'm the kind who wants to be a millionaire. I'm not born at 32 grand. I'm going to take it. Now, on the other hand, in this text, he's pushing David and making think. Beyond what he can imagine. That is there will always be one of your descendants ruling. And 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? And how does somebody rule forever? And he goes on to make other promises today.

But this is the one that boggles the mind. And it starts here that the people now understand. It's not just Judas Tribe. It's from David. See, we're looking and focusing on David as they think about this theme of God is anointed one. Then turn to Isaiah Chapter nine. Isaiah has several promises of the coming one, but Isaiah nine is one of the most extraordinary. Isaiah nine one through five gives hope to Galilee, the most war ravaged part of Israel, then specified in chapter nine, verse six four. To us a child is born to us, a son is given. We hear this Christmas all the time and the government shall be upon his shoulder and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor. 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 in over his kingdom to establish it and uphold it. Justice and righteousness. From this time forth and forever, the zeal of the Lord of host will do this. This is an extraordinary list. The most extraordinary thing in chapter nine, verse six is that the text says that this individual will have deity. That is just an extraordinary thing in the Old Testament, where the pagans, the Egyptians and others often said that their kings were divine somehow, boy, 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 counsel, Mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, including mighty God. And again, 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. 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 a zillion different ways. In my discipline, if you have an opening in New Testament, you need Assistant professor of New Testament. If you want 200 resumes, you can give them. It's astounding that say it to discourage anybody's initiative decision. But if you want, we had a search at Taylor University and I was running a search. And so 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 that it would pare the list down. And that's what I did. I had six or seven. I was embarrassed because you throw it 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. Bit like that with the Messiah. By the time he put all these things together, you look at Jesus, the qualification just about eliminate anyone pretending. Well, okay, the king side of it. God calls David his servant. Repeatedly. We go to Isaiah chapter 52 and three, and you know this passage, but Isaiah 52 and verse 13. And it's the passage where the servant suffers on behalf of others. I want to look at verse 13, and 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. And I never knows before the day when my colleague Richard Schultz pointed it out in a sermon, I heard that there are only two other instances of that high and lifted up.

And it's in Isaiah six and then in Isaiah 57, both times describing that description we just read to God. So he's saying something about this servant that you only said about God elsewhere in this book. And it goes on to describe. Death for others. Having no sin. Of his own. The servant. And 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's working, not just the cross, though there vary significantly, but other times that this is who Jesus was and this is what he's doing. He is a complete sacrifice for the sins not only of Israel, but according to 50 to 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. And so the sacrifice for the sins of the nation is God's servant. And then Isaiah 61, verses one through three. 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. Verse one The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He 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 Isaiah 61 one through three, recorded for us in Luke four. Jesus said, This is what I'm here to do.

And these words are fulfilled in your hearing today. The priest sat in his home synagogue in Nazareth. And, you know, they made a fairly quick decision that probably they ought to kill him because he 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 work 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, the nations. A complete sacrifice for the sins of the nations. And a teacher healer for the poor. And 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? Now a bit on the application of the promise. We know that certain ones of the Psalms, not all of them. But particularly Psalm two, where the text says that God has chosen his King David's air and has made him king and given him. The nations and the ends of the earth as his kingdom. Some, too. He says in verse eight, asked of me, And I'll make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession. That's a bigger king in the 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 and Psalm 110 and the text says he will be a priest after the order of milk. Cassidy. And again, this is extraordinary because the Old Testament tried to keep the king and the priest separated. Those were all separated.

The Psalm 110 he'll be a priest after the Order of Melchizedek. In other words, not 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. And then in Psalm 132. The text calls this person a servant of God. Once again, the servant imagery comes in. So you look at Psalm two 110 132 Now, why do I call this the application of the promise? Now, let's go try out an idea here. For the first time. It could be dead wrong. And please don't throw things. I'm thinking along the lines of this is anticipatory worship. I never thought about this before that before the Messiah ever came, the people were praying and singing and celebrating him. It's what I mean by the application of the problems. They're acting like it's already true. The same way we would sing and celebrate about the second Coming. We believe it. We are. It's part of our worship, but it hasn't happened. Or at least I hope it hasn't. But this anticipatory worship and then a couple of other brief passages closes. The book of Daniel is not in the Prophets, in the Hebrew canons, in the writings of the last section, but Daniel, Chapter seven. And verses 1314. We'll start with verse nine because it says Daniel seven nine. As I looked, thrones were placed and the ancient of days took his seat. God is there. I love that phrase, The ancient of days. Time's not an issue with him. Verse 13, I saw in the night vision and behold, with the clouds of heaven, there came one like a son of man. 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. Now remember what we read Psalm to remember what we read. And in Isaiah that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away in his kingdom. One that shall not be destroyed. All nations, all people. An everlasting dominion. The pictures that we gained already from our study tonight. And so it's very interesting to me that I read the scholarship on Daniel 713 and 14. Lot of debate about who the son of man is. And I'm going to read is 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, when Jesus says to them. That he is the son of man and you'll see him coming on the clouds of heaven. They heard Daniel 713 and 14 and wanted to kill him. They didn't hear Son of Man as just another guy. He says when they said, Are you the sort of man? But he says, I am, and you'll see me doing these things. He's saying, I'm the son of man to whom the end of days gives kingdom and dominion that 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. And this is a lively living hope in desperate days. That's how he applied this promise. And finally, at the end of the Hebrew can is Chronicles. And First Chronicles 17 is a repetition. Expansion of second Samuel seven and 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 and First Chronicles 17, you have repeated 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 so. 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. None of the people they preach to had ever seen probably had never seen Jesus do a miracle, never had seen or heard Jesus talk, never had had the experience of seeing him in person. So what they had to do was, as it says, more than one occasion they showed from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ the Messiah. And so we see some of the passages that they must have been using and some of the ideas that they shared. To understand. And 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. And 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 one. And I'll close with this. Malachi one is being very critical of the press here, so I want to skip over that pretty fast.

But you hear what God says in Malachi 111 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 in a pure offering for my name will be great among the nations, says a lord of host. 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.