Survey of the Old Testament - Lesson 1

I. Nature of the Old Testament

I'm excited to teach this course. I love the Old Testament. I've been teaching it for about 25 years, but I haven't taught a survey course like this in over 20 years. This will be the first time I've come back to summarize the whole section. I usually do smaller chunks for a longer amount of time. I'm going to do my best to get everything in, in the requisite number of hours.

In this course, we're going to make two passes through the Old Testament. In the first section, we're going to make a big sweeping pass over what the Old Testament is about. How does the Old Testament work once I convince you of the scenario I'm working with? We'll then back up and we'll go through each of the books of the Old Testament. We will go one by one to see how that book fits into the scene of the scenario and how it contributes to the overall message.

That's what we're going to do, but before I do that I'm going to give you my prayer for the course. I want to have a theme. In Colossians 3:15-16 Paul says the peace of Christ, let it rule in your heart. Then two clauses later at the beginning of verse 16, it says the word of Christ, let it dwell in you richly. I'm convinced that the relationship between the two is important. The more we allow the word of Christ to dwell in us, the more the peace of Christ will reign in us.

The Old Testament constitutes part of that word of Christ. The more we understand that the more we let that soak into us. We'll actually have that peace of Christ dwelling in us. So that's my prayer that over this week together, and over this time together that you'll actually feel the peace of Christ welling up in you as the word of Christ wells up in you also.

The peace of Christ, let it dwell in your heart. By the word of Christ, let it dwell in your heart as well. I'm going to begin by convincing you about the nature of the Old Testament. I'm going to say some very startling things. I think about the Old Testament today and that in some circles it would be a little bit shocking. In some circles it might be okay; they know it a lot in some circles. The way in which I grew up, these are shocking statements. If you'd told me these things, 30 or 40 years ago, I'd have been shocked at what I'm hearing coming out of my mouth. I want to convince you about the special nature of the Bible and the Old Testament. Before we look at it, what kind of book is it?

The Old Testament is a story or a narrative account told two times over from creation, into sin, then into exile. This happens once in the book of Genesis where God creates Adam and Eve. They sin and they go into exile at the end of the book of Genesis. All of God's people are in exile in Egypt. So from creation to exile, that same story or narrative is rehearsed again in Exodus through Chronicles. God brings his people through the waters of the crossing of the Red Sea and a second creation act. Then they sin and at the end of the Hebrew Bible in Chronicles they're in exile again. The Old Testament is a story told two times over. By story I want you to understand, I don't mean something that's make-believe.

We often hear the word “story” used frequently in the Bible. I think that's fine to do, but in our particular culture, the word “story” can take on the connotation of the nuance of make believe. For example, I just looked it up in my concise Oxford English Dictionary at home before I came, and the first definition reads like this about the word “story.” It reads, “An account of imaginary or past events.” When I use the word story, I'll try not to use it a lot. I do not intend to imply anything imaginative. The fourth definition is the one I like which is “facts or experiences that deserve narration.” Now it's interesting to me that the Old Testament is a story or a narrative told two times over because one of the things we're going to recognize or come to see in our time together is that oftentimes things happen in pairs in the Bible.

I call this the MVP rule of two. This is how I teach it to my students. For example, it occurs all over the place where there are two testaments. There are two accounts of creation, Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. There are two creations, this creation, the one we're in and there's going to be the new creation. In the Bible there are two worlds, the world before flood and the world after the flood. There are two covenants, the covenant of works and the covenant of grace. There are two Adams, according to Romans 5, the first Adam and Jesus and the second Adam. There are always two figures that work together in redemptive history; there's Moses and Joshua, there is David and Solomon, there's Elijah and Elisha. There's a temple, tabernacle, stage one and stage two.

There are two exiles of Israel in the Old Testament, one in 2 Kings 17 and the other is 2 Kings 25. There are two Comings of Jesus, his first coming and his second coming. So a lot of this is pedagogical in some sense, Hebrew loves to repeat itself. Even with Hebrew poetry, it's usually two lines, the first line and the second line are saying the same thing, but from different angles. If you miss it the first time you get it the second time. That's one of the things that we're going to see. We're going to see all of these things that happen in stages over time, reflect and look like each other. The more you can see the connections, the more you see how the Bible will work. In fact we'll see that the Bible is actually a mirror image of itself, the Old and New Testaments. In these lectures, we can see that rule of two playing out at the macro level.

II. Five Part Thesis 

My thesis has five parts to it about this special nature of the Old Testament. The Old Testament is a God-breathed book. It is therefore both living and life giving. Its human authors were guided by the spirit of Christ who controlled its content, delivery, and preservation. It has a theological center, a unified thematic framework, and a covenant structure. This book is a Christian book. It was written for Christians. I want you to know that each one of those statements have been and will continue to be debated in the past and in the future. This is my stance of where I'm at, and I'm going to try to defend it biblically so that when I show you the amazing nature of the Old Testament, you'll say, “Oh yeah, it couldn't be anything other than this.”

Let me say it again: the Old Testament is a God-breathed book. It is therefore both living and life giving. Its human authors were guided by the spirit of Christ who controlled its content, delivery, and preservation. It has a theological center, a unified thematic framework, and a covenantal structure. This book is a Christian book, it was written for Christians. Let me defend each one of those statements right there. 

A. The Bible is a God-breathed book

Point one, the Old Testament is a God-breathed book. I get this from 2 Timothy 3:16-17, it's a very famous part of Scripture. “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training and righteousness, that the person of God may be completely equipped for every good work.” Now, the word I'm looking at right there that's important is the word, “breathe out by God,” Greek Theopneustos. You can see in the NIV, it's translated “God breathed”, the King James version is “given by inspiration of God,” and the NASB is “inspired by God.”

What does it mean? What are the implications, not just to the Bible, but when Paul is making reference to this particular document to Timothy, that he's talking about the Old Testament? They don't have a New Testament yet. So when Paul's saying all Scripture, his immediate point of reference is the Old Testament. Subsequent to that, we put the New Testament in that as well. 

What does it mean that the Old Testament is God-breathed? It can mean a lot of different things. It can have a lot of implications, but let me give you one kind of special illustration. Let's think together about something else that in the Bible is God-breathed.

Can you think of something?

The world, but specifically in that world. Humans, humans are marked out in creation from every other thing. God having breathed into them the breath of life when they become a living being. What did humans start out as? Dirt, God took the dirt and the dust and formed it into a human being and breathed into him the breath of life. That person became a living being. The difference between dust or dirt and a human being is the breath of God. What happens when a person expires and the breath of God leaves him? What happens is he returns back to the dust we know that we have evidence of the former state. I want you to take this into your mind. The difference between me as a person, a human being, and a pile of dirt is one animating feature: the breath of God. Dirt can't move, it can't feel, it can't love, it can't reproduce, it can't worship, it can't do any of that. A human being, created image of God can. 

Let's make the connection. What therefore is the difference between the Bible, a God-breathed book, and every other piece of literature ever written? It's the difference between me and dirt. Here is a copy of my Bible in English, this is a God-breathed book. The difference between this book and any other book, is the difference between a human being and dirt. The Bible is a God-breathed book, and we're going to say it's living and alive for that reason. It has a very special status. The verse in Genesis 2:7, “Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living creature.”

B. It is Living and Life Giving 

Because of this special status that the Bible has, it is therefore, in thesis number two, both living and life giving. In Hebrews 4:12, the author states, “for the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two edge sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” “For the word of God is a live thing and active.” It is not a dead book. It is not words on a page. It's got a living force behind it. Look what Peter says in 1 Peter 1:23-25, “Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass, the grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever and this word is the good news that was preached to you.”

He's talking about the Old Testament, which for most Christians are thinking “Yeah, of course the New Testament is that way,” but this is the Old Testament. Even the Old Testament testifies to its life-giving nature in Psalm 19:7, one of the Torah Psalms says, “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul”. The testament of the Old Testament itself is that special status. Listen to this one, Psalm 119:25, another big Torah psalm, “My soul clings to the dust; give me life according to your word!” The Old Testament is a God-breathed book, therefore, it is both living and life giving. This is what the New Testament is saying about the Old Testament. This is the apostolic witness to the personal work of Christ as viewed through the lens of the Old Testament. 

C. Its Human Authors were Guided by Christ

Point number three, its human authors were guided by the spirit of Christ who controlled its content, delivery, and preservation. No prophet or apostle ever wrote by their own will or strength. They wrote according to the spirit of Christ, that was in them.

1 Peter 1:10-11, “Concerning the salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he preached the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.” Peter's saying the Old Testament is talking about the spirit of Christ in them, looking forward to the time where Christ would suffer and turn to glory. If we don't get that out of the old Testament, then we're missing the apostolic marker.

We've got to aim our arrows in the right direction. This is really important for studying the Old Testament. One of the difficulties of Old Testament studies is the fact that a number of the books in the Old Testament are anonymous in terms of their authorship. We don't know who wrote Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, or Chronicles. We don't know who wrote Lamentations. We have ideas and traditions but they are technically anonymous works. That shouldn't give you any trouble because you know that it was the Spirit of Christ at work in the author who was moving them to write these things. We do have the primary author, the spirit of Christ is the agent; the prophets and apostles are the instruments.

D. Theological Center, Unified Framework, Covenantal Structure

The Old Testament, and not just the Old Testament, but by extrapolation of the New Testament too, I'm going to try to convince you of that; It has a theological center, a unified thematic framework, and a covenantal structure. People may disagree with that, you'll simply have to be convinced on the merit of the evidence I present positively for it. If it was a different kind of course, we could do all kinds of, higher critical defenses, but we're not going to do that in this particular setting. Where do I get that threefold statement where it has a theological center, a unified thematic framework, and a covenant structure? I get it from Acts 28:23. We're going to talk a lot about this verse because it's programmatic for me and how I view the whole Bible. Statements like this occur a couple times.

Here, Paul is in Rome and he's going to be there for two years teaching day and night. Luke is writing about his ministry and time there. He's summarizing what Paul is doing. In Acts 28:23, it says this “When they had appointed a day for him, they came to him at his lodging in greater numbers. From morning till evening he expounded to them, testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus both from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets.” What was he doing? He was testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus from both the Law of Moses and the prophets.

We have two things he's trying to do. One, he's telling you what his message is, and two, what the source of that message is. What's his textbook? He's giving you a look into the syllabus. I've got the Old Testament gang. I'm going to spend all day and night with you trying to convince you about the kingdom of God and Jesus. So these three items for me represent very important hermeneutical or interpretational lenses through which to enter into the Bible, but especially the Old Testament. You've got these apostles talking about what they're doing using the Old Testament. I want to imitate or mimic that as much as I can. I'm going to say that the Bible has a theological center, a thematic framework, and a covenantal structure.

The theological center is going to be Jesus Christ. The thematic framework is the kingdom of God. The Law of Moses and the Prophets is going to represent a covenantal structure. Meaning that at the heart of the Old Testament, at the center of everything is the person and work of Jesus. His birth, his life, his teachings, his death, his resurrection, his Ascension, and a second coming. All of the Old Testament only makes sense and hangs together with that theological center. No other thing can bear the weight of the Old Testament in terms of all of its diversity, as that one theological center. Think about everything in the Old Testament. You've got temples and tabernacles, priests and prophets and kings. You have war, you have famine, you have exodus, and you have exile.

You have things like the stipulations in terms of what you can wear and what underwear you can wear as a priest when you're leading in worship. You have things about love poetry, about marriage and Song of Songs. You have genealogies. What makes sense of all of that diversity is the one thing that ties it all together, it only makes sense in the personal work of Jesus. It's all geared towards showing us who's coming and what he's going to do for his people. He's the theological center. 

The thematic framework is not a center thing, but it's a framework that encompasses the whole. Every theme, motif, every institution in the Bible, is a kingdom of God theme. Prophet, kingdom of God official; priest, kingdom of God official; king, kingdom of God official; judge, king of God official; covenant mediator, kingdom of God official; the creation account, he's creating the kingdom of God. The two kingdoms, the realm with the visible and the invisible. God's two kingdoms.

Every theme in the Bible makes sense underneath that one macro theme. You've got a center that ties it all together and anchors it. You also have an external rubric that makes sense, he's the king of the kingdom, and he's holding it all together and it's this royal thing. 

Then the covenant structure is his canonical word. How does he administer or administrate his kingdom? Through the covenant, and all of these covenants we have recorded in Scripture. The Bible is a covenant document. It's not a love letter, though it may have a love letter in it. It's not a self-help manual but you can get help from it.

It's not a recipe book from some of the dietary laws explaining how we should be eating, or whether it is clean or unclean. It's not that, but it has that stuff in it. The Bible is a covenantal book. It's a covenant book. One of the key things for us is figuring out what is the covenantal structure of the Bible? It has one, it's his covenantal word. If it's his covenantal word, it's going to be structured accordingly. 

How do all those different covenants work in the Bible? There's seven main ones that we're going to be looking at. How do the covenants work and how do they appear in his word together?. 

E. Written for Christians

Thesis number five, this book is a Christian book and it was written for Christians. This is a statement that needs nuance, but the reason I say that is because oftentimes people think the Old Testament is kind of neat. It's got stories and cool stuff in the back. When you are younger, you read that stuff to your kids, so they will stay interested. One day, maybe they will read Paul's epistles and learn real theology. Does that make sense? The Old Testament is actually a book written for Christians. Now I want everyone to read it. It came out of the Hebrew Scripture, it has Jewish roots as well. In fact, the Hebrew Old Testament is the Jewish Bible that still exists and remains today, and it's great. Other people can use it, but in Old Testament studies and in biblical studies as well, there's always this desire to say who was the audience and what was the author's original intent.

That's the grammatical, historical exegesis that we always want to find out. Who was the audience? Was it Abraham in the patriarchal era? Which is different from someone living in exile, in the Babylonian era. Which is different from someone who's living in the monarchy during the time of David and Saul. We want to know who the original audience was. We also want to know what the author's original intent was. What was Isaiah writing about? Why did someone write the account of Ruth? We want to know what that was for? How does that make sense of it? At the end of the day, these things were deposited or recorded in the Scriptures  for us, the people of God.

I have two verses here, Romans 15:4 says, “For whatever was written in former days,” he's talking about the Old Testament, “was written for our instruction” post-Pentecost community, “that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” So the prophetic writings of the Old Testament and all the writing of the Old Testament are prophetic in terms of who put them down, were written for a post-apostolic community, so that we might have endurance and hope. If we read the Old Testament and we don't come up with endurance and hope, we've missed the point.

1 Corinthians 10:11. These were specifically about the wilderness rebellions and the judgments that happened to them as an example or type, but they were written down for our instruction on when the end of the age has come. At one level, you've got to keep in mind that there's an original audience and original author, but these words were also deposited in such a way that when the Spirit of Christ in them was carrying them along intended that they would be used in the new covenant community as a means for instruction, hope, encouragement, endurance, edification, sanctification, glorification, and worship.

Let me read my thesis again and see if it makes more sense this time. The Old Testament is a God-breathed book. It is therefore both living and life giving. Its human authors were guided by the Spirit of Christ who controlled its content, delivery, and preservation. It has a theological center, Jesus Christ. It has a unified thematic framework, the kingdom of God, and a covenantal structure, the Law, the Prophets and the Writings. This book is a Christian book. It was written for Christians. I want you to hear that.

Now that we have Jesus Christ, it's a theological center of the Old Testament. We no longer have to find ourselves in it. When we read some of the accounts, like the Judge narratives, for example, we say “I act just like Othniel or I act like Ehud or I'm like Samson, my life is a wreck, but God can still use me.” I call that the “Where's Waldo” approach to the Old Testament because that's how most Christians interpret the Old Testament. They open a page, read a narrative and try to figure out where they are in that narrative. If you want to know where you are in the Judge's narrative, you're the ones who are doing evil in the eyes of the Lord every time and need to repent, while relying on the gospel's grace, and the Judges will point you to that. The Judges are types of Christ, they're saviors and they're deliverers, they're raised up by God, they bring rest to the land, they defeat God's enemies. It's amazing and I can't believe we've lost that. There's no “Where's Waldo” approach. 

III. The Bible Written For Us, Not About Us

The Bible was written for us, but it's not about us, it is about us in a certain sense. It's primarily about the person and work of Jesus. The Bible is not written about us. On the computer, I searched for the word “Miles” in the Hebrew Old Testament, and I couldn't find one hit. I was very disappointed. If I search for the word “Yahweh” or “Elohim,” he's all over the place.

IV. The Old Testament Teaches About Christ

He's going to be the primary player, which I'll show you later in this account. The last thing is, I want to encourage you by thinking about now that the Bible is about Jesus, you're free to go to the Old Testament and to see him there aggressively. 

It's sometimes very difficult to make sense of a particular text. For example, once I had to preach on the construction of the priestly garments and Exodus. We were going through it on Sunday evening, so you just got assigned a text. The priestly garments. You realize the beautiful things that go on in there, all the jewels that were rooted back in creation, they're the same jewels that we see in the lands and Genesis 2.

So this priest is being recreated in the image of God, and then when you get to the New Testament, you look in the book of Revelation, those same jewels are about the king of God. What we're seeing is beautiful and wonderful things in the Old Testament that point us back to the original design and forward to how it's going to be in the future. There really is never a dull moment in the Old Testament when it's unlocked when you find out it's about the personal work of Jesus, a reformed covenantal, theologian type of guy. I like what chapter one, paragraph eight in the Westminster Confession has to say about the Bible. “Truth and advertising,” this is who I am at this particular point, you can feel free to disagree.

A lot of people disagree with me; my wife frequently and my kids as well. I at least want you to know where I'm coming from. It will just cut out a lot of the guesswork. 

Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter one, paragraph eight says, “The Old Testament in Hebrew and Aramaic, which was the native language of the people of God. The New Testament in Greek, which at the time of the writing was most generally known to the nations as being immediately inspired by God, by His singular care. Providence kept pure in all ages and therefore authentical. So as in all controversies, the church is finally able to appeal unto them.” That's where I'm coming from.