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Christ in the Old Testament
What
follows is a collection of my blog posts on the topic of
Christ in the Old Testament.
Links to all the posts are collected together here. The text is below. If you click on the headings you will
find the post in its original setting.
Scroll down to the bottom to find the discussions that followed
each of these posts.
Introduction
When we
confess that Jesus is our Substitute most people mean this:
Jesus stands in our place - living the life we
should have lived, dying the death we should have died
I wonder
though how many also have this understanding of Jesus’ substitution:
He sits on the bench for the first half before the
Coach brings Him on as match-winner in the closing stages.
I find
that many Christians, though believing in the pre-existence of Christ,
function with an understanding akin to this latter belief.
Though we
shout from the roof-tops the centrality of Christ, we affirm His
exclusivity, His supremacy, His full deity, in practice our gospel has
Jesus coming late to the game to solve a problem He’s had
nothing to do with. We insist that He is the crux, the ultimate,
the final, the greatest, the fulfilment but somehow lose that He is the
Beginning, the Author, the Logos, the Creator, the Head etc.
In such
theology Jesus becomes the Kappa and the Omega, the Middle and the
End. The foundations are laid. God is defined
(monadically). Humanity is defined (apart from the true Man).
The God-man relation is taken for granted (according to these Christ-less
definitions). Sin, law, wrath, sacrifice, blessings, hope etc are
slotted into place. And then Jesus comes to find His place within
this pre-fab mould.
But we
know this can’t be right. Jesus is not merely the cherry on the
cake. He is the flour, eggs, sugar, butter and everything else
besides. We know this because we have come to experience life in
Christ. And it is not the experience of
Jesus-the-bridge-to-something-else. He has not taken us by the hand
to another reality (heaven, glory, forgiveness, God), He Himself is our
all in all. All those other things find their meaning in Him
and only in Him.
Now it
seems to me there are three ways that this christocentricity can be
argued:
- Systematically
- From the New
Testament back
- From the Old
Testament forwards
Systematically
we point to verses like Matthew 11:25-30 or John 1:18 or Colossians 1:15
and say Christ is, was and ever shall be the one and only Mediator of the
Father in revelation and salvation. This, when grasped, opens our
eyes to see that all of history, all of theology and all of God to His
very depths is truly trinitarian and christocentric. Glory!
But of
course, people will soon ask you to show it from the bible. So often
people appeal to the New Testament. Jesus was constantly saying
things like He was the One who spoke with Abraham (John 8:56), He was the
One the prophets persecuted (Matt 5:11-12), He was David’s Lord (Matt
22:42-45), He was the One who kept pursuing Jerusalem (Matt 23:37).
Or Paul would say Christ accompanied Israel in the wilderness (1 Cor
10:4,9), Hebrews insists Moses trusted Christ (Hebrews 11:26), Jude
asserts that Jesus saved Israel out of Egypt (Jude 5). And
this gets people excited. For a while.
And then
someone says: “Ahhh, with what freedom the Apostles imposed
christocentricity on the Hebrew Scriptures.” And all of a sudden
you get odd things asserted like: “It’s ok for Apostles to
retrospectively award a Christ-focus to the OT even though the Jewish
authors intended nothing of the sort.” And thus a rarely
substantiated but practically unimpeachable maxim is born: “They spoke
better than they knew.”
Rather
than rant polemically about the laughible paucity of Scriptural
warrant for this view, or the ethical conundrum of Apostles modelling
such dodgy hermeneutics or the logical absurdity of retrospectively
awarding Abraham or Isaiah or Israel an encounter with Christ I will
side-step a stomach ulcer and move to the third argument. Because
if I can show that the OT by itself proclaims Christ then all such
nonsense will be shown to be completely unnecessary.
So here’s
my assertion that I will seek to unpack over a long series of posts: The
OT on its own grounds, in its own context, according to its own intention
is a plain and understood revelation of Christ. I will seek to
argue that,
- Christ is active
pre-incarnation
- He is the Mediator in
Old Testament times as well as New
- He Mediates as a distinct
Person, divine and yet differentiated from God Most High
- He was trusted by
(the faithful) OT saints as their LORD and as the One who was to
come to save
- In this way the
object of saving faith has always been Christ
- And in this way the experience
of true faith has always been irreducibly trinitarian and
christological.
If Jesus
tarries I will, in my next few posts, have a look at the Angel of
the LORD passages before moving onto some other key multiple-Person OT
verses. I’ll look at the very natural way in which the NT picks up
on this. I’ll give quotes from church history and I’ll
draw out some implications.
And
having made such a commitment, I immediately wish I hadn’t. Ah
well, it’ll do me good to get it all off my chest! (click
here for comments)
The
Angel of the LORD part 1
Who is the Angel
of the LORD?
In my
last post I laid out my intention to show from the Old Testament that
Christ has always been the one Mediator between God and man.
I find the easiest
place to start in these discussions is with the Angel of the LORD.
If a person cannot see from Scripture that this is a title belonging to
Christ then the conversation will not get very far.
So I wonder whether you have a view?
Perhaps the first
thing to say is - don’t be thrown by the title. Angel (malak) just
means ‘Sent One’ or ‘Messenger’ (as most translations render it in
Malachi 3:1). So literally the Angel of the LORD is the One Sent
from the LORD. And already we should be hearing resonances with
Jesus’ self-descriptions. In John’s Gospel for instance Jesus is
described as the One Sent from God 40 times! That might be
significant!
The second thing
to say is that not every angel is The Angel. There are many created
angelic beings in the bible. But when Scripture speaks of the Angel
we know who we’re talking about. In the same way there are many
ones sent from God in a general sense. But when you talk about ‘the
One sent from the Father’ you are talking about Jesus.
But really the
proof is in the eating. So get a load of these verses.
Genesis
16:9-14; Genesis
21:17-20; Genesis
22:11-18; Genesis 24:7,40; Genesis
31:11-13; Genesis
48:15-16; Exodus
3:1-6; Exodus
13:21 <=> Exodus 14:19; Exodus
23:20-23; Exodus
32:34; 33:2 <=> 34:9; Num
20:16; Num
22:22-35; Judges
2:1-5; Judges 5:23; Judges
6:11-24; Judges 13:3-23; 2 Sam 24:16-17; 1 Kings 19:5,7; 2 Kings 1:3,15; 1 Chron 21:11-20; Psalm 34:7,9; Psalm 35:5-6; Isaiah 37:36; Isaiah 63:9; Daniel 3:28; Daniel 6:22; Hosea 12:4-5 <=> Genesis 32:24-30; Zechariah 1:9-19; Zechariah 3:1-10; Zechariah 4:1-6; Zechariah 12:8; Malachi 3:1
See also these verse where people are said to be
like the Angel and so are said to be like Christ:
1 Sam 29:9; 2 Sam 14:17,20; 2
Sam 19:27; Gal 4:14
As you see the
Angel is not an insignificant figure in the Old Testament. I’m not
expecting you to check out all the references but thought it might be
useful to have them all together. Over the next few posts I’ll pick
out some key passages to highlight some fundamental truths. At
bottom this is where these verses take us:
·
The Angel is divine - He is very often called the LORD
and God, He speaks as the LORD, acts as the LORD and accepts divine
worship.
·
The Angel is distinct from another Person called
‘LORD’ or ‘God’ or ‘God Most High.’
·
The Angel acts on behalf of God Most High in
revelation and salvation.
·
The Angel is correctly identified by the OT saints
as a distinct, divine Person
·
He is feared, trusted and hoped for by the
faithful.
The Angel is God from God. Light from
Light. True God from True God. That’s clear from the biblical
portrait. To fail to see His identity is, I think, a real
problem.
What always strikes me in discussions about
the Angel’s identity is that the Scriptures are so unambiguous in naming
Him LORD. I would go so far as to say that the Old Testament is
even clearer on the divine identity of the Angel than the New Testament
is on the identity of Jesus. But of course once we grasp who the
Angel is in the OT the NT pictures of Christ’s divinity become much more
apparent.
When Jesus claims to be the One sent from the
Father He is not merely defering to divinity - He is claiming it.
His divine identity in the New Testament is so much easier to see for
those who have already grasped it in the Old.
In the next post I’ll have a look at some of
the key Angel passages. Let me leave you with a Calvin quote who
sums up the history of Christian interpretation on this issue:
The orthodox
doctors of the Church have correctly and wisely expounded, that the Word
of God was the supreme angel, who then began, as it were by anticipation,
to perform the office of Mediator. For though he were not clothed with
flesh, yet he descended as in an intermediate form, that he might have
more familiar access to the faithful. This closer intercourse procured
for him the name of the Angel; still, however, he retained the character
which justly belonged to him - that of the God of ineffable glory.
(Instit. I.xiii.10)
(Click
here for comments)
The
Angel of the LORD part 2
The Angel of the LORD continued…
Let’s look at the Angel in action in Genesis and Exodus.
His first appearance is to the Egyptian, Hagar:
Then the Angel of the LORD
told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.” The Angel added,
“I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to
count.” The Angel of the LORD also said to her: “You are now with child
and you will have a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the LORD has
heard of your misery… She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her:
“You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who
sees me.” (Gen 16:9-14)
Here the Angel speaks of another Person called the LORD who has heard
Hagar. This is typical in the OT - God hears and sends His Angel to
deliver. See Gen 21:17; Ex 2:23ff; Num 20:16; Judges 13:9 -
also similar is Dan 3:28; 6:22.
But even though the Angel is distinctly called of the LORD He can also own the name
‘LORD’ Himself. In verse 13 even the narrator calls the Angel
“LORD” and Hagar calls Him “the God who sees me.” He is from God
but He also is God - in fact He is the visible God for Hagar is
astonished that she has seen Him.
Read on to Genesis 22 and here we see that the Angel of the LORD is
the One who intercepts the judgement of father Abraham on his son.
But the Angel of the LORD
called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!” “Here I am,” he
replied. “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to
him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me
your son, your only son.” Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw
a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed
it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place
The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of
the LORD it will be provided.” The Angel of the LORD called to Abraham
from heaven a second time and said, “I swear by myself, declares the
LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son,
your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as
numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore.
Difficult to read these verses if you’re a unitarian! ‘Now I know that you fear God because you haven’t witheld your
son from Me.’ The Angel
clearly thinks the offering is to Himself and later in v16 He clearly
thinks that He is the LORD who will bless Abraham. But He also
clearly speaks of ‘God’ as another Person in the
equation. There’s much
more to be said about Genesis 22, but we must move on.
In Genesis 32, Jacob wrestles with a man (’ish) who is clearly a source of blessing
(v26) and is in fact God (v28). Jacob rightly identifies Him as
‘God face to face’ (perhaps best understood as a divine title?).
Why are we looking at this passage while considering the Angel?
Because of what Hosea 12:3-5 makes of this incident.
…[Jacob] struggled
with God. He struggled with the Angel and overcame Him; he wept and
begged for His favour. He found Him at Bethel and talked with Him there–
the LORD God Almighty, the LORD is His name of renown!
Hosea knows how it is that Jacob could actually wrestle with God and
see Him face to face. He knows that Jacob wrestled with the Angel. But Hosea also knows that
such a name is not a diminutive title for this figure. The Angel is
Himself the LORD God Almighty (Yahweh the
God of Hosts). What’s interesting is not only Hosea’s
high christology but also how OT saints thought through the issues of how
God is mediated. It was clear to Hosea, even though Genesis does
not mention the name, that Jacob wrestled ‘the Angel.’ OT saints
are able to make such distinctions and properly interpreted their own Scriptures
christologically centuries after the events and centuries before the
incarnation.
Moving on in Genesis we come to Jacob’s blessing of his
grandsons. Just as he sought the Angel’s blessing for himself (Gen
32:26,29) so now he wants the Angel’s blessing for Ephraim and Manasseh:
“May the God before whom
my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my Shepherd all
my life to this day, the Angel who has delivered me from all harm–may He
bless these boys. (Gen 48:15-16)
Who is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? This is a massive
question today. Can we please have the courage to proclaim from
Genesis that Christ is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He is
the Deliverer God before Whom the patriarchs walked. The Angel is
God and Shepherd, Deliverer and the Source of all blessing. The
Angel is God from God and the One to Whom the patriarchs looked.
I can’t see a) any way around this, b) any reason you’d want to get
around this!
Let’s move on briefly to Exodus. And here again we see the
pattern whereby people call out to God, God hears (Exod 2:23-24) and in
response He sends His Deliverer. And who is the Deliverer?
2 There the Angel
of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses
saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3 So
Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight– why the bush
does not burn up.” 4 When the LORD saw that he had gone over
to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And
Moses said, “Here I am.” 5 “Do not come any closer,” God said.
“Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy
ground.” 6 Then He said, “I am the God of your father, the God
of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid
his face, because he was afraid to look at God. (Ex 3:2-6)
The Angel is Him who dwelt in the burning bush (Deut 33:16). He
is, v4, LORD and God and the God of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob. Furthermore He is the great I AM (v14) who saves His people.
When Jesus claims to be I AM He isn’t (as many seem to say) audaciously
applying to Himself a title belonging to “”God”". He’s saying
- I’m ‘Him who dwelt in the burning bush.’ He’s not just saying ‘I
have the same name as Israel’s Redeemer, He’s saying - You know the whole
burning bush, plagues, Red Sea thing? That was me!’
Notice how in Exodus 3:12 the Angel says:
“I will be with you. And
this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you
have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this
mountain.”
The Angel will save a people and bring them to God. That is the
story of salvation. And does the Angel deliver on His
promise? Yes! He is the LORD who goes at their head:
By day the LORD went ahead
of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a
pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or
night. (Ex 13:21)
How do we know that this is the Angel?
Then the Angel of God, who
had been travelling in front of Israel’s army, withdrew and went behind
them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them
(Ex 14:19)
So the Deliverer is the Angel who is of
the LORD and who is the
LORD. Exodus 23:20-23 tells us how the Angel relates to the Most
High God: ‘My Name is in Him’ says the LORD on top of the mountain.
The Angel is the One the people should follow knowing that He has been
sent from the LORD on high with the very character of the unseen
God. To hear the Angel (v22) is to know the favour and salvation of
God Most High.
The Exodus was wrought at the initiative of God the Father hearing
His people’s cries for mercy. Out of His compassion He sent His
Angel to deliver His people and bring them back to the Mountain to
worship Him.
And just to drive home the point even further, let’s look at one last
reference. When all is done and dusted and Scripture looks back on
the redemption out of Egypt, who is it who takes the credit?
The Angel of the LORD went
up from Gilgal to Bokim and said, “I brought you up out of Egypt and led
you into the land that I swore to give to your forefathers. I said,`I
will never break my covenant with you, and you shall not make a
covenant with the people of this land, but you shall break down their
altars.’ Yet you have disobeyed me. Why have you done this? Now
therefore I tell you that I will not drive them out before you; they will
be thorns in your sides and
their gods will be a snare to you.” When the Angel of the LORD had
spoken these things to all the Israelites, the people wept aloud. (Judges
2:1-4)
At this point I feel like pulling a CS Lewis - when the Angel makes
such incredible claims, He’s either mad, bad or the LORD. So who is
He??
I hope it’s obvious. But I hope we also see that these things
are plain on their own terms and in their own context. I haven’t
needed to do any NT ‘re-reading’. I hope you see this isn’t a
conjuring act it’s simply taking these verses seriously. And
allowing them to say what they say without forcing them into a pre-fab
unitarian mould.
I think it’s clear (don’t you?) the Angel is clearly divine, clearly
Israel’s Deliverer, clearly trusted in. But also note - He is
also clearly distinct from another called LORD or God (we’ll see this
more and more as we go on). And He has His identity as the
Sent One (malak - Messenger). To see Him is to
be immediately drawn into knowledge of the Sender whose Name He
bears. His very being is defined by relationship to Another.
He is a divine Person who belongs to another divine Person.
Israel’s LORD is God from God.
And if this is true then the OT doctrine of God is nothing like the
modern Jew’s god, nothing like the philosopher’s god, nothing like
allah. The God of the OT is inescapably and irreducibly trinitarian
in nature and christocentric in focus.
One more post on the Angel to come and then we’ll look at some other
fun stuff.
(Click
here for comments)
The
Angel of the LORD part 3
The Angel of
the LORD continued…
One more post
on the Angel, then we’ll look at some other multiple-LORD passages.
Check out
Judges 6:11-24:
11 The
Angel of the LORD came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged
to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a
winepress to keep it from the Midianites. 12 When the Angel of
the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said, “The LORD is with you, mighty
warrior.” 13 “But sir (Lord, Adonai),” Gideon
replied, “if the LORD (Yahweh) is with us, why has all this
happened to us? Where are all His wonders that our fathers told us about
when they said,`Did not the LORD bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the
LORD has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian.” 14
The LORD turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save
Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?” 15 “But
Lord (Adonai),” Gideon asked, “how can I save Israel? My clan is
the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.” 16
The LORD answered, “I will be with you, and you will strike down all the
Midianites together.” 17 Gideon replied, “If now I have found
favour in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me. 18
Please do not go away until I come back and bring my offering and set it
before you.” And the LORD said, “I will wait until you return.” 19
Gideon went in, prepared a young goat, and from an ephah of flour he made
bread without yeast. Putting the meat in a basket and its broth in a pot,
he brought them out and offered them to Him under the oak. 20
The Angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened bread,
place them on this rock, and pour out the broth.” And Gideon did so. 21
With the tip of the staff that was in his hand, the Angel of the LORD
touched the meat and the unleavened bread. Fire flared from the rock,
consuming the meat and the bread. And the Angel of the LORD disappeared. 22
When Gideon realised that it was the Angel of the LORD, he exclaimed,
“Ah, Sovereign LORD (Adonai Yahweh)! I have seen the Angel of
the LORD face to face!” 23 But the LORD said to him, “Peace!
Do not be afraid. You are not going to die.” 24 So Gideon
built an altar to the LORD there and called it The LORD is Peace. To this
day it stands in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.
As we saw in our last
post, the Angel proclaimed Himself to be the LORD who saved Israel out of
Egypt in Judges 2:1-5. Here the Angel is called ‘Angel’, ‘Lord (Adonai)’
and ‘LORD (Yahweh)’ interchangeably. Verse 14 is clearly
the same Character now ‘facing’ Gideon. His re-assurance to Gideon
concerns Himself: “Am I not sending
you?…I will be with you”. Gideon’s hope rests in this
Person: “If now I have found favour in your eyes, give me a sign that it
is really you talking to me.” (v17)
Here the Angel comes in a
particularly priestly way. He pronounces to Gideon the blessing of Another
called LORD (v12) and mediates Gideon’s sacrifice to this LORD, v21.
Not only is He priest – mediating the Father’s peace to Gideon and
Gideon’s sacrifice to the LORD – He also ascends in the sacrifice.
He is Lord and Priest and in a funny sort of way, sacrifice. When
Gideon sees this he really gets the identity of the Angel (which was the
point of this sign, v17).
When Gideon
realised that it was the Angel of the LORD, he exclaimed, “Ah, Sovereign
LORD (Adonai Yahweh)! I have seen the Angel of the LORD face to
face!” (v22) It is his expectation that seeing such a Figure should
result in death. This face to face encounter is clearly not
something mortals expect to endure when it comes to the Sovereign LORD (Adonai
Yahweh). God Most High on the mountaintop had told Moses:
“you cannot see my face,
for no-one may see me and live… my face must not be seen.” (Exod
33:20-23)
Yet in the same chapter Moses and Joshua are described as having
regular face to face encounters with the LORD in the tent of meeting (Ex
33:7-11). Within the OT there is a visible LORD who mediates the
business of the unseen LORD. On this occasion Gideon calls out in
alarm to the unseen LORD that He had seen the glory of the Angel. I
think it’s most straightforward to see the LORD of v23 to be the Angel
Himself, Christ. I won’t be very disappointed if proved wrong but
my reasoning is:
1)
In this incident it is the Angel who calls the unseen God, ‘LORD’ while
it is the narrator who calls the Angel ‘LORD’ or
‘Lord’. When the narrator wants to tell us he’s referring to the
unseen God he calls Him ‘Sovereign Lord.’
2)
The whole incident is modeling how it is the Angel who provides
peace for Gideon.
So, for me, v23 is Christ interposing on the basis of the sacrifice
(in which He ascended) and proclaiming Himself to be peace. You can
chew on that and let me know what you think.
Moving on to Judges 13 we see an extended passage about the Angel. In
v3 He appears to Mrs Manoah who consistently describes Him as a man (v6,
10) as does the narrator (v11). He comes again when God hears the
cry of His people and sends Him in response (v9). Just like with
Jacob, He is coy about His name (v18, cf Gen 32:29). But just as in
Judges 6, He ascends in the sacrifice to the LORD. At this Mr
Manoah exclaims:
“We are doomed to die!” he
said to his wife. “We have seen God!” (Judges 13:22)
His wife has more sense:
But his wife answered, “If
the LORD had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt
offering and grain offering from our hands, nor shown us all these things
or now told us this.” (Judges 13:23)
The Angel is described as God. And the expectation is that to
see God is to die. And yet they do see God the Angel and Mrs Manoah
identifies the basis on which they can still be accepted: sacrifice.
I could go on about the Angel but perhaps you can follow up the other
references that I’ve listed
yourself. Let me just draw your attention to one more
passage. Because here we see that the Angel was set forth not
simply as the Mediator for Israel there and then, He was also trusted in
as the One who was to come – the Messiah.
“See, I will send my
messenger (malak), who will prepare the way before Me. Then
suddenly the Lord (Adonai) you are seeking will come to His
temple; the Messenger (malak, Angel) of the covenant, whom you
desire, will come,” says the LORD Almighty (Yahweh of hosts).
(Malachi 3:1)
The messenger (Elijah/John
the Baptist, cf 4:5) will precede the coming of the Lord who is the
Angel. Here we see that the Lord who the people are seeking is the
Angel of the covenant. He is their desire according to Malachi 3.
Enough on the Angel.
Next post will be a re-working of a previous post on the trinitarian OT.
And for those who are wondering, I’ll also soon do a ‘so what’ piece
listing reasons this stuff matters!
(Click
here for comments)
The
Trinitarian Old Testament
This is basically
a repost of ‘The Trinitarian Old Testament’ from November last year. I
think it’s worth laying out the same material in the context of this
series. We are investigating the claim that the Hebrew Scriptures
themselves reveal on their own terms and in their own context the eternal
Son, our God from God, Jesus Christ. We are accustomed to thinking of
trinitarian formulations growing out of the necessity to confess the
deity of Jesus Christ. This is of course true. But we will see that this
is not simply a New Testament necessity. Once we confess the deity of the
Angel for instance we will also have to ensure that our confession of the
OT doctrine of God is similarly trinitarian. It is not the New Testament
that forces us to be trinitarian, it is Jesus. And Jesus, as this series
is demonstrating, is not confined to the New Testament. This is why we
now need to consider the trinity in the OT. In this post I will simply
(and very briefly) draw attention to 24 passages in which we see plainly
a multi-Personal revelation.
My point
is not that the OT betrays hints, shapes and shadows of triune
structure
My point
is not that NT eyes can see trinitarian themes in the OT
My point
is not that we go back as Christians and now retrospectively
read the trinity into the OT
My point
is not that the OT gives us partial suggestions of trinitarian
life that are then developed by NT fulfillment
My point is
that these texts read on their own terms and in their own context
(as the Jewish, Hebrew Scriptures that they are) demand to be understood
as the revelation of a multi-Personal God. The only proper way
to understand these texts is as trinitarian revelation. These texts are
either to be understood triunely or they are mis-understood - on
their own terms or any others! What I am setting out to do is to simply
open up the OT and show what is actually there. I have already
acknowledged that I have a dogmatic commitment to christocentric
revelation, but I hope to show that the OT texts themselves bear this
out.
Just
before we dive into the texts I would simply ask the reader to question
their own dogmatic commitments. I may be expecting to see a
multi-Personal God in the OT, but I assure you - you are expecting to see
a certain kind of God also. What is it? Are you expecting to see a
revelation of the one God? A uni-Personal God? Are you accustomed to
thinking of the OT God as equivalent to the God of the modern Jew?
Unitarian? Perhaps not, perhaps you recoil at the idea (I hope so). But
it’s worth all of us asking ourselves ‘What are our pre-suppositions?’ as
we read ‘In the Beginning.’ The “God” of Genesis 1:1 is a certain kind of
God. What do we assume about His being? What will we allow Him to be, do
and say as we read chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3…? Do we think it’s
“obvious” that the God of Genesis 1 is the uncreated Creator? Do we
assume that the God being revealed by Moses is basically the God of the
modern Jew? The philosophical theist? Something like the Muslim ‘God’?
Perhaps we think (as so many Christians do) that “the One God” is a
foundational doctrine to which trinitarian concepts are added? Perhaps
then we see the OT as portraying this basic ‘God’ before trinitarian
nuances are added?
I have
often had the experience of being criticised for bringing trinitarian assumptions
to the OT text when, at the same time, my Christian friend was bringing
equally strong and equally controlling assumptions to bear themselves -
assumptions that God (or His revelation) must progress from primitive
unitarianism to developed trinitarianism. Pre-suppositions are
inevitable. The issue is not ‘Who has purged themselves of all dogmatic
bias and is a pure biblical scholar!’ The issue is ‘Which
pre-suppositions can actually handle what’s on the page and which do
damage to the text?’ My contention is that the trinitarian
pre-supposition is the only one that makes sense of the OT data.
Ok. Here
we go - 24 Scriptures to consider:
Genesis 1. Verse 1: “In the
beginning Elohiym… ” Here is the God to Whom we’re introduced. A
plural noun! One that takes a singular verb. The grammatical oddity is
meant to make us sit up and take notice. Our plural God acts as one. And
His plural counsel (v26) “Let us…” gives rise to a united creation of a
plural humanity - male and female to image His own life.
Genesis 3. The Voice of the
LORD God (v8) who comes to walk with Adam and Eve is also the
LORD God (v9)
Genesis 16. The Angel of
the LORD (v9) is also LORD and God (v13)
Genesis 18&19. The LORD who
appears to Abraham (18:1) is Judge of all the earth (18:25), yet He
excercises His divine prerogative in union with “the LORD out of the
heavens.” (19:24)
Genesis 32. Jacob wrestles
with the Man (v24) who is the Angel (Hosea 12:4) who is God (Gen
32:28,30)
Genesis 48. The God who is
God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who is Shepherd and the source of
blessing (v15) is the Angel of God (v16).
Exodus 3. The God of the
burning bush is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (v6) and the great I
AM (v14). He is also the Angel of the LORD (v2) and will bring
the people to worship God on the mountain (v12).
Exodus 19. The LORD on the
mountain (v10) warns Moses that in three days the LORD will come
to the mountain (v11) and things will be very different then. Sure
enough, three days later, the LORD descends on the mountain (v18) and
then the LORD descends on the mountain (v20)!
Exodus 33. Moses meets face
to face with the LORD in the tent of meeting (v11) but the LORD on the
top of the mountain he must never see (v20-22).
Joshua 5&6. The Commander of
the LORD’s army (5:14) who fights for Israel to deliver her is also the
LORD who is worthy of worship (5:15; 6:2)
Judges 2. The Angel of
the LORD brought them out of Egypt and established His
covenant with them. (v1-4)
Judges 6. The Angel of the
LORD (v11-12) brings the LORD’s blessing (one who is Sovereign LORD,
v22). Yet the Angel, as another Person is Himself the LORD (v14) with the
same divine majesty (v22-24).
Judges 13. God sends the
Angel of the LORD (e.g. v9) who is Himself God (e.g. v22). And the Spirit
fills Samson (v25)
Psalm 2. The Son Whom we
are to kiss and find refuge in (v12) is the Anointed Son of the Father
through Whom is exercised all divine rule and authority.
Psalm 45. The most
excellent of men who rules the nations as Champion and King is called
‘Lord’ by His bride and ‘God‘ by His God. (v6,7)
Psalm 110. David knows two
Lords who converse in their rule of the nations. There is the LORD and
there is the Kingly Priest who is David’s Lord.
Proverbs. The Wisdom of God
who creates (8:30) and gives new life (8:35) through granting the Spirit
(1:23) is also possessed by the LORD (8:22)
Isaiah 9. The government
of God’s righteous kingdom will be on the shoulders of the Wonderful
Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace (v6). Yet He
is One who is born and through Whom the zeal of the LORD will
accomplish His work (v7)
Isaiah 48. The great I AM,
the first and the last who created the heavens and the earth and who
called Israel (v12,13) is One who is sent from the Lord GOD along with
His Spirit (v16)
Isaiah 63. The Saviour
sends the Angel to save, yet they grieve His Holy Spirit (v9-10)
Ezekiel 34. The Shepherd of
Ezekiel’s prophesy will be the LORD Himself (v12-22), yet this loving, kingly
rule is exercised through the Prince, His Servant David (v23-24) who does
all that the LORD is said to do as Shepherd and who rules for
the LORD.
Daniel 7. The Possessor
and rightful Ruler of the Kingdom that shall never pass away is the Son
of Man (v13,14) who inherits the kingdom from the Ancient of Days
(v9-12).
Micah 2. The Shepherd who
will gather the remnant of Israel is the LORD (v12) who will set at their
head a King who is also called ‘LORD’ (v13)
Zechariah 2. The One Sent
from the LORD Almighty (v7,9,11) is the LORD Himself to live among the
Israelites as the gentle, righteous, saving King of 9:9 (compare with
2:10)!
In all
this my argument is not that these are hints of trinity but that
they are texts that can only ever be understood from the perspective of a
multi-Personal God. When two Persons called LORD are interacting in the
text (when we see plainly “true God from true God”) then an understanding
of God as uni-Personal is just dead wrong. It must always have been dead
wrong for it could never account for the Hebrew Scriptures as written.
The only
God there is is trinitarian and His revelation has always been such.
(Click
here for comments)
Some
more multi-Personal passages: Genesis, Exodus, Isaiah
Ok lets
look at a few more key OT passages.
Here’s a
favourite of a friend of mine who uses it on Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Genesis 19:24
Then the LORD rained down
burning sulphur on Sodom and Gomorrah from the LORD out of the heavens.
This even
works in the New World Translation:
Then Jehovah made it rain
sulphur and fire from Jehovah from the heavens
Having
turned it up in their Watchtower bibles my friend asks: “To which Jehovah
are you witnessing, the one on earth or the one in the heavens??”
Brilliant.
Because
as even the New World Translation admits, it is the LORD (Jehovah!)
who appears to Abraham in Gen 18:1, who along with two angels (cf Gen
19:1) eats the food Abraham and Sarah prepares (18:8). While
Abraham intercedes with this LORD the two angels go onto Sodom (Gen
19). In verses 1-23 we see the angels get Lot out of Sodom and
then… The LORD rains down judgement from the LORD out of the
heavens. This raining down is in the hiphil stem - it is
not a reflexive. The LORD who ate with Abraham now judges Sodom
with fire from the LORD from heaven. To which LORD do we
witness? Here we are presented with two divine Persons working in
concert. The Father has entrusted all judgement to the
Son!
Another
one that works in JW bibles is Exodus 33. Here we see in the same
chapter two Persons called LORD. First, parenthetically, Moses
tells us what used to happen in the tent of meeting (Ex 33:7-11).
Moses used to take a tent
and pitch it outside the camp some distance away, calling it the “tent of
meeting”. Anyone enquiring of the LORD would go to the tent of meeting
outside the camp… The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as a man
speaks with his friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his
young assistant Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent.
The
narrative has been following events on top of the mountain but here Moses
deems it necessary to tell us about his previous face-to-face encounters
with the LORD in the tent. This is so that we get the full
importance of his meeting with the LORD on the mountain. Because this
Person says to Moses unequivocally:
“You cannot see My face,
for no-one may see Me and live.” 21 Then the LORD said, “There
is a place near Me where you may stand on a rock. 22 When My
glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with
My hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will remove My hand
and you will see My back; but My face must not be seen.”
Now Moses
has gone out of his way to lay side by side these two
incidents: Face to face fellowship with the LORD in the tent and
then a meeting with the LORD on the mountain who says His face must never
be seen. I haven’t had the chance to do this yet, but the next JW
that comes knocking will definitely be asked, “To which Jehovah are you
witnessing? The face-to-face Jehovah or the unseen Jehovah??”
Interestingly
Moses had been asking the LORD on the mountain who would go with the
Israelites. He is told ‘My Presence (Face, paniym) will go
with you.’ (v14, cf Deut 4:37; Ps 51:11; 139:7; Isaiah 63:9). Moses
considers this essential. Unless the Presence of the LORD continues
to deliver them he prefers to rot in the desert. Later, when the
unseen LORD declares His Name (Ex 34:6-7), Moses understands that the
Name of the unseen LORD is in the promised Presence of the LORD
(cf 23:21). He realizes that in the Angel who has delivered them
they already have the fulness of deity in their midst. And so,
satisfied, he says:
“O Lord, if I have found
favour in Your eyes,” he said, “then let the Lord go with us.” (Ex 34:9)
The
unseen Lord delivers them through the Lord in their midst who is His
Presence and Angel in Whom dwells His name and nature.
When we
get to Isaiah we see that his vision of the LORD’s future deliverance is
patterned upon this trinitarian exodus:
7 I will tell of
the kindnesses of the LORD, the deeds for which He is to be praised,
according to all the LORD has done for us–yes, the many good things He
has done for the house of Israel, according to His compassion and many
kindnesses. 8 He said, “Surely they are My people, sons who
will not be false to Me”; and so He became their Saviour. 9 In
all their distress He too was distressed, and the Angel of His Presence
saved them. In His love and mercy He redeemed them; He lifted them up and
carried them all the days of old. 10 Yet they rebelled and
grieved His Holy Spirit. So He turned and became their enemy and He
himself fought against them. 11 Then His people recalled the
days of old, the days of Moses and His people–where is He who brought
them through the sea, with the Shepherd of His flock? Where is He who set
his Holy Spirit among them, 12 who sent His glorious arm of
power to be at Moses’ right hand, who divided the waters before them, to
gain for Himself everlasting renown, 13 who led them through
the depths? Like a horse in open country, they did not stumble; 14
like cattle that go down to the plain, they were given rest by the Spirit
of the LORD. This is how You guided Your people to make for Yourself a
glorious name. (Isaiah 63:7-14)
Isaiah
looks back upon this trinitarian salvation and claims that the future deliverance
will be along the same lines. See for instance Isaiah
48. Verse 12 introduces us to One who says:
I am he; I am the first
and I am the last
Read on
and the I AM says this:
And now the Sovereign LORD
(Adonai Yahweh) has sent Me, with His Spirit.
He is the
great I AM sent from the Sovereign LORD with the Spirit. In the
power of the Spirit, the I AM accomplishes the Sovereign LORD’s
salvation. And of course Isaiah has just told us that the Sovereign
LORD anoints One called ‘the Servant’ with His Spirit:
“Here is My Servant, whom
I uphold, My chosen one in Whom I delight; I will put My Spirit on Him
and He will bring justice to the nations.” (Is 42:1)
The
Servant and the I AM seem to be the same Spirit anointed Person.
Other Isaiah passages pick up the essential empowerment of the Spirit in
the work of the divine Servant.
A shoot will come up from
the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. 2
The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him–the Spirit of wisdom and of
understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of
knowledge and of the fear of the LORD– 3 and He will delight
in the fear of the LORD. He will not judge by what He sees with His eyes,
or decide by what He hears with His ears; 4 but with
righteousness He will judge the needy, with justice He will give
decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the
rod of His mouth; with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked. 5
Righteousness will be His belt and faithfulness the sash round His waist.
(Is 11:1-5)
The Spirit of the
Sovereign LORD is on Me, because the LORD has anointed Me to preach good
news to the poor. He has sent Me to bind up the broken-hearted, to
proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the
prisoners, 2 to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favour and the
day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, 3 and
provide for those who grieve in Zion–to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment
of praise instead of a spirit of despair.” (Is 61:1-3)
It is the
work of the Sovereign LORD’s Servant in the power of the Spirit to bring
about His cosmic redemption.
Ok,
enough for now. If you want to study some more why not just pick up
the book of Zechariah. All of it! Check out the Angel.
See how He is described, how He relates to another called LORD, how He is
called LORD and speaks as the LORD. See how the LORD says He is
sent from the LORD (eg 2:9,11) and… well, check it out yourself. It’s an
absolute treasure trove. And then just read the whole OT and see if
you don’t spot trinity everywhere! Once you put aside the
expectation of a monadic doctrine of God you release the OT from a
unitarian straight-jacket and allow it to speak as the Christian
revelation it has always been.
Next post
I’ll list some ’so what’ implications and then I’ll give some juicy
quotes from church history.
(Click
here for comments)
Christ
in the Psalms
Might be
worth a little mini-post on Psalms.
It would
be tempting to highlight “particularly Messianic” Psalms and say “There,
see, Jesus is spoken of here and there in the psalter.” But I’m not
sure that’s right. I once told a friend I was helping preach
through an 8 week series called “Jesus in the Psalms”.
He said “Right, so you’ll get through Psalms 1-8, when are you going
to do the other 142??” I was chastened! That’s absolutely
right. It’s not like Messianic Psalms form a sub-division of the
psalter: like there’s imprecatory Psalms, Psalms of lament and messianic
Psalms. You’d never think of having the ‘God Psalms’ as a sub-category!
Christ is not a sub-category of Christian revelation or experience.
And
that’s the real danger with all of these posts I’ve been writing.
I’ve been quoting specific passages in the OT to show that
messianically-focussed trinitarian faith is plainly taught there.
But I don’t want to give the impression that it’s only in those
passages. Rather those passages are meant to show us the dynamics
that are inherent to the whole of the Scriptures.
Think of
the doctine of sola fide (faith alone) for instance. There
are a number of passages that we can readily turn up to demonstrate its
truth. And a paper on sola fide will spend time going through those
specific passages, but not so as to prove that sola fide holds
in those cases alone. We look to the specific passages to show that
this pattern holds for all God’s dealings with man. And it holds
even for those parts of the Scripture which opponents may erroneously
claim refutes it. It’s like this with solus Christus
(Christ alone). We look at the specifics to demonstrate a divine
dynamic which holds for all Scripture.
So as we
think about Christ in the Psalms we’re not going to pick out messianic
mentions here and there. Instead we’re going to look at Psalms 1
and 2 and see how these model for us what to expect in the rest of the
Psalter.
Psalms 1
and 2 are often called the gateway to the Psalms. They belong
together for many reasons not least the “blessed”s at the beginning and
end. Just as with the Sermon on the Mount, the “blessed”s tell us
who’s in on what’s about to be discussed. In the
Sermon on the Mount, the “blessed”s tell us who’s in the
kingdom which Jesus describes? In the Psalter, Psalms 1 and 2 tell
us who’s in on the worship of the living God? And who is the
blessed man??
Well He is
an ‘ish - a representative man. In fact He is the Man.
This is an audacious claim. (I rarely even claim to be a
man!) Verse 2 says He is a night-and-day Bible-meditator,
which makes Him a king (cf Deut 17:18-20; Josh 1:8). Verse
3, He is also like a tree (think ‘Branch’ or ‘Root’ or ‘Vine’ - kings are
described like this). Not only this but He can
make others become prosperous (causative hiphil stem).
This one
Man, this definitive Man, is contrasted in v4 to the many wicked. The
Psalm does not begin by comparing righteous people to wicked people but
rather The Righteous Man is contrasted with the wicked masses. Then
(presumably through the Man/Tree-of-Life causing many others to prosper
like Him) we hear about other righteous ones (v5-6).
When we
turn to Psalm 2 we see the Man given more names. The LORD’s
King (v6) is here called “Anointed One” (Messiah, v2), and “Son”
(v7). Though He is raged against, He will be poured out on Zion
(v6) and publicly vindicated by the Father (v7) before claiming universal
rule. (v8-9) All must love and take refuge in Him - both Judge and
Saviour. (v10-12)
Here is
the gateway to the Psalms. We ought not to rush into the Psalter
without stopping here and asking who is welcome in the Psalter. And
the answer is: “Blessed is the Man… and Blessed are all who take refuge
in Him.” We must be rightly related to Christ to be welcome in the
worship of the living God. He, supremely, is the
Scripture-meditating, righteous, flourishing, tree-of-life-like
Worshipper. But as Calvin comments on Psalm 22:22, He also
is the heavenly choir-master who tunes our hearts to sing God’s
praises.
Now what
implications does this have for how we read the rest of the
Psalter? Well one big help we have received in this, the gateway,
is that we’ve been introduced to the four main characters in the
Psalms. Here we have:
(1) the LORD;
(2) the
Christ, the Blessed Man;
(3) The
Righteous who take refuge in Him; and
(4) The Wicked
who oppose Him.
All
the Psalms are about the interaction of these four groups. In some,
like Psalm 1, the Blessed Man is shown before the LORD and then the
righteous and the wicked are contrasted. In some, like Psalm 2, the
righteous complain to the LORD about the wicked and then He reminds them
about the Blessed Man, Christ. In some we have simply the words of
Christ. In others we have the words of the LORD to Christ. In
some we simply have the words of sinners like us taking refuge in
Him. But all of the Psalms are about the inter-relation of these
four groups. And they all work together to speak to us of Christ.
Let’s be alert to that as we read the Psalms, they are related to Christ.
Here’s a
sermon manuscript of mine on Psalms
1 and 2
And
here’s Mike Reeves on Psalm 1 - brilliant stuff!
Next post
I’ll get down to the implications of all this…. (promises, promises…)
(Click
here for comments)
Eleven
reasons this stuff matters
11 reasons this matters. (Thanks to Dev for the last
one). I’m not going to spend very long elucidating any of
them. I’m sure they’ll become rants of their own in future posts:
Why it’s important to see the Hebrew Scriptures as
already and inherently a messianically focussed trinitarian revelation:
1) To make sense of
the OT text. I’m not sure how many passages I’ve quoted in the last
7 posts, maybe 40? More? I really don’t think I’ve been
monkeying around with the texts, but I do think that these passages get a
serious stream-roller treatment when people read them as uni-Personal
passages. Let’s release ourselves from a basically unitarian hermeneutic
of the OT because when you take these texts seriously they burst such arbitrary
bonds.
2) Identifying Christ
in Scripture is pretty fundamental! To fail to correctly identify
Christ in Scripture is a spiritual error, and a serious one at that.
3) Christ is not
simply the best Word of God. He is not the ultimate
revelation of God or the seal of a series of improving revelations of
God. He is the one Word and Wisdom and Image and Way and Truth of
God. The OT is a fundamental test case about whether we believe
this, or whether Christ is just the ‘cherry on the cake.’
4) We refocus on the
main point of the incarnation - not new information but
salvation!
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