The Old Testament and Christ
In Preaching and Teaching from the Old Testament, Walter C. Kaiser Jr. argues that preaching the Old Testament helps us see that “the life, ministry, death, and resurrection were clearly anticipated long before the events occurred.” The Messiah, he writes, “is at the heart of that neglected portion of the Bible.”
We do not need to “resort to settling for a double set of meanings in order to squeeze out of the Old Testament some messianic possibilities.” The Old Testament writers were aware the nexus between their temporal and historic events, and their “climatic fulfillment in the Messiah…The Old Testament cannot have a more obvious meaning along with a hidden Christian meaning.” The texts speak to God’s unchanging plan from all of history.
Jesus himself said of Old Testament texts: “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me” (John 5:39).
So how can we preach Christ from the Old Testament? Tomorrow we’ll look at seven ways. Early next week, we’ll talk about how one preacher approaches this task.
Tags: Old Testament, Preaching and Teaching from the Old Testament, Walter C. Kaiser Jr.
November 15th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
I have Kaiser’s book waiting in line to be read (probably 5th right now). I’ve been trying to read all those influenced by Haddon Robinson. Kaiser is without a doubt one of my favorite authors on the Old Testament. This is a series I’m am definitely looking forward to reading. Thanks in advance.
November 21st, 2007 at 10:27 am
Liking your posts. (I’m a preacher in the UK also very committed to proclaiming Christ from all of Scripture.)
I really like Kaiser’s clarity on this issue. John Sailhamer quotes from Kaiser and from Gordon McConville in this excellent article for JETS “Messiah in the Hebrew Bible”:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3817/is_200103/ai_n8935232/pg_1
[Sailhamer quotes Kaiser] “ . . . if it is not in the OT text, who cares how ingenious later writers are in their ability to reload the OT text with truths that it never claimed or revealed in the first place? The issue is more than hermeneutics,” says Kaiser. “The issue is that of “the authority and content of revelation itself!” Another evangelical OT scholar, Gordon McConville, has also stressed the importance of the Messiah in the OT. McConville says, “If the Old Testament is the problem of Christian theology . . . , [then] the Messiah is at the heart of that problem.” McConville goes on to say that “the validity of a Christian understanding of the Old Testament must depend in the last analysis on [the] cogency of the argument that the Old Testament is messianic.”
Sailhamer says in the article:
“The NT is not so much a guide to understanding the OT as it is the goal of understanding the OT. Unless we understand the OT picture of the Messiah, we will not understand the NT picture of Jesus. The OT, not the NT, is the messianic searchlight.”