3 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Pit Jesus Against the Old Testament
Are we agreed so far? Good. Now, here’s where it can get
tricky. (And I’m sorry about your toes in advance.) Author Andrew Wilson explains
that, for some people, reading through the Jesus lens means approaching hard-to-swallow
Old Testament passages like this:
[F]iguring that Jesus could never have condoned [them],
and then concluding that the text represents a primitive, emerging, limited
picture of God, as opposed to the inclusive, wrath-free God we find in Jesus.
Not so much a Jesus lens, then, as a Jesus tea-strainer: not a piece of glass
that influences your reading of the text while still leaving the text intact,
but a fine mesh that only allows through the most palatable elements. . .
Trading in the Jesus lens for a Jesus tea strainer is
inherently dangerous. Among other things, it encourages us to turn Jesus
against the Old Testament—something He never did Himself. Here are a few
reasons why we shouldn’t try to create a false dichotomy between our Savior and
the Bible He read.
Jesus participated in
the Old Testament
Did you know that the stable in Bethlehem was not the first
time God came to earth in the flesh? A pre-incarnate Christ made several appearances
in the Old Testament—occurrences theologians refer to as theophanies. For example, we
see God the Son meeting and talking with Hagar in the wilderness in Genesis 16,
wrestling with Jacob in Genesis 32, and conversing with Samson’s parents in
Judges 13.
Another example is found in Genesis 18. God the Son appears
to Abraham in the flesh, accompanied by two angels (vv. 1-2). After a while,
Jesus says it is time to visit Sodom and Gomorrah to determine if its
wickedness is deserving of judgment. At that point, the two angels head toward
the city, while Jesus remains with Abraham (v. 22). (We see the two angels
enter the city, minus Jesus, in Genesis 19:1). At Abraham’s request, Jesus
agrees to show mercy to the city if ten righteous people are left in it. (Tragically,
not even ten can be found.)
Now,
I suppose it could be argued that these theophanies are not really Christ, but
rather a different physical appearance. (God should be able to take on any form
He wants, right?) But how does that accord with the doctrine of the Trinity? Christianity
teaches that there is only one God, and that God has chosen to reveal Himself
to us in three distinct personalities: God the Father, God the Son, and God the
Holy Spirit. We’re playing loosely with this core belief if we say that God has
revealed Himself to humankind using four (or more) personalities.
It
is angels who can take on numerous forms, including the forms of regular
human beings (Heb. 13:2). God, however, has revealed Himself to us in the form
of only one human being: Jesus Christ. While there may be disagreements about
how many appearances of God the Son there are in the OT, it is dangerous
conjecture to say He never appeared at all. And that being the case, it’s not
so easy to discount some of the difficult OT passages as outdated versions of
God’s methodologies when Christ Himself was involved in them.
Jesus is the
fulfillment—not the antithesis—of OT Scripture
Christ once condemned the Jewish leaders of His day, not because
they were too set on the Old Testament, but because they weren’t set on it
enough. They prided themselves on being intimately familiar with the OT
teachings of Moses. However, Jesus said they weren’t familiar enough with Moses in order to recognize
who He was: “For if you believed Moses, you would
believe Me; for he wrote about Me” (Jn. 5:46). Not knowing the Old
Testament was equal to not knowing Jesus.
Furthermore, Christ pointed out in a parable that hearing
Moses and the prophets was essential for understanding salvation (Luke 16:31).
And after gently rebuking Cleopas and his friend for their ignorance regarding
His true mission on earth, Jesus “[began with] Moses
and all the Prophets, [and] expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things
concerning Himself” (Luke 24:27). A few verses later, He reiterated the
importance of the law, the prophets, and the Psalms in having a proper
understanding of Christ (v. 44).
Attempting to nullify large chunks of the Old Testament in
an effort to have a Christ-centered hermeneutic is the equivalent of working to
destroy the very thing Christ came to fulfill (Matt. 5:17). Knowingly or
unknowingly, those who discard the OT as an outdated expression of God put
themselves in the same camp with the ignorant Jews whom Christ rebuked. It’s
not a good place to set up your tent.
Jesus cannot be
contrasted with Himself
Speaking of the Trinity, it’s problematic to contrast the
mercy and grace of God the Son with the supposed harsh tyranny of God the
Father since they are, in a very real sense, the same God. This God doesn’t
change with time (Ma. 3:6; Jas. 1: 17); in fact, He is the same yesterday,
today, and forever (Heb. 13:8). The God we see during the conquests of Canaan
is the same God we see in the gospels.
It’s true that redemptive history has evolved (so to speak),
but this evolution doesn’t reflect a changing God so much as a change in His
dealings with humankind. Just think about how a wise father treats his growing
daughter: the restrictions and freedoms evolve as she changes from a toddler to
a teenager. The changes are real, and they are quite pronounced, but they are based
on the development of the child, not the changing character of the parent.
Likewise, redemptive history has moved from a “theocratic national kingdom to a spiritual kingdom.”
Granted, there are a plethora of difficulties and paradoxes
related to this topic that we haven’t even touched on. In the future, I will
attempt to deal with more of them. In the meantime, may God give us the grace
to use Jesus properly—as a lens and not as a tea strainer.
photo credit: Waiting
For The Word via photopin cc