Is the Whole Bible Really About Jesus? | Theocast

Hi, this is Justin. Today on Theocast, we are going to answer the question, is the whole Bible really about Jesus? And we don't like to bury the lead here at Theocast. And so our position is that yes, in fact, the whole Bible is about Christ and what He has accomplished on behalf of sinners in order to save us.

And so we're gonna have this conversation from a couple of different perspectives. We're gonna talk about typology and how that works in the Bible. And if you don't even know what typology is, don't worry.

We're gonna define it and try to explain it for you. We're also gonna talk about biblicism and how it is unhelpful to understanding the scriptures accurately. Again, if you don't know what biblicism is, stay tuned.

We're gonna try to explain it to you and help you see how it relates to this conversation. We really hope this is an encouraging and life-giving conversation for you and that it's a conversation that will open up the scriptures and show you how, from Genesis to Revelation, Jesus really is the point of the whole thing.

And yeah, here we go.

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Thanks for listening.

Theocast’s Reformed and Pastoral Perspective

Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ. Conversations about the Christian life from a Reformed and pastoral perspective. Your hosts today are John Moffitt, who is pastor of Grace Reformed Church in beautiful Spring Hill, Tennessee.

And I am Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina, also a very beautiful place. We've been saying lately, John, that not only are these conversations from a Reformed perspective, but they are also from a pastoral one.

And that's for a few reasons, right? We're pastors. We're not academics. And we aim to talk about these things in a way that is, we hope, gentle, encouraging, and helpful to weary Christians out there, right?

I mean, we are two such weary Christians, and we pastor weary Christians. And so that's how we come at these conversations.

We are but starving, thirsty sinners who are leading other starving, thirsty sinners to the well of Christ.

It's like, yeah, we're starving people who have been offered food, and we're offering it to others. Thirsty people who have been given water, and it's like, hey, come drink of this without money and without payment, right?

Speaking of Jesus, which this podcast is only about, it's almost like if we can go an entire podcast without talking about Jesus, you should shut it off, just like you should do an entire sermon. Or if you can read your Bible and not talk about Jesus or see Jesus, there's a problem.

And that's for our book giveaway today. So we are going to be giving away a book by Dennis Johnson, who was a professor at Westminster in California. And it's a great book our church went through many years ago, or last year, called Walking with Jesus Through His Word, Discovering Christ in All the Scriptures.

And we're going to be giving that away to one of our members, and a member that has been around for a long time, someone I got to meet in our very first few years when we did one of our gatherings in Louisville.

John Richard, you are the winner, and I believe John's a pastor from my remembering. But John, congratulations, it's yours. And if you would like a free copy of this, we want to give it away to you. We love doing these giveaways for two reasons.

One, we want you to have a good book. But two, if you'd like to purchase one, you can do so, because this is definitely a book we would recommend. If you want an introduction to kind of a redemptive, historic, communal understanding of scripture, you can go to the show notes, and there's a link there.

And if you purchase it from that link, we get a portion of that, thanks to Amazon. Amazon really likes Theocast, man. Let me just tell you, they're all about backing Christian ministries. Yeah, we want to give one away for free.

So if you want a free one, all you have to do is, every Wednesday morning, we give away a new book. And so if you're listening to this on Wednesday, the day it came out, you go to our social media, Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook, follow the instructions.

And then on Thursday, Justin and I, one of us will hop on there with a video and tell you who won, and then we will send that to you. So there you go. The book is related, very much related, to what we're talking about today.

So Justin, what are we talking about today?

The title of the episode, Is the Bible Really About Jesus? Or is the whole Bible Really About Jesus? What we want to do today is answer that question. But we're really just kind of pulling the curtain back here, having a conversation about a couple of different things.

And I'm going to try to explain briefly what we mean by these terms, and then we'll just kind of take off and run with this. We're having a conversation today about typology and somewhat also about biblicism.

And so just briefly to define those terms for the listener, when we talk about typology, we are talking about the way that God reveals Himself and the way He reveals redemption, and in particular, the way He reveals redemption through Christ in Scripture, where there are things that occur earlier on in biblical revelation referred to as types that are significant in and of themselves, but they point to something that is greater, different, and ultimate.

And so those greater, different, ultimate fulfillments of the types are often referred to as anti-types. And so we're going to talk about examples of some of that today. But if the Bible is read appropriately in a typological way, we are going to see types and shadows and pointers to Jesus all throughout the Old Testament before Christ even shows up on the scene in the New Testament.

And so if you think about, for example, the writer to the Hebrews and how he explains the fact that the sacrificial system and so many of the other things that were revealed to Israel in the law, they were ultimately about Christ.

They were ultimately shadows and pointers to Jesus and the redemption that would be accomplished through Him. That is a biblical example of typology, and we're going to talk about some other biblical examples of typology in this episode.

So we're having that conversation about how typology is really helpful in coming to the Bible, and it's helpful to us in particular in seeing Christ through all of.

Scripture.

But then we're also going to be having a conversation about something referred to as biblicism, which the goal of a biblicist is a good goal. It's a good aim. It's admirable that you want to be a Bible person and only say things that the Scripture says, and you don't want to add to it.

You don't want to take away from it. That's a good aim. But oftentimes the way that biblicism presents itself is that if the text does not just specifically, explicitly say something, then it just must not be true.

And so there is a real kind of concern with biblicism or in biblicism for some of the kind of systematic categories, the covenantal categories, the redemptive historical categories that the Reformed have always had that help us to see Christ in all of Scripture.

The biblicist gets very anxious about that, and we're going to explain what we mean by that too. And so before you check out, if you're sitting here and you're thinking, oh my gosh, this is an academic conversation and this is something that's going to be over my head.

It is not going to be. We're going to talk about this at a street level as a couple of pastors who deal with the Scriptures regularly and are trying to teach the Scriptures to our people. This conversation ultimately is about seeing Christ in all of Scripture in ways that are legitimate and responsible and really upholding what Jesus Christ himself says about the Bible, namely that it's all about him.

And so we hope that you come away from this episode more encouraged to study the Scriptures, more encouraged to sit under the Scriptures on the Lord's Day as you hear your pastor preach them to you. Or if you're a pastor out there, you're more excited to get in the pulpit and herald Christ from any text in the Bible.

And so I might just launch us off, John, in thinking about the words of Jesus Christ himself in Luke 24 and in John chapter 5, where Luke 24, the road to Emmaus, Jesus is resurrected and he appears to a couple of disciples and he says to them that they are slow of heart to believe everything that the Scriptures have revealed.

And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to these disciples everything in Moses and the prophets that was written about him. Then in John chapter 5, at a couple of different points, Jesus makes it very clear to his Jewish audience, he says to them that you search the Scriptures thinking that in them you find eternal life.

Yet it is they that bear witness about me. And then he goes on later in John 5 to say, you guys are talking about Moses a lot. If you believed Moses, you would believe me because he wrote about me. And so this is the conversation that we're having today.

And I get excited for this because this has changed my Christian life, man. Changed my Christian life. It has changed the way that I think about the Bible wholesale. And this is probably the single greatest thing that informs my preaching from a week-to-week basis is the fact that all of the Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation are about Christ and what he has done for sinners.

And I'm just going to hand it off to you, man.

The Apostolic Pattern for Reading the Old Testament

Man, me preaching John, I was preaching through the book of John and it is, John is probably one of the greatest prolific writers when it comes to the Old Testament, like how much he references in typology, in referencing to ceremonies and the law.

And he mentions the Psalms and Isaiah a lot. And he won't do a direct quote, but he'll even say things like to fulfill Scripture, to allow the reader to know, hey, look, you know, what Scripture this is in reference.

To.

But to add to the question, the Scriptures that talk about Jesus in the Old Testament, there's a couple more. You have Acts 8 .35. Then Philip opened his mouth and beginning with the Scriptures, he told him the good news about Jesus.

Now, book of Acts, let's do some math here, Justin. The New Testament had not been written. I mean, right now it's being recorded as in past history. So what Scriptures is he referencing? What is he talking about?

Justin Perdue. The Scriptures, whenever we hear the apostles in the New Testament referenced the Scriptures or Jesus referenced the Scriptures, they're talking about what we call the Old Testament.

Justin Perdue. That's right.

Justin Perdue. Just to be very clear.

Justin Perdue Yep.

Philip is telling the eunuch about Jesus from the Old Testament, which I can tell you right now that Justin and I both can preach the gospel clearly from the Old Testament because the apostles did, right?

We can use Old Testament text to preach Christ, and we do, and we'll always do. And I know I'm going to let you launch on that, but we are not crippled by only having the New Testament in order to preach the gospel because what else was Philip using?

Another great verse that would be connected to this is Acts 18 .28, and it says, For he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the Scriptures that Christ was Jesus. So he's saying, again, Scripture has to reference the Torah, the Old Testament, and he's referencing the Old Testament to show that it is about Jesus.

So it's not one little reference. I know sometimes people say, well, you guys always quote Luke 24, but I think you're basing an entire theological system and way of reading the Bible based on one verse, and it's not.

There are multiple examples of New Testament writers using the Old Testament to teach us about Jesus. So there's much that can be learned and should be learned about Jesus. Now, this is where I know Justin's going to go here in a minute, but this is where understanding typology is so important.

I know it took me a long time to understand this, and so I'm going to say it in such a way that if you're brand new to Reformed theology, if you're brand new to Redemptive Historic Biblical theology or Covenant theology, typology is really important.

I didn't always, when someone said type and anti-type, my brain didn't have a category for that. So if you're smart, unlike me, and you already know it, so you can fast forward the next 30 seconds. But if you're like me and you need help in these categories, type and anti-type, the anti-type thing is what threw me off.

A type is very much an example or a picture of something, but not the reality of it. So we use these illustrations all the time, but one of my favorite ones is if you go to a Mexican restaurant, you get that real big laminated menu.

Justin Perdue. John, I love this illustration.

Justin Perdue. Right, big laminated menu, and I love the more expensive ones. We'll have a picture of the burrito, and underneath it, it says, not the actual size. Thanks for clarifying. But it's a picture.

It's a type of the burrito, but it is not. You look at it and anticipate it and are excited about what you see, but it is not what you taste. It is not what sustained you. It is not what gives you energy.

The anti-type or the substance, the real burrito, which is called the anti-type. When we say type and anti-type, which we're going to give some examples here in a minute in the Old Testament, that's the theological terms for it.

A great example of this, I'll just give you one now so you can have something to hold on to. When Jesus says to Nicodemus, as the serpent was raised in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up so that all who see him will be drawn near to him.

The serpent in the wilderness was a type, an example, a picture of what Jesus was going to happen to Jesus, because those who looked on the serpent and believed were healed, and those who look to Christ on the cross and believe are also healed of their sins.

And so, that's a good example of type and anti-type as it relates to Jesus being referenced in the Old Testament, pointing us towards the New Testament reality.

And so, Jesus, of course, picks up on that very thing in his conversation with Nicodemus in John chapter 3, and the New Testament is replete with examples of this kind of thing being done by Christ and the apostles.

So, you mentioned earlier just how the apostles write and what I might even call the apostolic pattern when it comes to this conversation. When we are saying that we read the Bible from a redemptive historical perspective, meaning it's redemptive history with Christ at the center, and we read it in that Christ-centered way, and we read it with an eye for typology—types and shadows and pointers and fulfillment and all those things—all we are saying and all we are advocating is, hey guys, let's read the Bible, and in particular, let's read the Old Testament the way that the apostles understood it.

That's it. And the way that Christ understood it. We're not coming up with anything new. We are looking to Christ and Paul and Peter and John and the writer to the Hebrews, and we are just following after their lead in terms of how they understood the Old Testament scriptures to bear witness to Christ and the redemption that he would accomplish for sinners.

And so, we have freedom. This is maybe one of the more controversial pieces of this conversation. We have freedom to not only go to the texts that the apostles specifically reference, we have freedom to read the entire Old Testament that way because they have given us a pattern.

They have shown us how to do it, right? And so, we can take, for example, and I have so many that we won't cover them all, and it's no big deal. But for example, it just popped into my brain. The way that Peter in 1 Peter chapter 3 connects the ark and the flood and what happened there to redemption and to baptism, that means that it is legitimate to now go back to the Old Testament, as saints have done for a long, long time, and see other passages, to use Peter's language, where the saints are brought safely through water, and we can see those things as a pointer to our baptism through which we are united to Christ, we are sealed into him, and our sins are drowned in the waters of baptism because Christ ultimately has taken the judgment of God for us, and we've died in Christ to the law.

So, Peter connects that in 1 Peter 3 to Genesis chapter 6, 7, 8, right? But then there are other ways that the saints have seen this same connection, like Exodus. The Exodus and the parting of the Red Sea, where God's people are brought safely through water, people have said, this is a pointer to baptism.

They're entirely right about that.

That's right.

It's a pointer, ultimately, to the deliverance that God would accomplish for us through the Lord Jesus Christ. But a lot of times, again, talking about that biblicism thing, where it's got to be on the face of the text, and if the text doesn't say it, we shouldn't draw the conclusion.

It's like, well, yeah, if you do that, like if you go to the parting of the Red Sea in Exodus, where if you were to preach the flood from Genesis, and you were to conclude, well, Moses, in writing about the ark and the flood, he doesn't say anything about baptism.

He doesn't say anything about Jesus, like the ark being a type of Christ. And so as I preach this, the original authorial intent must have been this thing, and this is what I need to say. It's like, well, in order for you to do that, you have now divorced the account of the ark and the flood in Genesis 6, 7, and 8.

You have divorced that from the entire canon. You have divorced it from the entire context of the whole Bible, and have actually been irresponsible in preaching it if you do not preach Christ and baptism from Genesis 6, 7, and 8.

And that's the really controversial thing, I think, to say here, is that there is such an obsession sometimes over original authorial intent in the Old Testament that we almost academically, thinking that we're smart, convince ourselves to not preach Christ from the Old Testament.

Well, and to go back to explain what you mean by authorial intent, for those who this might be new to you, if you didn't grow up in a part of a church that does expository teaching or preaching, what Justin is getting at is that when an author like Moses sat down to write the history inspired by the Spirit, write down what happened, there's a reason behind their writing.

That's authorial intent, right? What's the intention?

What did the author intend?

Right. You can see these things in the epistles. You can hear in the beginning, well, Paul says, I'm writing you for this reason, or even in the Gospels, you can see the introductions to the Gospels and what they're writing them.

For.

The argument has been within conservative evangelical Calvinistic churches is that you cannot give any other application than the original intention of that individual author.

Correct.

We mean by author, like Paul, Moses, David.

There's a danger when you read scripture in that way because it disconnects the Bible as if it's a library of books that are all of the same time period and God is a part of them, but they're not all connected as if there was one theme.

Our argument is that according to the New Testament, there is a theme and there is a driving message. We can go to Ephesians when it literally says that before the foundations of the world, God made a pactum, a covenant that there would be salvation promised to sinners.

This was before the first mention of scripture. This is before creation. We take great heart in that from Paul because Paul is saying there's a greater theme that's going on. There's, I would say, a major theme of what all of scripture is about.

Paul, thankfully, gives us a good peek into that to say this is how you should read your Bible from a redemption of sinners that unfolds through history. This is why we use the term that's been used for many years, redemptive historic understanding of scripture.

Our argument would be the author of scriptures, the intention of the author, which is God by means of the Holy Spirit. The authorial intent is redemption. Then you go down into the writer. I would argue the author is God, the writers are the humans.

The authorial intent is always God and His redemptive plan as revealed to us in scripture. Then we go down and say, what did the writer say in their context? We don't want to interpret it in our own means saying, well, I can say whatever I want now because the writer just wrote something.

No, the writer wrote it for a purpose, but it's not disconnected from one, all of scripture, and two, God's authorial plan, which was told to us before.

Prophets, Apostles, and the Mystery of Christ

Justin Perdue. All right, so a few comments here. 1 Peter 1 verses 10 to 12, in that area, the apostle there makes it clear. I'll just read 1 Peter 1 .10 and following, concerning this 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 predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.

It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you and the things that have now been announced to you through those who preach the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.

That's 1 Peter 1 .10 to 12. So what that is saying is that the prophets of old, as they wrote down things inspired of the Holy Spirit, did not fully in their humanity understand everything that they were writing.

So that right there has to be taken into consideration when we have this conversation about original authorial intent. Did Moses understand everything that he wrote completely in terms of how it pointed to Christ and would be fulfilled in Jesus?

Well, no, he didn't.

Justin Perdue. Or David, when he's talking about the coming Messiah.

Mike Duffy. Did Isaiah, even in writing Isaiah 53, did he fully understand what was going to happen? Well, no, he didn't. So if you are going to govern yourself by what did Isaiah or Moses or David or whoever understand, then you're going to gut the scriptures of their ultimate meaning that point to Christ and his work for sinners to save us, right?

And so that's just one thing for us to keep in mind. I'm going to give two examples, John, that will, I think, illustrate our point pretty well, and I'm sure we're going to give some other examples before we're done with the regular portion of the podcast.

But here we go. Here are two examples that I think are very illustrative and perhaps provocative when it comes to this conversation, both from the pen of the Apostle Paul. All right, here we go. First Corinthians chapter 10, in particular, verse 4 is where I want to get, but I'm going to begin with chapter 10 and verse 1 and read it real quick.

Paul says, For I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea and all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink.

For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. That is a reference to Exodus 17. Now, in Exodus 17, what's happening? In verse 4 of 1 Corinthians 10, it's a reference to that chapter.

In Exodus 17, the people have been brought out of Egypt, they've been brought through the Red Sea, and they are grumbling because they're thirsty. And Moses says to God, what am I supposed to do with these people, basically?

God says, as you stand before the rock of Horeb, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink. Paul is saying that that rock and the water that came out of it is about Jesus.

Seriously, can you imagine in an Old Testament class or in a hermeneutics class if a student in many seminaries today were to stand up and say, to preach that text or to write an expositional paper on Exodus 17 and to ultimately make the point of that, well, Jesus is the point of this.

You would get a failing grade in many seminary classes because that is irresponsible hermeneutics and exegesis of the text. But it's like, hey, homie, that's what the Apostle Paul does, right? Now, another passage that perhaps is even more illustrative of what we're talking about is Ephesians chapter 4, verse 7 and following.

Paul has just been talking about how there's unity in the church, and then he goes on to say he's going to talk now about how each of us have been given gifts for the use of the body and for the building of the body.

He says, but grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore, it says, and he is referencing now Psalm 68, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.

And then he goes on to talk about how that's ultimately about Jesus giving gifts to the.

Church.

All right, so if a person were to read Psalm 68, that psalm is about God being enthroned on Mount Sinai, like traveling from the wilderness to Mount Sinai and being enthroned on Mount Sinai. And we would be looking at that again in an Old Testament class, an exegesis situation, or a hermeneutics class.

And if someone were to stand up and say, hey, that right there, God being enthroned on the mountain, what that's ultimately about is Jesus Christ and his ascension, and then it's about him giving gifts to the church.

Again, I think that many people would be rebuked for such an interpretation, and I think Paul himself would have gotten an F in many seminary classes for saying that that's what this is ultimately about.

And he would be scolded to consider original authorial intent, like, Paul, what are you.

Doing?

And it's just like, these are the things that we're talking about. And we could give a dozen, 20, 30 more examples like that, John, from the New Testament and how the apostles write. And so all we're contending for today is, hey, guys, let's interpret the scriptures just like Paul.

Let's look to the Old Testament, and when we preach the Old Testament, let's preach it asking this question, where does this text stand in relation to Christ? And it's so helpful, brother. It's so helpful because then we're kept from moralizing that we can make comments about how, like, again, think 1 Corinthians 10, Exodus 17.

We can talk about the people grumbling, and we can talk about our sin and all those kinds of things, and we can talk about God's provision for the things that people need. But ultimately, what are we going to leave people with?

That God in his grace, not only has he already rescued people from bondage to Egypt, which is a pointer to the rescue that's going to come from our bondage to Satan and sin. Not only has he brought the people safely through the Red Sea, which is a pointer to baptism and how we've been brought safely through water, but now he's sustaining his people in a wilderness while they're sojourners.

And he is saying that the water that he gives for their sustenance is ultimately about Jesus Christ himself.

That's right.

And that's what we can say.

That's right.

Oh, it's so wonderful.

It's beautiful.

No, it's so good. I was flipping through so many quotes here. I'm not going to take time to read them because we only have a little bit of time left. But in Sam Rinehan's book, The Mystery of Christ, His Covenant, and His Kingdom, this chapter 13 on the mystery of Christ is really helpful in this because that is what we're dealing with.

It is the revelation of the mystery of the Messiah and the final consummation where Jesus does finally show up from type to anti-type or from shadow to substance is what we're dealing with. And when you understand the Bible, so going back to how Justin may be speaking a little bit about this before we get into the SR podcast, but when we talk about how this has transformed us, I want to allow Justin and I to speak into this for a moment where it does change two things.

I think it changes God in the way in which God interacts with you and His word. And number two, I think it allows the word of God to come alive in a way that my kids love putting together puzzles. So they're up there right now.

It's summer break. So they don't have school and I wake up and they're out there putting together a puzzle, which I don't do. To me, I'm like, I'd rather read a book or something.

I don't know.

Puzzles just seem puzzling to me. But if I were to go in there and I would flip the puzzle upside down and all the color is now gone and there's only shapes, they could painstakingly and probably with not a lot of joy, put that together.

It's going to be confusing and they could get the outer border. So they get the frame down. But after that, it's just not going to be as enjoyable because part of a puzzle is seeing the progress. That's how most people read their word.

The Bible is that they don't see the picture. They don't have the box cover. They don't actually are looking at the life colors of the illustration. All they have is they hear about how powerful the word of God is.

They're about how wonderful it is. And what they look at is like, well, this is a puzzle turned upside down and I can see the general idea. Like I know the corner pieces. Those are kind of like obvious, but the rest of it doesn't make sense.

And what we're trying to say is once someone introduced to us the historical understanding, this is how the word of God has been taught and read for hundreds of years. Justin and I can both attest, which I'll let you speak into.

All of a sudden, we couldn't stop putting the puzzle pieces together and seeing Christ come to life as the Old Testament reveals him.

Justin Perdue. So you just talked about power. People are told that the word of God is powerful. Last I checked, Jesus Christ is the power of God. You know, and I mean, the gospel and the message of Christ and his cross is the power of God unto salvation.

So it's like, my goodness, if the word of God is powerful, which it is, and if the word of God accomplishes its work, which it does, well, ought we not herald the one that the word is about, who is described as the power of God and the wisdom of God, right?

And our Redeemer and our righteousness and our sanctification and our redemption. Yes, we should preach him. So yeah, I get geeked up about this, which is probably evident even on this podcast today. But I'm going to continue to illustrate some of this just to maybe demonstrate my excitement over this and how this fires me up.

My favorite book of the Bible has probably, and I'm saying this publicly, so I'm bound to this forever. If someone were to push me on my favorite book of the Bible, I usually am like, well, it's kind of whichever one I'm reading and studying or preaching through right now.

It's kind of my favorite because it's on the front of my mind. But I think I am at a place finally in my life where if somebody said pick one book, it is unquestionably the book of Hebrews for me at this point because of this very reality.

What's the book of Hebrews about? It's about Christ and how he's greater than everything and how he's the point of it all. The writer is telling people, don't go back to the law. Don't neglect such a great salvation and go back to the law.

You know why? Because Jesus is greater than the law. He's greater than angels. He's greater than Moses. He's greater than Aaron. The law and the sacrificial system and the priesthood and the whole nine yards, all of that was about Jesus Christ.

He has accomplished your salvation. He has once and for all made an atonement for your sins, and he is seated at the right hand of God in the heavens, and he's coming back. He's got you, and you've been given a kingdom that can never be shaken.