Christ in All the Bible

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Alright guys, good morning.
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We are going to continue this morning in our in-betweens.
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We have 12 weeks of systematic theology that I normally teach, but then in between those 12 weeks, I take a few weeks off to do some other things.
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What we've done so far, the first week, two weeks ago, I did an overview of the whole Bible.
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How many books from the Bible, who wrote each book, when were they written.
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You know, Bible basics, Sunday school stuff.
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You know, stuff that we should all know.
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Last week, we did an overview of the covenants of Scripture.
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What I would say are the backbone of the Bible are the covenantal structure.
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How many of you remember the covenants? Noaic Covenant, Mosaic, Davidic, and the New Covenant.
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That's right, we miss Abrahamic, right? So it goes from Noah to Abraham, from Abraham to Moses, from Moses to David, David to Jesus, and we could say there is certainly a relationship in the Garden between God and Adam.
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We could identify that as covenantal as well, so we call that the Adamic Covenant.
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Some people call that the Creation Covenant.
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So that's what we looked at last week.
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Well, today, I decided that what I wanted to talk about is how to recognize Christ in the whole Bible.
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How to recognize Christ in the whole Bible.
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So basically what that means is seeing Christ in the Old Testament.
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Most of us know that Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem through the Virgin Mary about 2,000 years ago.
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We believe He was born sometime on the Gregorian calendar, which is the calendar we currently use, somewhere around 4 or 5 B.C.
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Would have been about the time Jesus was born based on certain things that are stated in the Gospel.
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Quirinius was governor of Syria.
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And this was happening here and this was happening here.
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We were able to deduce about the time when Jesus was born.
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However, the Bible clearly indicates that Jesus' birth is not the first time He is recognized in Scripture.
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The Bible says Jesus is not only the Son of God as a man, but He is also God the Son.
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He is the second person in the Trinity who has always existed.
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And therefore, we see Christ in the Old Testament.
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So we're going to talk about today what we call Christocentricity.
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The word Christocentric simply is the combination of Christ-centered.
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Our Bible is Christ-centered.
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That should go without saying.
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But it's something that needs to be affirmed and reaffirmed and understood.
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If you have your Bible, turn to Luke 24.
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Luke 24 is after Jesus has risen from the dead, He makes an appearance to two disciples on the road to Emmaus.
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We're going to read that account and then we're going to pray.
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Luke 24, yes sir, beginning at verse 13.
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Now, I'll read it.
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That very day, two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem.
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And they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened.
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While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus Himself drew near and went with them.
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But their eyes were kept from recognizing Him.
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And He said to them, what is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk? And they stood still looking sad.
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Then one of them named Cleopas answered Him, are You the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days? And He said to them, what things? And they said to Him, concerning Jesus of Nazareth, the man who was a prophet, mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered Him up to be condemned to death and crucified Him.
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But we had hoped that He was the one to redeem Israel.
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Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened.
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Moreover, some women of our company amazed us.
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They were at the tomb early in the morning and when they did not find His body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels who said that He was alive.
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Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but Him they did not see.
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And He said to them, O foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken, was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into His glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.
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Verse 27 is our focus there.
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Let's pray.
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Father in Heaven, we thank You for Your Word.
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Lord, as I seek to give an understanding of it today, looking at the Old Testament and light of the New, I pray, Lord, that You would keep me from error.
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For God, I am a fallible man and You know that I do not want to preach what is untrue.
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So I pray that You would keep me from that.
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I pray that You would give me boldness.
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I pray that You would give me Your Spirit.
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And Lord, that Your Word would go out to the men who are hearing my voice.
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Lord, that it would go in through their ears and even into their mind and down to their heart.
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And Lord, that they might hear the truth and believe it.
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And Lord, that there's those here who do not know the Lord, that they might today, even today, turn from their sin and turn to Christ, seeing He as the centerpiece not only of the Bible, but of all of human history.
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And it's in His name we pray, Amen.
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In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul makes certain statements that should key in on our mind.
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One, he says that he wanted to preach the Gospel and he said he was preaching Christ and certainly that's what the Gospel is, the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
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But he was doing so from the Scriptures.
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In fact, he tells his protege, Timothy, preach the Word.
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He tells us in 2 Timothy 3.16, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for training in righteousness and correction, that the man of God may be fully equipped for every good work.
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But what's interesting about all of those statements is that as he is writing and saying those things, he's referring to the Old Testament.
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Because the New Testament wasn't written yet.
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He was in the middle of writing part of the New Testament.
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The New Testament was written between about 48 to about 70 A.D.
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So over a period of just over 20 years.
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The New Testament was written and put together and collated and began to be disseminated as a group in the 2nd century.
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So when Paul talks about the Scriptures, he's talking primarily about the Old Testament.
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If you open up your Bible, you'll notice the Old Testament makes up the vast majority of your Bible.
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The Old Testament makes up more than probably 8 tenths, 4 fifths.
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I guess if I reduce my...
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I'm not good at math.
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So if you look at your Bible, you notice the majority is the Old Testament.
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And yet we say the Bible itself is about Jesus.
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And that's why I took you to Luke 24 because that's what Luke 24 says.
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Jesus is talking to these two guys.
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Well, it doesn't say two guys.
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It says two disciples.
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It could be a man and his wife.
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Some people have conjectured that perhaps it was Cleopas and his wife because her name is not mentioned.
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So we don't know.
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But it's two people.
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He's walking with them.
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And he says, you know, O slow of heart to believe all that was written about the Christ.
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And beginning with Moses, which is the first five books of the Bible, and all the prophets, which would indicate the rest of the Old Testament, he interpreted how it all pointed to him.
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The key statement is everything written about me in the law and the prophets.
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I want to read a quote.
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This is from a scholar.
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His name is Graham Goldsworthy.
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I think the title of this is Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics.
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I think this is from his book.
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And hermeneutics is simply the grid that we use to interpret the Bible.
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That's what hermeneutics means.
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It's the lens we use to interpret the Bible.
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And this is what he says.
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He says, The hermeneutical question about the whole Bible correlates with this question.
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What do you think of Christ? The hermeneutical center of the Bible is therefore Jesus in His being and in His saving acts.
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The Jesus of the Gospel.
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We can say that while not all Scripture is the Gospel, all Scripture is related to the Gospel in its center.
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The Bible makes a radical idea inescapable.
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Not only is the Gospel the interpretive norm for the whole Bible, but there is an important sense in which Jesus Christ is the mediator and meaning of everything that exists.
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In other words, the Gospel is the hermeneutical norm for the whole of reality.
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We interpret the Bible through the lens of the Gospel.
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And that is to say we interpret the Bible through the lens of Jesus.
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So as we look through the Old Testament, we can see Jesus in three ways.
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And these are the three that outline today of our lesson.
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Number one are His pre-incarnate appearances.
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Number two are what we call prophetic utterances.
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Number three is actually my favorite, what we would call types and symbols.
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So very quickly, what do we mean by pre-incarnate appearances? Before birth, before the taking on of flesh, the word carne means flesh.
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To incarnate means to take on flesh.
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And John 1.14 says the word became flesh, right? So when we talk about Jesus becoming flesh, that happened in time.
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When did Jesus become flesh? When He was born, right? The Bible says in the fullness of time, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, that He might redeem those who are under the law and give them the adoption of sons, right? So what does it mean to be born of a woman? It means to be born naturally, right? Jesus didn't grow out of the ether.
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He didn't appear out of the mist.
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He didn't rise up out of the sea or come out of a rock or something like that.
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He was born of a woman.
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Now He was born by miraculous conception, because the Bible says He was conceived of the Holy Spirit, but He was born by natural birth.
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This is one of the areas where Roman Catholicism differs slightly from Protestantism.
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Roman Catholicism teaches that Jesus was not born naturally, but that Jesus was born supernaturally in such a way that Mary could maintain her virginal integrity, because they believe Mary is a perpetual virgin, therefore her virginity was kept intact even through the birth.
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I don't believe that.
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I don't think that's necessary to believe, but that's one of the distinctions in Roman Catholic theology.
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They believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary, therefore you can't remain a virgin if you give birth.
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It just doesn't work that way.
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So they believe Jesus translated from the womb to the room, as it were, not born.
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But I think Paul denies that.
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I think when Paul says born of a woman, I think what he's saying is born naturally.
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And so we see that in the Scriptures.
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So Jesus is born in Bethlehem, but we have pre-incarnate appearances of Jesus seen in the Old Testament.
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We know that...
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I'll give you a few verses to consider.
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We know that John 1 tells us in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God.
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That's talking about Jesus, right? That's John 1, 1-3.
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But John 8-58 says, Before Abraham was, I am.
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That's Jesus referring to Himself existing before Abraham, who lived 2,000 years before Him.
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And what He said about Abraham is interesting.
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He said, Abraham rejoiced to see My day, which indicates in some way Abraham knew about Jesus.
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He said, Abraham rejoiced to see My day.
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He saw it and was glad.
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That's what the text says.
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So Jesus said He saw it and was glad.
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In what way did He see it? We don't know, but in some way there's an understanding in Abraham that there's this Christ figure who is coming.
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Now, here's a thought.
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Remember when Abraham was visited by the Lord and it says the Lord ate with him.
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Remember, it was by the oaks of Mamre.
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It was right before the situation with Sodom and Gomorrah.
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Remember, because the Lord had two angels with Him.
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They both came to Abraham's house.
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This is when He...
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No, that's after the resurrection.
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This is when He comes and He tells, you're going to have a child.
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And Sarah is so old she laughs at Him.
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Remember, and the Lord says, I know you laughed, right? In fact, that becomes part of the issue is her lack of faith, right? But the point is, that is what I believe is a pre-incarnate visitation of Christ.
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I believe Abraham ate with Christ.
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Now, can I prove it? Here's my proof.
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If you want proof.
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John 1.18 says, no one has seen the Father.
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John 1.18 says, no one has seen God, but the God who reveals Him is the Son.
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So, who is it that Abraham would have seen? I believe it had to have been Jesus.
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In fact, I believe it was Jesus who walked with Adam in the garden.
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Because the text says, no one has seen the Father.
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And so if no one has seen the Father, and the Son is the one who reveals Him, therefore, when I go back and I see people talking to God as a man, I begin to make certain conjectures.
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I'm not saying it's absolute.
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I'm not saying it has to be.
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I'm just saying here, we know Adam walked with God.
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I think that was Christ.
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Abraham ate with God.
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I believe that was Christ, yes.
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Yeah, the angel of the Lord.
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When it refers to...
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Remember the word angel means messenger.
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So the messenger of Yahweh, that's what that would be translated as.
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I think that that could be references to Christ.
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The Lord of hosts who leads the armies of the Lord I think certainly could be a pre-incarnate visitation.
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But here's one that I can prove.
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Because again, so far I've been kind of conjecturing.
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I want to prove at least one to you.
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Turn to Isaiah chapter 6.
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Isaiah chapter 6.
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And this one I'm going to prove to you by virtue of grammatical construction.
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Which is always a good way to prove something.
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If you want to prove from a written document, use grammar and reason.
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Alright? Look at Isaiah 6.
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One of my favorite passages in the Old Testament.
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This is when Isaiah saw the Lord.
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It says in chapter 6, verse 1, In the year that King Uzziah died, I, that is Isaiah, saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up.
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And the train of His robe filled the temple.
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Above Him stood the seraphim.
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Each had six wings.
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With two He covered His face.
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With two He covered His feet.
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And with two He flew.
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And one called to another saying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.
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The whole earth is filled with His glory.
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And the foundations of the threshold shook at the voice of Him who called.
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And the house was filled with smoke.
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And I said, Woe is me, for I am lost.
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I am a man of unclean lips.
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And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.
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For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.
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The word Lord there is the covenant name of God.
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I have seen Yahweh, the Lord of hosts.
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So, who did Isaiah see? He saw the Lord.
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That's what the text says, right? He saw the Lord of hosts.
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He saw Him on His throne, seated.
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In fact, it talks about the train of His robe.
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Most of the time when I'm preaching this text, I explain, you know, if you see a wedding gown, it has that train that comes behind it.
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You know, the longer the train, usually the more expensive the dress.
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And some women have really crazy trains.
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Crazy train.
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That's crazy.
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Have these long trains that go on the back of the dress.
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And it sort of indicates, you know, the amount of money that went into it.
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It's a status thing to have a long train.
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Well, the kings of the ancient world, the same thing.
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The length of their trains sort of indicated their status.
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Well, this says His train filled the temple.
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His robe filled the whole place.
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This is the majesty of this king.
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And that's the vision that Isaiah is getting.
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Now turn to John 12.
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John 12, and go to verse 39.
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I'll open at the end of that.
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Yeah, that's right.
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Alright.
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If we go to verse 39, it says, Therefore they could not believe, for again Isaiah said, He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them.
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Isaiah said these things because he saw His glory and spoke of Him.
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Now, what we see here is a reference to Isaiah seeing the glory of someone.
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Isaiah saw His glory and spoke of Him.
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What is His in a sentence? Grammatical construction.
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What is His? Well, before we get to who it is, what is His? What I mean is the word His...
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Yes, His is an antecedent.
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I'm sorry, His is a pronoun that has an antecedent.
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If I say, Brian gave me this marker and this marker is His.
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The word His in that sentence is a pronoun that points back to an antecedent.
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What's the antecedent? Brian, right? Brian gave me this marker and this marker is His.
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His has an antecedent and the antecedent is Brian.
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Antecedent? A-N-T-E-C-E-D-E-N-T.
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A-N-T-E-C.
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What does it mean? It means the preceding noun.
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The preceding noun.
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So you have a pronoun and you have the preceding noun which is referred to as the antecedent.
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So, now, here's my argument.
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If you look at Isaiah 41, Isaiah said these things because he saw His glory.
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Who is the He? Who is the His in this? If you go up, it's referring to Jesus.
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Look at verse 36.
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It says, While you have seen the light, believe in the light, that you may be sons of light.
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When Jesus had said these things, He departed and hid from Him.
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And then, though He had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in them.
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You see He there is a pronoun.
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Who is the He referring to? Jesus.
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And it goes on.
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It says, so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled.
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Then He quotes two passages from Isaiah.
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He quotes the first one in verse 38.
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Then He quotes the second one in verse 40.
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And then He says, Isaiah said these things because he saw His, the antecedent of His is Jesus.
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Which tells us Isaiah saw Jesus' glory and spoke of Him.
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So, what do we learn from that? We learn that there is at least one provable pre-incarnate vision of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And it's the vision that Isaiah had in Isaiah chapter 6.
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And I think this text proves, at least to my satisfaction, that that's who He's referring to.
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So, we have there a pre-incarnate example of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And there are others.
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What's interesting, if you look in Genesis, write this down.
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Don't turn there, but just write this down.
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Genesis 19-24.
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In the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham is talking to the Lord.
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Remember? And he says, what if there are 50 righteous? Would you save the city? What if there are 40 righteous? Remember that? First of all, can you imagine having that conversation? Abraham is called the friend of God.
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And you see their friendship in that interaction.
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He's able to talk to God.
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He's talking to Christ though.
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Listen to this text.
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This is Genesis 19-24.
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Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven.
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Where is the Lord in that text? He's standing next to Abraham.
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But He rains fire from heaven from the Lord.
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So we have reference to the Lord that's on the earth in the person of Christ.
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And we have the Lord in heaven who is the one raining the fire.
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The term Lord there is used twice in two different locations.
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The Lord that's standing next to Abraham and the Lord that's above that's raining down the flames.
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Just an interesting...
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Well, His Trinity.
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I would say Trinity when we talk about God.
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Don't ever want to leave out the Spirit.
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But showing that Christ is on the earth talking to Abraham and the Father is still above doing His work that He does.
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Yes? I was thinking, I think it was Moses, but I think He seemed like...
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You think that was Jesus? Now that one is different.
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And I don't know that I would have time to get into this.
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Moses' interaction with God is unique because Moses is receiving the law of God.
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And the law of God is focused on one attribute of God, specifically His holiness.
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And Moses, can I see your face? And the Lord, no.
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And again, no one has seen my face.
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You say, but wait a minute.
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Abraham walked with Him.
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Adam walked with Him.
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Noah walked with Him.
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Why can't Moses? Because the focus there is on God's law and His separation.
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So when He talks about seeing His hinder parts, I don't know that that wasn't the Father.
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And again, you can't separate the Trinity in such a way as to divide them wholly.
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So Christ certainly is involved there.
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But there's something distinct about that interaction with Moses that makes it unique from other interactions.
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But again, it's certainly just mind-boggling to consider Moses on the mountain 40 days, 40 nights with the Lord, having that, receiving the law.
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It's an amazing part of the narrative.
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But I do think it's unique.
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I think it's unique.
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Now there's another one that some people would argue is a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ.
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That's Melchizedek.
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I don't think Melchizedek is a pre-incarnate appearance.
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But some people do.
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So at this point of the lesson, I just want to indicate if you think Melchizedek is a pre-incarnate Christ, I'm not going to argue with you.
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I just don't agree.
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I think he's a type of Christ.
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And we'll talk about what a type is in a minute because that's the third thing.
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But if that's the position you take, fine.
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We can talk about the difference and why.
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So pre-incarnate appearance means Jesus appeared to and related to people either as the Lord of hosts, angel of the Lord, or eating with Abram, doing all those things.
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Whatever it was, it was before his actual incarnation.
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Alright, so the second thing we have are prophetic utterances.
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Now what do we mean by prophetic utterance? Yeah, it's just prophecy about His coming.
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Right? The prophecy that He is going to come.
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And so an utterance simply means something spoken, something uttered, something verbalized.
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And so the prophetic utterance is God speaking through the prophet about the coming of Jesus.
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Probably the most explicit is Isaiah 53.
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If you want to turn there and look at it.
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Yeah, prophecy which is spoken.
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That's right.
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So if you go to Isaiah 53, we have the prophetic utterance regarding Jesus.
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The word utterance means spoken.
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It means Isaiah 53.
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Yes.
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So we have Christ in His appearances.
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That's number one.
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Then we have Christ being promised or prophetically spoken.
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And this is what Isaiah 53 says.
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We'll begin at verse 3.
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He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows acquainted with grief.
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And as one from whom men hid their faces, He was despised and we esteemed Him not.
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Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.
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But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities.
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Upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and by His stripes we are healed.
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All we like sheep have gone astray.
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We have turned every one of us to His own way, and the Lord has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all.
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He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before His shearers is silent, He opened not His mouth.
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By oppression and judgment He was taken away and asked for His generation who considered that He was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of My people.
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And they made His grave with the wicked and with the rich man and his death, although He had done no violence and there was no deceit in His mouth.
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Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush Him.
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He has put Him to grief.
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When His soul makes an offering for sin, He shall see His offering, He shall prolong His days.
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The will of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.
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It goes on, but you hear that.
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Who is that about? It's about Jesus.
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I think I've told this story before, but I'll tell it again.
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There was a lady who came to my office after a sermon several years ago.
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She came in and she said, I want to talk to you.
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I said, okay, have a seat.
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She sat down and she said, I don't know if I really can believe in Jesus.
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I'm having trouble with faith.
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I'm having trouble believing.
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And I said, okay, I want to read you something.
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We talked for a few minutes before that, but I said, let me read you something.
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I read what I just read to you.
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I said, who is that about? And she said, that's about Jesus.
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I said, that was written 700 years before Jesus was born.
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That was written 700 years before Jesus was born.
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And it points to the very thing Jesus came to do.
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He came to take the punishment that we deserve for sin.
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And even in His death, it says He was killed with the wicked, died between two thieves, but He was buried with a rich man.
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He was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea.
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All of these things specifically referencing Christ and His death and what it would accomplish.
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700 years before He was born.
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Isaiah is filled with it.
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If you want to go to Isaiah 7.14, there's another prophetic utterance.
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This one you're probably familiar with because we reference this one a lot, especially around Christmas time.
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Isaiah 7.14 I'll give you a second to get there.
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It says, Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign.
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Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call His name Emmanuel.
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Now, you might say, wait a minute, His name is Jesus.
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His name is not Emmanuel.
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Emmanuel is not a name.
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Emmanuel is a title.
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Title means God with us.
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Emmanuel.
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Anytime you see EL at the end of a sentence, or excuse me, at the end of a word, that EL is a suffix which refers to God.
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Israel, to wrestle with God.
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Bethel, house of God.
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L at the end.
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So, Emmanuel means...
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Huh? Emmanuel is a title, not a name.
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That's right.
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And it means God with us.
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So, His name is that.
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That's what their name is.
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That's like the meaning.
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Yeah, and Jesus is called Emmanuel.
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He's called God with us.
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And that's one of His many titles.
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He's called Son of God, Son of David, Son of Man, Emmanuel, all of those things, right? And this is the promise.
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He will be born of a virgin.
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How many people have ever been born of a virgin? One.
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And it's Jesus.
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And this is the prophecy.
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Again, 700 years before Jesus, there's a prophecy.
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There's coming one born of a virgin.
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And this is Him.
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Now, you might be on the same page.
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It is on my Bible.
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Go over to chapter 9 and verse 6.
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This refers to the birth of Jesus.
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It says, We sing this one at Christmas.
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For unto us a child is born.
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Right? What? Never heard that? Come on, brother.
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I'm old school.
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You know, hymns and such.
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But it says, For to us a child is born.
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To us a Son is given.
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And the government shall be upon His shoulder.
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And His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.
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Those are the titles of Christ given to us by Isaiah.
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Now, there are many other Messianic prophecies.
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Micah tells us He would be born in Bethlehem.
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That's Micah 5, verse 2.
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It says He'll be born in Bethlehem.
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Remember when the wise men came and they said, Where will He be born? And they said, The Scripture says He's going to be born in Bethlehem.
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Why Bethlehem? That's the city of David.
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And it's also Bethlehem means house of bread.
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The bread of life born in Bethlehem, the house of bread.
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And so we have this place which is referred to again by Micah the prophet several hundred years before Jesus.
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We have the promise of where He'll be born.
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To whom He will be born? To the Virgin.
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Who He would be? He will be the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, the wonderful Counselor, Emmanuel.
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And there are many others.
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There are whole charts.
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You probably have one around here.
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If you look around on the wall, there may be one.
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But there's charts that have been made up with Messianic prophecies.
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There are well over a hundred specific prophecies about Jesus and His coming.
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Even Moses talks about the One who will come who will be greater than I that the people should listen to.
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Who's greater than Moses? Jesus.
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And so we have specific prophecies pointing to Christ.
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That's the prophetic utterances.
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Now the third thing, as I said, this is my favorite.
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And it's only my favorite because I like to really dig in and I enjoy this study.
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And that is what we call types and symbols.
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Types and symbols.
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This is usually delineated in the New Testament by the phrase, as and so.
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As and so.
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I'll give you an example.
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1 Corinthians 15.22 As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive.
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So what then does Adam become? Adam becomes a type of Christ.
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Jesus is called what? The last Adam.
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Why? Because both of them have a representative relationship with their people.
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Adam represents us in death.
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Christ represents us in life.
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Adam is the one who brings us into death.
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Christ is the one who brings us into life.
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So Adam has to Christ a relationship.
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As in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.
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As and so.
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See, that's how the New Testament connects these types and symbols for us.
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One of the ways is through the construction of the as and the so.
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Another one is, as in the day of Noah, so will the coming of the Son of Man be.
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So what does Noah's day represent? It represents the day of judgment.
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So will the day of the coming of the Son of Man be, the second day of judgment.
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There's been one major cataclysmic judgment in the history of man.
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It was the flood.
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And out of that, God saved 8 people alive.
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The Bible says there was a remnant of 8 people that were saved alive out of all the mass of humanity.
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He wiped them all out with the flood.
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And then after that, He promised that I'll never wipe them away with water again.
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But the next time it will be with what? Fire.
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John the Baptist tells us that.
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John the Baptist says that He will come and He will baptize with fire.
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There will be a judgment of fire.
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And so we look forward to that.
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And that's the second great judgment.
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So as in the days of Noah, so will the coming of the Son of Man be.
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One of my favorites is in John 3.14.
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As Moses lifted up the serpent, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.
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John 3.14 It's right before that big important John 3.16.
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Most of us are familiar with John 3.16.
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For God so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son, right? Well, John 3.14 says as Moses lifted up the serpent.
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Do you all remember that story? Let me just remind if you don't remember.
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The people of God rebelled against Him in the wilderness.
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So God allowed them to be overtaken by what the text says, fiery serpents.
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Fiery serpents simply means poisonous snakes.
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What? Yeah, that's it.
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That's right.
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He allows them to be taken over by poisonous snakes.
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Now I want to tell you something.
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Of all the judgments in the ancient world, water turning to blood, frogs, locusts, fire coming down out of the sky.
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Snakes is the worst.
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For me, I would just lay down and die.
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That would just be it.
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Because I hate snakes.
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And I think I have biblical warrant.
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They're the devil.
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You don't see the big deal.
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That's because you're weird.
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My son's that way.
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Oh, daddy, I play with snakes.
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You ain't from my loins.
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You know what I'm saying? Playing with snakes.
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So anyway, you've got the snakes that bite the people and they cry out for salvation.
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What does God tell Moses to do? He says take bronze, form it into a serpent, in the shape of a serpent, put it on a staff, hold it up, and everyone who looks upon the serpent will be saved.
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Now that sounds like the craziest thing in the world.
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That sounds like some, I mean, just very weird story.
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And if you think, oh, that's just normal.
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I don't.
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It's so weird.
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And I remember the first book of the Bible that I ever really studied through in depth was the book of Numbers.
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I was in seminary.
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It was my first class.
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It was on the book of Numbers.
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And that's where that story comes from.
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I was just reading it and thinking it's the weirdest thing.
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But, it makes sense two ways.
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Number one, when Moses called them to look, it was calling them to faith.
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The serpent was God's remedy.
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And you have to trust in God's remedy.
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That's the point of the narrative.
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God has given you a remedy, but you've got to trust that His remedy is right.
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You've got to imagine there were some people who didn't look.
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Some people who said, I don't believe in that.
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Or I'm not going to do it God's way, I'll do it my way.
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Right? To do it God's way sometimes means to go against what we would think is normal.
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But that's the whole point of faith, is doing it God's way.
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But that's the first thing.
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The second thing, which is even more powerful, is that serpent on that pole pointed to Jesus.
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Because Jesus says in John 3.14, As Moses lifted up the serpent, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.
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For what reason? So that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but will have eternal life.
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The serpent is a picture of Christ.
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You say, but wait a minute, the serpent's evil.
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No, not in this sense.
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In this sense, the serpent is identified with the danger.
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And Christ identifies Himself with sin.
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He becomes sin for us.
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That's the point.
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Christ becomes sin.
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He made Him who knew no sin to become sin for us.
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That we can become the righteousness of God and Him.
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Go ahead.
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I don't know.
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Is that why it's mentioned in Mark 18, the pick up snakes? As reference to that story? No, no.
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That's actually Mark 16.
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Yeah, Mark 16, verse 18.
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Oh, okay.
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No, and I really don't want to dereference.
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That's a longer conversation.
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Yeah, no, no, no, no.
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That's referring, I think that's referring, foreshadowing what happened with Paul.
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Remember Paul got bit by a snake and it didn't hurt him? Oh, okay.
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I think that's foreshadowing that.
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I don't think it's looking back.
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I think it's looking forward.
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Okay.
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There's another as-and-so example.
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Matthew 12, 40.
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As Jonah was three days in the belly of the whale, so shall the Son of Man be three days in the heart of the earth.
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Right? So as-and-so.
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Right? So now you're seeing how it works.
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As-and-so.
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As-and-so.
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So when you see that, what you're seeing is the Bible's use of a type.
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This is a type.
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The serpent on the pole is a type of Christ.
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Jonah in the belly of the whale is a type of Christ.
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All of these things are pointing to Him.
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Yes, sir? Isn't there a shadow in the...
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Yeah, well, actually, I would say that may be a pre-incarnate.
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That may go back to the first...
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Remember I said pre-incarnate vision? When he saw one that was like the Son of God? I think that could have been Christ in there with him.
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In fact, there's a song that my mom sings and it's called He's Still in the Fire.
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And it's about Jesus walking through the fire with us.
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But yeah, I would say that would fall under a pre-incarnate appearance.
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Yes, sir? If you speak of both of them as-and-so, it's like the first thing that comes to mind is feeling bad and sitting down.
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Yeah.
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Now he intervenes.
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That's that come to Jesus meeting.
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Yeah.
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That sit down.
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Yeah.
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I don't know.
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No, I get what you're saying, though.
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Yeah.
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As is mostly talking about Old Testament.
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Well, yeah, it's typically as is here, so it is here.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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So, those are what we would call those are types.
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And there are other types, but it doesn't always have the construction of as-and-so, though.
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Sometimes it's just sort of more implicit.
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I'll give you an example.
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In in John 1.51 John 1.51 Jesus is talking to the disciples and He says, You will see angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man.
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Let me read it to you.
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I'll go and actually look at it and make sure I'm saying it exactly right.
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But it's John 1.51 John 1.51 Yeah, this is when He's talking to I think Nathanael, but let me just double-check that.
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Yeah, John 1.50 Nathanael answered, Rabbi, you are the Son of God.
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You are the King of Israel.
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Jesus said, Because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree.
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Do you believe? You will see greater things than these.
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And He said to him, Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.
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When in the Old Testament do we see angels ascending and descending? In the vision that Jacob had.
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Yes, Jacob had a vision of a ladder or stairway to heaven.
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I say stairway to heaven.
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Everybody thinks rock and roll.
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It was a ladder or a stairway to heaven.
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And what does He say? The angels were ascending and descending.
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What's Jesus saying about Himself? I am the ladder.
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I am the stairway.
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I am the way.
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You're going to see angels ascending and descending on Me because I am the way.
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So Jesus uses that picture of that ladder as a picture of Himself.
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And that's what we would call an illustration or a type.
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Where does that scripture end? Is that in Jacob's letter? It's in Genesis.
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I'd have to go...
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28? Well, let's...
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I'm glad you asked because there are...
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The types typically are referred to specifically.
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So because Jesus refers to that specifically, we could say it's a type.
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So we say types are specific references.
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As Jonah was in the whale, so will I be three days.
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That's a type because it's specifically referenced.
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But an illustration or a symbol...
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I'll put illustration...
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is one that is an image but it's not specifically referenced.
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I'll give you an example of one of these.
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Noah's ark.
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Noah's ark is never mentioned to be a specific symbol of Jesus.
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But think about what Noah's ark is.
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It is salvation.
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You go into the ark.
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You are saved from the wrath of God.
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And what is Jesus? You're in Christ and you're saved from the wrath of God.
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The ark is a picture of Jesus, but it's never mentioned specifically.
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How about the animal skin that Adam and Eve were given after they sinned? God took animals and gave them animal skins to cover them.
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What is that covering? It's a picture of atonement, right? So there is a picture of Christ.
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So that's what we would say.
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Those are nonspecific...
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This is the part that really I get excited about.
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Those are not specifically stated, but if you step back and look at the whole picture, you begin to focus.
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Those skins, man, they point to Jesus.
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That ark, man, that points to Jesus.
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How about the ram when Abraham's on the mountain and he's about to plunge a knife into his son and the angel stays his hand and says, don't kill your son.
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And he looks and he sees a ram and he substitutes his son for the ram.
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The ram is Christ because Christ substitutes for us.
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We are Isaac.
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We deserve the death, but Christ takes us off the cross and He goes in our place.
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So the ram is a picture of Christ.
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And again, if you look at all the major biblical characters, they all have Christ qualities.
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You have Moses and David and Boaz, the kinsman redeemer.
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All of them are pictures of Christ, but not Christ.
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They point to Christ.
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They're like signposts.
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Keep going.
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You know, you start with Adam and everything gets messed up.
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Then you get his son.
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You've got Abel who worships God and you say things are back on track.
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Cain strikes him dead.
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So what does God do? He raises up another son.
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There's Seth.
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And Seth becomes the godly one.
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And out of Seth, there comes godly men like Enoch who walked with God.
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Methuselah and Noah.
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And then out of Noah, there's Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
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And out of that line, you have Shem who is the ancestor of Abraham.
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And Abraham becomes the ancestor of Isaac and Jacob.
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And out of Jacob, Israel is his other name.
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Twelve tribes come, but there's one tribe that really matters.
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It's the tribe of Judah.
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Because out of the tribe of Judah will come Jesus through David.
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So that line continues.
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God has His line.
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And all of those things are like big signposts saying, here He comes! Here He comes! Ten more miles! Five more miles! Two more miles! Here He is! That's it.
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They're all pointing to Jesus.
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And that's why I say there's signs, symbols, illustrations pointing us to Him.
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Yes, sir.
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Oh, well yeah, He is called our Redeemer.
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Interestingly with Boaz though, Boaz fulfills a very specific Old Testament requirement.
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And that is the requirement of a person who is in the family taking over the responsibilities for somebody else's dead wife.
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So let's say you and I are brothers and you have a wife and your wife dies.
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Well, it would be my responsibility in the Old Covenant to take the responsibility as the Redeemer to take that person as my own and take care of them, right? And so that relationship, that kinsman relationship, that's what Boaz does.
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Because he's related.
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And in that way has the opportunity to restore Ruth and take her as His own.
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And so that's a picture of the love of Christ for His body, His church.
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He takes us as His own.
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He becomes our kinsman Redeemer.
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So there's a great picture there.
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Again, these pictures are all throughout the Old Testament.
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Now, that takes us to the end of the lesson.
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There's more, certainly more.
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If we wanted to go back to types, everything in the temple was a type.
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Everything pointed to Jesus.
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From the showbread, to the candles, to the sacrificial altar, to the laver where they washed, everything pointed to Jesus.
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And I don't have time to do it, but Brother Mike, a few weeks ago, actually back at Easter time, he did a wonderful sermon showing how the temple pointed to Jesus.
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So it's all there.
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A lot of it's in Hebrews.
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Hebrews explains how Jesus becomes the High Priest for us.
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And that role of High Priest is set apart to point to Jesus who is our great and final High Priest.
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So is this helpful? Good.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank You for Your Word.
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Thank You for Your truth.
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I thank You for just the opportunity to go through Jesus all through the Bible.
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And I pray that You would use this to just bolster our faith and encourage our hearts towards faith in Jesus.
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And we pray it in His name, Amen.