August 19, 2016 Show with Douglas Van Dorn on “Christ in the Old Testament”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania it's iron sharpens iron a radio platform on which pastors Christian scholars and theologians Address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. And the rest of humanity who are living on the planet Earth. Listening via live streaming. This is Chris Orns and your host of iron sharpens iron. Wishing you all a happy Friday on this 19th day of August 2016 and I'm very happy to have back on the program again pastor Douglas Van Dorn.

Who is pastor of Reformed Baptist Church of Northern, Colorado and today we are discussing one of his books Christ in the Old Testament and If you would like to join us on the air With a question of your own for pastor Doug.

Our email address is Chris Arnzen at gmail .com. Chris Arnzen at gmail .com. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to iron sharpens iron. Pastor Douglas Van Dorn.

Thanks for having me on Chris. I appreciate it. And as we always do.

If you could describe a little bit about Reformed Baptist Church of Northern, Colorado, even though you've already done that in the past There are people who are discovering iron sharpens iron. It seems every day.

For the first time listening in and would love to have you give a Further explanation of where it is you pastor.

Yeah, we started the church back in 2000 and end of 2002 I guess and kind of constituted the next year Reformed Baptist Church. As far as we know. There are not very many in Colorado. We were the only ones that we knew about of most of our in 44 confessional guys.

Are you know that kind of a. We're kind of out here alone, but.

And you would be a successful other folks and you would be a 1689 confession Church, right, right also known as the Second London Confession and that is the confession that is nearly word-for-word identical to the Westminster Confession and that was by design because the Baptists of the 17th century wanted to demonstrate harmony with their Presbyterian brethren and not Be viewed as some kind of a novelty or a cult or anything like that.

They wanted to say hey guys. We're very much like you except for the distinctives we have in regard to church polity in baptism. So that that's pretty much.

The.

1689 in a nutshell, isn't it? Yeah, I think that's a fair way to talk about it. And of course it also incorporates some of the Savoy Declaration, which is the Congregationalist a statement of faith or confession and.

So it's a very sad state of affairs that today there are very few Congregationalist churches or churches that wear that name Congregationalist that would even know what that that Confession of faith is and if they did they would certainly most of them not ever.

Adopt.

Which is a sad state of affairs. I'm speaking. Particularly about the United Church of Christ, which is the denomination that most typically today. Where's the sign? Congregationalist. So the the book that you have written Christ in the Old Testament.

This is obviously a very important subject. Especially when we evangelize our Jewish friends family loved ones and neighbors and colleagues. From the shadow to the Savior. If you could tell us why you initially had the.

You felt the need to even write this book because there have been books on this subject that have been in print some of them for centuries and Why did you feel that there was a void that needed to be filled?

I.

Well, this book was started as a series of I think Sunday night lessons in our church. And I had been learning about this subject from a different perspective Than most of the books that are written on Christ in the Old Testament.

In fact, it's kind of related to the subject of Giants that we talked about when I was on the show last time.

I.

Had discovered this scholar named Michael Heiser who works for log off faith life company out of Washington and Long story, but he had written a book that he was giving away for free at the time. And I thought it had some things of interest in it.

So I started to read it and it had some stuff on Giants in it a bunch of stuff on in my entire life. So this is a lot more than just talking about Christ in terms of prophecy. Which I grew up with that or you know, even in typology where we're something in the Old Testament.

For an event or a name of a person or you know, anything like that. It's much deeper than that Deep ocean depending on how far we get into it. So I wanted to make it available to people in And you know a book form.

It's also available on the deca blog which I sometimes write for with several of my other friends. So you can get that same material if you go to the deca blog and start looking up Christ in the Old Testament.

Great. Let me give our email address again for anybody wanting to join us on the air. It's Chris Arnzen at gmail .com. Chris a r n z e n at gmail .com. Please give us at least your first name city and state and country of residence if you live outside the USA.

You may remain anonymous if you would like. Especially if you are bringing up something perhaps that your church disagrees with or perhaps you You are Jewish and you just don't feel like identifying yourself at this point in time asking a question about Christ in the Old Testament or as you would phrase it if you're Jewish the the Jewish scriptures of the Hebrew scriptures.

But we will accommodate your request if it makes you feel more comfortable to be anonymous. Well before we even go into the Old Testament. Where in the New Testament does it speak about Jesus Christ being a Fulfilled prophecy in the Old Testament.

You're talking in terms of or or even anywhere in the New Testament that you would like to start with and reflect.

On why the study of the old would be profitable to us.

Well, there's I'm actually a view on the Old Testament where it is actually seeing the Lord Jesus as the fulfillment of Whether it's the law or whether it is Typology or whether it's prophecy or whether it's terms that were used for a very specific person that shows up You know a very very beginning of Genesis chapter 1 and going all the way through to the end of Malachi.

There is a figure that is there in our you know, even in our evangelical and reform context. We just think of this person, you know God the being God in his nature or essence. Some people might think of him as the father but really it is God through the person of the Son in the Old Testament and When we miss this We end up doing all sorts of to the Word of God.

I mean I grew up in circles Where some of the people certainly not all of them. But some of them saw just this great chasm between the Old Testament God in the New Testament God where? You know the the God of the Old Testament is this warmonger this heat-filled deity that you know likes to kill people and give horrible laws and You know all this kind of stuff that you hear and then the New Testament we get this Lovey-dovey Jesus who never has anything bad to say and is just accepting intolerance of everything that we do I mean, that's a that's a bad reading of not only the Old Testament, but also the New Testament, of course.

But it shows that people to gods that are this is not the same Deity as that God in the Old Testament. So right now when it's writing its books It's taking this from every possible just one of them and we could go to things like psalm 2 Which is used more than just about any other psalm or maybe psalm 110 the Lord said to my Lord Sit at my right hand and I'll make your enemies a footstool that's psalm 110 quoted by Hebrews several times and found an axe or Psalm 2 where you've got this idea of an only begotten Son the nations and you better kiss the Sun lest he be angry with you and this is pointing to somebody who is far greater Than David the psalmist who actually yeah.

Yeah, you're right that there are people that seem to set up a.

Contrast between God the Father and God the Son like bad got bad cop good cop, you know the that. That the God the Father if he had his way would just be nothing but wrath and Jesus would be nothing but mercy and kindness and gentleness and obviously the scriptures.

Paint a different picture than that contrast or a much deeper and rich understanding of the person and work of the Godhead or the three members of the Godhead. And If you could also, we'll start with some of the Pictures of Christ that we have in prophecy to begin with and then we'll move on to typology and the law.

Did you have any particular prophecies that you want to that you want to think about or look at?

Well, like for instance, Isaiah 53 is as a.

Is a.

Prominent text that That Christians will go to to the suffering servant they will go to that text as a picture of the Messiah and yet Many Jews in fact most would resist and say that that has nothing to do with Jesus that it's a picture of Israel or something.

If you could go to that.

They.

They have 53 is not a very light passage point to a an individual figure entity of Israel and of course the New Testament comes along and takes that the ideas of being beaten and he's being. He's being handed over basically by God himself to die.

And then at the end of the thing he's raised from the dead and in the midst of it He's taking our transgressions upon himself in a way that could only be true of some kind of a sacrificial lamb and. So, you know, this is what?

Many of the Jews, you know in the New Testament era for this kind of a figure believe it or not.

And.

The New Testament comes into this and so this of Nazareth and the and the works that he did when he was on the earth and.

Even if we go back further to all the way back to the book of Genesis Where Christians will make much of the fact that like for instance in Genesis 1 26 where God says let us make man in our image according to our likeness and We as Christians will typically say that this is God the Father speaking to the other persons of the Godhead Whereas the Jews may respond and say this is merely a plural use.

That.

Depicts majesty like like royalty often does when they speak about themselves in a third person or in a Plurality and so on. But if you could comment, is that God speaking with other members of the Godhead there?

I'll believe it or not. That's not actually my view. Okay, I If I was going to go to the Trinity and try and you know argue from the Trinity in Genesis 1 I would actually do because I think I think you've got a pretty clear indication there that John picks up in the very first verse and says that the plural Let us Where they actually believe that this is God speaking to a heavenly council of beings and it's a.

The scene is a it's a thing. Let's go make man in our image and then the very next verse it those plurals turn to singulars. And actually, this whole concept of a divine counsel is was very in my own journey into and.

Before we even start looking at some more specific references I don't know if you were familiar with the late Harold camping. He was Someone who basically over time morphed into a cult figure and he had some very novel approaches to Exegesis which were most often involving is a Jesus where he was importing ideas, but one of the things that His biblically Orthodox critics would say about him is that he was Often involved in is a Jesus and seeing Jesus in parts of the Old Testament where he really wasn't there isn't that also a danger.

When we go looking back into the Old Covenant is to Really twist and bend things to make it appear as if it's some kind of a prophecy or discussion about Christ.

Yeah, I think it can be a danger. I mean have a fine line and and you know, good Christians actually disagree Among themselves let alone with a guy like Harold camping they'll disagree amongst themselves over different and one person will say well, no, it's not and Actually have kind of about this, you know, I think regard to him in more places you know, you want to have Reasons.

Good score seeing Christ where you're saying, you know I just want to do what a what you're talking about with Isaac Jesus where you just kind of Hover down on a on a verse and just make it say whatever you want.

That's not acceptable. But if you have to air I said more places than he is because when I die and go to heaven You could ask me one of two questions and I guess I'd rather have him ask me Why did you see too much of my son in the Bible?

Why didn't you see enough of my son, right. I guess I guess the main issue the the main issue would be if Where you saw him in the Old Testament if he wasn't there if it formed an unbiblical or heretical Idea about Christ that would be where the danger would be.

I'm assuming.

Well, we have another.

Classic text I'd like you to talk about for a bit in Psalm 2. I will surely tell you the decree of the Lord. He said to me you are my son today. I have begotten you if you could.

Explain that one. Yeah, so Messiah for anybody who loves to listen to that, but it's talking about this and throw and You go to I have installed my king upon Zion my holy mountain. You have to ask this question of who is the I there and that has to be and then you've got the king who's being Installed on Zion, you know, I mean, I guess in the original setting we could think that it's maybe King David but and so the next verse says.

You know, I will tell it to me. You are my son today. I have begotten thee the nations and the very ends of the earth as your possession now that important verse in my mind for seeing and Understanding Christ here because there's a whole World view that's going on behind here going back to do into Genesis and the promise of the the seed.

That's given to Eve. The idea is that son of God is going so if you'd like to talk about yeah, sure see what I'm saying, so we go to. You just kind of go to the enough of that 70 nations. If you read the table there, there's a list of 70 Nations and curiously Israel is not one of those nations and so that you bring up there a text is Deuteronomy 32 7 Through 9 the Deuteronomy 32 world and he wrote a 40 page paper that was in the Bib Sac journal on All generations ask your father and he will inform you your elders and they will tell you so he's talking about some time.

Long long ago long before Moses and then the next verse verse 8 when the Most High. So it's called Elion. That's the name there for the Most High Gave the nation's their inheritance and The event that's being spoken of there the next part of that verse explains what he's talking about.

He says and I'm reading from the ESV here when he separated the sons of man He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of in Psalm 2 7. So what's happening here you go back and you can read this in Deuteronomy 4 you're in Deuteronomy 17.

You can get read in Deuteronomy 29 there's these verses that talk about how God Allotment is the language The spells of the host of heaven to bow down and work and find this idea in Plato believe or not Heavenly beings of punishment that you guys wanted to fun apart from my will and you know apart from Me the Lord God who created and they will be your inheritance and you will be Their inheritance and you're made for each verse 9 here in Deuteronomy 32 says but Yahweh's portion Jacob is the allotment of is not speaking of the father because you got the Figures that are the Lord the angel of the Lord.

He's got Yahweh's name. He actually is Yahweh's got he's the one that they go to lots house. They take a lot out of Sodom because the Lord is going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah and then you find this really strange in 24 that says the Lord so you got Yahweh rain down fire and sulfur from the Lord.

Early Christians, I've got 20 different quotes from church fathers on this. Some of the rabbis believe to Yahweh's in this verse hmm got the king a covenant with him having an argument at the end of chapter 18 over how many people he's gonna say and He called down five father is the Yahweh in heaven and the son is the Yahweh on earth all Yahweh.

Hmm just called so what gets me so fired up about this subject. Is that the coming person? This is about who is Covenanting with Israel as the Son of God. The God who is hurting the whole starting that project the Lord's poor of his inheritance and the idea there is.

There was no it so God called nothing. He makes him into a new nation and this figure called the angel of Yahweh. Who is shortened just to Yahweh ends up? You know Covenanting with that people son it will be in throng nations as your inheritance his inheritance Beyond the nation.

So this is really.

Hammering home the eternality of Not only the second person of the Trinity Jesus Christ But also his sonship because as you may be aware there have been folks who were biblically sound in many regards about the deity of Christ and the Trinity But who made a departure from biblical orthodoxy by claiming that Christ being the son was only a role that he was in after the incarnation.

When he was walking the earth, but but I'm assuming from what you're saying is you would view that as aberrant.

Yeah, absolutely. So if you again it's in that Deuteronomy. This one is verse 8 there 32 8 You've got this number of the sons of God. The language is the sons of God and here's the connection to the Giants because if you go remember back in our discussion Couple months ago in Genesis 6.

It says the sons of God Took among themselves the daughters of men question is who in the world are the sons of God and so every time that this phrase Is used in the old it's always referring to heavenly beings of 38 The Sun where were you with foundations of the earth?

It's not possible that you know and early in the book of to heaven and that's another it's a divine courtroom scene of this divine counsel and so you've got these talking with a pastor about writing a book on the angel of the Lord and his his claim and I agree with him as the New Testament and especially in the Gospel of John is that he is claiming to be This figure from the Old Testament who is sometimes called the word sometimes called the name sometimes called the angel and sometimes like in psalm 2 he's called the Sun and You know, in fact in Deuteronomy 32 there.

I would say that he is also a Son of God, he's the Lord the Lord's portion. He's a one of the sons of God. But the craziness of it is and this one and if we actually have two powers in heaven was looking up Studying this Yahweh and yet they seem to be distinct and so he actually called it by unitarianism instead of Trinitarianism and he says that in live an undercurrent and to believe in two powers and have seen 24 where Yahweh's ring the ancient of days and then you see one like a son of man who's coming to him.

And by the way, that's another it's the one like a son of he ends up Inheriting the nations of the son of man until you see him coming on the clouds of heaven and he's basically claiming to be Seven and look this has been fulfilled and they functionally became there after.

That is something I've never heard that. I've never heard that before that that that. Okay. Yeah, it's it's all because this person Jesus came along claiming to be this and the Jews were We're buying it hook line and sinker.

They said yeah, we believe you.

That that is fascinating. So that in other words the the Jews were not unitarian going all the way back through Abraham the father of the Jewish people they had they had an openness to this understanding you're saying of at least if not Trinitarian bina terianism and.

That's what it was the Christian error. It was Christ's arrival on the scene that that changed things.

Yeah, so the whole New Testament is basically I would argue the whole New Testament the whole. We're gonna show you who he is from your own scripture. We're gonna prove it to you.

Wow, we have to go to a break right now, and I'd like you to pick up where you left off there Doug. And if anybody would like to join us on the air We do have a couple of people waiting to have their questions asked and answered and if you'd like to join them Our email address is Chris Arnzen at gmail .com.

Chris Arnzen at gmail .com. Please give us at least your first name your city and state and your country of residence if you live outside of the good old.

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnz. And if you just tuned us in our guests today for the full two hours Is Douglas Van Dorn? He is pastor of Reformed Baptist Church of Northern, Colorado and He is the author of a number of books Including the book we are discussing today Christ in the Old Testament.

And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question Our email address is Chris Arnzen at gmail .com. Chris Arnzen at gmail .com and please give us your first name city and state and country of residence if You live outside of the USA and you may remain anonymous if it makes you feel more comfortable now.

What you are going through right now when you're talking about how? Christ was clearly present. The Son of God was clearly present. In the Old Covenant scriptures. In the Hebrew scriptures. Before his incarnation.

Before the dawn of the New Covenant. Would that be more in the realm of what is considered typology?

Typology is not excluded from it. Christ is like that you find the typology for example of Christ being the rock things like that, but I think you're himself. Who is. I think boss basically says he's the main character or girls God.

There's a real in Genesis 48 it's two verses. I think he's talking to his son Joseph. It's kind of his deathbed and he blessed Joseph. Isaac walked. The God before whom my father's Abraham and Isaac walked the God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day.

Same word Elohim the angel who has redeemed me from all he puts the equal. So these guys were actually seeing this figure interacting. Physically with this figure actually touching this figure looking at him.

Washing his feet wrestling with him very physical thing that we just don't seem to. You know read read that with that, but that be considered a Christophany and if not if you could define what that means.

Yeah, Christophany is a hard word for me. I mean, it's a basically a Christophany. And so as far as that goes, I would say Christ. It's not the father and it's almost always accompanied with the son, but this would be this would be an appearance.

He's a regular. It's a regular thing. Mm-hmm a Pre-incarnate a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ. Yes. It's not human flesh that he's coming in and that's an important distinction. He's coming in some kind of an angelic.

You know body that can be touched and eaten so on and so forth. But it can also disappear up in a fire like it did with Samson's father.

Mm-hmm. Now obviously a distinction has to be made because many of our listeners may have had encounters with Jehovah's Witnesses who try to diminish.

The.

Person and nature of Christ by saying that he is Michael the Archangel and Therefore he is not deity. They will say he's divine. They will say he's a lesser God But they will say that he is not Jehovah he is not Yahweh.

He is not God Almighty. He and etc. If you could distinguish between the concept the angelic concept That the Aryans might have of Jesus that would not be what you're talking about.

Yeah, so in any area for example, you know, you bring up the Michael idea well, there's plenty of Orthodox Christians throughout the ages who have thought that Michael is the angel of the Lord. That's just his proper name and you find Matthew Henry and Meredith Klein and all sorts of people talking about that.

So that's not we're at the end there in saying that this this angel is not Yahweh. He's a lesser double one and three so they make the error that there's only one and that they're units they're unitarian and.

So that they would hold that the first one. So the Bible from beginning to the end is that it's coming came in the New Testament in human flesh. It's the same person in the Godhead is the second person and he is God.

He is one with the Father. His name is Yahweh. I mean in 24 one is a good example. He's simply called Yahweh, which is Jehovah. So when they say that his name isn't Jehovah They're just completely wrong and don't have any idea what they're talking about.

This is not a created being this is and we do have.

A listener in Lindenhurst Long Island CJ who asks do you believe that the three visitors in Genesis 18 Who met with Abraham? are in fact.

Appearances of the Trinity. I've heard that before. I don't think so I think that one of them though is the Sun. So it's out that story and it goes from in all the way through chapter most of chapter 19.

You have three visitors. One of them identifies himself as Yahweh and he's the one that is actually, you know in a year from now crazy. So she laughs and then later in that chapter Abraham and they have a discussion.

So most people when they read that study have in mind Disembodied experience or he's talking to himself or something, but no, that's not he's having a conversation with and having a debate happens meanwhile.

These other two figures go into Sodom and Gomorrah and that simply calls them angels in you know. They're so from where they were a few minutes. I don't know anybody who denies that. But that I know of how my mind changed but of the idea of an embodiment of the father like the cloud fire throughout Exodus or the you know.

It's always the Sun is the one who's always coming in a and I wouldn't say a human form. He's coming in an angelic form and they're they're overlapping, but they're not the same because angels are not they're not Adam.

They're not human. They're not well, you just said you were referring to God the father not.

Appearing in Scripture in human form. What is it that Moses saw? When God Acquiesced to show him his hindquarters. I could never figure that out what that really meant. Yeah. I know you're not alone.

It's a really hard passage. I struggled a lot with that. I had a priest thought a few years back and I was just getting into this whole worldview and I came to the conclusion and the more I think about it the more I think it's right is That Moses has had you really have to go back to the beginning the burning bush story.

It's not consistent inside this it's not it's in John's gospel. He's claiming to be the angel that spoke to Moses doing so. You go throughout the story and you see that Moses keeps having this conversation with the angel.

But he never gets this like unveiled going when he's up on Mount Sinai Again I believe he's speaking to the angel but and he's not seeing the father because no one can see the father and let he's Speaking to the angel, you know, they all gonna die because the angel says I'm not gonna go with you I'm gonna send another angel to go with glory and so I guess maybe the best analogy I can give is it something like the Transfiguration where he was veiled in some way to Moses and he unveiled himself.

By the way is CJ from Lindenhurst Long Island you are getting an absolutely free copy of Douglas Van Dorn's book Christ in the Old Testament and that is compliments of the publishers of that book and we thank Doug Van Dorn for making those books possible and available to our listeners who submit questions today at least a limited number of them and And Give us your full address CJ so we can have that shipped out to you and that will be shipped to you By our sponsors Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service CV BBS comm and they ship out all of our listeners books who win books by submitting questions and we thank Todd and Patty Jennings over at CV BBS comm For being faithful supporters of iron sharpens iron since its inception and we look forward to many years of cooperation for the gospel with you.