Articles
More About Jesus Would I Know
What Christian wouldn’t agree with the above statement? If there is something more to be known about Jesus which is yet unknown, what believer would not love to hear it? I almost always learn something new when I read the Bible, but when I learn something new about Jesus…some typological reference, some allusion to an experience that Je-sus will encounter in the flesh, some Messianic prophecy, I feel like I have discovered gold. There is nothing more exciting in Bible study than learning something we didn’t know about God.
The song, “More About Jesus” flows regularly off the tongue; I wonder if we have always lived out this declaration. Do our actions and words ever con-flict with this profession? Is it at all possible that a person could become content with what he has known about Jesus? Could we, or have we reached a point in which we felt that our knowledge of Jesus was sufficient, and that what we really need to do to be faithful in the Lord’s work is simply for others to hear or know what we already do know?
Philip, the evangelist, found himself in a chariot with an Ethiopian eunuch who had invited him to guide him in understanding Isaiah’s prophecy about Jesus. The text says that “Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Je-sus.” (Acts 8:35) Have you ever wondered, if Philip began in this Scripture preaching Jesus, where did he go after that? Was there anything else that could have been preached about Jesus, even without the four gospels? What if you had been Philip and were tasked with sharing the gospel from the O.T.? Would you have struggled with such a task? What ifyour assignment was to preach Jesus, but you couldn’t use Isaiah 53? Did things just become a lot more difficult? What if I said, you can’t use the prophecy in Gen. 3:15, nor Abraham (Gen. 22), nor King David (2 Sam. 7), nor Psalm 22. Would that seriously impede your preaching of Jesus from the Old Testament? We’ve always said “it’s all about Jesus.” In fact, one of our young mothers commented in our auditorium class just last Wednesday night that “Jesus is on every page of the Bible.” This is pretty much a universally accept-ed sentiment. If that’s true, then how could removing even a dozen of the most popular texts about Jesus complicate the preaching of Jesus when we realize that there are 929 chapters in the Old Testament? That would leave 917 chapters of reference material!
What I’m getting at is, there is a lot “more about Jesus” to be known which is not known because there is often an imbalanced view of the importance of Old Testament Scripture in comparison to its New Testament counterpart. If you think that what may be known about Jesus from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John is more important than what may be known of Him from the Psalms, from Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Zechariah (just to name a few) than you too are out of balance and need to remember that it all comes from the same source (the Holy Spirit). If you think of the O.T. as just a “for our learning” kind of thing, but the N.T. is where we find the “wonderful words of life,” then you need to read your New Testament again (2 Tim. 3:15). If you think that the words in red are of greater importance than the words of the prophets, then you are out of balance. According to 1 Peter 1:11, those words of the proph-ets might as well be in red font also because they spoke as “the Spirit of Christ” who was in them was indicating.
Have you trained your eyes to look for Jesus, even in the O.T.? When you read about Samuel choosing all of David’s brothers before being convinced that David was the chosen one, do you see Jesus, standing in the crowd in Jn. 1:26, unrecognizable and unimpressive (Is. 53:2)? Did you know that Jesus inspired Jeremiah the prophet to describe his own persecution as being “like a docile lamb brought to the slaughter?” (11:19) He wanted you to see Jesus in that statement. Of course, you could read the gospels and pick up on the fact that the Jews meant evil for Jesus, but God turned it into a blessing. But, did you see it when you read about Joseph (Gen. 50:20). Of course you did, but what about when you read about Balaam? Consider Deuteronomy 23:5 – “…the LORD your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the LORD your God loves you.” This was originally spoken of Balaam’s intent to curse
Israel, but God would not allow him, turning it instead into a blessing – a fore-shadowing of Jesus. Can you imagine finding the grace of God and an object les-son about the work of Christ from such a sad, depraved man as Balaam? Would you have ever thought to see Jesus there? I know that you know: “He that be-lieves and is baptized shall be saved.” But, what’s that got to do with the Exodus (Exod. 14)? Paul knew (1 Cor. 10). I’ve often thought that the “city of refuge” was such an odd concept. What about you? We might even be tempted to skip over such a reading. We certainly wouldn’t think of it as a great gospel sermon! Have you considered pairing the “city of refuge” in the Law to Heb. 6:17-18? - “Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immuta-bility of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath, 18 that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us.” We are the guilty party flee-ing for our lives into the loving refuge of Jesus’ arms (He’s like the Mayor of the city). And, when the one looking for blood showed up, JESUS OFFERED HIS OWN! Mount Zion, that heavenly city of Jerusalem, is a city of refuge! Did you see that?
I could ask further about: Melchizekek? Abraham? Isaac? Jacob? Joshua? Boaz? Solomon? Jonah (Mt. 12:38)? Cyrus? Zerubbabel (Hag. 2:23)? Among others. And that’s just the typology of people! What about the feasts and objects? (The tab-ernacle? Passover Lamb? Manna? Bronze serpent? High Priest? The Veil? The Mercy Seat? The rock in the wilderness?) Etc… This is a small sampling of the Je-sus-centered preaching and teaching that can and should be done when we study these passages. Our elders recently commented publicly that they wanted that to be more of a focus; naturally I agree. So, let’s make sure that we know what we are looking for, and where all it may be found.
What I’m recommending is this, that we:
1) Expand our definition of what it means to “preach Jesus.”
2) Perhaps when you find yourself heading the Lord’s Table you will take up my challenge from before and consider even some of the less frequently used pas-sages which aid us in our purpose of partaking “in remembrance of Him.”
3) Always be on the lookout for connections to who Jesus is and what Jesus did on our behalf. If we really would know
