The Saving Son in the Old Testament

Recently there has been a long discussion on this issue stemming from here.

Is Christianity some upstart 2000 year old thing, or is it the faith of Abraham, Moses and David? Did they just trust God (non-specific about which person), or did they specifically trust the Son? This isn't some theological discussion of little importance, this is an apologetic that is as relevant now as it was in the second Century when Justin Martyr was trying to show the Romans (who disliked modern ideas) that it's the oldest religion. If Christ is there, obvious, in the OT, it debunks the neo-Marcionism that there's a disparity from the God of the OT and the God of the NT; it debunks the idea that Christianity nicked stuff from the Pagans, as the dates for doctrines are pushed back well into the Bronze Age at least; it debunks all the Constantine/Paul made it all up nonsense completely; it debunks modern Judaism's claims to being old; it answers the critics of the NT's weird quoting of the OT; it addresses the problem of other religions; it debunks the type of dispensationalism that teaches that there was a different way to God for the Jews; it vindicates Jesus' rebukes of the Pharisees, scribes and teachers for not seeing him despite knowing the Law.

The Saving Son is PROMISED in the OT

Right from Genesis 3:15, a son is promised, a seed, that will crush the serpent, the deciever,'s head. God promises a solution. The focus narrows as he makes his promise to Abram in Genesis 12, and further still. David is promised a king among his descendants that never stops reigning, narrowing the blood line yet further and giving yet more details about the role of the Seed.

The Saving Son is PICTURED in the OT

There's a great many pictures - not least the Passover, the lamb that is slain to save from death. Also there's the Day of Atonement - one goat is called "the LORD", the other is called "scapegoat". "The LORD" is killed for the sins of the people. Additionally there's the whole load of cool theology in the setting up of the tabernacle (more on that at some point, I promise). Other pictures include various people: Joseph, Moses, David, Solomon as well as various events.

The Saving Son is PROPHESIED in the OT

Isaiah has some of the most obvious ones, not least the song of the Suffering Servant and the 'unto us a child is born' bit. There's of course other prophesies, by other prophets as well that tell us more about the who and what of the Seed.

The Saving Son is PRESENT in the OT

The controversial one - is the Angel of the LORD (TAOTL), God but also distinct from God? Are there times when the Son, the second person of the three, appears? I'll go into this in more detail in another post. However, here's something cool:

The Angel of the LORD also said to her, "I will greatly multiply your offspring, and they will be too many to count." Then the Angel of the LORD said to her: "..." So she named the LORD who spoke to her: The God Who Sees, for she said, "Have I really seen here the One who sees me?" (Genesis 16:10-11a, 13)

She named the LORD "The God Who Sees", however it was the Angel of the LORD that spoke to her. The Sent One of Yaweh - not a sent one, but the Sent One, the God Who Sees. Hagar is confused, naturally - she can't believe God has spoken to her, not that she doesn't think that TAOTL might not be God.

And something else:

The Angel of the LORD went up from Gilgal to Bochim and said, "I brought you out of Egypt and led you into the land I had promised to your fathers. I also said: I will never break My covenant with you. You are not to make a covenant with the people who are living in this land, and you are to tear down their altars. But you have not obeyed Me. What is this you have done? (Judges 2:1-2)

"I brought you out of Egypt", "I had promised", "My covenant with you", "You have not obeyed Me" - if the Angel was just that, an angel, then he has no right to say this, for it is the LORD who the the is about. If TAOTL was not God, he wouldn't be allowed this terrible blasphemy. There's no "this is what the LORD says" preface - the Messenger of God here is saying what he thinks, because he is God.

I find the footnote in the NIV for Jude v5 amusing - the main translation says that "the Lord delivered his people out of Egypt", with a footnote saying that the earlier manuscripts have 'Jesus', not 'the Lord'. The English Standard Version, New Living Translation, Wycliffe New Testament and the NET Bible are the only ones I could find that have the balls to make it explicit - 'the Lord' is a common New Testament way of saying Jesus and verse 4, calls Jesus 'our Lord' (also calls God 'the only Lord', but the Greek word for Lord is different - thanks Mr Strong and his numbers!)

Even the wimpy translations have 1Cor10:4 as Christ being in the wilderness with Israel after the Exodus. The New Testament proclaims that Christ appeared in the OT, that he is TAOTL.

There's lots more TAOTL passages which mostly raise the question - who is this, if not God? I won't deal with this now, as otherwise I'd have a huge post.

Happy Athanasius Day!

Not that I care much about Saint's Days and so on, here's a total legend who's worth looking at, who's day is today.

Mike Reeves has some excellent talks on Theology Network.

Athanasius fought and battled the Arians nearly all his life, the Council of Nicea happened fairly early on in his life - he was there as an assistant to his predecessor as Pope (Bishop) of Alexandria. Arianism remained despite being condemned, and Constantine's son and successor as Emperor of the Eastern Empire was an Arian. Athanasius spent a lot of time in exile (firstly for refusing Constantine's demand to install Arius as a deacon in Alexandria!). Athanasius decried that he was against the world - which wasn't too far off, though he had a lot of fans, not least the people of Alexandria.

Athanasius defended the gospel from attacks by showing how Jesus needed to be both fully human and fully God - "of one being with the Father, begotten not made" - otherwise Christianity would make no sense. Without the eternal Son becoming incarnate, Christianity becomes nonsense.

Here's to St Athanasius - a man that held firm to the gospel, when rulers and powers and what seemed like the whole world was against him.

Passover as a way to understand Good Friday

There are many links between Passover and Good Friday. The lambs that were slain every year at Passover (when Israel remembered: not at all often in the 500 years when Kings ruled over Israel - maybe about ten times in that period!) were a pointer back to the great salvation achieved in Exodus and a pointer forward to the far better salvation when the true Passover Lamb, God's own Lamb, was slain for many to go free. Likewise the death of Jesus was full of things that would make Jewish readers think back to the Passover, in order to help them understand what went on.

Firstly, Passover:

God wanted to redeem a people from slavery (Ex 3:9, 20:1) so they could worship him. (Ex 5:3)
So he sent judgement on the slave-master, Egypt. (Ex 11)
This judgement was deserved by the people whom God was saving, the Israelites. (Ex 13:11-15)
So God told them to kill a lamb in the place of those who should die as judgement from God. (Ex 12:6)
God's judgement 'passes over' those places which the door is covered by lamb's blood. (Ex 12:23)
This brings the nations to worship God (Ex 12:38)

And the Good Friday parallels:

Christ died on the day of the Passover (Jewish days are sunset-sunset, the Passover was eaten the evening before, and the day afterwards was the Sabbath, which followed Passover). (Luke 22:7)
God wanted to redeem a people from slavery so they could worship him. (Rom 6:17-18)
So he sent judgement on the slave-master, sin. (Rom 8:3)
This judgement was deserved by the people whom God was saving, the Christians. (Rom 5:8)
So God killed the Lamb in the place of those who should die as judgement from God. (1Cor 5:7, Mark 10:45, Rev 5:9)
God's judgement 'passes over' those people who are washed in the Lamb's blood. (Rev 7:14, Rev 12:11)
This brings the nations to worship God (Rev 7:9-10, Acts 11:18, Eph 2:11-13)

He Sat Down! Jesus as Great High Priest.

This is the kind of high priest we need: holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. He doesn't need to offer sacrifices every day, as high priests do—first for their own sins, then for those of the people. He did this once for all when He offered Himself. (Hebrews 7:26-27)

He entered the holy of holies once for all, not by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. (Hebrews 9:12)

This man, after offering one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God. He is now waiting until His enemies are made His footstool. (Hebrews 10:12-13)

Now the main point of what is being said is this: we have this kind of high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a minister of the sanctuary and the true tabernacle, which the Lord set up, and not man. (Hebrews 8:1-2)

Therefore since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens—Jesus the Son of God—let us hold fast to the confession.(Hebrews 4:14)

Since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily ensnares us, and run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that lay before Him endured a cross and despised the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of God's throne.(Hebrews 12:1-2)

Jesus is sitting there waiting - the sacrifice is over - "It is finished!" (John 19:30). No more needs to be done! Let us hold on, let us look at the large cloud of witnesses to this (Hebrews 11 for some examples), let us throw off burdens and the sin that traps us. Let us run to the end, with endurance, safe in the knowledge that he who endured a cross is now sitting at the right hand of God.

Dead and raised...

This topic has been coming up a lot for me recently - looking at Romans 6 and 7 (and just starting 8) at Church, and reading Colossians with an international student.

Those who are Christians, who are in Christ have been 'regenerated' or 'born again'. They have been united to Christ in his death and resurrection - it's what baptism symbolises, the death, burial and rising again of us in Christ.

We have died with Christ to the basic principles of the world (Col 2:20): sin, religious law, the Devil, religious rituals/festivals and so on, therefore we should act like it.
We have been raised with Christ, who sits at the right hand of God, therefore we should act like it.

Sin has no power over us - we do not have to sin. We don't have to follow religious law - it cannot condemn us (Rom 8:1), we are justified by faith, not obedience to the law. We don't have to hold the Sabbath or celebrate feasts or fasts - we don't need to give up things for Lent, we can eat meat on Good Friday (Col 2:16). We can taste, touch, handle as much as we want (Col 2:21) - pork, blood, shellfish can be on the menu, we can touch dead people, or menstrating women, or mildew without having to go through all sorts of rituals.

We should act as if in the presence of God: holy and blameless. Set our eyes on God (Col 3:1-2), on Christ, not on earthly things. An excellent practise of faith - looking to Christ, not how unsinful we're being this week, how much we are looking to Christ (we're on earth, remember), how much better/worse than others we are.

It's two sides of one coin, we don't have to follow the Law, but we want to do what pleases God. Shall we sin so grace increases? Because we can sin without condemnation? By no means!

We should throw off the remnents of our old self, the dead self - our sinful nature, our attempts at law keeping and other things that the cross defeated and put on the new self, full of fruit of the Spirit, "being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator." (Col 3:10).

"Being renewed" - it's growing more like Christ, it's gradual process of God and you working together, with God finishing off the work when, one day, we'll be like the returning Christ. Sin has no hold, it's lost - it's still fighting, but it cannot win. Legalism has no hold, it's lost - it's still fighting but it cannot win. Regeneration, being born again, makes you free to live the life you were meant to - one that glorifies God, one that looks to Christ's lawkeeping, not our own.

What's going on here?

An angel of the Lord suddenly appeared to [Joseph] in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, don't be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because what has been conceived in her is by the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to name Him Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins." Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

See, the virgin will become pregnant

and give birth to a son,

and they will name Him Immanuel,

which is translated "God is with us."

When Joseph got up from sleeping, he did as the Lord's angel had commanded him. He married her but did not know her intimately until she gave birth to a son. And he named Him Jesus. (Matthew 1:20-25, my bold)

Joseph obeys the angel and names Jesus "Jesus", but Isaiah said "they will name him Immanuel" - there's different names there! What's going on?

Immanuel comes up once in Isaiah 7 (quoted in Matthew 1), and once more in Isaiah 8 (describing the size of the devistation left behind by the Assyrian army - it'll even reach the end of the Immanuel's kingdom).

The whole idea of "Immanuel" is rather scary - judgement is sure to happen.

• The people of Israel are shocked that Moses has spoken with God and not died.
  

  Look, the LORD our God has shown us His glory and greatness, and we have heard His voice from the fire. Today we have seen that God speaks with a person, yet he still lives. But now, why should we die? This great fire will consume us and we will die if we hear the voice of the LORD our God any longer. For who out of all mankind has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the fire, as we have, and lived? (Deuteronomy 5:24-26)

  In verse 28 God affirms that they are speaking truth.

• Unclean things defile the tabernacle and that means death - nothing unclean or sinful can go near it.
  

  You shall keep the people of Israel separate from their uncleanness, lest they die in their uncleanness by defiling my tabernacle that is in their midst. (Leviticus 15:31)
  The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us. (John 1:14)

Something needs to happen if we have Immanuel: "God with us", and we survive that encounter. We need Jesus: "God saves" to enable God to be with us, without killing us. It is only by him saving us from our sins that we can have Immanuel.

Yes Jesus is called Immanuel - by Christians over the centuries - but not by Joseph, who gives Jesus the name that is the key to unlocking the other stuff. Not Terrance the teacher, Henry the healer, Percy the prophet, nor Mike the miracle worker, but Jesus the saviour. He is those other things, but that's not his badge, not how God, through the angel and Joseph, wanted him to be labelled!

What is Christmas all about?

It's about the incarnation, the Word becoming flesh, God becoming man.

But why do that?

There is only one thing God couldn't do without becoming incarnate in a body. Die.
Athanasius said:

The Word perceived that corruption could not be got rid of otherwise than through death; yet He Himself, as the Word, being immortal and the Father's Son, was such as could not die. For this reason, therefore, He assumed a body capable of death.
On the Incarnation chapter 2 paragraph 9.

Why die?

This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance: "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners" — and I am the worst of them.
(1 Timothy 1:15)

To save sinner, Jesus had to die to stop death winning, fulfilling the law and carrying it's curse in our place, offering himself as a sin offering to propitiate (turn aside God's anger) for our sins. It had to be a human body, as it was human flesh that needed saving:

Thus, taking a body like our own, because all our bodies were liable to the corruption of death, He surrendered His body to death instead of all, and offered it to the Father.
On the Incarnation chapter 2 paragraph 8.

[God] condemned sin in the flesh by sending His own Son in flesh like ours under sin's domain, and as a sin offering, in order that the law's requirement would be accomplished in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (Romans 8:3-4)

There are other reasons why the incarnation is great:

1. God is able to sympathise with our weakness as he's been tempted (see Hebrews 4:15)
2. We can know what love is:

   God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sent His One and Only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:9+10)

3. That the Devil might be destroyed.

   Now since the children have flesh and blood in common, He also shared in these, so that through His death He might destroy the one holding the power of death—that is, the Devil
   (Hebrews 2:14)

4. We need not fear death
   

   Now since the children have flesh and blood in common, He also shared in these, so that through His death He might destroy the one holding the power of death—that is, the Devil — and free those who were held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death.
   (Hebrews 2:14+15)

5. To give us an example of true humility
   

   Make your own attitude that of Christ Jesus: who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be used for His own advantage. Instead He emptied Himself by assuming the form of a slave, taking on the likeness of men. And when He had come as a man in His external form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death—even to death on a cross.
   (Philippians 2:5-8)

6. God is fully made known through the person of Jesus:
• We have an image of the invisible Father, that we can see, in the Son (see Colossians 1:15)
  

  No one has ever seen God. The One and Only Son — the One who is at the Father's side — He has revealed Him.
  (John 1:18)
  if we know the Son, we know the Father
  (John 14:7)

• We see God's Glory

  we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
  (John 1:14)
  For God, who said, "Light shall shine out of darkness" — He has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ.
  (2 Corinthians 4:6)