Series introduction: Where would you go today in the Old Testament to argue that Jesus is the Christ? There’s so much to this that cannot be dismissed. We’re given in many ways what the Messiah would be like, what his character would be, how he’d be received (even by different people), what he’d do, how he’d redeem, that we’d have his lineage, what he’d say, how it would all end, how he’d come and more. So much, and we see it all done in just one man! How would you know that he is the promised Messiah? Jesus’ birth, life, suffering, and glorification all demonstrate the facets of his excellent work. Jesus himself asked two of his disciples the same question I could ask you today, and then went to the same source to explain it that I’d like to go to as well in this series: “Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?” Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.” Luke 24:26-27. Jesus had to suffer to then enter into his glory he said. With this premise, he goes through some measure of the 39 books of the Old Testament revealing himself to them thereby. This is the same Old Testament we have today. I wish we were given the transcript of that talk, but God didn’t wish to give it. But can we see it? Many historical events in the Scriptures could be fulfilled by men and women, but no one but Jesus (Messiah) could fulfill them all. The Lord himself demonstrated that he was and is the Christ, and our New Testament reflects that its writers were well aware of this. The clear approach of the Apostles was to argue the same from the Bible that Jesus read- the 39 books we now call the Old Testament. To know what it means that Jesus is the Christ is to show the fulness of God’s revelation to mankind in the New Testament in him. In the Old Testament, God said he’d defeat sin and death; the New Testament shows us that work done. There are so many ways to talk of this. So many passages. I won’t exhaust them, but in this series, I wish to examine some of these passages. These passages are how I would prove Jesus is the Christ from the Old Testament.
Genesis 3:15: “And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her seed;
He shall bruise you on the head,
And you shall bruise him on the heel.”
1) What descendent did this whose bruising (šûp̄) would lead to the bruising (šûp̄) of the serpent’s head? 2) This passage speaks of a defeat of the serpent in the lift of the curse on the earth, which is the context of the interaction. How will this curse be removed? 3) Who is the serpent and who could bruise him? 4) Why is this descendent said to come from a woman in this way?
Respectively:
1) This seed is Jesus. He would be born 100% man from Mary. Abraham’s story in Genesis comes very soon in Genesis and traces a seed as the promise of a child with Sarah. There is a partial fulfillment of this promise in Isaac, but it points far higher. How would Abraham become such the father of nations as his name even suggests? It isn’t just by Isaac, but it is through Isaac. This seed traces the promise of the Messiah through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, David, Nathan (and others) to Jesus himself. (Paul argues Jesus as this Seed promised to Abraham himself in Galatians 3). So, the seed from Genesis 3 continues through Genesis through Abraham (and others through Joseph) through the nation of Israel and eventually to Jesus himself, the seed himself. This suffering servant of Isaiah I’d argue is the one who through his spiritual seed (zeraʿ translated sperma in the LXX) in Isaiah 53:10 makes Abraham the father of many nations, and not just the Hebrews. Who else did? His bruising was promised in Eden and carried out on Calvary in crushing the serpent’s head as we’ll see. “Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?”
2) If death comes upon mankind as a result of his sin, then death itself must be removed. And for that to happen, then sin must somehow be removed. Who could do this? Could Adam do it? Could Eve? Could any prophet “Balance his own scales” as some denying pagans say? The biblical answer is that God alone must overcome. It is he who imposed the sentence or the curse, and so only he can lift it. And how did he do so? Through the Resurrection of God the (bruised) Son. Back to Isaiah 53. From the chapter’s start, the power of the Lord in the Gospel is prophetically said to be revealed. The verses describe Jesus’ life as if written in these last days. Verse 8 reads, “he was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due?” He would be dead. “Cut off.” But the passage yet still says he will “prolong his days and see the reward.” I’m skipping many details here for brevity. The servant here would remove the curse of death by swallowing up death via a superb life. That is the message we proclaim as Christians. Death could not hold him, and so it has now lost its sting in Christ for all who bow to him. He has shown its power as always less than his own. He removes sin and so removes death, the result of sin. He was cut off, but continues. He was dead, and now he is raised to indestructible life. “Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?”
3) Scripture reveals that this serpent who tempted Eve is a fallen angel named Lucifer. Let’s consider this a bit. The Book of Job records events far older than Moses’ lifetime, or the writing of the Pentateuch. In Job chapter one, we see this “Satan” appearing before God in several verses. He is the one who comes against Job and then disappears from the book. This is an early introduction to the serpent we come to know as Satan. When the prophet Moses writes of him in Genesis 3, he’d obviously already fallen. Ezekiel 28:15-19 gives us a glimpse of this fallen being, Satan. In Isaiah 14:12-15, Isaiah takes up a lament against the King of Babylon in his day. His lament, as is often the case in the prophets, has a clear natural aspect to it, but also a clear higher aspect. The title or name Lucifer even being used. The King of Babylon will fall, but Isaiah here weaves in the fall of Satan himself with his. This is the enemy who brought the curse from God. The seed will be bruised, but he will defeat him. Christ came to deliver men from one category of being to another. From darkness to light. He disarmed Satan on the Cross by taking our sins upon himself. He is the intercessor Job wished for when he said, “For He is not a man as I am that I may answer Him, that we may go to court together. “There is no umpire between us, who may lay his hand upon us both.” Job 9:32-33. God the Son became a man. He intercedes (see Isaiah 53:12) in laying his hand on both God and man. Those of his elect from Adam to now are those for whom he intercedes even now until the last sheep is won. This is the lifting of the curse. As the animal sacrifices in blood point to the great Passover Lamb himself, so Jesus, by suffering and bleeding, would disarm the devil by removing the very jurisdiction of the law that rightly enforces death. He would put to death his own and raise them up to walk in newness of life. He fulfilled the Law in order to inherit such a right as a man for mere men. What a crown he now wears! “Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?”
4) Sperm is often referred to as seed in the word, which is from a man, not a woman. Yet this seed is said to come from some descendent of the woman Eve. Jesus had no earthly father. Mary was also not with child by natural processes. She was miraculously impregnated at the command of God who calls forth whatsoever he wills. A seed placed in an egg. Mary consented, but she brings forth a seed without human seed. God the Son himself was shut up in a womb yet upholding the universe. “Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?”
I could argue all of this knowing Jesus’ life (as the Apostles did) and with a knowledge of the Old Testament. Check back again for another passage considering the amazing fact that Jesus is surely that promised Messiah. The hope of all Gentiles and the glory of Israel.
God bless!!!
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