Jesus the Messiah (His Person and Work) is the integrating reality that brings the Big-God Story of divine/human history together into the world's grandest adventure, mystery and love-story that it is. It has been widely understood that the narratives, poetry and prophecies of the Old Testament scriptures, at times obviously and sometimes cryptically, pointed forward to the Messiah (which, by the way, is a transliteration of the Hebrew word for the Greek word "Christos" or "anointed one"), in addition to simultaneously addressing real people and matters in their historical context.
However...the importance and impact of this on our macro-view of God's eternal purposes has not deeply translated into creating sufficiently "wondrous hearts" in many Christ-followers. Yet, we, who have been born since the first coming of Christ, have a tremendous advantage in decoding the Old Testament scriptures. Not because we are so wise (this is for sure), but in that we have much personal, clear and divinely-inspired commentary of both Jesus and his first apostles in the New Testament on the specific ways that a vast amount of Old Testament prophecy was fulfilled through the first coming of the Messiah. For us, it's like being able to take an "open book" test. It's even more like, obtaining the answer key to the big test ahead of time. (God knows that we need some special help in order to get a passing grade given our track record!)
Still, too many preachers and believers throughout history have not taken the time to deeply study and comprehend the "answer key"--the New Testament writings--which become for us an interpretive template that can be "laid over" the Old Testament writings. (There is an old adage that captures this concept: "The New Testament is in the Old concealed. The Old Testament is in the New revealed.") We would be wise to strive to understand how Jesus and His first apostles understood the Old Testament story-line, it's characters and prophecies, the implications of Him "showing up" on earth that way He did and the historical/theological implications of His Message. This Message was not, in any way, disconnected from all that went before. But who He was, what He did and how He re-framed and illuminated biblical theology and eschatology (the doctrine of the end of this age) was not, and could not have been, fully anticipated by any of the biblical scholars or religious sects of His day--St. Peter said even the prophets who wrote these kinds of words didn't understand the fullness of what they were referring to. More tragically, it has not been well understood by many Bible teachers, preachers and religious movements since He came. We desperately need this fact to change!
The point I have been referring to is illustrated beautifully in the mysterious encounter of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus with the risen Jesus.
Then He said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?” And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself... Now it came to pass, as He sat at the table with them, that He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight. And they said to one another, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:25-27, 30-32)
Jesus and His apostles established their Message to the people groups of all the earth around this dynamic of "opening the [Old Testament] Scriptures" to clueless people and causing their hearts to burn within them through the fire of the Spirit's revelation. Wouldn't you have loved to have been there to hear the risen Messiah expound on the meta-narrative of the scriptures--God's Big God-Story? What on earth do you imagine He said to them exactly? Do you think that maybe some of His insights were captured by His apostles and later recorded in the gospels and apostolic epistles? And...if they were...how important and authoritative do you imagine Christ's insights into the Old Testament actually are? (I hope you're getting a little inspiration at this point!)
We actually can receive and comprehend the very personal insight of Jesus and His apostles into the Old Testament by simply studying cross-references to it in the New Testament and then allowing the implications of those passages to shape and, if necessary, re-shape, our theological presuppositions and paradigms. This long and fascinating journey will not only blow our minds, it will cause our hearts to burn within us.
