Questions and Answers
Now, I've just randomly selected who I'm going to ask questions of. As I said, we've got quite a few here and some really good ones. When I first saw this document from Wim, my initial response was, I'm not being very clear in preaching or teaching. with all of these questions. But then as I pondered, I do think, you know, questions in theology is good, as long as we're going to the scriptures for our answers.
But I think the theological enterprise is about questions and answers. You know, in our Saturday morning studies, we've noticed, you know, after the Nicene Creed comes, that wasn't it. There were other creeds that came as a result of good questions. If Jesus is the second person in the Holy Trinity, Well, what does that mean in terms of His humanity?
So, of course, Chalcedon is the natural sort of progression after considering who Jesus is that way. So, I think these questions do reflect thought on the people of God. As well, it is encouraging to hear from our people. I'm sure you guys have met this as well.
You know, I'm talking to so-and-so, or I'm being asked questions by family members or by friends. So, the people of God want to be able to give a reason for the hope that is in them. And I've been convinced for the bulk of my life, well, all of my life as a Christian, the Bible and our confession of faith is the goods. We have the answers, and we just need to be faithful with that.
So, I'll start with Dr. Barcelos. And the question is,
Jesus and Old Testament Israel
how is Jesus the truer and greater fulfillment of God's Old Testament people, Israel? So perhaps before you deal with the truer and the greater, there might be listeners that haven't thought through this, that Jesus is the fulfillment of God's Old Testament people, Israel. I pass. That's actually a really good question because it assumes some continuity and a relationship between ancient Israel and our Lord.
So that would be promise, fulfillment, type, anti-type. When you read the scriptures, In their totality, the whole canon, you conclude
Adam, Israel, and Sonship
Adam was the first son of God. And there's a helpful triad of terms or a threefold statement that I read Graham Goldsworthy, I think it was. in the early 90s, where he said, God's people in God's place under God's rule. The first time that threefold description comes to play is in the garden. Adam and Eve are God's people in God's place under God's rule.
And Adam is in Luke 3.38 called son of God. Okay, so then you take Luke 3.38 back with you and you go, oh, there's the first son of God. In Exodus chapter 4, verses 22 and 23, Israel is called my son and then my firstborn. And then if you go and read the prophets, of course, if you continue reading in the book of Exodus, you get to the the account, the narrative of the Exodus itself, the redemption of the Old Testament.
Most Christians throughout history until recently viewed it as God setting the world up for a greater act. There's going to be another, a new Exodus, okay? So use the language of new, new Exodus or new, new something. How is Jesus the truer, greater fulfillment of God's Old Testament people?
So when I'm using new, I mean synonymous with true and greater. So you see the narrative of the event. predates the narrative, and the narrative isn't a theological, exhaustive theological treatise of all the entailments of the act of God at the exodus. So that we can say this,
Typology and the Exodus
acts of God can be pregnant with more meaning than the first narration of the act. So how do we know this? We keep reading the Bible. So by the time you get to the prophets, the prophets are looking back at the exodus, and yet And they're scolding the people on the one hand, because they're God's prosecuting attorneys, you know, who is declined.
But they're also holding out promise for the future in the language of Exodus, using the language of on the way. They're using wilderness language. They're using language of light, taking God's people out of a dark place into the light and things like that. That's all in the prophets.
But it started in Moses, OK? So when you get to the New Testament, there's interesting things that happen. You have Matthew chapter 2, verses 13 to 15. Hosea 11.1 is cited in a fulfillment motif.
This happened in order that that which the prophet said would take place, or God through the prophet said would take place, out of Egypt shall I call my son. If you go back and read Hosea, you might just go, How's Matthew doing this? You've got to read the entire book of Hosea, OK? So there's these technical terms that theologians use for that.
When writers cite the Old Testament and they're saying this current event is that which the prophet said took place, they're inviting you to not just go read the verse. They want you to read the context. That's right. And the broadest context, obviously, is the whole canon context.
But they want you to read the context in the Old Testament. because they didn't have a New Testament when Matthew wrote Matthew. Although Matthew wrote the first, he was the first writer of the New Testament. Yeah, so they want you to go back and read the cognitive peripheral vision of the reader should be like the writers, broader than just the citation. We should take other data.
And when you do that, there's interesting texts in the first part of Hosea, and then in the middle part as well, and then in the end, that are both looking back and forward. So you have this looking back to the Exodus, and then using Exodus language to look forward. Isaiah is probably the biggest example of that. By the way, is there a time limit?
Yeah, another three minutes. So Isaiah is probably the biggest example of that. And you guys know the second exodus prophecies of the Isaianic literature. There are scholars that have written books on Isaiah's second exodus in the Gospel of Mark, Isaiah's second exodus in the Book of Acts.
Somebody could write a book, Isaiah's second exodus in the Book of First Peter as well. So
Jesus as New Israel and Last Adam
Jesus comes on the scene, he's identified with corporate Israel, and yet he's an individual person. He's also the fulfillment of the servant oracles of the prophets. Sometimes the servant oracles are plural, corporate, sometimes they're individual. And even the ones appended to our Lord during his earthly ministry, sometimes they're corporate, sometimes they're individual.
What's happening? Jesus is the new Israel, obedient Israel. doing what Israel should have done but didn't, and of course doing what God's first son failed to do. Israel is a new Adam that fails, and then Christ is the last Adam. So we could go on for days, but you said three minutes.
No, that's very helpful. Very good. And you certainly see those links made by the New Testament authors. By the writers.
Yeah. By the Lord. By the Lord and then his apostles. Why do you think they did what the Lord did?
Because he's their Lord. Lordship hermeneutics. That's right. There you go.
Lordship hermeneutics. That's a good book title. Great. Thank you.
Thank you very much. All right.