When we see two people hugging each other, we can appreciate and enjoy seeing them like that even more, if we know and understand why they hug each other. Even more so if we know the hard and terrible times they have come through together to make them love each other like that.
Jesus in the Old Testament
When we consider Jesus, the Savior of the world, the King of kings and the Lord of Lords (1Tim.6:15; Rev.17:14), we can appreciate and enjoy Him even more if we understand the long way God has come in His plan of salvation through Jesus in the old testament and the new testament.
Where did Jesus come from? What is His origin? Why did Jesus come to the world? Why does He love mankind enough to give His very life for them? We can answer these questions from the Old Testament.
The Testaments
You see, the Bible which we also call the inerrant Word of God consists of what we know as the Old Testament and the New Testament. These two Testaments can never be separated or be separately understood so as to stand apart, each by itself. There is an unbreakable relationship between the two. This relationship can be variously understood or interpreted.
Let us then, for our purpose, consider one of these aspects, which we can call the Testament (or dispensation) of “Promises” and the Testament (or dispensation) of “Fulfillment”.
Just a brief note to clarify: The original Greek word (diathéké) that we translate as “Testament”, can just as easily be translated as “covenant”. Now we know that a “covenant” is what we in modern times, call a (legally binding) “contract”.
Since the earliest Biblical history, we see that people have bound themselves to each other by making covenants, thereby taking responsibility for their separate duties or obligations towards each other. So has God also bound Himself to man by way of making a covenant.
This means that He has made certain promises to man – and those promises He intended to keep!! His promises are irrevocable and therefore totally trustworthy. Amen to that!)
What is Sin?
Now we know that Jesus has paid with his life for our salvation from sin. So what is sin? What is so terrible about it? Why can’t the loving God just forgive us and have it done with? Let us answer these questions from the Bible, God’s inerrant Word. To understand it clearly and how horrible it is, we start right at the beginning of the Old Testament.
In Gen.2:17, God told Adam and Eve: “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it: for in the day that you eat thereof, you shall surely die.” We must now understand clearly what God meant when He said that death will follow immediately, on the day that they would disobey him.
Now we know from the context of the further history that Adam and Eve did not physically die on that very day that they disobeyed God (you see how important “context” can be?!). We know from the rest of Genesis that they lived long afterward, begot children and died at a great age.
Did God make a mistake here? No! He did not make a mistake. Separation from God is death, for only God is life, and Adam and Eve separated themselves from God when they disobeyed Him by rather obeying the serpent – i.e. Satan.
Sin is Inherited
Adam and Eve committed spiritual suicide! And not only were they then spiritually dead: their whole posterity – all their descendants – inherited this spiritual death. How can we say that?
In Rom.5:12 we read: “even as through one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death came to all men”. And in v.14: “death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the transgression of Adam”. And in v.19: “by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners”.
This is also why King David laments: “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” (Ps.71:5, 7). So all of us, being descendants of Adam, are irrevocably and spiritually dead without the intervention of Jesus Christ (Col.2:13). So we see that, without Jesus, we are all spiritually dead.
God’s Plan of Salvation started with Jesus in the old testament
God did not just leave His creation in a sorry state. After all, God is love! And after all, man was created in His image, after His own likeness (Gen.1:26-27) – just as a son bears the image and likeness of his father.
Immediately God came up with a solution(known to Him even before creation). In effect, He told Satan (see Gen.3:15): “I will not leave my image, my likeness, in your clutches. I will break the bond between you and them, and I will repair the bond between them and Myself. I will raise up a posterity from the woman and, although you will bruise His heel, He (a reference to Jesus in the old testament) will crush your head and defeat you”.
This is the mother of all promises made by God – the declaration of war; the promise of a Saviour for fallen humanity; the beginning of God’s plan of salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Conclusion
Please bear with me as I attempt to guide you through God’s beloved Word. I want to show you how lovingly, and patiently God led man through the history of the Bible – a long and arduous road indeed – to reach His goal with us through Jesus the Christ and Saviour.
I invite you to share with me the joy, the beauty and the wonder of Jesus in the old testament as well as the new testament in the articles to follow – as God wills.
Introduction to the Series – Jesus in the Old Testament.
Articles related to the Series
Part one – Covenant of Grace promised by God
Part two – Jesus in the darkness – Calvary of the Old Testament
Part three – Covenant messengers sent by God
Part four – The Baptism of Jesus Christ
By Gideon Aggenbag
Blessings,
Mind On Jesus