Knowing Jesus through the Old Testament

In Christopher Wright’s book Knowing Jesus through the Old Testament he presents the concept of Jesus as Messiah. The two main issues he addresses are that of the Old Testament passages that refer to the Messiah and how the New Testament writers saw Jesus in the Scriptures, as well as the issue of Jesus’ own views on the role of the Messiah and how he fit in this role. The idea of Jesus as Messiah or Christ is not uncommon among Christians, but Wright shows how the concept of Jesus as Messiah actually has a much deeper meaning than what we generally think of today. Wright shows that the Gospels are filled with language indicating the nature of Jesus as that of Messiah. The Gospels and the other writings of the New Testament constantly refer back to Old Testament passages in their attempt to show that Jesus truly was the Messiah of Israel. Matthew’s gospel begins with the genealogy of Jesus. While this at first may seem like a boring passage simply showing that Jesus had a long human ancestry, this text goes deeper than that. It is a summary of the people of Israel and their history, saying that the history of Israel may be summed up completely in Jesus himself (34).

This genealogy begins with the person of Abraham and lists off fourteen generations until the time of King David, followed by fourteen more generations to the period of the exile, and finally fourteen more generations until we get to the birth of Jesus. Here, the genealogy ends. It begins with Abraham because of the Abrahamic Covenant (3). In the book of Genesis, God made a covenant with Abraham saying that he would have a son, and that the descendants of this son would be great and numerous. God also promised that through Abraham’s seed all nations would be blessed. This was the role of Israel as Abraham’s descendants (4). They were to be a blessing and light to all the nations of the world, showing them the way back to God. However, Israel failed in its mission repeatedly. The second major stop in this history of Israel is with King David. God made a covenant to David as well, promising him that he would never fail to have an heir or a descendant of his sitting on the throne, fulfilling the role of king (5). This promise remained true until Israel reached the next major event, the exile to Babylon. Here, it looked as though God’s promise had failed and that he had given up all hope for Israel and its redemptive role in the world. However, the people of Judah returned from exile. The genealogy lists another fourteen generations from this time until the time of Jesus’ birth. The expectation at the time of the restoration of Judah is that the King of Judah, the one of David’s line would be restored to the throne. The history of Israel is then summed up with Jesus because Jesus is not only the one who will restore the Davidic dynasty in himself as the eternal king, but he will also fulfill the Abrahamic Covenant by becoming a blessing to all nations of the earth as Abraham’s seed. The Davidic Covenant became linked with the Abrahamic Covenant at some point after the time of David (5). This can be seen in the language of Psalm 72 where the understanding has become that the ruler who sits on David’s throne will fulfill a particular kind of role, one in which all nations on earth would be blessed through him (6).

In Matthew’s gospel there is an emphasis upon the fact that the fulfillment of Jesus as Messiah is not just something that is only for the Jews, but for Gentiles as well. (5)  This is seen in the list of women who are briefly mentioned in Jesus’ genealogy. All of these were foreign women, most of whom bore children by questionable means. Yet, these are the people Matthew chose to include in his genealogy – Tamar, who bore twins by her father-in-law; Ruth, a Moabitess supposedly descended from an incestuous relationship; Rahab, a foreigner and a prostitute; Bath-Sheba, a foreigner who committed adultery with King David (4-5). Matthew did this on purpose. He wanted to show that even Jesus, the ultimate Jew, had Gentile blood in his veins, just as King David. The Davidic King must represent all nations so that all will be blessed. Also, Matthew gives very specific groups of fourteen in his genealogy, even leaving certain generations out, and altogether ignoring the generations before the time of Abraham (6). He did this because of the numerical significance with the groups of numbers being divisible by seven, an important number, and with Jesus being placed at the conclusion of all these sevens, showing that he is the ultimate completion of Israel and Israel’s purpose (7).

Another one of Wright’s main points is that of Jesus’ own perception of himself and his purpose. The writers of the New Testament go out of their way to show that Jesus is indeed the Messiah or the anointed one and that he is the true and final fulfillment of Israel, summing up the Law and the Prophets, and that Jesus is Israel’s true Davidic king. The Gospel writers use various passages from the Old Testament to show that the Old Testament predicted his coming and what he would do. Modern exegetes may find some of these uses of Old Testament passages by the Gospel writers to be taken out of context. An example would be the passage in Isaiah 7 where King Ahaz is told by the prophet that a “virgin” (LXX) with give birth to a son and he will be called Emmanuel, God with us. Matthew uses this passage, along with others, for his own purposes. This passage may not have been talking about Jesus, but about the circumstances of King Ahaz’s time. However, what Matthew did was not necessarily wrong. Yes, he takes these verses out of context and applies them to his own story of Jesus’ birth, but in Matthew’s understanding he was recognizing the similarities between what God had done in the past and what he had done most recently in Jesus. Matthew believed that what took place in the past had significance not only for the past, but for what had happened in Jesus in his own time (58).

The gospel writers use much language to describe Jesus as the fulfillment of the Davidic King of the Old Testament promises.  However, Jesus does not really use this kind of language when he is referring to himself throughout the gospels. Wright says that Jesus more thoroughly identifies himself with the Son of Man as referenced in the book of the prophet Daniel, especially in chapter 7, as well as the Suffering Servant as portrayed in the book of Isaiah, especially in chapter 53 (148-58). However, the Son of Man in Daniel does not seem to very well portray the picture of Christ in the gospels even though Jesus referred to himself as “son of man” (153). He identifies the most with the Suffering Servant (154). In Jesus’ time, the passages in Daniel and Isaiah and some elsewhere had come to be seen for the most part as referring to the coming of the Messiah in Israel’s history. Jesus seemed to agree with this conclusion and, seeing himself fulfilling these roles. However, Jesus’ view of himself also differed considerably from others in that many believed that when the Messiah would come, he would overthrow the Romans and Jesus did not intend to do this (138). He identified much more with the Suffering Servant who would carry the sins of his people upon himself. With this understanding, Jesus would go to the cross and die, dashing the hopes of many of his followers who did not understand the nature of the Suffering Servant and how to reconcile this picture with that of the all-powerful Son of Man. While this may have dashed the hopes of many, Jesus truly does fulfill the expectations of both the Suffering Servant and the Son of Man in both his death and his resurrection.

At the time I was reading this book, I was also reading Scot McKnight’s King Jesus Gospel for Prof. Robertson’s evangelism class. These two books had some very similar things to say about the role of Jesus as Messiah, so I kept getting the two books mixed up. However, having looked back upon this book, I believe that it is superior to McKnight’s book. McKnight got caught up on his own pet peeves about the church and this served as the basis of his look at Jesus as Messiah. Wright looks at Jesus as Messiah on a much more academic level. Wright is also does a much more thorough job when looking at the history of Israel He goes into the details of the texts, and this is something that I appreciate. I think that often when people try to take a serious look at these texts they wind up talking too much about what they personally have gotten out of the texts. While this is certainly a valid thing to do, it becomes tiresome after the third or fourth rant. Wright, however, does an excellent job in presenting the facts and details of the passages he uses without getting caught up too much in his own opinions. While his opinions are obviously present, he gives fair treatment of various perspectives and possibilities without being too quick to jump to conclusions.

Something I enjoyed about Wright’s book was that he provided a fairly thorough look at the various scriptures of the Old Testament that refer to the concept of the Messiah as well as looking at the various kinds of covenants and their contexts within the Old Testament (77-101). Wright’s book was a helpful resource for my paper on Psalm 72 because of his conversation on these covenants. I was previously aware of the Davidic and Abrahamic covenants coming into play with Psalm 72, but after looking at surrounding psalms I saw how these two covenants are not the only ones to which the psalmist refers back. The psalms speak of Mosaic and Noahic covenants as well. I enjoyed examining Psalm 72 further, using Wright as a reference and guide, to see if this particular psalm contained hints at other covenants besides those of David and Abraham.

Another thing I appreciated with Wright’s book was the issue of Jesus’ human identity in his recognition of his role as Messiah. I find it fascinating to think about how Jesus first learned that he was the Messiah. I think we often do not think about this because we assume that because Jesus was God he of course knew it all along. Yet, I appreciate learning more about how the Jews had come to view the Messiah during Jesus’ lifetime and how they thought that the one who would be Messiah would not necessarily know until God revealed it to them at some point in their life. Wright made me wonder when Jesus might have realized this for himself as well as getting me to think about many other thought-provoking issues and concepts.