Finding Christ in the Old Testament

Luke 24:44-49 Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

We could spend several blog post commenting on these words, but I want to draw out several points for us. I hope that these will help us in our Bible reading this year.

1. Christ is revealed in the so-called Old Testament. We must see that the whole Bible is one book and give attention to every book in the Bible, especially the Old Testament.

2. The main revelation of Christ in the law, prophets and psalms are three things: The sufferings of Christ, his resurrection and His program for the proclamation of this message to all the nations.

3. In the three-fold division of the Old Testament, we should recognise the way the Old Testament is divided up.

The law is Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. This was the meditation material of the God-man Jesus of Nazareth> Psalm 1 In his law he mediates day and night.

The prophets begin with Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings, then Isaiah, Jeremiah Ezekiel, then Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Michael, Nahum, Habbakukk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zaccariah, Malachi.

The Psalms is the head book of the writings which also includes Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles.

All these books need searching in order to find the spiritual treasure of the disclosure of Christ in shadow. Take time to read the Old Testament this year and indeed take more time to read the Bible. Fall in love with the Bible and pray for the LORD to open your eyes to the spiritual treasure on its pages.