Some Christians disagree, of course. If it works for you,
that’s great. Carry on. But it must be admitted that many of the Old Testament
prophecies fulfilled in the life of Christ are a little on the obscure side.
That is to say, when you look at them in their original context, it is not
immediately apparent that they speak of Messiah.
We’re only sure of it because the Holy Spirit plainly states
it to be so in the New Testament.
One famous example is Hosea’s declaration that, “When Israel
was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son”, a statement the Holy Spirit applies to Jesus Christ in Matthew’s gospel.
However, in its original Old Testament context, the prophet is
speaking about the nation of Israel, not about any particular individual. He
goes on to say, “They shall not return to the land of Egypt, but Assyria
shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me”.
The Christian looks at a prophecy fulfilled in the life of
Christ and sees a wonderful theological lesson here: Israel is the son that failed God. The Lord Jesus is the son that pleased him. He is the true Israel, the ultimate and comprehensive fulfillment of all the
Father could ever have desired in a son. The parallel between Israel and Christ is sonship.
It is a deep, rich vein of Bible truth running through the
history of Israel, one to be mined and meditated upon. Deeply confirming to the
believing heart? Absolutely. A reminder of the unity of scripture? Sure. Fuel
for worship? You bet.
But not a particularly compelling argument to bring to bear in the absence of saving faith.
But not a particularly compelling argument to bring to bear in the absence of saving faith.
Prophecy and Judaism
Now of course there are Old Testament prophecies that
unequivocally speak of Messiah at length, but even these are much better
understood by Jews than by a modern, secular Gentile audience. When David declares, “The Lord says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, until I
make your enemies your footstool’ ”, it is evident he has Messiah in view. The Jews of Jesus’ day understood it that
way. The Lord may have astonished them with his reasoning when he inquired, “How
is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord?”, but he didn’t have to convince them David spoke of the Christ. They agreed on
that already.
In short, prophecy may have many uses for the modern believer,
but evangelism is not among the best of them.
Hosea and Israel
Reading Hosea 6 this week, I came across another
example of something that, like the “out of Egypt” line, anticipates the Christ without doing so obviously. Hosea says:
“… for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.”
We know it is the entire nation in view and not just Judah,
because Hosea speaks of both “Ephraim” and “Judah”. And we can be sure that the time frame is not just future to Hosea but to us
today, since neither Judah nor “Ephraim” (the ten tribes that constituted “Israel”
in the divided kingdom) have yet to be fully “raised up” to “live before him”. Taken
in context and literally, Hosea describes the way that God has dealt with
unrepentant Israel and foretells how God will deal with them in the future.
(When I say “literally”, I am allowing for figures of
speech, as all Bible literalists do. Any scenario in which might God “bind” and
“revive” Israel on the third of three 24-hour days would have seemed
staggeringly unlikely at the outset and, in any case, did not occur
historically. The prophet is clearly using “day” in the sense of “era”, which,
while a figure of speech, is not un-literal and occurs many times in scripture.
We often speak of “in our day”, actually meaning “in our era”. And if we do not render our own more evocative expressions with perfect technical precision, why would we ask more of Jewish prophets?)
A Thousand Years
Some Christians are more specific than others about the time
frame involved. The website Bible
Believers, for instance, makes this comment on Hosea 6:
“Hosea was prophesying in about 780BC, and since one day is as a thousand years in God’s sight we are well into the third day.”
For these Christians, each day of Hosea’s prophecy is
literally 1,000 years. Even if they’re wrong, it will take a while to
demonstrate that conclusively since Day 4 doesn’t start for another
200+ years.
But the question that almost surely comes to mind for any regular
reader of the New Testament is this: does this prophecy about the nation of
Israel prefigure the death/resurrection of Christ? I mean, three days? Come on! What does that remind you of?
Thus It Is Written
No New Testament writer explicitly references the Hosea passage.
The closest we might come is the apostle Paul, who says:
“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures ...”
Here Paul is alluding to the Lord’s own words in Luke:
“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 ...’ ”
As Paul Sumner puts it, “thus it is written” and “in
accordance with the scriptures” are perplexing “because there is no explicit prediction
in the Hebrew Bible about the Messiah dying and rising on the third day”.
Thus we must look for an Old Testament reference that originally
was not literally and explicitly understood to be about Messiah, something for
which we already have precedent in Hosea.
Tracking the Third
Day
Paul Sumner provides an intriguing and lengthy list here of things that happened “on the third day” from the earth bringing forth
vegetation in the first chapter of the Bible to Israelite purification rituals in the Law and on. He concludes with this:
“The third day is one of
· emergence from circumstances of lifelessness (prison, captivity, famine, illness, or ocean fish)· testing situations when a life is put on the line but obedience wins unexpected reversal and deliverance· appearance of new life after concealment or death· sprouting life from the new earth· revival, healing, or entry into life
Thus the third day is a transition moment of release from realms of death or emergence of new life.”
I leave it to the reader to decide whether any of these points might apply to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Suffice it to say that the careful, godly reader of Old Testament prophecy would not find a resurrection on the third day odd. He would find it entirely in keeping with the work of God in ages past throughout the scripture.
Raising Up His Son
Raising Up His Son
In the end, it all comes back to the “son”
metaphor, doesn’t it? God called a son out of Egypt, and whether we think first
of Israel or of the Lord Jesus, we find ourselves in the same place: God
solemnly promising to raise his son/Son on “the third day”.
He did it once already. I can’t wait to see how he does it with Israel.
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