On New Year’s Eve my Malachi post concluded a series of blogs that started with the book of Genesis and continued through the Old Testament books in sequential order. The theme that bound all the posts together was “The Scarlet Thread”. To read more about that interpretive concept, click here, and you will be taken to a page on my blog that explains the Biblical basis of the concept.

Since that series has concluded, I wanted to thank you for reading and let you know I will be starting another series shortly, the theme of which will be the Old Testament foreshadows of a third day resurrection.

In Christ,

Bryan

P.S. Below is a summary of the Scarlet Thread blog posts and the basic theme of each.

Malachi ends the Old Testament on a bad note. He highlights the sins of the people – a people not far removed from the exile to Babylon due to sin. Rather than turning to God by living righteously, the post-exilic people of Malachi turned to sin: they intermarried with foreigners, they didn’t pay the tithe, they didn’t rest on the Sabbath, they offered lame sacrifices to God. God was not pleased.

So the punishment of the exile did little to curb the sin of the people. In one sense, this ought to have been expected, for the words of the Mosaic Covenant, which promised blessing if the people were obedient, never inspired Israel to obedience. And the words of the covenant, which promised cursing if the people were disobedient, never caused Israel to fear sinning against God. The people always did what was right in their own eyes. In the days of Moses, they did what they wanted. In the days of the judges, they did what they wanted. In the days leading up to the exile, they did what they wanted. And now, after the exile and in the days of Malachi, they did what they wanted.

So the Old Testament ends on a bad note, in that the sin of the people is still raging and God is not pleased. The ineffectiveness of the Law to change people’s hearts is on full display. The inability to live up to God’s standard is evident. Yet despite all this, there is hope. God grants the prophet Malachi words that relate to the coming of the Messiah. He grants him words that discuss a great figure that will arise before the day of the Lord – a forerunner to Messiah.

This great figure prophesied by Malachi is John the Baptist. Only by God’s providence could it be that the last verses of the last chapter of the last book of the Old Testament prepare the way for the New Testament. Now how do we know that Malachi speaks of John, since he used the name Elijah? Because Luke tells us:

Jesus Himself confirms that John is the Elijah of whom Malachi spoke.

If the Bible stopped at Malachi, the story would be incomplete. We would be left with the sin of the people and the mysterious Elijah who was to come before the day of the Lord. We would also be left to wonder about how that mysterious figure fit in with the Messiah, the son of David, the one of whom the prophets continually spoke.

But thankfully we have the New Testament. We have the completion to the story. We can read how John prepared the way for the ministry of Jesus, and how Jesus is the Messiah that the prophets spoke of and wrote about. We can read how the New Covenant established by Christ is better than the Old Covenant given through Moses. We can read how hearts are transformed, not by the Law, but by the very Spirit of God. We can read how the Messiah, the great coming king, had to die. We can read about Him rising from the dead on the third day. And we can read the sweet words of John the Baptist, recorded by John the apostle, concerning this Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, of whom the whole of the Old Testament, including Malachi, points to:

One of the most amazing Messianic prophecies in all the Bible comes from Zechariah. And no, I am not referring to the famous verse from chapter nine quoted in Matthew 21.

Although this is a great prophecy, there is one more stunning that God gave to Zechariah. For rather than a prophecy about Jesus riding on a donkey, it is a prophecy about Jesus sitting on a throne. But He is not only sitting on the throne as king, which would be expected for the son of David; He is also sitting on the throne as priest, something unheard of in Israel.

The ruling structure of Israel had separate offices of king and priest. Priests were from the tribe of Levi. Kings were from the tribe of Judah. But when the Branch comes, according to Zechariah, He will combine the roles, and there will be peace between the two offices. These words of Zechariah are supported by a messianic psalm :

From the view of the Old Testament, when Messiah comes, He will be a king and a priest in the order of Melchizedek. He will not be a Levitical priest. And therefore it is anticipated that the Mosaic Law will come to an end and be replaced by the New Covenant, for why remove the priesthood from Levi unless great changes were going to occur?

In the New Testament, the book of Hebrews continues the discussion of this theme of Messiah as king/priest. The importance of this concept cannot be overstated, given the context of the Israel theocracy that was established through Moses. Age old structures, established by God, were changing, by God. The author goes to great lengths to explain that the changing of established structures was prophesied, and he further explains how the priesthood of Melchizedek exceeds the priesthood of Levi. His words are long and dense, but worth the read:

The book of Hebrews is called Hebrews for a reason. It wasn’t written for the pagan Gentile, although anyone in Christ benefits from reading it. It was written to Hebrews – those who knew the Law and who knew the intricacies and nuances of what was being written about. The author does well in explaining the logic of the king/priest role that Zechariah prophesied would come:

• The priests of old were based on bloodline. The sons of Levi were priests, and when a priest would die he was replaced by another son of Levi. Jesus, who is the eternal God-man, never needs to be replaced due to death, and therefore His priestly work exceeds that of Levi.
• The priests of old were sinners, and offered up sacrifices not only for the people, but for themselves. Jesus, the only man to ever be born under the Law and follow it without sin, has no need to repent of sins. And therefore His priestly work exceeds that of Levi. The priests of old were reminders of the sins of the people. The temple was nicknamed “the house of blood” due to the flow resulting from the sacrifices continually offered up. Jesus died once for all, and His blood was enough to end the daily sacrifice. The temple was no longer needed.

We can infer that the fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecy by Jesus was hard to grasp by Jewish converts, hence the explanation in the book of Hebrews. It is not easy to change, even with simple things on a personal level. Imagine how hard it must have been for the Hebrew Christians in the early church, to see the things that Moses wrote about (Levitical priesthood, sacrifices, etc.) going away. How hard must it have been to change their mindset, to change their understanding of God.

But, alas, if the teachers of that day cared more about the coming Messiah than creating a false law, and had taken to heart the prophecy of Zechariah, perhaps all of the Jews would have been better prepared to receive the words that the apostles taught about the Messiah, the one who combined the offices of king and priest, and who rules forever on His throne.

When one thinks of Haggai, one ought to think of “the temple of God”. For after the end of the exile, when Jews had returned to Jerusalem according to God’s promise, it was the prophet Haggai whom God used to exhort the Jews to continue their rebuilding of the destroyed temple of Solomon. Specifically, Haggai exhorted two main leaders, Zerubbabel and Joshua, to lead the work:

Zerubbabel was from the tribe of Judah. His participation in the rebuilding of the temple continued a theme of Scripture, where persons from the tribe of Judah helped to build the Lord’s buildings. In the days of Moses when the tabernacle was constructed, Bezalel from Judah was used.

Hundreds of years later, Solomon from Judah, David’s son, oversaw the building of the first temple.

So in the days of Haggai when God used Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, to build the second temple, the pattern was continued. This pattern continued once more, when a few hundred years after Zerubbabel, God used a man from the tribe of Judah to build a temple. This man God used was a descendant of Zerubbabel, no less.

Jesus the Messiah – of Judah, of David, of Zerubbabel – built a temple made not of stones nor by human hands, but of flesh and human hearts. This temple He built was the church.

The church, built on Christ and His gospel, is the combined group of Jews and Gentiles whom God granted faith to in Jesus Christ. The age old distinction between Jew and Gentile was done away with.

But in order to make this temple of living people, Jesus had to die; the temple of His body had to be destroyed.

The Jews destroyed Jesus’ body. And on the third day He raised it from the dead. He established His church, His temple of living people, and made obsolete the physical temple with animal sacrifices.

When meditating on this great plan of God – the establishing of a New Covenant by the blood of Christ – one should note that what Christ did on earth was possible, in part, because God spoke to the prophet Haggai, who spoke to Zerubbabel and Joshua. Those two men listened to the prophet and led the people to build the second temple. Without Zerubabbel’s temple, there would not have been Herod’s temple. Without Herod’s temple, there would not have been a veil to be torn, upon the death of Christ.

Without the torn veil, the words of Hebrews would have no significance to us:

But since the veil of the temple was torn, we can have great confidence before God, as the author of Hebrews says. And we should be comforted knowing that we are Christ’s temple, the people whom He died for.

Hallelujah!

When God had determined to exile the southern kingdom of Judah, He sent them prophets to warn of the pending destruction. Zephaniah was one of those prophets and he spoke these words:

This was a scathing rebuke of the false religion occurring in Judah. Priests and laity were worshipping Baal. They were swearing by Milcom and swearing by the name of the Lord. They exchanged God’s truth for their own religious lies. They were syncretistic and polytheistic in their worship.

This phenomenon of false religion that perverts the Lord’s truth is not unique to the days of the exile. It is not as if people worshipped God falsely only in that day, but now things are fine. Rather, Jesus spoke some words that paint a picture similar to the one that Zephaniah painted with his words.

Jesus is speaking about the final judgment. People who on the surface claim to be followers of Jesus Christ, many of whom hold the office of pastor or missionary or servant of the church, but many who are just normal congregants, will be condemned by Christ on the day of judgment.

Why?

Because when they say “Lord, Lord,’ and acknowledge with their lips that Jesus is Lord, they are at the same time in the secret tunnels of their heart repudiating His truth. For they attempt, on the day of judgment and in the presence of Jesus, to boast of their works as a means of entrance into heaven. They boast in the great things they did – prophecies, exorcisms, miracles – rather than boasting in Jesus Christ and His atoning death and resurrection.

Therefore, because the claim they present to God is someone other than Jesus Christ, their religion is syncretistic and polytheistic, just like the Jews in the days of Zephaniah. But they are not calling on the name of Baal or Milcom – they are calling their own name. They have deified themselves, so to speak, by thinking that they are adding to the work of Christ, and have a right to enter heaven apart from Jesus. If Jesus is God, and His power is not enough for salvation, then certainly these people are exalting themselves up to the level of a god greater than Jesus, if they think their work is enough for salvation.

To boast of works in the presence of Jesus Christ, especially as a means of salvation, is the surest way to demonstrate a complete lack of understanding and faith in the Jesus of Scripture. And this is why Jesus says “I never knew you…”, prior to exiling the false Christians for eternity.

Jesus Himself was asked what the work of God is. He was asked to explain that great thing that people ought to do. And He did not say “Prophesy! Cast out demons! Perform miracles!” He said this:

God does not ask us to prophesy in His name, He does not ask us to cast out demons in His name, He does not ask us to perform miracles in His name, in order to inherit eternal life. No – He doesn’t ask us to do anything. He asks us to believe in Jesus the Messiah.

For those of us who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, we take great comfort in the words that Zephaniah offered to the remnant of Israel. For they are words that apply to the return of Christ and the establishment of His eternal rule, and therefore they apply also to us:

“The righteous shall live by faith.”

This was the slogan, so to speak, of the Protestant Reformation. The great discovery of Martin Luther, while he was a Catholic monk trying with all his might to work for salvation and realizing he always fell short, was that the Scripture teaches salvation is not contingent upon works. This Biblical truth was hidden by the Catholic Church and replaced with a doctrine of works, which is why Luther despaired. Consider the apostate church’s own words, which from the days of Luther till now have not significantly changed on the matter:

They say that no one can be assured of their salvation while living. They say that good works are necessary for salvation (ever hear of Catholic guilt?). They say that Luther is a “heresiarch”, meaning he is the originator of the heresy of salvation by faith alone. But what do the Scriptures say?

The Apostle Paul writes clearly on the matter, ironically in his letter to the Romans. If only Roman Catholic theologians would pick up that book and study it! Consider the important third chapter:

Before that, in the first chapter, Paul talks about the nature of the gospel:

When Paul writes “but the righteous man shall live by faith”, he is not writing his own words, but is recalling the words of God given to the prophet Habakkuk.

Righteousness by faith is not Luther’s concept. It is not even a New Testament concept – it is God’s concept. God has always saved by faith and never by the Law, for consider that Adam and Abel and Enoch and Noah and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph were alive before the Law was given to Israel. If they existed prior to the Law, then how did the Law save them? Rather, they were all saved by their faith in God. This God concept, recorded by Habakkuk and quoted by Paul in Romans, is also found in other New Testament passages:

So if Martin Luther is a heretic according to the Catholic Church, what do they think about Moses and Habakkuk and Paul? For did not all three write about righteousness by faith?

Rather, it is the Roman Catholic Church that promotes heresy. And they themselves would do well to heed the words of God’s prophet:

Regarding the proud one, whose soul is not right within him – who is prouder than the man who desires to stand before God and declare that he and his works have added something to the work of Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified upon a cross unto death and then resurrected on the third day, and whose death and resurrection served as the perfect sacrifice for sins?

Is there a doctrine bitterer to the soul than salvation by works? And consequently, is there anything sweeter than righteousness by faith, in which our works are not even considered and only the perfect work of Jesus Christ is considered when God grants salvation to the sinners who believe in the Son?

Thanks be to God for preserving His gospel in the Scriptures throughout the generations. And in dark days, when the light of the gospel in the Bible is put under a shade, thanks be to God for raising up men who remove the shade and once again shine the light of the Word to the world!

In doing so, the Holy Spirit is using them to fulfill the promise of Christ to His church:

1 “Sanctifying Grace”, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06701a.htm

2 “Faith”, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05752c.htm

The book of Nahum is a prophecy against the city of Nineveh, capital of the Assyrian empire – the same Nineveh to which Jonah was sent. Upon the preaching of the prophet Jonah, Nineveh repented and God withdrew His threatened wrath. Yet the repentance of Nineveh was temporary, hence the words of Nahum proclaiming God’s coming judgment; a judgment that would not be withdrawn as in the days of Jonah.

Who were these objects of wrath, the Assyrians?

They were a wicked people. A pastor once said that an ancient town, upon hearing that the Assyrians were coming, committed mass suicide, to avoid the awful torture that Assyria was known for. Archaeologists have uncovered bronze reliefs depicting heads impaled on stakes, severed heads hanging from city walls, soldiers holding victims by stumpy arms and legs, with dismembered hands and feet littering the ground. The following quote is from the Assyrian king Sennacherib, a king who is referenced in Scripture:

This quote portrays a disgusting and violent treatment of people captured in war. The Assyrian rulers were ruthless and the people of Assyria were wicked. The common folk may not have mutilated prisoners of war like their military did, yet the whole culture was lifted up in pride, worshipped false gods and filled with wickedness. Hence the words of Nahum to the city of Nineveh:

Historians accept the destruction of Nineveh as fact, although they obviously do not attribute the fall to divine wrath. But for us who understand that the city fell by God’s order, it is worth noting that before its fall, and despite its abominations, blasphemies and cruelties, God through the prophet Jonah gave it a chance to repent. What a great demonstration of the grace of God, that even people like the Assyrians were not outside of the reach of God’s saving hand!

Now the words of Nahum and the fall of Nineveh may seem to be obscure Biblical knowledge, since for us ordinary citizens of a modern society, the unbelieving friends and acquaintances we have are not like the Assyrians and their king Sennacherib. We do not know mighty warriors who gut or castrate their captives, who spill entrails and dismember hands and feet. Yet due to the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, we must be aware of the fact that spiritually speaking, we do know people like Sennacherib. For God judges the heart, and Jesus gave us words regarding the heart of man and God’s judgment of it:

There is not one person alive who is innocent of committing verbal murder, and who would avoid the fiery hell, based on the words of Jesus. Therefore, as we think of our unbelieving friends and acquaintances, or even strangers, it may be helpful to view the situation as being analogous to Jonah and Nineveh. We are as Jonah preaching to the citizens of Nineveh. We preach the gospel so that people might believe and repent and be granted life in God, and not have to be subjected to words of wrath on the day of the Lord – such as Nineveh was in the day of Nahum.

As we do this, as we share the gospel of grace with a view of God’s wrath, what helps us deliver this hard message with humility and gentleness is remembering that we too were once like the Assyrians – lost and in darkness and without hope. But the grace of God reached Nineveh in the days of Jonah, it reached us where we were at, and it can reach anyone at any time as God wills, no matter who they are.

¹http://faculty.uml.edu/ethan_Spanier/Teaching/documents/CP6.0AssyrianTorture.pdf

Christmas is approaching, and so is the time when verses regarding the birth of Christ will be read throughout churches and Christian households. Undoubtedly the first three verses of Matthew 2 will be part of the seasonal reading:

These three verses are rich with meaning – a meaning that derives from the history of Israel recorded in the Old Testament. For it is written that God gave Israel David as king. David was then promised an eternal throne by God, and David’s descendants ruled for a few hundred years. Due to perpetual sin, God exiled His people to Babylon and ended the Davidic dynasty. From that time until the birth of Jesus, God did not allow a son of David to sit on a throne as king. In fact, via the prophet Ezekiel, God told Zedekiah, the last Davidic king, that there would be no more Davidic kings until Messiah.

The last sentence from this Ezekiel quotation is an allusion to the Messianic prophecy in Genesis 49: 10.

Although God had ended the Davidic rule over Israel, it was because of God’s promise to David and because of the words of the prophets, like Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and others, that there was great anticipation for the Messiah. People believed God would send Messiah and establish David’s eternal throne.

Moving ahead now to the birth of Jesus, we understand why Herod, an Idumean and not a son of David, was king – because God had ended the rule of the Davidic kings and allowed for Israel to be subjegated to Rome. And because of the people’s anticipation for the coming Davidic king, the illegitimate king Herod was terribly troubled upon the arrival of the magi, who asked him about a baby born as “King of the Jews”.

It is fascinating that Herod, a king appointed by Rome, an Idumean and not a Jew, believed enough in the possibility of a coming king to inquire of the scribes and priests as to where the Scriptures say the Messiah would be born. And yet it is obvious he did not believe in the hope of the Messiah, for it was his will to kill the baby who was born.

When asked by Herod to tell of the place where the Messiah would be born, the scribes answered with the words of the prophet Micah.

That prophecy from Micah was given seven centuries earlier – the Jews kept note of it for seven hundred years, for they did believe God would keep His word. What is fascinating about the fulfillment of Micah’s words is that the only reason Jesus was born in Bethlehem is because Caesar Augustus decreed that a census would be taken, and this census required people to travel to their own city. As a result, Joseph and Mary, from Nazareth, descendants of David, went to Bethlehem to register, for that was the city of David.

God used the decree of a Gentile ruler to bring to pass Micah’s prophecy – that the Christ would be born in Bethlehem. Over thirty years later, God would use the decree of Pontius Pilate to fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy – that the Christ would suffer and die.

So Jesus of Nazareth was born in Bethlehem in accordance with the words of the prophet Micah. He was born to be king, but not a normal king. For what king offers himself as a propitiation and sacrifice for sins? Only one.

What do these two gospel definitions, from Jesus and Paul, have in common?

Both Jesus and Paul declare that the Scriptures, meaning the Old Testament, prophesied that the Christ would rise from the dead on “the third day”.

Yet this is a gospel mystery – nowhere in the Old Testament will you find a prophecy that states, in effect, “the coming Messiah will die and then rise from the dead on the third day.”

So we are presented with a paradox: there is no literal prophecy in the Old Testament about a third day resurrection, and yet both Jesus and Paul said Scripture teaches that doctrine. How does one make sense of this?

In order to make sense of it, one must grow in their understanding of Biblical prophecy. It is more than “prediction – fulfillment”, as in, someone says something will happen and then it happens. There is a mode of prophecy that is based on patterns. In the Bible, God over time repeats certain patterns to prepare one to receive a greater truth. This is known as typology (the study of types), and without understanding typology one will lack a certain depth in their Biblical comprehension. Here is an explanation of the mode from some Christian scholars:

Applying this concept of types and patterns to Scripture, one needs to look no further than the book of Jonah. Jonah has Messianic implications, not through predictive prophecy, but because of a type found in the first chapter. You may recall that Jonah was thrown into the sea for his sin. The Scripture says:

Now there is nothing obviously prophetic in this passage. But the words of Christ give it significance.

I am sure there are a great many Christians who have read Jesus’ words here and have understood the parallel – three days in the fish for Jonah and three days in the earth for Jesus. But it is more than a neat coincidence, and it would be my guess that many do not know Jesus is giving Jonah typological significance and that typology is not limited only to Jonah but has further applications in Biblical reading and interpretation.

It is true – the only way to understand the words of Jesus and Paul, when they say that the Scripture teaches a third day resurrection, is to understand the Old Testament types that point to a third day resurrection. And there are more than just in Jonah, although not many more. I could be wrong, but I am pretty sure none of the other third day types are pointed out by Jesus or the apostles, although there is a slight reference to one in the book of Hebrews. The other third day types can only be discerned after training the mind to look for such things and then reading through Scripture.

It is significant, I think, that the gospel definitions offered by Jesus and Paul, in Luke 24 and 1 Corinthians 15, cannot be fully understood without knowing how types function in Scripture. And since the Holy Spirit inspired the written word, and inspired the types to be documented, they are worth paying attention to, and it is a study worth undertaking.

Although theologians and Bible exegetes sometimes get nervous about typology, because they don’t want people turning everything in the Bible into a type, nevertheless it is a legitimate mode of Bible prophecy, and as in all things pertaining to Bible study, it ought to be done with care and with precision, and with respecting what the Holy Spirit is communicating through Scripture, not forcing what we think or feel upon the Holy Text.

¹Gentry & Wellum. Kingdom Through Covenant, pg 103. Wheaton: Crossway. 2012. Print.