I love how the Old Testament and New Testament work with each other. Often this works with Jesus telling a parable referencing the OT or by Paul referencing it in one of his letters. However, my favourite way they work together is when an Old Testament event foreshadows the New Testament, like with Moses' snake.
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| A snake strewn cross set upon Mt Nebo, Jordan. |
In Numbers 21:4-9 we learn of one episode as Moses lead the Israelites through the desert after their escape from slavery in Egypt. Once, as at many times, they get impatient and fed up, speaking against God who, through Moses, has been leading them and sustaining them for years.
Punishing them for this, God sends venomous snakes to them, injuring and even killing some of them and when they duly repent, God commands Moses to create a bronze snake, putting it in a stick and lift it up. The inflicted Israelites merely have to look at the raised up snake and be healed.
Punishing them for this, God sends venomous snakes to them, injuring and even killing some of them and when they duly repent, God commands Moses to create a bronze snake, putting it in a stick and lift it up. The inflicted Israelites merely have to look at the raised up snake and be healed.
This is strange as the snake is synonymous with sin (see Genesis 3) and in this case is the cause of the Israelites' pain and suffering. Let us see ourselves as the Israelites and the snakes as the sin in this world: this is how Jesus is the snake. In John 3:14 Jesus even likens himself to this very snake, that everyone who looks on him and believes in him will have eternal life.
All of us suffer from sin and the consequence of that is pain and suffering (or we are all attacked by the snakes and are suffering from them) but God has made someone to be sin and has raised him high so that all who look on him will have eternal life (or has made a snake that, with one look, can heal)!
Love it!
All of us suffer from sin and the consequence of that is pain and suffering (or we are all attacked by the snakes and are suffering from them) but God has made someone to be sin and has raised him high so that all who look on him will have eternal life (or has made a snake that, with one look, can heal)!
Love it!
Wow, I've never thought about it that way before. Great post Joel
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, Andy Miller talked on it this morning at TCM! But nevertheless, there is so much intertwining of them both, it's amazing!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment.
i dont think that the old testament is foreshadowing the new testament. i think the author of johns gospel is using old testament imagery to say something about jesus. reading it this way gives us a richer understanding of the authors faith, and definitely contributes to what youre saying here
ReplyDeletethanks
Thanks for your interesting comment, Anonymous, but I still strongly believe that the OT foreshadows the NT. My favourite example, of which there are quite a few in my opinion, is that of the Passover Lamb.
ReplyDeleteWe see the blood of a lamb cause the angel of death to pass over the Isrealites in Exodus 11-12, in particular 12:13. God says when He sees the blood, He will pass over them. In the same way, Jesus is our Passover Lamb (as he is named many times, first in John 1:29) as when God sees the blood that Jesus shed for us, He will pass over.
The whole Bible is a big picture that is linked into eachother through prophecy, reference and foreshadow and of course, God Himself. See God's Big Picture by Vaughan Roberts (IVP) for more on that, it's a great book!
thanks for the reply joel
ReplyDeletei think with this example of the passover lamb id say that the author of johns gospel is using the imagery of the passover event to make sense of early christians experience of salvation. i dont think this takes away from the power of the message but allows us a richer understanding of how early christians tried to make sense of their faith using the traditions available to them
thanks
I'm sure John the Baptist (the speaker of those words) was using the Jewish culture and knowledge of the time to explain Jesus' arrival but Jesus is named the Passover Lamb through Paul's epistles also, to much more mature Christians. I'm also reminded of the Lamb in Revelation 5, looking as if slain (which it is mentioned as in Isaiah also).
ReplyDeleteIf God's speaking through prophets goes along with the Passover Lamb idea and the vision John is given himself has it in, I'm pretty convinced that it was a planned foreshadow, courtesy of God Himself.
im not altogether sure that john the baptist himself was using the jewish categories to explain jesus arrival (though he might have). the reason im saying this is that john does not use this language in all four gospels, and it makes sense for the author of john to have developed the tradition in this way
ReplyDeletei agree the language of the passover lamb is found very much in revelation which maybe suggests some connection between the author of revelation and the author of johns gospel (the books do themselves both claim to be written by the same john)
thanks