Introduction:

This session will be a test of how well I explained the unfolding revelation of the Father's heart throughout the Old Testament. If I did it well, you should come away from this session feeling like, while this is a new chapter, it is still part of the same storyline!\

Hopefully, all the time we spent in the Old Testament will make even more sense after this session. For most people, the New Testament feels totally independent of the Old Testament. In fact, it feels so disconnected that some people completely discard the Old Testament as irrelevant. But I truly believe the saying: the New is in the Old concealed; the Old is in the New revealed!

I.      Setting the Scene: Interlude Between Testaments

• Since the Protestant Christian Scriptures do not include the Apocrypha, we are not given any information about what pened between the time of the Old and New Testaments.
•          When we open to the pages of the New Testament, we discover that everything has changed!
•          Israel is under Roman control. They have a magnificent Temple, and all kinds of Jewish groups—such as the Pharisees and the Sadducees—have risen to prominence and are seemingly at odds with one another. And there's a whole lot more.
•          So, to help us understand the New Testament better, and to help us grasp some of the significant events that took place during this interlude that helped set the scene for the coming of Christ, let me highlight a few important points.
•          Remember, one of the Old Testament themes was that God is in control. He is sovereign not only over Israel, but overall, the nations. So, it only makes sense that God was still involved in the life of the world, setting the scene for the coming of His Son.
•          The apostle Paul picks up on this in his letter to the Galatians: Galatians 4:4–5 But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
•          The mindset of God's people was shaped during this time as the Jewish people realized they had not experienced the return of the glory of the Lord to His Temple. Even though the Temple had been rebuilt, they were still under foreign rule.

Nehemiah 9:36-37

'But see, we are slaves today, slaves in the land you gave our forefathers so they could eat its fruit and the other good things it produces. Because of our sins, its abundant harvest goes to the kings you have placed over us. They rule over our bodies and our cattle as they please. We are in great distress.'

         This created a longing in Israel for another day of visitation and a 'real' return from exile.

         God allowed Alexander the Great to conquer the world and unify it under one language, so that anyone fluent in Greek could be heard wherever they went. God even allowed the Hebrew Scriptures to be translated into Greek, thus giving the world a Bible to prepare them to receive what was to come.

         Rome then conquered the Greeks and took control of Israel. As a result of this, three things happened.

         First, to control the people, the Roman government installed their own leader called the prefect, who became responsible for offering sacrifices for the sins of the people.

         Second, they occupied the land with soldiers, serving as a constant reminder that the Jews were a captive people.

         And third, they imposed a heavy burden of taxation. All these factors stirred a growing desire among the Jews for the promised kingdom and sparked speculation about the coming of the Davidic King — one who would lead the charge, defeat the Romans, cleanse the Temple, forgive their sins, bring an end to exile, and usher in a golden age. The nations of the earth would finally stream to Zion, and the whole world would, in effect, become Jewish.

         Another significant development that would later impact Christianity was the rise of Caesar to godhood, initiating the Emperor Worship movement. A few years after Julius Caesar died, his adopted son Octavian reportedly saw a star flash across the sky during the month named after Julius and declared that it was Julius Caesar returned as a god. As a result, Caesars were given the title 'Lord'. This, of course, led to many Christians later being martyred, because their only confession would be 'Jesus is Lord'.

         Despite its repressive policies, Rome created a brief period of peace within the empire. This allowed for safe travel for Roman citizens along the newly built Roman roads, enabling the apostle Paul and others to spread the gospel throughout the world.

         Within Israel, leadership changed. The kingship became obsolete during the exile. As a result, the priests and scribes became the true leaders of the people, since the Temple was the unifying center of the reconstituted Israel. In effect, the reigning high priest held authority comparable to that of a king.

         One of the major concerns for Israel's leadership was the influx of pagan gods introduced by both the Greeks and Romans. This sparked a movement among the Jewish people who were determined to resist Hellenistic influence. Purity became a major concern for many religious groups.

         Various ideologies began to emerge, eventually forming what the great Jewish historian Josephus described as four distinct philosophies of how to be a faithful Jew. From these philosophies, four groups arose, each representing a different approach:

         The Pharisees were committed to maintaining strict ritual purity out of their zeal for the Law of Moses. They valued the oral law—interpretations of Mosaic law—which was eventually written down and became known as the Talmud. Their expression of freedom and resistance was seen in practices such as circumcision, Sabbath observance, kosher dietary laws, and other laws of ritual purity.

         The Sadducees believed life was what one made of it and sought to preserve the status quo—in their case, the privileged status. They cooperated with Rome in order to maintain their position and influence.

         The Essenes were a group that broke off from the Pharisees. They maintained the strictest ceremonial purity and dedicated themselves to the study of the Torah and good works while awaiting the Messiah. They viewed Herod's Temple as corrupt, the priesthood as defiled, and the Pharisees as compromised.

         The Zealots traced their idea of zeal back to the Maccabees. Their philosophy—'God helps those who help themselves'—led them to suspend religious law in favor of rebellion. They believed the enemy could be overcome through violent means and would be comparable to modern-day terrorists.

         Out of all this conflict, a widespread belief began to emerge — that a deliverer would come. The people believed God would send a Messiah who would liberate Israel from Rome's power, cleanse the Temple, and resurrect the nation.

         However, they did not expect that the Messiah would suffer, die, and rise from the dead. The Jewish hope was not for the end of the world but for the dawning of a new age in which God would rule over all the nations of the world from Zion.

         Since the Protestant Christian Scriptures do not include the Apocrypha, we are not provided with any information about what happened between the time of the Old and New Testaments.

• II.    THE ADVENT OF THE CHRIST
• A.    Sometime around 5–6 BC, Luke’s Gospel tells us of an angelic appearance to a priest named Zechariah that would initiate a new era in the history of redemption. The angel announced that he and his barren wife, Elizabeth, would give birth to a son who would go forth in the power of 'Elijah'.
• –        Remember, we saw that the Old Testament ended with Malachi’s prediction that Elijah would come before the great and terrible Day of the Lord.
• –        This means that Luke is declaring that Isaiah’s new exodus had arrived and the exile was going to be over.
• –        Yahweh was coming as a Warrior to defeat the enemies of God and as a Shepherd to lead His people to the Promised Land. The next event on God’s eschatological timetable had arrived.

• B.     The signs definitely pointed in this direction because it wasn’t only Zechariah who received an angelic visitation. The angel Gabriel also visited Mary, a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, saying that she too would give birth to a boy — but this boy would have no earthly father.
• –        Mary would be impregnated by the Holy Spirit, thus qualifying her child to be both a son of man and the Son of God. His name was to be called Jesus (savior in both Hebrew and Greek), because he would save his people from their sins.
• –        The Holy Spirit’s presence at Jesus’ conception is reminiscent of the Spirit’s presence at the creation of the world. The implication is that in Jesus, God was recreating humankind.
• –        The angel also said that Jesus would fulfill God's promise to David by reigning from David’s throne, as foretold in 2 Samuel 7.

• C.     The Davidic connection is solidified in both Matthew and Luke’s genealogies. Some scholars say Matthew’s genealogy follows Joseph's lineage, while Luke follows Mary's, resulting in the same conclusion: Jesus was of pure Davidic descent.
• –        Furthermore, Matthew’s list begins with Abraham and ends with Jesus, establishing Jesus as a Jew.
• –        Luke’s genealogy, however, traces Jesus' lineage all the way back to Adam, indicating that this child was a son of man before he was a son of Abraham.
• –        And, of course, John goes back even further, stating in John 1:1–2 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.'

• D.    At his birth, Luke records that angelic choirs announced that peace — God’s shalom — was now available to those on whom His favor rested.
• –        The implications are far-reaching. Remember, all through the Old Testament we observed the ongoing battle between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent.
• –        This announcement was a declaration that the one who would defeat the true enemy had finally arrived.
• –        And he would accomplish this by saving his people from their sins, breaking the legal right that the devil had to ravage the flock. The result would be, as the angels sang, 'Glory to God in the highest.'

• E.     Despite the good news the Christ would bring, when Jesus was presented in the Temple as a baby, a man named Simeon was waiting for them.
• –        Luke 2:25-35 Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord's Christ. Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying:  "Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel."  The child's father and mother marveled at what was said about him.Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: "This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too."
• –        In other words, the die was cast in the first act of the play. Jesus would face opposition from the very beginning of his ministry.
• –        And of course, one might wonder… would it be enough to prevent God's purpose from being fulfilled? The answer, of course, is no. As we’ve seen repeatedly throughout the Old Testament, whenever the enemy tried to stop the plan of God, he always failed miserably.

• III. THE MINISTRY OF JOHN THE BAPTIST
• A.    As we have seen, the final verses of the Old Testament predicted that the great Day of the Lord would be preceded by the return of Elijah, who would initiate Isaiah’s new exodus.
• –        Jesus confirmed that his cousin John was the fulfillment of that prophecy.

–        Matt 11:12-15 From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it.  For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John.  And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come.  He who has ears, let him hear.

• –        It appears, then, that John was, in essence, the last Old Testament prophet sent to announce the arrival of the Messianic age.
• –        Everyone in this new age would receive a greater revelation than those before. John held the baton, and his ministry was to hand it off to Jesus so that the Messiah could run the next and decisive leg in the human race.

• B.     While Jesus lived in Nazareth, growing through every normal stage of human life, John had at some point retreated to the desert until the time of his calling. Around the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar (c. AD 26–27), the word of the Lord came to John, who was about thirty years old, and instructed him that it was time to begin ministry.
• C.     John came out of the wilderness eating kosher food — locusts and wild honey — and dressed in the garb of a prophet. Elijah had also worn a camel's hair garment, which served as a powerful visual symbol.
• D.    He began proclaiming near the Jordan River that the kingdom of God was at hand. He urged the people to repent in order to receive the good news. Israel had failed in her mission to be God's people for the world, and now God was graciously offering them a fresh start.
• E.     As a sign of their repentance, John called on people to immerse themselves in water, redefining what was already a familiar ritual in Jewish life. When a Gentile converted to Judaism, they would renounce their old way of life, commit to the Law, and undergo baptism.
• –        Here, by willingly entering the waters of baptism, the people were laying down their differing ideas of how to end the exile and instead submitting to the one who was coming — someone who offered a new way forward.
• F.      The location of John’s baptizing activity was no accident either. According to John's Gospel, it happened near 'Bethany beyond the Jordan' — the same region where Joshua had once led Israel across the river into the Promised Land.
• –        Now, the new Joshua (Jesus, in Greek) would give Israel a renewed beginning. Anyone who wanted to be part of this new Israel had to return to the Jordan and be willing to start again, following Yahweh’s Warrior and Great Shepherd into the promised land.
• G.    John’s call to repentance reminded many of the spiritual renewal that had occurred during the days of Ezra and Nehemiah.
• H.    His message was so powerful that the religious leaders started questioning his identity. Was he the Messiah? A prophet from the past? Or Elijah himself?
• I.        In searching for a metaphor to describe the vastly greater power and authority of the one who was coming, John said:
• –        Luke 3:16–17 John answered them all, 'I baptize you with water. But one more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.'
• –        In other words, John announced that someone far greater than he was coming to usher in God’s reign as King — someone so worthy that John could not even perform the lowliest servant's task for him.
• –        In fact, John was saying, 'What I do, I do with water — something created. But the one who is coming will work through the Holy Spirit, the very agent through whom the waters, and even the heavens and earth, were created.'
  
  
• J.       Finally, John’s primary mission was to prepare the way for the Lord. And how did he prepare it?
• –        By gathering all those who were ready to repent — people with broken hearts, people at the end of themselves, who were ready to embrace the Messiah.
• –        So, when Jesus came announcing the kingdom, there was already a group of people primed and ready to receive his message.

IV. THE BAPTISM OF JESUS

• A.    Then, one day, out of the crowd, Jesus waded into the Jordan to be baptized by John. In a moment of insight, John realized that Jesus was not simply his cousin but was the one whose sandals he was unworthy to untie.
• B.     Matt 3:13-17 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But John tried to deter him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?"  Jesus replied, "Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness." Then John consented. As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."
• C.     In the next chapter, we will see Matthew’s Gospel presenting Jesus as the new Moses, offering a new Torah from Mt. Zion—not Mt. Sinai—that would function as the charter for the new Israel.
• D.    An interesting dialogue takes place between Jesus and John. John tries to make a case for Jesus baptizing him, but Jesus refutes that and insists that John must baptize him. Why? Because it is proper for them to do this to fulfill all righteousness. What does that mean?
• E.     Jesus submitted to a baptism of repentance in order to take the next step in restoring righteousness to human beings. Despite having never sinned, it is through baptism that Jesus identifies with sinful Israel.
• –        Through baptism, Jesus became the representative of Israel, standing in the tradition of Ezra and Nehemiah. If you remember, they recognized the need to confess the sins of the nation as they stood with the people.
• –        But it was even more than that. Jesus was, in fact, identifying with all sinful human beings. By doing so, Jesus became representative of all humanity, standing in our place—the righteous for the unrighteous—as a prelude to the day when he would take our place on the cross.
• –        He would die for our sins and satisfy the justice of God, thereby crushing Satan’s head and releasing people from his death-grip so they could enter into their image-bearing glory.
• F.      As Jesus came up out of the water, the Synoptic writers say that John saw the heavens opened—Mark uses the phrase 'torn open'. The opening of the heavens signifies that something cataclysmic was taking place, a scene worthy of the dawning of a new age as the barrier between heaven and earth was being ripped apart.
• –        Just as God parted the waters of the Red Sea under Moses and the floodwaters of the Jordan under Joshua, the presence of God was now making a way through the cosmos and opening up new access to himself.
• G.    Matthew says that as Jesus was praying in the Jordan, he saw the Holy Spirit descending on him in the likeness of a dove. The imagery of the dove could bring to mind several places in the Old Testament, but it most likely echoes the account of creation.
• –        In the opening verses of the Bible, the Holy Spirit hovers over the waters. The rabbis later interpreted that word 'hovers' as referring to a bird, like a dove, fluttering over her young. In this moment, the Holy Spirit fluttered like a dove over the baptismal waters, signaling the dawning of a new creation.
• H.    From this moment on, Jesus would be the unique bearer of the Spirit of God, the Messiah, the Anointed One.
• –        As such, he received Israel’s prophetic endowment—the Spirit of wisdom, understanding, counsel, power, knowledge, and the fear of the Lord (Isaiah 11:2–3).
• –        Furthermore, Jesus was filled with the full measure of God’s Spirit and was now ready to fulfill the mission for which he came. He had received Adam’s original blessing to fulfill his three assignments: to multiply, fill, and rule.
• I.        A voice spoke to Jesus through the rift in the heavens—the voice of his Father—declaring, 'You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.' In this declaration of sonship, along with the coming of the Spirit, we see Jesus revealed as the true Israel, God’s firstborn Son who had kept the covenant in the power of the Spirit.
• J.       It was Paul who would later draw the New Testament connection between Jesus and Adam. One could also see echoes here of Adam, who was right with God ('my son') and right with humanity ('well pleased'). In Jesus, then, we see the restoration of a right vertical relationship with God.
• –        In the language of divine sonship at Jesus’ baptism, we see that Jesus had, and would bring to his followers, this same renewed relationship with God.
• –        One scholar pointed out decades ago the significance of the Aramaic abba behind Jesus’ personal language for God in prayer.
• –        Abba, meaning 'papa' or 'dad', was a term of intimate familiarity. It was rarely, if ever, used to address God directly in Palestinian Judaism during Jesus’ time.
• –        Jesus used this deeply personal language, and he would soon teach his followers to do the same. Not since the Garden of Eden had the sons of Adam been able to draw so near.
• K.    Not only would Jesus pass on his vertical relationship with God, but he would also model and teach how to maintain right horizontal relationships with others. With both vertical and horizontal dimensions restored and the messianic blessing received, we now anticipate that Jesus would go out to multiply, fill, and rule—and that is exactly what he would do. But before he could step fully into his destiny, the serpent would once again attempt to creep into the new Garden.

V.    THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS

• A.    Now full of the Spirit and possibly newly aware in a deeper way of who he was and what he had come to do, the Synoptic writers imply that Jesus was 'driven' (Mark 1:12) by that same Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
• B.     As we have seen throughout this study, every time God's people moved forward in their divinely appointed mission, there has always been a calculated counterattack intending to stop it.
• –        The enemy this time was not Pharaoh, or Goliath, or Nebuchadnezzar, but Satan himself.
• –        The enmity that God had placed between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent was now coming to a head.
• C.     The historical backdrop for Jesus' forty-day period of temptation was the forty-year testing of Israel in the wilderness. We also catch echoes of the assault on the first Adam in the garden.
• D.    This is no small thing when you consider how poorly God's chosen had performed in the past.
• E.     Adam had failed his test—to stand firm upon the Word of God as his foundation. Israel had failed their test in the wilderness, unable to trust in God's promises. But Jesus stood resolutely in the power of the Spirit and the Word of God. He countered each temptation by quoting from the book of Deuteronomy, the very book set in the context of Israel’s wilderness testing.
• F.      Jesus succeeded where Israel had failed. Jesus succeeded where Adam had failed. This success qualified him to be the true Israel and the true humanity.
• G.    Furthermore, in the words of one of Jesus’ own parables, the strong man of the house had now been bound. It was time to plunder his goods, as Jesus would go forth to multiply God’s image, fill the earth with that image, and rule over the earth as God’s ambassador.