The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses

Vern S. Poythress

• Publisher: P Publishing
• Year: 1995
• Print ISBN: 9780875523750
• eBook ISBN: 9781629954127
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

Poythress demonstrates how the sacrifices, traditions, and penalties of the law of Moses graphically foreshadow the work of Christ and his relationship with his people.

PART ONE

UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF THE LAW

ONE

THE CHALLENGE OF THE LAW OF MOSES: INTERPRETING MOSES IN THE LIGHT OF CHRIST

When I was a teenager, an older Christian woman learned that I had read the entire Bible during the preceding year. She came up to me and asked, “How did you get through the Book of Leviticus?” I didn’t really know what to say to her in return. I knew what she meant. Parts of the Old Testament were difficult for me too. Somehow the Lord had given me sufficient motivation and interest to read the whole Bible. But how was I to help her? And how could I learn to appreciate the difficult parts better myself? What were she and I supposed to be learning from Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy?

I did not learn the answer until years later. The answer came to me through another story, not the story of my life, but the story of two other people with struggles like my own.

The Challenge of the Old Testament

Long ago in Palestine two disciples of Jesus were walking along the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35). A stranger joined them. He asked them about the things they had been through, and they began to explain. They were heartbroken because the master and friend in whom they had put all their hopes was dead. But the stranger said some strange things to comfort them. Instead of sympathizing, He said, “How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!” (Luke 24:25). The disciples’ real problem was not with a dead master but with themselves. They did not understand the Old Testament. And so the stranger helped them to understand. “Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself’ (Luke 24:27). The stranger, of course, was Jesus Christ, the master Teacher of the Old T What did Jesus tell those two disciples? We do not know the details. But we do know the heart of His teaching: “Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” (Luke 24:26).

Even before Jesus was finished, and even before He revealed who He was, a remarkable transformation began to take place in the hearts of the disciples. They said, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked to us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32). The Old Testament Scriptures began to open up to them, and they were awed, amazed, and overwhelmed all at once.

Later on Jesus appeared to a larger group of His disciples. He continued teaching along the same line:

Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, “This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” (Luke 24:45-49)

Christ enabled the disciples to understand not merely the implications of a few passages of the Old Testament, but “the Scriptures”—the whole Old Testament. What do these Scriptures really say? Christ introduces His explanation with the words, “This is what is written” (Luke 24:46). That is, He promises to give them the substance and heart of what is written in the Old Testament. What He says next contains His answer: “The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24:46-47).¹

The whole Old Testament finds its focus in Jesus Christ, His death, and His resurrection. The Apostle Paul says the same thing in different words: “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ. And so through him the ‘Amen’ is spoken by us to the glory of God” (2 Corinthians 1:20). “These things [in the Old Testament] happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come” (1 Corinthians 10:11). Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished” (Matthew 5:17-18).

Basic Principles for Interpreting the Old Testament

A great heritage awaits us in the Old Testament. But how do we unlock it? Christ Himself is the key that unlocks the riches of the Old Testament. Let us see how.

First of all, Christ is the all-glorious Lord, the only Son of the Father, who from all eternity beholds the Father face to face, who is with God and who is God (John 1:1). Every word of the Old Testament is the word of God Himself (2 Timothy 3:16-17), and God is the trinitarian God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Thus all of the Old Testament is Christ’s word to us, as well as God the Father’s word to us.

Second, the Old Testament teaches us about Christ. Such is one main implication of the story in Luke 24. Christ is the focus of the message of the Old Testament. He is the One to whom it points forward, about whom it speaks, and whom it prefigures in symbols.

Third, Christ not only instructs us but establishes communion with us through His word. We abide in Christ as His word abides in us (John 15:7). As the Holy Spirit works in our hearts, we find that we are meeting Christ, and He talks to us very personally through the Bible, including the Old Testament.

Fourth, Christ changes us and transforms us through His word. As we meet with Christ and experience His glory, we are transformed into His image. The Bible says that we start out with a lack of understanding of the Old Testament, due to hard hearts (Luke 24:25; 2 Corinthians 4:4). This lack is like a veil over our hearts, keeping us from seeing it correctly (2 Corinthians 3:14-15). When we turn to the Lord, the Holy Spirit works in us and the veil over our hearts is removed (2 Corinthians 3:16-17). Then we see the true glory of Christ. “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Fifth, as our hearts are changed we begin to respond to Christ in adoration, thankfulness, and obedience. Christ is our Lord, our master, and that means that we must obey Him. But Christ is also our beloved, and that means that we come to love to please Him and obey Him (John 14:15, 23). Our response ought not to be a reluctant, grumbling obedience, but joyful, enthusiastic obedience. And so it will be more and more, if we belong to Him and have fellowship with Him, because Christ writes His own law on our hearts (2 Corinthians 3:3, 6; Hebrews 10:16).

Thus when we read the Old Testament we should pray that Christ will both enlighten us and transform us. Because the Old Testament as well as the New is Christ’s word, we should believe what God teaches there, obey what He commands, and give thanks for the blessings and communion that He gives. Above all, we should endeavor to search out how the Old Testament speaks of Christ.

We need to keep in mind two final key elements: humility and love. We are beset by sin and our understanding will be imperfect as long as we are in this life (1 Corinthians 13:12). We must be humble enough not to overestimate our abilities. We must realize that God’s thoughts are above our thoughts (Isaiah 55:9), and that we will never come to the bottom of their unsearchable depths (Romans 11:33-36). In Christ “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). We should come to Christ for all enlightenment. But when we do so, we also acknowledge “how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ” (Ephesians 3:18). Paul prays for us “to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19). Truly Christ’s love surpasses knowledge, and we adore Him in awe rather than come to a complete mastery of what we study.

Because of our limitations we must also be deeply grateful for insights that God provides through other human beings who study the Bible. When we differ with others in our understanding of Scripture, we must be willing to defend its precious central truths, but we must also be willing to listen to others in love (Ephesians 4:12-16). We may not always be right, and even when we are right, we may have something to learn from other people who have seen some other aspect of the infinite depth of God’s truth.

In particular, we must be ready to learn something from the Israelites of long ago. God did not begin to exercise His wisdom or care with us today. He started long ago, even at creation. Through many generations He dealt patiently with people in circumstances very different from ours, and He proved Himself faithful. Again and again He spoke to them about Christ in symbols and shadows that were appropriate to them and their circumstances rather than immediately to our circumstances. That is why the Old Testament is so remarkably unlike the New Testament in some ways. Yet because the same God and the same Christ are proclaimed in both, they are also remarkably alike in their overall thrust.

If we have humility about ourselves and enough love to look beyond ourselves to other people’s situations, we can begin to appreciate how God dealt with the Israelites in the Old Testament, and how things looked from their point of view. Then we gain understanding of what God really said in the Old Testament, as opposed to ideas that we might fancifully impose on the Old Testament out of our own imaginations.

Thus we have a threefold task. First, we must try to understand the law of Moses on its own terms, within its own historical environment. God intended it to be heard and understood by Israelites who had recently been redeemed from Egypt. Second, we must try to understand how the New Testament completes God’s story and God’s word that He began to speak in the Old Testament. Third, we must obey and apply God’s word to ourselves and our own circumstances. Often Biblical scholars stop with the first step. But it is legitimate to read the first part of the story again in the light of the end. By doing so we may understand more clearly how the beginning already introduced the teachings and the tensions that are completed and resolved at the end. Jesus Christ Himself is the center of New Testament revelation. Since the New Testament completes the story begun in the Old, Christ is also the center about which the Old Testament begins to speak in its preliminary way, and to which the Old Testament points forward.

In addition, it is spiritually vital for us to obey and apply God’s word. Jesus Christ is still our Lord today, and we acknowledge Him as Lord not only by receiving His blessings with thanksgiving but by wholeheartedly obeying Him.²

So let us take a journey, back, back, in time and space to the Near East, to the days when Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt and taught them in the wilderness. These people were like all people in their hearts, but some of their experiences were very different from our own. They lived in tents. They herded cattle and sheep. They lived in the open air a lot. The sun, the moon, the stars, the clouds, the trees, and the land were their companions. Above all, they had experienced a miraculous visit from God Himself, who had brought them out of miserable bondage and slavery in Egypt through their deliverer, Moses. Let us go back and hear what God said to them.

TWO

THE TABERNACLE OF MOSES: PREFIGURING GOD'S PRESENCE THROUGH CHRIST

Near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the Mennonites own and maintain a strange-looking building. It is a full-scale replica of the tabernacle of God, a special tent-like building described in Exodus 25-30. God commanded the Israelites to make just such a building as His dwelling place among them. The modem Mennonite replica also has within it a mannequin wearing robes like the garments of the high priest of Israel. People come to tour the Mennonites’ building, and as they do so, tour guides explain the significance of the various furnishings. People who have read the Bible and go on the tour almost always come away excited. They say, “I never understood those Old Testament passages about the tabernacle and the priests. But now that I have seen how it all fits together, and now that I have had some things explained to me, I want to go back to read the passages in the Bible and see how they symbolize who Christ was and what He did.”

I wish that I could take all my readers on that tour. The Israelites long ago did not have to visualize the tabernacle; they could see it. The priests were allowed to enter the rooms at certain times and could explain to everyone else what was there. The people could watch the priests sacrifice the animals. Messages came home to the Israelites that tend to pass us by unless we make a conscious effort to understand. But we also have an advantage over them. We can read the New Testament and see the completion of what those Old Testament images pointed forward to.

The Tabernacle as a Symbol of the Messiah

The Old Testament tabernacle is full of meaning because it is a symbol of the Messiah and His salvation. The book of Hebrews gives much instruction concerning the tabernacle.

But only the high priest entered the inner room [of the tabernacle), and that only once a year, and never without blood, which he offered for himself and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance. The Holy Spirit was showing by this that the way into the Most Holy Place had not yet been disclosed as long as the first tabernacle was still standing. This is an illustration for the present time, indicating that the gifts and sacrifices being offered were not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper. They are only a matter of food and drink and various ceremonial washings—external regulations applying until the time of the new order.

When Christ came as high priest of the good things that are already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made, that is to say, not a part of this creation. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! (Hebrews 9:7-14)

The earthly tabernacle was a copy or a shadow of the true dwelling place of God in heaven (Hebrews 8:5; 9:24). It showed what God was like and what was needed to deal with sin. In this way it symbolized what the Messiah was to do for our salvation. We may say that it “foreshadowed” the Messiah and His work. It was like a shadow of the Messiah cast backward in time into the Old Testament period. The shadow was always inferior to the reality. The earthly tabernacle was made of earthly things, and could never equal the splendor or holiness of God in heaven. The earthly sacrifices of bulls and goats could never equal the blood of Christ, who cleansed us from sin forever. The shadow was not itself the reality, but a pointer to Christ who was the reality. Yet the shadow was also like the reality. And the shadow even brought the reality to bear on people in the Old Testament. As they looked ahead through the shadows, longing for something better, they took hold on the promises of God that He would send the Messiah. The promises were given not only verbally but symbolically, through the very organization of the tabernacle and its sacrifices. In pictorial form God was saying, as it were, “Look at My provisions for you. This is how I redeem you and bring you to My presence. But look again, and you will see that it is all an earthly symbol of something better. Do not rely on it as if it were the end. Trust Me to save you fully when I fully accomplish My plans.”

Israelites had genuine communion with God when they responded to what He was saying in the tabernacle. They trusted in the Messiah, without knowing all the details of how fulfillment would finally come. And so they were saved, and they received forgiveness, even before the Messiah came. The animal sacrifices in themselves did not bring forgiveness (Hebrews 10:1-4), but Christ did as He met with them through the symbolism of the sacrifices.

The Tabernacle
As a Symbol of God’s Dwelling with Israel

What did Israelites see when they looked at the tabernacle so long ago? They saw a tent with two inner rooms and a yard outside. In the yard was the Israelite equivalent of a stove, namely, a place where meat could be roasted on a fire.

A tent means very little to us, but Israelites knew all about tents because they were living in tents themselves. Then God told them to make a tent for Him, a tent where God Himself would dwell and meet with them (Exodus 25:8, 22). His tent had rooms and a yard and a fireplace like their own. Yet it was also unlike their own. It was majestic, covered with gold and blue. It was beautiful, because of the symmetry of its dimensions and the artistry of its construction. Do you see? God was saying that He was majestic and beautiful. But He would not simply remain in heaven and let Israel go its way. He would come right down among them. They were living in tents. He too would be in a tent, side by side with their own tents. They were going to the promised land. He too would travel to the promised land, as His tent was packed up by the Levites and moved to the next encampment. The special cloud of fire symbolizing God’s presence was a more intensive, miraculous form of the same reality. God would be among them, right with them, “Immanuel” (see Matthew 1:23). A bright cloud of glory symbolizing God’s presence accompanied the Israelites and came over the tabernacle after it was constructed (Exodus 40:34-38; Numbers 9:15-23).

The theme that God dwells with His people was fulfilled with the coming of Jesus Christ. In fact, the tabernacle foreshadowed the fact that Christ would become incarnate and dwell among us. “The Word became flesh and lived for a while [tabernacled] among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Christ’s glory superseded the bright cloud of glory. Now Christ sends His Holy Spirit like a cloud of fire to make His church and His people into a tabernacle of God (Acts 2:2-4; 1 Corinthians 3:10-17; 6:19).

The tabernacle expresses another side to the character of God, namely, that He is holy and inaccessible. The altar, several ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Part I: Understanding the Different Aspects of the Law
• Part II: Understanding Specific Penalties of the Law