For the past couple of months, a group of us have been
reading through the Bible using Jim Hamilton’s God’s Glory In Salvation Through Judgment as a reading
companion. Reading through the
bible at such a quick pace (we plan to be finished by the end of August) has
made it much easier to see the big picture storyline of Scripture. At each turn, it has been striking to
see how Christ-centered the bible is and that each section of Scripture can
only be rightly interpreted in light of the coming of Christ. That, in turn, has prompted me to
consider how important it is to interpret the
world around me in light of the coming of Christ.
The New Testament is clear that the Old Testament should be
viewed in light of Jesus. The Gospel writers, especially Matthew, repeatedly
show Jesus as the fulfillment of Old Testament Scripture (Mat 1:23; 2:6, 15,18, 23; 3:3; 4;1-11, 14-16; 11:4-6; 12:15-21; 13:34-35; 21:4-5; 26:56). Jesus
Himself viewed the entirety of the Old Testament as a testimony about Him. In
John 5:39, He told the Jews, “you search
the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; It is
these that testify about Me.”
At the time Jesus said this, the New Testament did not exist, so “the
Scriptures” refers to the Old Testament. There is also that glorious scene in Luke 24, where Jesus walked with
two men from Jerusalem to Emmaus, and beginning
with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures
the things concerning himself (Luke 24:27). According to Jesus, the
overarching intent of the Old Testament was to point forward to Him.
This conviction was shared by the apostles. In the book of Acts, Peter, Philip,
Stephen, Paul, and Apollos appealed to the Old Testament to validate the claim
that Jesus was the Christ (Acts 2:14-36; 3:11-26; 4:8-12; 7:1-53; 8:4-5, 26-35;9:20-22; 10:34-43; 13:13-49; 17:1-4, 10-11; 18:24-28; 20:17-27; 24:10-21; 26:1-23;28:23-28). In Romans 3:21-22, Paul
declared that the Law and Prophets bear witness to the “the righteousness of
God through faith in Jesus Christ” (cf Rom 1:1-2; 1 Cor 15:3-5). Peter wrote
that the prophets knew that “the Spirit of Christ in them” was predicting “the
sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories” (1 Pet 1:10-11).
So Jesus and the apostles clearly viewed all of Scripture in
light of Christ. We should do the
same. But if we read all the bible
in light of Christ, shouldn’t we also read the world around us in light of
Christ? The bible records that after
a brief period of perfect fellowship with God, man sinned against God,
resulting in alienation from Him and sin and sickness entering the world. But in the very pronouncement of
judgment, God promised a seed who would vanquish evil and redeem man (Gen3:1-24). That seed was Jesus
Christ. He is the one who would
reverse the effects of the Fall, which He began to do at His first coming and
will finish at His second.
Every instance of sin and its effects, death, sickness, and
suffering all around us is a result of the Fall that cries out for the
redemption of creation, which comes only through Christ. Conversely, every joy
and everything of beauty is evidence of God’s grace, which comes only through
Christ. If all of that is true, we can and should interpret everything around
us in light of Christ and His gospel.
For example, currently we are witnessing a national debate
regarding homosexual marriage. What
the bible teaches us about Christ should inform the way we view this
issue. God’s Word reveals that
homosexuality is an abomination to Yahweh and as such condemns a person to
eternal torment (Lev 18:22, 20:13; 1 Cor 6:9-10; Matt 13:41-42). Man’s inability
to deal with his own sin is the reason a Savior was necessary. Homosexuality in our culture should
remind us of how essential the coming of Christ was and is for saving sinners.
Every time we hear talk about the permanence of a person’s
sexual orientation or the inability of homosexuals to change, we should be
reminded that Scripture testifies that in Christ this too can be changed – “…and such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you
were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our
God” (1 Cor 6:9-11). In other words, viewing homosexuality in
light of Christ helps us to see this issue in terms of the necessity and
sufficiency of the Savior.
But what about homosexual marriage? Christ
should inform our understanding of this, too. Marriage is intended to be a picture of the union between
Christ and the church (Eph 5:22-33).
To unite a man and a man in marriage is to defile that picture. It takes what is an abomination to God
and seeks to join it with what is sacred to God. It is a defamation of Christ Himself. We can and should view homosexual
marriage in light of Christ.
We should interpret everything in the world in a similar
fashion. All sin, immorality, and
suffering should remind us of the brokenness of creation, a problem that only
Jesus is able to fix. All joy
and goodness should remind us that redemption and eternal bliss can only be
found in Him. He is the
only hope for this world.
What are your major concerns right now? What difficult decisions do you have to
make? What trials are you
enduring? What political or social
issues are you struggling to understand?
Let me exhort you to look at these things in light of Christ. Apply the coming of the Savior to your
particular situation. The key to
being able to do this is to know what the Bible teaches about Jesus. The more we are in His Word,
understanding all of Scripture in light of Christ, the more we will be able to
understand the world in the same fashion.
Posted by Greg Birdwell
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