Jesus in the Old Testament: Jesus and David

*Jesus in the Old Testament – Week 2: Jesus and David

TERMS TO KNOW:

Last week David did a quick overview for this series, but I want to reiterate some important terms. As we go through this series these terms are important to your understanding of how Jesus in the New Testament is found throughout the Old Testament.

*Typology (or typological symbolism) : a Christian form of biblical interpretation that proceeds on the assumption that God placed anticipations of Christ in the laws, events, and people of the Old Testament.

Typology is how we look at different people, rituals, and events in the Old Testament and how they are a type or a foreshadowing of Christ. David talked last week about how Adam was a type of Christ and foreshadowed Christ as the man that all creation was affected. Through the sin of Adam, the first man created, all of mankind was condemned. Through the sacrifice of one man, Jesus, who was both fully God and fully man, all those that God would call were redeemed. This is Justification. That Jesus took our place and God justified us so that we could be saved.

The other term we need to know is

*Christology – the branch of Christian theology relating to the person, nature, and role of Christ.

Christology is quite literally the study of Christ. We don’t want to look at just the life of Christ, or how we live our lives like Jesus. If we only focus on one aspect of Christ then we will be limited in our understanding of who He is. Instead we must study and look throughout the entire Bible to to find Jesus and know Him.

*2 Corinthians 3:14 says, “But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away.”

The old covenant was veiled to those that studied it. It was not possible to look through the prophecies of the messiah and identify who the messiah would be. They had these prophecies that gave glimpses of what to look for, but even the prophets did not know who the messiah would be. There was only a shadow of who Christ was that could be seen until the point in time He was born in Bethlehem, the City of David. It was only through the supernatural work of Christ that this veil was lifted. No longer did men only see a shadow of who God would send, but instead they now saw the son of God fully in His divinity.

*IMPORTANCE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

*To fully know who Jesus is requires both the New Testament and the Old Testament. Often we see a tendency in churches and in personal studies to focus more on the New Testament and besides things like the 10 commandments we largely ignore much of the Old Testament. We fail to look and study in depth on the prophecy and history of the Jewish people and instead focus on the life of Christ and Pauls letters on how we should live as Christians.

John MacArthur points out that In the New Testament we see

*The Gospels - The Historic Jesus

*Acts and Epistles - The Theological Jesus

*Revelation - The Eschatological Jesus

but to truly know who Christ is and to truly follow Him with all we have, we must study to know every aspect we can of who Christ is. This means going back to the Old Testament to see Christ everywhere we can find Him and in the Old Testament we see the prophetic Jesus.

*Old Testament - The Prophetic Jesus

From the beginning of Genesis with the creation of Adam, to the blood on the doorposts as Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, to Abraham and the sacrifice of his only son Isaac, we see over and over again the image, the type, the shadow of the Christ that was to come and fulfill God’s covenant that He would provide a way for the forgiveness of sin. The Old Testament is what points to the promise of the messiah. Why a savior was needed and how He would come, what He would look like, what He would do, where He would come from…

*The heart that does not hunger to know Him, will be the heart that struggles to obey Him - John MacArthur

We hear the term on fire for God and it is something that is seen in the life of a new follower many times. God saves them, changes their life and they have to tell everyone around them. Over time as we allow life to get in the way we tend to find it harder to spend time studying the word of God, and spend time in prayer. We find the fire may not go out but it doesn’t burn as bright as it once did. We must have a hunger and a fire to study God’s Word, to know Christ in every way we possibly can. We must look to God and pray that He once again rekindles that flame in our lives and we must change our focus that we keep it entirely on God and His plan and not on what our earthly and fleshly desires might dictate. If we don’t know someone and they come up to us and start telling us what we need to do our tendency would be to brush them off or even find offense and think our way is better. What is the difference though if it is someone we know and trust? How would we find ourselves responding differently? If we study and hunger to know everything about Jesus and who He truly is, then obedience is a natural response because we understand His grace and His love. When we understand His grace and His love then we understand that we can trust Him in every area of our lives. Even if we think a different direction would be better or even if the direction God has for us hurts, we know that through the love of Christ God takes the worst of our lives and turns it for His glory.

Christ is foreshadowed throughout the Old Testament by different people, different rituals, different events. Foreshadowing literally means that the example we see in scripture is a shadow of what is to come in Christ. Going back to Adam, Adam foreshadowed Christ. As we read in 1 Corinthians. There is a veil, there is only a shadow, we can only see an outline faintly, we can get an idea but it’s not until the New Testament that the veil is lifted, and we no longer see only a shadow but the fullness of Christ.

*WHO WAS DAVID

*Youngest son of Jesse

We will see that when Samuel came to look for and anoint the new king David was left in the field with the sheep as the youngest and smallest of his brothers while all the other brothers were brought before Samuel one by one.

*Man after God’s own heart

*1 Samuel 13:13-14 13 And Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the Lord your God, with which he commanded you. For then the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. 14 But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be prince over his people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.”

*The 2nd king of Israel.

David became the King after Saul and was the 2nd king of Israel. Not only though was He the second King but He became known as THE King of Israel. Not just one of the many kings through time but THE king. Something to know is that it was never God’s design for Israel to have a king. As the people of Israel saw the other nations around them that had a king over them they cried out to God to give them a king. The people chose Saul and God allowed him to be the first king but, David, the 2nd king, was chosen by God to be the king that God appointed.

*Worshiper and Songwriter

*1 Samuel 16:23 - 23 And whenever the harmful spirit from God was upon Saul, David took the lyre and played it with his hand. So Saul was refreshed and was well, and the harmful spirit departed from him.

Not only was David a musician but he wrote songs to the LORD as well. Out of the 150 psalms in the book it is thought that David wrote at least 73 of them.

*Adulterer

2 Samuel 11 – David sees a woman bathing on the rooftop from his palace and asks for information on her. He finds out her name is Bathsheba, and she is the wife of Uriah the Hittite. He sends for her and sleeps with her. She then becomes pregnant

*Murderer

This results in David trying to first mask his sin by bringing Uriah home from war to sleep with his wife so he would assume the child was his own. When this doesn’t work and Uriah doesn’t go home, David sends Uriah to the front of the battle so that he would most definitely die. After this was done, and the time of mourning was passed, David then married Bathsheba.

*WAYS THAT DAVID FORESHADOWED CHRIST

*Jesus would be THE king like David. Not just a King but THE King.

*Matthew 1:6 6 and Jesse the father of David the king.

*Matthew 2:6 “‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’”

The very beginning of Matthew is something we may tend to gloss over. Reading through genealogies can seem boring but Matthew begins his gospel with the lineage of Jesus for a very important reason. This lineage not only shows that Jesus comes through the line of David but the connection of Bethlehem. Bethlehem was considered the city of David as it is where David and his family originated from. Bethlehem was the site of the original THE king of Israel that God chose for the people of Israel and would also be the birthplace of the one sent from God to shepherd His people and ultimately give His life for the sheep

*Jesus is the horn of salvation that is spoken of in Psalm and then the fulfillment in the prophesy of Zechariah

*Psalm 132:17 There I will make a horn to sprout for David; I have prepared a lamp for my anointed.

*Luke 1:67 – 69 67 And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying, 68 “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people 69 and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David,

*Jesus is the son of David

*Matthew 9:27 27 And as Jesus passed on from there, two blind men followed him, crying aloud, “Have mercy on us, Son of David.”

This is a messianic, kingly title. Others might be known as a son of David, if they descended through that bloodline, but the OT prophecies talked of THE son of David being the Messiah just as David was THE King of Israel. Matthew refers to Jesus coming from David’s bloodline 9 different times in his Gospel alone.

*Matthew 12:23 23 And all the people were amazed, and said, “Can this be the Son of David?”

*Matthew 21:9 9 And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”

*Psalm 22 - The Imprecatory Psalm

*The imprecatory psalms deal with the wrath of God and ways it is seen. These psalms are those that

*imprecate - invoke judgment, calamity or curses upon one's enemies or those perceived as the enemies of God. There are 14 psalms that are considered imprecatory. In Psalm 22 we see the wrath as it was poured out on Christ on the cross as He took the punishment for all our sin.

This is written by David, but the words reflect Christ especially when we think of the opening verses

*Psalm 22:1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?

*Matthew 27:46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

*The anointing of David as King was disguised as a sacrifice

*1 Samuel 16:2 2 And Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears it, he will kill me.” And the Lord said, “Take a heifer with you and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’

*To prevent the anger of Saul when Samuel went to find and anoint the new king of Israel. The one that God had chosen to be king, he did so with the understanding that he was only going to sacrifice to God. In this we see that David was to be anointed king but a sacrifice was required as well. Jesus was THE king over all creation, and His sacrifice provided salvation.

*David was rejected by his family and Jesus is rejected by Israel

*1 Samuel 17:20 20 And David rose early in the morning and left the sheep with a keeper and took the provisions and went, as Jesse had commanded him. And he came to the encampment as the host was going out to the battle line, shouting the war cry.

David was left with the sheep while his brothers were sent to fight for Israel. Even when David was being anointed king, all of his brothers were brought before Samuel and were each rejected, when Samuel asked if Jesse had any other sons someone had to be sent to bring David from the sheep. He was not the first chosen in his family. He was the young one, the small one, but He was the one God chose even though everyone else rejected him. We see this reflected in Christ as well

*Isaiah 53:2-3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

The prophecy in Isaiah speaks of the future messiah and that He would be rejected. This rejection came from His own chosen people. The ones that had been searching and waiting for messiah their entire lives could not see Him right in front of them. He was despised and rejected, He died in the most humiliating, painful method at the time.

*David was not only the King, but His identity was that of the shepherd. Jesus is not only our King but He is called “the Good Shepherd”

*1 Samuel 17:34-36 34 I work as a shepherd for my father. Whenever a lion or a bear has come and attacked one of my lambs, 35 I have gone after it and struck it down to rescue the lamb from the predator’s mouth; if it turned to attack me, I would take it by the chin, beat it, and kill it. 36 I have killed both a lion and a bear; and as your servant I will kill this uncircumcised Philistine, too, since he has dared to taunt the armies of the living God.

*John 10:11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Jesus becomes the ultimate fulfillment of being a shepherd that David could only foreshadow. David risked his life to protect the sheep he had under his care. Jesus is the good shepherd who laid His life down for the sheep the Father has called His own. Not only are we Sons and Daughters of God but God came down to earth, in flesh as the Son of God, to lay His life down for us.

*WHY IS ALL OF THIS IMPORTANT

*The prophecies of the Old Testament would show the Messiah to the Jews and then to the Gentiles

As we continue in the book of Acts in a few weeks we will see that the followers of Jesus would use the Old Testament to declare Him as God in the synagogues. The education of a Jewish boy would have been to study the Torah and the words of the prophets, these scrolls were read aloud in the synagogues to all the people, if you were Jewish you would have known these prophecies that told of the coming Messiah. By showing how Jesus fulfilled not just one or a few, but all of these prophecies, the case would be made that Jesus is the long awaited Messiah.

*Jesus used the Old Testament to declare to the people that He was the Son of God.

*Luke 4:18-21 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”

*20 And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Jesus declared that He was the fulfillment of scripture. He was the one that they had waited and looked for. He declared the fulfillment of the prophecies and the lifting of the veil that showed only a shadow.

Jesus shows that salvation is seen in the Old Testament.

*John 5:39 39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,

He tells the temple leaders that the scriptures that they spent their lives studying, have been fulfilled and they all are telling of Him. Even in the Old Testament we see salvation throughout. Not only does God save Israel over and over again, but the prophecies of the ultimate salvation are told.

*God uses imperfect people to reflect His glory

The amazing thing when we look throughout the Old Testament at the people that foreshadowed Christ, and even at the people in the direct lineage of Christ, we see failure, after failure in their lives. We see people that were drunkards (Noah), Prostitutes (Rahab), Gentiles (Ruth), Adulterers and Murderers (David). We see that God takes the absolute worst of us and He uses us for His glory and His purpose. There is nothing too great, no sin we could commit that would turn God from us.

*Those God has called to be His will see their lives, used for the ultimate glory of God and His will.

*We see God’s stamp throughout all of history and creation and the image of His Son Jesus throughout the Old Testament

God didn’t leave us to wonder vaguely who the Messiah would be or what His plan was. God gave us prophecy after prophecy, and person after person that foreshadowed Christ and were types of Christ so that while we were waiting we would see dimly and our sight would be veiled, but when we see Christ we can know Him for all of His majesty as THE Son of God, the second member in the Trinity, God Himself.

CONCLUSION

*The whole Bible exists for one reason, to point to Jesus.

*Old Testament - The prophetic Jesus

Why We need a Savior

What to look for to identify the Savior

The promise of a Savior

*The Gospels - The Historic Jesus

The story of the life on earth of the Savior

*Acts and the Epistles - The Theological Jesus

The story of the beginning of people being pointed to Christ and letters to the churches of how we should point to Christ

*Revelation - The Eschatological Jesus

The Savior will return and will create a new heaven and a new earth

*God still uses imperfect people to show His glory

God takes the worst in our lives, and He turns it for His glory and His will. The sovereignty of God means that no matter what happens or what troubles we may face we can rest and trust in Him because He already knows what’s going to happen before it ever does, and He has already planned to work it for His glory. When it seems like our backs are against the wall and we have no place to go we can look throughout scripture and see the promises God has made repeatedly, and we can see the promise of Jesus shown repeatedly. A promise of redemption, salvation, justification, and eternal peace with Christ.

*Studying the typologies of Christ not only builds our faith, but shows how we are to be types of Christ as well

*2 Corinthians 3:18 18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

The veil has been lifted from our faces and we are being transformed through sanctification, into the image of God. The image of Christ. We are the type of Christ to those around us. If we live our lives for Him then the veil is lifted as people see Jesus through our actions and words. We are His image bearers and His hands and feet. Our sole purpose is to carry out the will of the Father and glorify Him above all!

Our lives should be bearing the fruits of the Spirit

People should see the fruits of the spirit at work in our lives.

*Galatians 5:22-23 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

There is a supernatural aspect when the fruit of the spirit is evident in our lives. We don’t just have love in our lives but we love all regardless of how they may have wronged us, we aren’t just happy but we have joy that even in the darkest of situations we can trust in Christ, we have peace that no matter what may happen we can cling all the more to the hem of Jesus’ garment and He will lift us up and we will walk with Him. When God is at work in our lives it is evident to anyone and everyone we encounter.

This doesn’t mean we don’t sin but that we live our daily lives avoiding sin and when we do fall, we repent and pick ourselves back up again. I have said it time and time again and will continue to say it, the difference between a sinner and a saint is the sinner falls and wallows in the filth of their sin, the sinner finds temporal happiness in the things they do but the saint, the true follower of Christ, falls then picks themselves back up, repents, and continues the path set before them towards Jesus.

*How can we reflect Christ in our daily lives?

*What are areas we need to make changes to truly live for Christ?

*Are the fruits of God’s Spirit evident in our lives?

*We are to be types of Christ to those around us and in so doing help lift the veil to reveal His love and mercy to the world.