Like any great writer, the Lord foreshadows late happenings in early happenings. Like many greater writers, the Lord ends where he begins, returning to a glorified Edenic city-sanctuary at the end of his cosmic story. The Lord writes with history, real people and events, not merely with words. But His writing of history is like the writing with words.
But if we only read the Old Testament for snapshots of Jesus, we have not captured fully how the Old Testament reveals Him. Typology is often done statically, atemporally. But that’s to mistake what typology is. Typology simply is a theology of time – a Trinitarian theology of time, about nonidentical repetition in God’s history that manifests the nonidentical repetition of God as Father, Son, and Spirit.
When we look at the Old Testament from this angle, it is not a series of snapshots but a story – a film. And it’s a story that not only foreshadows but – in, with, under the foreshadowing – dynamically moves toward the incarnation of the Eternal Son. It is part of the biography of Jesus because it prepares the way for the gospel story of Jesus, which completes the biography of Jesus. The Old Testament is a part of Jesus’ biography precisely in being unfinished – because it leaves us waiting for something more to happen. We get to the end of Malachi, and we can’t not turn the page to see the final chapter.
Unfulfilled Promise
It moves toward the incarnation partly by showing the failure of all earlier messiahs, saviors, and sacrifices. Moses led Israel from Egypt, delivered the law He received on Sinai, interceded for Israel, led Israel through the land, but even Moses couldn’t write the law on the hearts of the Israelites. In spite of Moses’ ministry, Israel remained a stiff-necked people. Israel’s sacrificial system enabled Israel to draw near to God. They could be cleansed with regard to flesh, and come near in Yahweh’s courts. But the sacrifices had to keep going. One day of atonement wasn’t enough. You needed to do another one next year. It was clearly incomplete.
David was a great king, a man of faith, a hero of Israel. He saved Israel from the Philistines, and established the kingdom of Israel as a minor power in the Middle East. He brought the ark into Jerusalem and gathered the plunder of the nations to prepare to build the temple. He reorganized the priesthood into a choir and orchestra so that Yahweh would be worshiped in glory in His house. Because of David’s own sins, and because of the sins of the people, David’s kingdom did not endure. After Solomon’s death, the kingdom divided and the great glory of David’s kingdom was lost.
It got worse as the history of the monarchy continued. Instead of promoting the worship of Yahweh, they officially promoted the worship of golden calves and Baals. Instead of establishing righteousness, they established injustice. Eventually, the kingdom collapsed, and Israel was given over into the hand of Gentile powers. And even when Israel returned to the land after the exile, they never again achieved the glory of the kingdoms of David and Solomon.
And so we come to the end of the Old Testament with a sense of frustration. This is the biography of God, of God’s marriage to Israel. Yet, at the end of the day, things have not worked out as they should have. God called Abraham to be the agent for the reversal of the sin of Babel, and ultimately as the agent for reversing the effects of the sin of Adam. Yet, Abraham’s children are part of the problem, not part of the solution. The Old Testament doesn’t end tragically. A tragic end would be dramatic, titanic. The Old Testament’s ending is not titanic. It’s disappointing. It doesn’t end with a comic bang, nor a tragic bang. The Old Testament ends with a whimper.
God for Israel
This disappointment permeates the Old Testament. None of the OT heroes, heroic as they are, bring in a new creation. But this disappointment is also part of the biography of Jesus. We come to the end of the Old Testament and think that there’s got to be more to the story. We want to see what is going to happen next, because we are convinced that something is going to happen next. We are convinced that Yahweh, the God of Israel, is not going to let the defeat of His plans stand. And we are fully justified in thinking this because of what the Old Testament tells us about God. We are justified in thinking that something is going to happen, the best thing is going to happen, because of what the Old Testament has revealed about the biographical subject, Yahweh. Like all biographies, the Old Testament is designed above all to reveal the character and personality of the principal figure – Yahweh. In fact, I think we can actually gain a sense of what Yahweh will do next by extrapolating from what He has done, what He’s revealed about Himself. What have we learned about Yahweh’s character?
First, we’ve learned that Yahweh has bound His own name with Israel. He has bound Himself with His bride, and in a sense takes on His bride’s name as surely as she takes on His. He identifies Himself by His works, and specifically by His works for Israel. When Moses asks about His name, He doesn’t identify Himself as “Being” or “The Nameless One” or “The Greatest Good” or “That which nothing greater can be conceived.” He doesn’t give Himself a philosophical name. He gives Himself a name that ties Him to the patriarchs. The name “I am” has often been interpreted in philosophical terms, but Yahweh immediately goes on to expound His name with reference to the patriarchs.
And a few chapters later, Yahweh reinforces this point: “I am Yahweh, and I am the one who makes promises and keeps promises” (Exodus 6). Who is God? He’s the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Elijah, Nehemiah. He is the God of Israel. He has bound Himself to His people. If Israel fails, then God has failed. If the promises to the patriarchs are not fulfilled, then God’s reputation, His name, is not true or faithful. Then His righteousness is thrown into question. He is either powerless to perform His promises, or has backed off from those promises. Either way, the failure of Israel will bring shame on the Name of Yahweh. Is He going to let that happen? Surely not. He’s the God of Israel, He’s God-for-Israel, and He won’t leave Israel in the grave. He has committed Himself and His infinite resources – He’s staked His name on what He does with Israel. We come to the end of the Old Testament knowing that He will do something.
Yahweh is God-for-Israel, but the Old Testament has also revealed Him as God-with-Israel. He doesn’t deal with Israel from a distance. He doesn’t pull a few levers and push a few buttons. He enters the life of Israel in order to fulfill His promises. He promises to be with them and dwell among them. This is often described as the “Emmanuel” promise of the covenant. And throughout the Old Testament, Yahweh is beginning to fulfill that promise. He is with Israel and for Israel when he delivers His word through Moses. He is with Israel and among Israel when His glory descends from Sinai and settles over the cherubim in the Most Holy Place of the tabernacle. He is with Israel and among Israel as the Angelic warrior who leads Joshua against the Canaanites. Yahweh hides behind curtains, but He’s promised to be with Israel.
So, we know that Yahweh is going to do something, and we can anticipate that He’s going to do it by coming to Israel. We anticipate that He will reverse our disappointments by being with Israel, and we may begin to suspect that He will do it in a way that He’s never been before.
Divine Lament
Finally, the Old Testament reveals that Yahweh not only comes to be with His people, but also suffers over His people and with His people. When Israel opposes Him in the wilderness, He is grieved (Psalm 78:40-41). When Israel turns from Him to other gods, He reacts with the wrath of a wounded lover. In several passages in Jeremiah, the laments of the prophet shade off into laments of Yahweh Himself.
The God who is God-for-Israel, and God-with-Israel does not stand by indifferently as His people continuously fall into sin and continuously rebel against Him. He is not a Stoic God who is unmoved by His people’s rebellion and failure. Instead, the Old Testament reveals a God who is passionately involved in the life of His people, a God who laments and is grieved and is wrathful over the sins of His people, a God who rejoices with shouts of joy over the return of His bride.
In Psalm 78:40, Yahweh says, “How often they rebelled against Him in the wilderness, and grieved Him in the desert,” and verse 41 speaks of their tempting God and “paining” the Holy One “again and again.” Their many acts of resistance to the Lord, and their forgetfulness of His power and acts in Egypt, grieve their Lord. He suffers when they rebel.
When we look at Numbers, where these events are recorded, we hear the voice of the “grieved” Holy One. Numbers 14:11 includes a lament, “How long?” and so does verse 27: “How long?” 14:12 indicates that this plaintive “how long?” is partly wrath: Yahweh is losing patience, and there is a threat in the “how long.” But the phrase is typically used in the Psalms in lament forms. The Psalmist in the midst of his grieving cries out, “How long?” (Ps 6:3; 13:1-2), and Yahweh speaks in the voice of complaint and lament. He speaks in anguish about Israel’s rebellion:
Yahweh said to Moses, How long will this people spurn Me? And how long will they not believe in Me, despite all the signs which I have performed in their midst? I will smite them with pestilence and dispossess them, and I will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they. . . . How long shall I bear with this evil congregation who are grumbling against Me? I have heard the complaints of the sons of Israel, which they are making against Me.
Yahweh often speaks in lament form: as an offended lover, an ignored father, a repudiated husband and king (Is 65:1-2; Jer 2:29-32; 3:19-20; 18:13-15). Yahweh is moved to pity His people when they suffer under the hand of oppressors, even when He sent the oppressors to them (Judges 2:18). In 1-2 Kings, the Lord shows mercy even to kings who were unfaithful (2 Kings 13:1-5; 14:24-27). Yahweh’s pity and grief over Israel are not inconsistent with His wrath. Numbers 14 shows that both are at work when Israel rebels. In a lament form (“how long?”) the Lord threatens to punish Israel, and in other passages too, the lament and the wrath are set side by side. In Jeremiah 9:7-11, the Lord punishes, but in v 10 He begins to weep and wail. Some commentators divide the “I” between verses 10 and 11. But v 11 is clearly Yahweh.
There is also the remarkable lament over Moab in Jeremiah 48:28-36:
Leave the cities and dwell among the crags, O inhabitants of Moab, And be like a dove that nests Beyond the mouth of the chasm. We have heard of the pride of Moab–he is very proud– Of his haughtiness, his pride, his arrogance and his self-exaltation. I know his fury, declares Yahweh, But it is futile; His idle boasts have accomplished nothing. Therefore I will wail for Moab, even for all Moab will I cry out; I will moan for the men of Kir-heres. More than the weeping for Jazer I will weep for you, O vine of Sibmah! Your tendrils stretched across the sea, They reached to the sea of Jazer; Upon your summer fruits and your grape harvest The destroyer has fallen. So gladness and joy are taken away From the fruitful field, even from the land of Moab And I have made the wine to cease from the wine presses; No one will tread them with shouting, The shouting will not be shouts of joy. . . . I will make an end of Moab, declares Yahweh, the one who offers sacrifice on the high place and the one who burns incense to his gods. Therefore My heart wails for Moab like flutes; My heart also wails like flutes for the men of Kir-heres Therefore they have lost the abundance it produced.
It is hard to tell who’s speaking, but that is itself probably significant. In v 31, Yahweh wails for Moab; but in v 35 and 36 the Lord brings an end to Moab: heart sounds like a flute: He set it up, toppled it, and laments that He had to do it.
Jeremiah records a similar lament over Ephraim in chapter 31: “I have surely heard Ephraim grieving, You have chastised me, and I was chastised, like an untrained calf; bring me back that I may be restored, for You are the LORD my God. For after I turned back, I repented; and after I was instructed, I smote on my thigh; I was ashamed and also humiliated because I bore the reproach of my youth. Is Ephraim My dear son? Is he a delightful child? Indeed, as often as I have spoken against him, I certainly still remember him; therefore My heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him, declares Yahweh.”
In the Old Testament, Yahweh suffers over the sins of His people. He doesn’t treat their sins with indifference. If He has suffered with Israel, over Israel, then we can surely expect that He will be willing to suffer for Israel. This is a God whom we can expect to share in Israel’s sufferings. This is a God likely to die for His people.
Now, given that at the end of the Old Covenant, God’s promises are unfulfilled, what would you expected Yahweh to do? Here is a God who identifies with His people, who identifies with His people so intensely that He suffers exile and opposition with them, who is determined to fulfill all that He’s promised His people, and who will stop at nothing to do that. What would you expect this God to do next?
Conclusion
It is often said that the incarnation is wholly unanticipated in the Old Testament, but that’s not true. The Old Testament leads us to think that incarnation would be the most natural thing for Israel’s God to do next. To put it another way, the Old Testament is a biography, but it’s an unfinished biography. It tells the story of Jesus, but it tells the story of Jesus without telling us the main event. But it leads up to the main event.
It’s the most natural thing in the world for Him to draw near to His people by becoming one of them; it is perfectly in keeping with His character to so identify with Israel that He becomes Israel and suffers all they have suffered; it is entirely consistent for Him to go to the extremity of incarnation, the cross, the tomb for the sake of His bride. By revealing this God, the Old Testament reveals Jesus, who is the express image of His Father.
Peter J. Leithart is President of Trinity House.