Jesus on Every Page

As we’ve been working our way through the book of Acts, we’re seeing that the message of evangelists like Philip and Apostles like Paul can be summed up by the words ‘Jesus Christ’. All they had from which to preach Christ was the Old Testament, but they had no problem doing so.

Given the fact that we can be a lot slower to see Jesus in the Old Testament, one recommended resource on the topic is Jesus on Every Page by David Murray. Here’s a review of the book written by Stephen in 2013 for the Messenger Magazine:

Every so often a book comes along that before even finishing it I start trying to think how I can persuade everyone I know to read it. Last year it was Rosaria Butterfield's The Secret Thoughts of an Unexpected Convert. A few years before that it was Michael LeFebvre's Singing the Songs of Jesus. This year it's David Murray's Jesus on Every Page. As RPCNA pastor Barry York writes in the midst of pages of glowing endorsements: 'If you heard that archaeologists had discovered a genuine book with pictures of Jesus’ life, a diary of his thoughts, and further explanation of his ministry, would you not yearn to have that book in your hands? If you have the Old Testament, you do!'.

The problem the book seeks to tackle is that 'Christians seem to have forgotten that the Old Testament has everything to do with Jesus Christ'. Surveys show that the ratio of Old Testament to New Testament sermons is 1 to 10. Yet even if we sit under a balanced mix of preaching and even if we diligently read as much or more of the Old Testament as we do of the New, we can often fail to see how it relates to Jesus. Occasionally we might come across prophecies or appearances which are pretty clear, but we're far from seeing Jesus on Every Page.

Murray himself took a long time to see the Old Testament in this way. It wasn't until he had gone through 3 years of theological training, been a pastor for a number of years and then been asked to teach Old Testament at the Free Church (Continuing) Seminary before the light even began to dawn. In the first section of the book he retraces the steps of his own journey, focusing especially on how key figures in the New Testament (Jesus, Peter, Paul and John) understood the Bible they preached from.
The ten steps to seek and find Jesus in the Old Testament begin with Creation. Murray recounts how he was asked to speak at a conference on 'Christ in creation'. Sounds like it would be a short talk? He felt the same. Up until then, he thought Genesis 1-2 was all about Creation versus Evolution. Yet being asked to speak at that conference was a turning point for him and in a few short pages he shows that Jesus is everywhere in the Bible's opening chapters; from creating sheep so he could teach sinners about how he is the good Shepherd to creating angels, not because he was lonely but to minister to his needy people - and to himself in Gethsemane.

The next nine steps are similarly short but profound. He covers seeing Jesus in Old Testament characters, appearances, law, history and prophets. His chapter on 'Jesus' Pictures' (Old Testament 'types' or 'visual theology') takes Patrick Fairbairn's 700 page pre-cut-and-paste classic on the topic and reduces it to 10. The chapter on 'Christ's Promises' is really a masterly introduction to what is in fact Covenant Theology, but with the usual jargon replaced by terms like 'The Covenant of the Defeated Serpent'. In fact, the book is really a Christ-centred Bible overview. It's God's Big Picture but simpler and more Jesus-focused.

He also challenges popular conceptions of God's people before 1AD. They didn't trust in works righteousness or an earthly king. Neither did they just have some vague hope of a Messiah to come. They had a lot clearer understanding of Jesus than we often give them credit for. As Mr and Mrs Israelite read the Old Testament, they were always peering over the horizon for the one who was to come.

The book finishes by looking at Christ's Proverbs and Christ's Poems. Proverbs, 'the Old Testament Twitter', and the 10 Commandments are both expositions of Jesus' life. The section on the psalms brings the book towards a fitting climax; the fact that many have thrown out their psalters and replaced them with gospel choruses is 'because of a fundamental misunderstanding of Old Testament theology'. And in light of everything that's gone before, guess what? He doesn't think the Song of Solomon is about marriage guidance!

Every Christian will benefit from this book. Anyone who teaches the Bible in any capacity (whether to your children, in Sunday School or to a congregation) will find help for that task. Murray started off writing this book for pastors but then scrapped that idea and aimed it at everyone. It even includes study questions, which actually look good! I couldn't recommend it more highly.

The Gospel According to Leviticus

Statistically, if you’ve made it to February in your Bible reading plan, you’re past the time of year when most people drop off. Doubtless however it’s still a month when some begin to flag - as many reading plans take people through the last half of Exodus, quickly followed by Leviticus.

However the introduction to Andrew Bonar’s 1846 A Commentary on the Book of Leviticus, Expository and Practical (reprinted by Banner of Truth and also available as a properly digitised free PDF) may be just the shot in the arm that some need to keep going.

In fact, even the protracted nature of all these instructions for the tabernacle and its sacrifices should give us pause for thought before throwing in the towel. Bonar quotes Witsius’ remark that:

God took only six days [for] creation, but spent forty days with Moses in directing him to make the tabernacle – because the work of grace is more glorious than the work of creation.

But why do we still need types and allegories when we have the real thing?

Types were originally intended ‘to deepen, expand, and ennoble the circle of thoughts and desires, and thus heighten the moral and spiritual wants…of the chosen people’ (quoting Hahn).

Yet even today, according to Bonar they imprint in us wisdom which lasts ‘when bare words go but in at the one ear and out at the other’.

William Tyndale agrees that even once we have found Christ, we can use allegories and examples to open Christ even unto believers, and in fact ‘can declare [him] more lively and sensibly with them than with all the words of the world’.

Types not only simplify truth, they also help us understand better truth we already know. Indeed, ‘The existence of a type does not always argue that the thing typified is obscurely seen, or imperfectly known’.

Above all, the use of types shows us God’s grace. ‘Our Heavenly Father has condescended to teach his children by most expressive pictures; and, even in this, much of his love appears’.

How much did they know?

When it comes to interpreting Leviticus, we aren’t left to make it up as we go along, but find principles set out in the book of Hebrews. And in fact, the way the author of Hebrews writes ‘leads us to suppose that it was no new thing for an Israelite thus to understand the ritual of Moses’.

Bonar traces this understanding back to Anna and Simeon in Luke 2 who ‘frequented the temple daily in order to read in its rites future development of a suffering Saviour’. They were included in those of 1 Peter 1.10 who ‘knew that they prophesied of the grace that was to come to us, and, therefore, inquired and searched diligently’.

In fact, Bonar holds out the tantalising possibility that some of the priests may have had revealed to them the full significance of what they were doing:

Had Aaron, or some other holy priest of his line, been "carried away in the spirit" and shown the accomplishment of all that these rites prefigured, how joyful ever afterwards would have been his daily service in the sanctuary. When shown the great antitype, and that each one of these shadows pictured something in the person or work of that Redeemer, then, ever after, to handle the vessels of the sanctuary, would be rich food to his soul

He even goes as far as to say:

[T]he bondage of these elements did not consist in sprinkling the blood, washing in the laver, waving the wave-shoulder, or the like; but in doing all this without perceiving the truth thereby exhibited. Probably to a true Israelite, taught of God, there would be no more of bondage in handling these material elements, than there is at this day to a true believer in handling the symbolic bread and wine through which he "discerns the body and blood of the Lord.

Whether we'd agree with him or not, surely better to give these Old Testament saints too much credit rather than too little!

Christ Shines Through

Perhaps the fact that Leviticus was 'a much-neglected book' even in Scotland at the time of the Disruption is because of our tendency to forget the one principle of which Bonar said nothing 'is more obviously true'. That is, 'the belief that Christ is the centre-truth of revelation'. These Old Testament shadows are, after all, 'projected from Christ "the body"' (cf Col 2.17). From the beginning it has been this Messiah that has been 'the chief object to be unveiled to the view of men'.

The reason that 'many Levitical rites appear to us unmeaning' is because we're looking at them the wrong way:

As it is said of the rigid features of a marble statue, that they may be made to move and vary their expression so as even to smile, when a skilful hand knows how to move a bright light before it; so may it be with these apparently lifeless figures

And even if we don’t see it completely now, one day we will fully ‘learn how not one tittle of the law has failed’.

A word from M’Cheyne

Bonar is perhaps best known for his Memoir and Remains of the Rev. Robert Murray M'Cheyne. Amidst Bonar's own gems in this introduction is one from his recently-departed friend in what seems to have been an unpublished letter to Bonar himself. M'Cheyne used the example of a stranger wrapped in a veil ;  if some of his features were pointed out you could get some idea of what he was like:

But suppose that one whom you know and love-whose features you have often studied face to face-were to be veiled up in this way, how easily you could discern the features and form of this Beloved One! Just so, the Jews looked upon a veiled Saviour, whom they had never seen unveiled. We, under the New Testament, look upon an unveiled Saviour; and, going back on the Old, we can see, far better than the Jews could, the features and form of Jesus the Beloved, under that veil.

So why struggle on with Leviticus?

To those beginning to flag, Bonar would urge:

But let us proceed to the contents of this Book. It will be found that it contains a full system of truth, exhibiting sin and the sinner, grace and the Saviour; comprehending, also, details of duty, and openings into the ages to come, – whatever, in short, bears upon a sinner's walk with a reconciled God, and his [conduct] in this present evil world.

It is "The Gospel according to Leviticus" and "the clearest book of Jewish gospel".

NB: A more recent (and a bit more technical) book on Leviticus that comes highly recommended is Michael Morales’ Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the LORD?

Overview of Nehemiah

In our morning services, we’ve just finished working our way through the book of Nehemiah. In light of that, Stephen was asked to write an overview of the book for the Messenger Magazine (RPCI youth magazine that has recently gone online-only). You can read it below or on the Messenger website:

In the aftermath of Covid, the theme of rebuilding is at the forefront of many people’s minds. Nations around the world are wondering how they can rebuild their economies after the events of the last two years. Business owners are trying to rebuild their businesses after lockdowns, and many people are wondering if friendships can be rebuilt after not seeing the other person for a year or more.

For churches, too, the minds of many will be on rebuilding – whether in terms of fractured relationships as people have disagreed over restrictions, numerical decline as those worshipping in our churches before covid have now moved elsewhere, stopped worshipping anywhere, or are now simply no longer physically able to be present.

So the challenges of rebuilding our lives and our churches in the wake of Covid are enough in themselves to make us turn to the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which are all about rebuilding. But far more profound than recovering from Covid is that need to rebuild in the face if the longer-term decline of the church of Jesus Christ in the UK. To fight back against compromise, distraction, defeatism and loss of purpose. And such rebuilding is at the very heart of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.

There’s a bit of debate as to whether Nehemiah should be regarded as a separate book, or just as the final part of the book of Ezra. Even if we choose to consider the book of Nehemiah separately, it’s important to remember that the process of rebuilding had already started and stopped a number of times before Nehemiah arrived. Nehemiah is actually the third person to come back to Jerusalem to lead the work of rebuilding – which in itself is a reminder that God’s work doesn’t begin and end with us.

In 587BC, the nation of Judah had been taken into exile in Babylon for their sin (other deportations took place in 605 and 582). In 538BC, a man called Zerubbabel had come back with some other exiles and they had rebuilt the altar – and then after much opposition – and with over two decades in between – rebuilt the temple (you can read about that in Ezra chapters 1-6). The rebuilding of the temple in 515BC came about after encouragement by the prophets Haggai and Zechariah.

Then, 13 years before Nehemiah shows up, Ezra had led a second wave of returning exiles. By that time, the people had again fallen into sin, and so Ezra had preached God’s word and led them in repentance. We read about that in Ezra 7 through 10 (Ezra chapter 7 is the first mention of Ezra in the book – the events of the first six chapters took place 80 years before he arrived in Jerusalem!). The prophet Malachi probably ministered in Jerusalem between the time of Zerubbabel and Ezra.

Nehemiah’s story begins when he’s serving the Persian king Artaxerxes. His brother returns from Judah and Nehemiah hears that the returned exiles are ‘in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are destroyed by fire’ (1:3). Nehemiah responds by weeping, fasting and praying. As the old Scottish preacher Alexander Maclaren once commented: ‘No man will do worthy work at rebuilding the walls who has not wept over the ruins’.

Nehemiah’s weeping was undoubtedly not simply over the state of Jerusalem, but over ‘the dismal failure of the remnant to carry out the purpose of their return’ (Maclaren). This failure stemmed not so much from a deliberate refusal to do what they knew they should, but from a spirit of defeatism – which can so easily infect our churches and sap our strength. Those in Jerusalem only saw the obstacles – Nehemiah saw them too, but he also knew the power of God.

After praying about it for some months, Nehemiah took an opportunity that arose to ask the king’s permission to go to Jerusalem and begin the work of rebuilding. The rest of chapters 2-6 describe the process of rebuilding, and the opposition that Nehemiah faced from the ‘unholy Trinity’ of Tobiah, Sanballat and Geshem. Despite this, and despite efforts even from some of their own people to undermine the work, the wall was finished in fifty-two days. This was much to the dismay of their enemies, who ‘perceived that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God’.

If chapters 1-6 describe the physical rebuilding of the city, chapters 7-13 describe the spiritual rebuilding of the people. We see in these chapters how the greatest threat to the prosperity of God’s people comes not from their enemies, but from their own sin. Chapters 8-11 describe a time of Reformation and Revival where the people ask Ezra to read from the Book of the Law of Moses. As God’s word is read and explained the people weep at how far short they’ve fallen, joyfully make changes to their lives based on what they’ve heard, confess their sins and make a solemn covenant with God. Some of the people also willing chose to go and live in Jerusalem – putting the interests of God’s people above their own, even when it comes to where to set up home.

The book ends disappointingly, however. 12 years after the period of rebuilding and their covenant with God, Nehemiah returns to Jerusalem after some time away to find the people systematically breaking their covenant commitments. Although Nehemiah shows courageous leadership in the face of compromise and calls the people back to being who they say they are, you get the sense that his final reforms won’t be any more successful than others in bringing about permanent in change. In that way, the end of the book of Nehemiah points us forward to Jesus Christ, a leader who has the power to bring true and permanent change – not just to our outward behaviour, but to our hearts.  

What does God teach us in the book?
- Like every part of the Bible, the book of Nehemiah ultimately points us to Jesus Christ. As Nehemiah left a glittering career to return to Jerusalem and wept over the state of the city, he points us forward to one who would give up far more (Phil 2:6-8), weep over the same city (Luke 19:41), but go further than Nehemiah and not just risk his life but actually give up his life for his people.

- The book of Nehemiah also shows that there’s nothing greater we could devote our lives to than seeing the church of Jesus Christ built up. Yes, it will involve sacrifice and opposition, and there will be many things that could discourage us. But doing so will result in much joy (8:10, 12:43) as we follow in the footsteps of the one who ‘loved the church and gave himself up for her’ (Eph 5:25).

- Nehemiah also repeatedly highlights areas where we’ll be tempted to become like the world around us: Intermarrying with them (10:30; 13:23-29), buying from them on the Sabbath (10:31; 13:15-22), and failing to give to God’s work (10:32-29; 13:10-14). The terrible consequences that a believer marrying an unbeliever will tend to have on any children resulting from the marriage is particularly highlighted (13:24).

- In the characters of Nehemiah and Ezra we also see the state (represented by Nehemiah) working for the good of the church (represented by Ezra). There is no concept that the state should attempt to be neutral when it comes to God’s law.

- In chapter 10 we see a time of Reformation and Revival culminating in the people covenanting themselves to God. In our own day we should expect to see Reformation and Revival leading to a recommitment to the covenant these islands have already made to God (The Solemn League & Covenant of 1643).

- The book ends as it begins by pointing us to Jesus Christ. When Nehemiah returns to Jerusalem, he finds that the people have fallen away from their covenant commitments in his absence. This points us forward to the return of one greater than Nehemiah, and the question: ‘When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?’ (Luke 18:8)

- This disappointing end to the book – even though the people are back in the Promised Land, with the temple and walls rebuilt, worship restored and their enemies subdued – shows us that we need Jesus, not just outward Reformation.