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Dennis Johnson: Christ, the Key to Scripture. In 1970, my new bride and I drove across the country from Santa Barbara to Philadelphia so that I could go to seminary. I told her I was going to go to seminary for one year to learn a biblical worldview, and then I would become an English professor. That wasn't a bait and switch. She's stuck with me, and so this year will be 49 on Flag Day when you're all here learning about covenants.

I couldn't leave after one year because what I had met at Westminster Seminary was this new to me—I'd grown up in a Christian home—perspective that really the whole Bible finds its integrating center in Christ. It's all leading to Jesus. That has been something that has excited me over many years. I know there are wrong ways to do that.

I have a wonderful story from the 19th-century British pastor Charles Spurgeon, who was sometimes came under criticism for bringing his congregation always to Christ somehow or other. He told the story of a young man who had preached—he says he learned it from a Welsh preacher—who had preached in the presence of a venerable divine. That's a godly pastor. Afterwards, the young man obviously wanted a sermon evaluation. I'm sure everybody wants a sermon evaluation.

The pastor said it was a very poor sermon. The young man was shocked. He had done his homework, and he'd worked on delivery and everything. He asked him, "What was the problem? Did I not treat the text accurately? Did I not bring good reasons and illustrations?" The old man said, "No, all that's fine. But what's the problem?" The old man said, "Well, there was no Christ in it."

The young man said, "I can't just preach Christ from every text if he's not in the text. I have to preach what's in the text." The old man said something like this, "Now young man, don't you know that from every tiny village and hamlet anywhere in England, there is a road of some sort that leads to London, the capital. Your job as a preacher is to find that road and lead your congregation along that road to Christ, the metropolis of the Bible."

The old man said in Spurgeon's story, "I have not yet found a text that has not a road to Christ in it. But if I do find one, I will make a road. I will go over hedge and ditch, but I must get at my Savior. If I don't hear Christ, if a sermon has no savor of Christ in it, no flavor, no aroma of Christ in it, it can do me no good." Often when that illustration of Spurgeon's is quoted, people say, "Hedge and ditch, trying to find some way or other."

Maybe people who have heard a few of Spurgeon's sermons even think he does that sometimes. There's not really a road there, but he'll get you there somehow or other. But that's not the point of the illustration. The point is there really is in the Bible a network, as it were, of roads. If tapestry works better for you as an illustration, you can do that. There's a pattern that leads us to Christ.

Why do we say that? Because the scriptures teach that. All the Old Testament scriptures bear witness about Jesus Christ. Jesus said so himself in John 5. He's talking to his critics, his highly educated biblical scholar critics. He says to them, "You search the scriptures because you think in them you have eternal life, but they testify about me." A few sentences later, he says, "I'm not condemning you. Moses is condemning you because he wrote about me, and you refuse to come to me and trust in me."

So that's to his critics. Then to his disciples at the very end of Luke's Gospel, we have this magnificent chapter about the 40-day Bible study. Maybe not continuous, but it's the sample. In Acts 1, Luke has given us these two volumes: the Gospel about what Jesus began to do and teach up until the time of his ascension, and then the book of Acts about everything he continued to do. In Acts, at the beginning, he says that over the 40 days between his resurrection and his ascension, Jesus taught his disciples about the kingdom of God.

What did he teach them? Luke doesn't have to repeat it all because he's recorded it in Luke 24, two conversations on the day of his resurrection: one with two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and then the other much later that evening to a larger group back in Jerusalem. To the two on the road to Emmaus, who thought they're talking to a stranger, Luke tells us it's Jesus, but they don't know it's Jesus. They don't recognize him.

They think, "How could he not understand that this one that we thought was going to redeem Israel has been handed over to the Romans by our own leaders and put to death? And yes, we've heard the report that women saw angels at the tomb and the angels told them that Jesus was alive, but they didn't see Jesus." These two on the road to Emmaus are very discouraged. This stranger to them does not respond with sympathy and compassion.

Instead, he says, "O foolish men and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary for the Messiah to suffer these things and enter into his glory?" Then he takes them through Moses and the prophets. When the Hebrew people think of the prophets, they don't just think of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the minor prophets. They also think of Joshua and Judges and Samuel and Kings. That's all prophets for them. It's historical narrative, but it's prophets.

Basically all of the Old Testament is summarized by Luke at that point. He shows them the things concerning himself. Later on with the larger group, he takes the larger group through Moses and the prophets and the Psalms. In the way the Hebrew Bible is put together, the Psalms is the first book of the last section. There are three sections, and the last section includes the other wisdom literature and some other books of the Old Testament. So it's really referring to all the Old Testament.

He says, "In the scripture, as I told you, my death and resurrection is announced and that the gospel will be preached to all nations so that they come to repentance and receive forgiveness, and that you are my witnesses. You will be my witnesses when power comes on you from on high, when the Holy Spirit is poured out by my Father." All of that is taught in the Old Testament scriptures.

No wonder elsewhere in the Bible, elsewhere in the New Testament, we learn that the scriptures are about Jesus because Jesus is the only way we can really relate to God. He is the only mediator between God and man. He said so himself in John 14:6 when Thomas said, "Lord, we don't know where you're going. How can we know the way?" Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

The point of the Bible is to lead us back into the relationship of love and communion with God into that covenant as it ought to be with our creator that existed with Adam and Eve before they sinned and will come to fruition in the new heavens and the new earth. That's the point, and the only way we get there is not about trying to keep the rules that the Bible gives us, but about coming through Jesus. No one comes to the Father except through him.

Paul says in 1 Timothy chapter 2, there is one God and one mediator, one who brings us to God, who goes between us and God, between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. Hebrews talks a lot about Jesus as the mediator, the go-between for the new covenant that he talks about from the standpoint of Jeremiah 31's promise. That fits because the only power that can reconcile us to the Father is the death and resurrection of Christ.

The only power that can actually change us so that we're fit eventually to be in the presence of God—the death and resurrection of Christ establishes our legal forgiveness and our legal standing before God—but we know we also need to be changed. The only power that can do that is the grace of God in the gospel. I did not put in your outline—those are all great texts that I put there under point three, Acts 4:12—there is no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved. That's a reference back to Isaiah where the Lord says, "I am God, there is no other; salvation is found in no one else," which applies to Jesus, as Philippians says.

I did not put in your outline 2 Corinthians 3:18. You might want to note that and look at that. It's a great text. Paul's talking about the old covenant and the new covenant. He's talking about the old covenant being read week by week in the Sabbath by the Jewish people who don't believe in Jesus. He says there's a veil that lies over their minds; they don't see that it's pointing to Christ.

But we, because the Lord by grace has taken away the veil from our hearts, we behold the glory of God in the face of Christ, and we are being transformed into that same image. He's painting the picture of Moses on Mount Sinai when Moses goes up to the mountain. The radiant glory of God as God is giving him the command—his face absorbs it so when he comes down to deliver the law to the people, his face is glowing and the people are terrified. He speaks the law and then he covers his face so they don't see that the glory fades.

The glory on Moses's face fades little by little until he goes back up to the mountain and he's recharged, as it were. But the fading, Paul says, is really a reflection of the fact that the old covenant given through Moses is designed to point us to something better. We're being transformed, we're being changed into the image of Christ. Christ is the focal point of God's whole agenda for global history and the entire creation.

Ephesians chapter 1:8-10, let me just take you there. I've been summarizing quickly so we get to things, but here in Ephesians 1, Paul speaks of Christ and he says, "In all wisdom and insight, God has made known to us the mystery of his will according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth." That's where God is leading world history: bring everything together under the lordship of Christ.

How do we see that? How can we begin to read our Bibles, especially thinking about the Old Testament, given all before the birth of Christ, centuries before the coming of the promised Messiah? How can we begin to see all the variety that we find in the Old Testament coming into focus in Christ? What has helped me is to think in terms of covenant, which we looked at just very much too briefly last hour, and particularly the two parties of the covenant, the Lord and the servant of the covenant.

Also to think about those offices of being mediators, being go-betweens that God established for Israel in the Old Testament: the prophets, the priests, and the kings. Those two types of categories help me to begin to get a sense of where the road network through the Bible lies that leads me to the metropolis which is Christ. That's what I want to focus on in this last lecture session, and then we can have some Q&A and maybe hope to clarify these.

Lord and servant. Christ is both because he is the eternal Son, equal in power and glory with the Father and with the Holy Spirit. He is the Lord of the covenant, and in God's grace and mercy, he's also the human servant of the covenant. He's the one and only faithful human servant who has been faithful on behalf of us who have not been faithful.

What are some of the Lord's roles in the covenant and how does Jesus fulfill them? If we look at creation, God establishing his covenant with Adam and humanity in Adam, and we look at Sinai, God establishing his covenant with Israel, those are a couple of good examples of the Lord taking the initiative. He institutes the covenant. Genesis 1 talks about creation in universal terms, the whole universe, and then Genesis 2 focuses in on preparing a garden, setting Adam in the garden to keep it, to serve it, and to protect it—actually is another way we could look at that. To protect it because it's a sanctuary where God meets with his human creatures. God does all of that to initiate the covenant.

Obviously then he commissions Adam and Eve—I didn't give you the verses in chapter 1:26-28—where he authorizes them as those who bear his image to fill the earth, subdue the earth, rule over other creatures. Give them authority but also make them accountable to him. God takes the initiative in his covenant with Israel as well. In fact, that's what the preamble to the Ten Commandments says. God says, "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." That's the short version of everything that we've read from Genesis 1: the fall, all the way through the Exodus in Exodus 18-19. "I have brought you out of slavery. I've taken the initiative to bring you into relationship with myself."

The Lord sets the terms. Genesis 2, the Lord says to Adam, "You can eat of any tree of the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You must not eat it; the day you do, you will die." No reason except, "I say no." God sets the terms. No negotiation. God sets the terms. Obviously in the Ten Commandments, we see God giving one command after another after another. In some of those commands, there is embedded a promise. "If you want to live long on the earth, you honor your father and mother." "If you respect my name, then I show lovingkindness to thousands of generations to those who love me and keep my commandments." But fundamentally, God sets the rules, God sets the commandments.

He provides for his servants' needs. We see that in the lushness of the garden. We see that in the beauty of the promised land that God leads Israel into, a land flowing with milk and honey. You'll never go wanting. You didn't even go wanting in the wilderness where there were no natural means of support, but I gave you water, I gave you manna, even quail now and then. I provide, and I will provide for you in the land. He protects his people from enemy attack. Now I'm jumping out of those two, but it's a beautiful passage where in Ezekiel 34, God says, "I'm the good shepherd. I will protect you from predators of all kinds."

We see the Lord doing that even in the period of the judges, which is a horrible period in Israel's history. They keep running away from God. He keeps bringing foreign powers in to humble them, to drive them to their knees, to drive them to repentance. They repent even if it's very superficially. He will raise up a judge to deliver them. When we get to the opening of Samuel, when the people say, "We want a king like all the nations, then we'll be safe, he will fight our battles." The Lord says, and Samuel's not pleased. They think it's a vote of no confidence on Samuel's being judge. God says, "No, it's a vote of no confidence on me as their king, but I've been protecting them." So the Lord protects his people.

And the Lord judges. He judges his people as well. The Isaiah passages there, Isaiah 3 and 5, are the backdrop to one of Jesus's parables that talk about Israel as the Lord's vine, which in chapter 5, the vine produces bitter grapes that are useless. In chapter 3, the tenders of the vine, the farmers, don't give the fruit of the vineyard to the Lord, and God says, "I'm going to come judge." That's the backdrop of Jesus's parable in the Gospels in that last week between Palm Sunday and his resurrection, his death and resurrection, when he talks about the tenant farmers. He even uses the language of Isaiah 5. The owner of the vineyard prepares the vineyard, he clears the rocks away, he puts up a wall around it to protect it, he builds a wine press in it. That's all from Isaiah. Then he puts it out to renters who are supposed to farm the land and give part of the produce as their rent every year. But they don't; instead, they abuse all of the Lord's messengers. That's Jesus's way of telling the story of Israel and the way they abused the prophets.

Then, as you know, that story, ultimately God—the owner—sends his beloved son and they kill him. Jesus says, "I know exactly what's going through your minds. I know exactly what's going through your minds. You're about to do away with the owner's beloved son, and you will face judgment. You will face judgment." So that's the Lord's role.

Christ fulfills all those roles. He's the divine agent of creation, of the original creation. Fill in those words there before John 1:1-4. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. All things were made through him. Same point made by Paul in Colossians 1. He is the agent of creation, the original creation. Same point made in Hebrews 1—we'll come back to Hebrews 1 in a few minutes—but through him, God made the universe and by his word of power, he sustains the universe.

Christ is now, by the Holy Spirit, the creator of a new creation. He is the last Adam who is life-giving spirit, who gives his life to his people. He initiates creation. He is the "I Am" who came to rescue his people. Remember God appearing in the burning bush to Moses in Exodus 3? He says, "I am going to deliver my people through you." Moses says, "They're not going to believe me. They're going to want to know your name." God says, "You tell them 'I Am' sent you." Talking about God's eternity, but also about his constant covenant faithfulness to his people. "You tell them 'I Am' has sent you."

Jesus is challenged in John 8. Jesus says, "Abraham saw me coming. He saw my day. Centuries later from Abraham's day, Abraham looked ahead. He saw my day and he was glad." The people say, "How can Abraham possibly have seen your day? You're not that old." Jesus says, "Before Abraham was, I Am." They're ready to execute him for that. Why? They think it's blasphemy. They realize he's claiming to be the covenant God of Israel who comes to rescue his people. I Am. He's the "I Am" who came to rescue.

He provides for his bride. That's imagery from the Old Testament, but you come across it in the New as well. Jesus says in Mark 2, "People can't be fasting and being sour-faced when the bridegroom is here. The bridegroom of Israel is here. It's time to rejoice." Of course, Paul speaks of Christ as caring for his bride, the model that Christian husbands should have in caring for their wives as well. He protects his sheep, even laying down his life for his sheep. Jesus, the good shepherd. He has authority to render just judgment. That's a theme also that we find in the book—fulfilled in Christ. John 5:30, the Father has given him authority to judge. The Father doesn't personally judge; he has delegated that whole judgment to the Son. In Matthew 24, Jesus shows us a picture of the last judgment when sheep and goats appear before him as shepherd. The goats who have neglected the poor, his poor brothers, are sent away, and the sheep are welcomed into the joy of their master. See, Jesus fulfills it all from the Lord's side.

He also fulfills it all from the servant's side, and that is what's such good news for us. Adam failed to be the faithful covenant servant who would deserve to eat of the tree of life. Tree of life doesn't really figure into the narrative in Genesis until Adam has sinned and the tree of life now it comes in and Adam and Eve may not eat of that tree because they have disobeyed God. So death begins to work its way out. Adam failed as covenant servant, and that has brought upon him and upon us all the outcome of death and everything—all the miseries leading up to death.

But there is a new Adam. There is a second Adam. There is a faithful covenant servant. That's why Paul brings Christ and Adam alongside of each other in Romans 5 and again in 1 Corinthians 15. In Adam, all die; in Christ, all who are in Christ will be made alive. In Adam—Romans 5—in Adam, we all sinned, but now by the righteous deed of Christ, all who trust in him are constituted righteous. So Christ comes as the faithful servant.

What were the roles of the servant in the Old Testament? Well, first of all, just to enjoy the fact that the servant of the Lord is set apart from others by a kind of privileged preeminence. I worked on the alliteration here, so I want you to see it. Privileged preeminence. They all start with P. God creates all kinds of creatures on this earth, all very good, but Adam and Eve are made in the image of God. The only creature on earth made in the image of God and therefore delegated with this authority over the rest of creation. Privileged preeminence.

Among the nations of the world, that's true of Israel. When Israel comes out of Egypt and is about to go into the land, at Sinai God says, "You will be my treasured possession among all the nations." Or as God says in a later prophet, Amos, "You only, Israel, have I known, have I chosen among all the nations of the earth. I'm putting you in a place of privileged preeminence," which means greater, obviously, responsibility.

Receiving provision from God. That heightens the responsibility. Adam and Eve are provided for in this lush, wonderful garden, just one tree withheld. Israel is brought into this beautiful land, Deuteronomy 11, flowing with milk and honey, warned to say not to say to themselves, "Look at how lush this land is, I did it. My hand made all this produce." No, no, no. The Lord has given it to you.

Provision, but also probation. Here's the great issue: testing. Will you be faithful? Will you trust and obey? Adam is tested and falls. Genesis 2, Genesis 3. Israel is tested in the land and falls. God warns Israel, "Don't go after the other gods, don't say I've made all this prosperity myself," but they fall and become unfaithful. The product of the testing for Adam is that curse works out in his experience, in Eve's experience, in the experience of the created world. Now where he's tending and wanting good edible crops to grow, instead thorns and thistles grow. Eve experiences trauma and struggle and toil in childbirth and in child-rearing as well. So there's the product, and ultimately, obviously, death. "Until you return to the dust from which you were made." There's the end. It could have been different, but it wasn't. Adam had the opportunity to trust and obey, but he didn't.

Same for Israel. When they came into the land, yeah, now they're fallen children of Adam, so it's not surprising that even in the book of Deuteronomy, as Moses looks ahead, he sees what's coming. He sees that they will be unfaithful. Deuteronomy 28, which I put here, gives a whole list—a short list of blessings that would follow if they stayed even reasonably faithful to the Lord in his covenant. They couldn't help sinning, but they could try by God's grace to say faithful. Just a short list: prosperity in farming, big families, healthy families, prosperity in war, victory in war, all that. Then this long list of all the woes and all the curses that will come if they disobey. It's obvious what they're going to do. The rest of the Old Testament history tells us what they do; they end up with all those cursings eventually in exile from God's promised land. But God still is faithful and will bring them back.

Well, what about Jesus as the covenant servant? He comes as the one who has privileged preeminence. He is, as Paul says in Colossians 1, he's the one who should have preeminence over all things. He is the second and last Adam. He receives provision from God, but not the kind of provision that Adam enjoyed in the garden, physical comfort and fulfillment of all of his physical appetites, not the kind of comfort even and provision that Israel experienced in the wilderness or in the land of promise. Instead, he comes into a world that is sin-cursed and sin-stained, and the provision that the Father gives him is to do the Father's will.

The disciples get back having bought some in Samaria, in Sychar, they bought some food for Jesus while he's been conversing with that Samaritan woman who was so surprised that he would be willing to talk with her and share her water vessel. The disciples say, "Jesus, you're hungry, eat." He says, "I have food you don't know anything about; my food is to do the will of my Father." The Father's provided for him, but it's not the kind of provision that brings him physical comfort. If anything, it's the kind of provision that prepares him to suffer—the body prepared for him that he will use to bring atonement for our sins. That's the language of Hebrews 10:5-10.

His probation is lifelong. He's tested all the way through, from the point of his being anointed by the Spirit as John baptizes him and the Spirit compels him out into the desert to face those intensity of temptations at the beginning of his public ministry. Then we read in Luke's Gospel, "The devil withdrew from him for a time." And the devil keeps testing him, even through the well-meaning words of Jesus's loyal disciple Peter. "Lord, you can't go to the cross. Don't talk that way. May it never be. Didn't you just hear I said you were the Messiah?" Jesus turns to Peter at that point and he says, "Get behind me, Satan." That's not what Peter intends, to be the mouthpiece of Satan, but Satan is using Peter at that point to tempt Jesus away from the way of obedience, the way of the cross. So he's tested, as Hebrews says, tested at every point as we are, yet he comes through all the tests without sin.

And so the product—the product is curse for Jesus and blessing for us. There's another place right there where you need to help my editing there under B4 at the bottom of the page: a curse for Jesus, blessing for us. Some crucial words missed out there. Jesus endured the curse that we deserve. Paul says so, Galatians 3:13, Christ endured the curse of the cross—cursed is anyone who is hanged on a tree—he endured the curse for us so that we might receive the blessing of Abraham. That's verse 14. But death could not hold him because he was not guilty of sin, was not guilty of having broken covenant with his Father. So he's raised the third day, and the blessing comes to us as well: resurrection, vindication, glorification.

Think about how many places now in the Old Testament where we see the Lord at work or we see the responsibility of God's covenant servant. Now and then, they're kind of faithful; more often than not, they're unfaithful. But think about how all those texts are pointing us forward to the faithful Lord and to Jesus, who is Jesus, and to the faithful servant of the Lord who deserves God's covenant blessing, who endures God's covenant curse on behalf of guilty folks like us. You begin to see part of the network that leads us all to Christ.

Another way of looking at this—now the last page—is this theme of how God related to Israel as their covenant Lord through individuals that he put between his guilty people and himself in all of his holiness. These were prophets and priests and kings. Actually, Jesus identified himself as a prophet in Luke 4 when he began his preaching teaching ministry in his home synagogue in Nazareth, reading from Isaiah 61: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he's anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor."

He's anointed me—we think of the anointing, and I'm going to come to this in just a minute, related only to Jesus's kingly work. Anointed one, Messiah, Christ, typically in the Jewish mind by the time of the first century did have the royal theme, the kingly theme. But in the Old Testament, prophets also sometimes experienced anointing—think of Elijah calling Elisha—and that anointing symbolized the Spirit of God coming upon them so they would speak God's word to God's people. Jesus is announcing himself as a prophet.

He's announcing himself as the priest who is to guard the holy place of God when early in his ministry he cleansed the temple of all the business that was going on there, distracting from the temple's purpose to be a house of prayer for all people. Late in his ministry, he did the same again because all the business had grown up again. We read about that in Mark and Matthew and Luke. So he as the priest insists that God's holy place be holy. That's priestly work. He does a lot of other things as priest, as we'll come to in just a minute, but early on, he's announcing himself as priest.

And as king, he announces in his preaching that the kingdom of God has come. When his disciples—Peter speaking for all of them, Matthew 16—confesses, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God," that's a confession of his kingship, and Jesus acknowledges that's true. Not only is it true, but Peter did not come to this on his own and nobody taught it to him on earth; the Father revealed that to Peter that he is the true king. When people acknowledge and cry out to him even beyond the circle of his disciples, cried out to him as the Son of David, he acknowledged and showed mercy to them. Again, he's the king.

The New Testament authors reaffirm this. Peter in Acts 3 quotes Deuteronomy 18 where Moses said, "God is going to give you a prophet like me; listen to him." Peter says Jesus is that prophet. Jesus is the great high priest. Hebrews says that a bunch of times throughout Hebrews. He is the king of kings. We see him described in John's vision in Revelation 19.

Now, it's important to see what these officers are doing, what their task is. They are buffers and bridges. Think of them as insulation to protect the people—God wants to be with his people—but in his consuming holiness and in their defilement, he's dangerous. Israel knew that when they got to Mount Sinai, they pleaded with Moses, Exodus 19, "You go listen to God for us. If God speaks to us directly, we're lost." I was going to say we're toast, but that makes it much too superficial. But the fire is there, okay? "We're destroyed if God speaks to us directly. Moses, you go up, receive the word, come down the mountain, talk to us."

We know that the priests had a function like that as well because only one day a year, only one individual, one man, the high priest of the year, could go into the most holy place in the sanctuary to present sacrificial blood and pray for the atonement of the sins of God's people. So prophets, priests, and the kings too really functioned as the administrators of God's rule and rescue among the people. So they were buffers protecting the people, but they were also the bridges that tied the people to the Lord.

You see all three of those offices described in Deuteronomy, the fifth of the books of Moses, as Moses is preparing the people to go into the land. Kings, Deuteronomy 17—I read a little bit of that last night—kings are supposed to have the word write out for themselves: the Torah. They actually all fit on one scroll. There was a very generous family who have been giving retired Torah scrolls from synagogues—not ancient, but they've given them to various schools, colleges and seminaries. They gave one to us; they gave one to Bethel in Minneapolis and to a bunch of others as well. We actually unrolled it one time. It's about 400 years old, and it stretched—it would have stretched probably all the way around this room. Our chapel on our campus was wider than this, so it stretched about three-quarters of the way around. But this room, it would fill the whole thing. The king was supposed to handwrite Torah from Genesis all the way through Deuteronomy and then to read it and study it so his heart wouldn't get proud.

Then in the beginning of chapter 18 of Deuteronomy, the priests who stand before the Lord for Israel are supposed to be provided for with Israel's tithes. Then later on in Deuteronomy 18, Israel in order to find out what I think, you don't consult the diviners and the necromancers and the fortune tellers that all the pagans use; you listen to prophets and you listen especially to the prophet like me, Moses, who will be the ultimate prophet. All three brought together right there, so we can begin to see the template that is used there and all three brought together in the ministry of Jesus.

Hebrews chapter 1:1-4 describe all three of those offices of Christ: that the Father who spoke in many parts and in many modes in the Old Testament period in times past to the Father through the prophets has now spoken in these last days to us in the Son. The revelation theme of Christ. He reveals the Father, he speaks—he is the word, as John says, right? Then it talks about Christ in terms of his priestly work as well: he made purification for sins. Then Hebrews 1 talks about the kingly work: he took his seat at the right hand of the Majesty on high. Prophet, priest, and king, all in the preamble to Hebrews, first four verses, and then unpacked in the rest of that amazing letter, sermon-letter, whichever you want to call it. It's a sermon.

Prophet, priest, and king. You see what some of our Reformed folk in the past have summarized as the work of Christ. In Heidelberg (1560s), Westminster (1640s), both talk about Christ's work as a work of a prophet, of a great high priest, of our eternal king. Now, how does that help us? We've got just a couple of minutes here for me to sketch this out. The prophets are God's servants to bring his word, his revelation to his people. Their call often involved seeing God's glory and hearing God's voice.

Think of the call of Isaiah in Isaiah 6 when he saw the Lord high and lifted up in the temple, and he's overwhelmed with a sense of his own defilement. Then he's purified symbolically in that vision with the burning coal from the altar touching his lips and saying that his sin is taken away. So he can speak; his lips can now speak the word of God. Think of the beginning of Ezekiel where Ezekiel sees this amazing throne on wheels and the appearance of one who looks kind of like a man—Ezekiel doesn't want us to make any images, not even close, but seated on the throne, and he's called and he's given a scroll to eat and then to preach the word of God. To see God's glory, to hear his voice.

Moses on Mount Sinai sees the form of the Lord. That sets him head and shoulders above every other prophet, the Lord says, Numbers 12. He sees the form of the Lord. With him, the Lord speaks—I need to lapse into Hebrew for just a second here, right?—the Lord speaks "peh-el-peh." The Lord speaks mouth-to-mouth with Moses. Sets him apart. Moses sees the Lord's glory.

Jesus is the prophet like Moses. I mentioned that Peter says so in Acts chapter 3. But Jesus is more than the prophet like Moses. He's the Lord whose glory Moses saw. He's the Lord whose glory shone and made Moses's face shine. John says in John 1—he starts talking about Christ as the Word, as you know—then when he talks about Christ entering into human history, he says the Word became flesh and dwelt—the word that he uses there is the word related to tent or tabernacle—tabernacled among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the unique Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. You know that, right? Full of grace and truth. That is just a slight paraphrase of what God said as he hid Moses from his radiant glory on Mount Sinai, Exodus 34, where the Lord declared his name: "Abounding in lovingkindness and faithfulness." Full of grace and truth. That's the glory that Moses saw, that sent Moses down to speak the word of God and to show God's power to save.

That's what we find in the prophets. Moses is authenticated not only because he speaks but because God does miracles. Miracles are associated especially with the prophetic office: the ten plagues on Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, the feeding of Israel through the manna, quenching their thirst through the water, the glory cloud of God. All those things show that Moses is a real prophet. Later prophets like Elijah and Elisha also have miracles that show that they're the real thing. Jesus, the ultimate Word, his miracles are signs that show that he is the messenger from the Father and that illustrate his message as well. Where you see miracles connected with the messengers of God, all of those are pointing us forward to Jesus. I'd love to go more into depth on that, but we can't right now. And the prophets prosecute, show the guilt of God's people, but they also promise that God is faithful to bring redemption. Jesus does both of those as well as the climax.

Priests. I said earlier that Jesus's cleansing of the sanctuary is a priestly work because priests are to protect the holy territory of God. There's a lot of Old Testament material about the sanctuary, the sacrifices, and even to the point of the laws about clean and unclean. We looked a little bit about the kosher dietary laws and laws pertaining to dress and farming—all those kinds of things related to this theme of God's holiness, God's purity.

Jesus is the sanctuary of God among God's people. That's what John says in chapter 1 verse 14 of his Gospel: he tented among us. That's what Jesus says in John 2 when he says, "Destroy this temple." John says we didn't really understand what he was talking about, but after he rose, we did. He was talking about the temple of his body; God was living among us. Destroy this temple and in three days, I will raise it up.

So sanctuary and all the themes related to sanctuary flow toward Christ. Purity and all the themes related to being separate from what defiles flow toward Christ. So Jesus has the authority to pronounce all foods clean. We heard Mark 7 just very briefly. Jesus has the authority to welcome all kinds of people and to cleanse their hearts by his atoning blood. Jesus has the authority to welcome outsiders.

Acts chapter 8, Philip—a mercy minister, but also a preacher of the gospel—scattered, finds himself along the road actually toward Goliath's territory, toward the Philistine territory. There's this huge chariot bearing an African government official back home. He is a eunuch. Because he's a eunuch, he could not have been—because of the Old Testament law, he couldn't have been welcomed into Israel's worshiping community. So he's excluded by being not Jewish and by being a eunuch. He's reading in Isaiah about a suffering servant and he doesn't understand who it's about.

Philip gets to preach to him starting from that text about Jesus as the suffering servant, Isaiah 53. Although Luke doesn't tell us what happened next, except that the eunuch kept going on home toward Ethiopia—probably in what is now Sudan, but that's another question for another time—what would he have done next? Wouldn't he have read Isaiah 54 and 55 and 56? Where the Lord says, "Here is my promise to foreigners and to eunuchs: I will welcome you into my presence. I will welcome you. You were outsiders before, but now I've welcomed you in." That eunuch is the fulfillment of the chapter that comes just a few chapters after the one he was reading. Jesus is the priest who brings us in, and he does that obviously through his sacrifice. Hebrews is all about that wonderful sacrifice of Christ. He offers the once-for-all, final, complete atoning sacrifice.

There were other sacrifices in the Old Testament: expressions of thanksgiving for deliverance, even sacrifices that expressed really the restoration of communion and fellowship between God and his people, the peace offerings, where Israelites would get to sit down and eat part of the sacrificed animal. Part of it consumed on the Lord's altar, but part of it eaten by the Israelites with the priest in communion. The New Testament says Jesus offered all that ever needs to be offered for the forgiveness of your sins. No more animal sacrifices. But God still does accept sacrifices from his people: fellowship offerings, doing good and sharing with others. Those are the ways that we can worship as well.

Kings. Kings do righteous warfare and they rule wisely. They are shepherds. We've looked a little bit at Ezekiel 34 and at John 10, Jesus's fulfillment as the good shepherd. They protect and defend, as David did in the name of the Lord in the Old Testament. Christ's death is not only portrayed in the New Testament in terms of the priestly work of cleansing for sin, atoning for sin, but also as a military victory against Satan.

So we read in Colossians 2:14 and—this is no typo by the way—Colossians 2:14 and Hebrews 2:14. That's exactly right. These two texts talk about Jesus's death as conquering Satan, exposing and shaming the principalities and powers against us. That's Colossians. In Hebrews chapter 2, Christ takes our human nature, flesh and blood, so that by his death, he might destroy the one who has the power to inflict death, namely the devil, and set free those who had been enslaved by the fear of death all their life. By his death, Jesus put death to death.

Great Puritan John Owen has a wonderful long—well, if you say John Owen, you don't have to say long, they're all long, right?—book called "The Death of Death in the Death of Christ," and he's thinking of a passage like this. Christ by his death destroyed Satan's power to put us to death. He is our champion. He's also our wise ruler. So all the theme about wisdom literature that we find in the Old Testament ultimately flowing toward Jesus, as Paul says, Colossians 2:2-3, "In whom all the treasures of God's wisdom are hidden, all the treasures of God's wisdom and knowledge hidden in Christ."

No wonder Jesus said in the Gospels that people who wouldn't listen to him are going to be indicted by the Queen of the South. We read in the Old Testament about the Queen of Sheba, she comes from the South, from Arabia probably, who came to listen to the wisdom of Solomon because someone greater than Solomon is here. Jesus is our wise ruler. You see how all these tributaries—we could talk about lanes, we could talk about streams that flow into rivers which flow into the Great Mississippi out west of you here—Ohio to the Mississippi, I forget what the rivers are up here. We got the Tennessee River, you know. All of those flowing to Christ.

And that, I think, keeping those in mind will help us to study the Bible in any part and think, "Okay, is it about Lord or servant or both? Is it about prophet or priest or king, revelation or reconciliation through the priest or rule and rescue through the king?" I think will give us then some framework that is really arising out of the material in the Bible for seeing how every text of the Bible ultimately is designed to lead us to Christ, our Savior. As Spurgeon's Welsh preacher said, unless our study of the Bible leads us to catch that flavor, that aroma of Christ, then we've really missed—it can't do us any real good unless it leads us to Jesus.

Father, thank you for sending your beloved Son, through whom you created the universe, who sustains the universe by the word of his power, who is the Lord of the covenant and has every right to command us and who protects us and who provides for us and who is the supreme judge of all. Thank you for sending him to become our human brother, the second and last and faithful Adam, as our first father Adam was not faithful. Jesus is faithful, and by his obedience, we are constituted righteous.

And by his suffering the curse of the covenant in our place, hung on a tree, we are set free from the curse. Thank you for all the ways that Jesus has fulfilled for us what we have failed to fulfill in our relationship with you, our covenant with you, and how he has brought us in and secured us in your covenant love and faithfulness forever. Thank you for the ways you speak to us through Christ as he speaks through ancient prophets, as he speaks through his apostles in the New Testament scriptures, as his Holy Spirit opens our hearts to hear your word.

Thank you for the way that he has come as our great priest to make us holy, to make us pure, to make us into a sanctuary even on this earth of living stones so that people working, moving among us can sense your presence at work, transforming us into the image of Christ. And thank you for his atoning death. Thank you that he rules and rescues us. By his word and Spirit, he directs us and cares for us.

Thank you for this complete, comprehensive Savior: Lord and servant, prophet, priest, and king. Father, we would ask that as we study your word, every time we open it, that you would make us alert and eager and open as only your Holy Spirit can to meet the great Savior that you've provided for us, to which your word testifies from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

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