Christ in the Whole of Scripture

When the risen Lord fell in beside two disgraced disciples on the Emmaus road, he did not begin with himself. "Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself" (Luke 24:27). The first Christian sermon on the resurrection was an Old Testament exposition.

A reading, not an addition

To say that Christ is in the whole of Scripture is not to smuggle him into texts where he does not belong. It is to confess that the Scriptures of Israel were always straining toward him, and that the same God who spoke by the prophets has now spoken by a Son (Hebrews 1:1-2). The New Testament does not replace the Old; it reads it.

This is why the Church has never been content to treat the Old Testament as mere background. The Psalms are the prayer book of Jesus. The sacrifices teach us what his cross accomplishes. The exodus is the pattern of every deliverance God works.