ANNOUNCER: The Messianic thread running through the pages of the Old Testament. We’ve been thinking about it for the last few days and today we conclude our thoughts with a big picture summary. Hello, friend. Welcome to Grace in Focus. This is the radio broadcast and podcast ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. We’re delighted you’re with us today and you can know more about us by going to our website, faithalone.org. There you will find information about our online seminary where you can earn an MDiv degree, our free subscription magazine also called Grace in Focus, and our blogs. We produce blogs daily and you can subscribe to them right through this website, faithalone.org. That’s faithalone.org. 

Now with the Messianic thread conclusion, here’s Bob Wilkin and Philippe Sterling. 

BOB: So Philippe, I thought we would kind of summarize what we’ve seen in the Old Testament Messianic thread, Christ in the Old Testament. Could you give us the big picture of what we’ve been talking about? 

PHILIPPE: An expression you used earlier was a safari. Right here on the safari, following that thread, beginning with the book of Genesis and for our series we completed it with Zechariah. Of course, we actually began with what Jesus had to say about it. On the walk to Emmaus with two of His disciples, He talked with them about all that the prophets had said. Everything that Moses and the prophets had said concerning Him. 

BOB: And Moses would be the Pentateuch, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy.

PHILIPPE: In the Torah, in the prophets, which will include the former prophets, latter prophets, the history books, as well as what we call the prophets in Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah, and the Psalms. So the Moses, the Torah, the Psalms, and all of the prophets, including all of the history books. It allll spoke of Him. 

Later on, to all of the disciples in the upper room, He did the same. And I wouldl think over that those 40 days of post-resurrection appearances by involved teaching concerning all of that. And concerning the kingdom, too, that He will come and eventually establish it. And the offer, they will make it once again to Israel, covering everything about Him and the Psalms and the prophets and the law. Of course, you see, Jesus himself, that really clarified all of that. And that has come to us now in the apostolic body of truth that we have. 

BOB: Because part of the Messianic thread is looking at what the apostles say about the Old Testament. In other words, they go through and cite many of those passages. In the book of Hebrews, for example, we find a lot of that. We find some of it, however in all,

PHILIPPE: Well, from Peter himself. The first recorded sermon, after Pentecost, is Peter’s in Acts 2, where he goes to Psalm 16:10, about that He will not surrender Him to Sheol and not see corruption. It’s a clear matter of the resurrection in the Psalms. And then picked up by Peter and developed. But of course, we picked it up initially in the book of Genesis, about Genesis 3:15. 

BOB: And the first gospel.

PHILIPPE: The first gospel there concerning the suffering and the victory of the seed of the woman, that will also, 

BOB: The serpent’s going to strike Him on the heel, but He’s going to stomp on the head of the serpent. 

PHILIPPE: Yes. And then following it through, of course the suffering is there. The glory is there, the victory in the book of Genesis itself. We talked about the scepter, then we traced the whole idea of the scepter beginning with Genesis.

BOB: Genesis 49, it wouldn’t depart from Judah. And Jesus, of course, is from the tribe of Judah. 

PHILIPPE: Right. And so that prophecy, it would be picked up in Revelation 5. He is the Lion of Judah. And yet he’s also the lamb that has been slain. And yet that lamb is about to bring His wrath upon all the nations. 

BOB: Because he’s also a lion. 

PHILIPPE: And ultimately returning as King as we saw in the book of Zechariah. 

BOB: So He’s a suffering servant in Isaiah 52 and 53. But He’s also the returning king, who’s got a scepter and He’s going to rule with a rod of iron. 

PHILIPPE: Yes. So taking us right into the millennial kingdom, what He will do there. But we could take every book, I think, of the Old Testament. Perhaps with the exception of the Song of Songs, which is not clearly, even though I think once it refers to YAH. 

BOB: It does say the fire of YAH.

PHILIPPE: Which I think we can identify as Yahweh, Jesus, referring to the preincarnate appearances throughout the Old Testament. And then incarnated for us. But we could take any book of the Bible, I think, and see the Messianic thread following that on safari. In fact, if we had the time we could have put together a wheel with every book of the Bible and spin it and see where it stops. And then we refer to that book and be able to pick out two or three things that it says about there. 

BOB: That’d be a fun thing for a Sunday school class, right? You’ve got this wheel for all the books of the Old Testament. You spin it, whatever it comes up on. You go, okay. Let’s talk about Daniel. Where are references to Messiah in Daniel? 

PHILIPPE: Well, Daniel, we come back to Daniel 7 and about the Ancient of Days. And about the Son of Man comes up to the Ancient of Days and is given every nation to rule over. But we come to Daniel chapter 9. And the whole 70 weeks of prophecy, the 70 weeks of years.

BOB: They call it  “seventy sevens.” That’s 70 weeks. That’s Daniel 9:24-27. And we could do that theoretically with any book in the Old Testament except for the Song of Songs. And yeah, I think that’s great. So this whole series, what we see in the Old Testament is basically the career of Messiah. All the way from His eternality.

PHILIPPE: His pre-existence, His eternality. 

BOB: And all the way through to His incarnation. We have His ministry. We have His death on the cross. We have His resurrection. We have ultimately His return and His ruling and reigning. And I forgot to mention, of course, we have the triumphal entry in there, Zechariah 9:9. And His eternal rule and reign, Zechariah 9:10. 

PHILIPPE: Then His descent to the Mount of Olives. 

BOB: Yeah. Zechariah 12, isn’t it? 

PHILIPPE: Zechariah 14. 

BOB: Yeah. You’ve got the whole point that he’s going to overthrow the enemies of Israel. That he will be ruling and reigning forever. And all of that is part of the rich tradition of the Old Testament. And of course, if you’ve ever seen Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye would say, oh, that Messiah would come. And by the way, Tevye, I found out it’s from tuv for good and Yah. So basically Tevye is God is good or the Lord is good. Yahweh is good. 

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BOB: Tevye is always saying O that Messiah would come, O that Messiah would come.

PHILIPPE: And the Messiah has come and is coming again. 

BOB: Right. And so Israel, when He first came, they did not receive Him. “He came to His own, His own received Him not,” John 1:11, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.” And so there were some in Israel that believed in, as you’ve mentioned in this series, there’s always been a believing remnant and there will remain a believing remnant. But at the end of the Tribulation, they’re going to look upon Him whom they have pierced. And they’re going to mourn the fact that they had rejected Him for so long. And they’re going to rejoice knowing that He is going to overthrow the enemies, and He is going to deliver them. 

And by the way, one thing we talked about was how all Israel is going to be a believing nation at that point. I think it’s important to recognize that’s true for all of those age 20 and over, all the adults. But all of the children are not going to be believing, we’re not going to expect that a three month old is going to be believing, or even that every child under the age of 20 is going to be believing. But what Paul says in Romans 11:26 will be true. All Israel will be saved. All Israel is going to be delivered from Gentile domination at Armageddon. The entire nation will go in to the millennial kingdom. And that will even include children. 

PHILIPPE: All the children and not yet believing will come into the kingdom and will have that opportunity as they grow into adulthood too. 

BOB: And I don’t know if you’d agree with me on this, Philippe. But in light of Kadesh Barnea, when everybody under age 20 got to go into the Promised Land, I would think that even teenage unbelievers from the Millennium are going to go into the millennial kingdom, even if they’re unbelievers. If they’re part of Israel, or I would extend that to the nations as well, Jewish and Gentile children who are yet unbelieving would still go in because, if the age of accountability will be 20, now we don’t know that for sure, but I think it is. 

PHILIPPE: It comes out, age 20 comes up numerous times, even beyond the judgment consequences at Kadesh Barnea. This past week I was working on a the that I’m writing on 1 Chronicles. And it made reference to what David had done in numbering the people of Israel and the discipline he came under for that census. And it specifically mentions there that people under 20 years of age were not counted in this census, implying that 20 was the age, much like we now look at the age 18. Even when there’s a draft, you’re not eligible for the draft until you turn 18 years old. So that age of accountability, I think, good case can be made that it is 20. 

BOB: So what’s going to happen as we’ve seen in this Old Testament Messianic thread is, the one who has come in His First Advent is coming again in His Second Advent. He’s going to overthrow the enemies of Israel. He’s going to establish His millennial kingdom. He’s going to rule and reign not just for that time, but as we saw in Isaiah 9, His reign will go on forever. And His kingdom will be ever expanding Isaiah 9:6-7. 

So this is a beautiful study and we would encourage everyone to do this study for yourself. If you’re teaching a Sunday school class, do a series on the Old Testament Messianic thread. And if you’re not teaching a class, just do this with your family. 

PHILIPPE: I find it highly encouraging and strengthening my whole sense of hope as I see this whole picture of the Messiah in the Old Testament. What has been fulfilled? What is yet to be fulfilled? And I’m seeing what has been fulfilled is a guarantee of all the promises ultimately will be fulfilled. And that helps me to be steadfast, immovable as 1 Corinthians 15:50. It says “always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that my toil is not in vain.” 

BOB: Our service is meaningful because Jesus is coming again and He’s going to reward at the Judgment Seat of Christ for what we have done for Him. And so let’s remain faithful so that we might hear Him say, well done. And in the meantime, let’s keep grace and focus. 

ANNOUNCER: We would love to hear from you. Maybe you’ve got a question, comment, or some feedback. If you do, please don’t hesitate to send us a message. Here’s our email address. It’s [email protected]. That’s [email protected]. And when you do, please make sure your question is as succinct and clear as possible. That would be a great, big help.

We hope you have a wonderful weekend that includes fellowship with others and a Bible-teaching church. Then come back on Monday for another episode and until then, let’s keep grace in focus.