Is It Wrong to See Jesus in the Old Testament?
One of the first things we learn when it comes to reading the Bible is to never make a text say something the author did not intend to say. The technical term for this is authorial intent. However, we are also taught that the whole Bible is about Jesus. We learn that we can see Jesus on every page, even in the Old Testament. These two claims should raise an important question: How can we hold to authorial intent and believe that Jesus is on every page? Did the Old Testament authors intend to write about Jesus? Or are we reading Jesus into the Old Testament? In other words, is it wrong to see Jesus in the Old Testament? I would like to argue that the authors—especially the divine Author—intended for us to see Jesus in the Old Testament. To demonstrate this I want us to look at three texts which justify seeing Jesus in all of Scripture. From these texts we will learn that we are allowed to find Jesus on every page because Jesus says we can, Jesus shows we can, and Jesus reveals we can.
1. Jesus Says We Can
It is appropriate to see Jesus in the Old Testament because Jesus says we can do this. John 5 makes this exact point. In verses 30–47, Jesus is speaking to the Jewish people about having witnesses to the claims he is making. Jesus is claiming a lot of amazing things and the Jewish people are wondering who can testify to the truth of these claims. They want someone else to appear as his witness and say, “Yes, the things that Jesus is saying are true.”
Jesus is more than happy to oblige this request and he says that “the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me” (5:37). The Jews want a witness to testify on Jesus’s behalf. Jesus responds and says that God has testified on his behalf. Yet where does God do this? Where does God witness to Jesus and give credibility to his claims? Jesus tells us in verse 39, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me.” The Jewish people are wondering who can back up Jesus’s claims. Jesus responds by saying, “God backs up my claims in the Old Testament.”
What this means—according to Jesus—is that it is appropriate to see Jesus in the Old Testament because it is about him. Jesus confirms this just a few verses later:
“Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would have believed me; for he wrote of me” (John 5:45–46).
Moses—the author of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy—wrote about Jesus. He consciously wrote about Jesus as he was carried along by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, we are justified in looking for Jesus in the Old Testament. Jesus tells us that we can, and he makes it clear that we are doing so without undercutting authorial intent.
2. Jesus Shows We Can
Jesus does not only claim that the Old Testament is about him, but he shows that it is about him. He does this at the end of Luke’s Gospel. Two of Jesus’s disciples are walking to a village called Emmaus. As they are walking they talk about what has recently happened in Jerusalem with the death of Jesus and the reports of his resurrection. Suddenly, a stranger joins them on the road and asks what they are talking about.
They tell this stranger everything that has happened, and he responds in a very interesting way:
“‘O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?’ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:25–27).
As it turns out this “stranger” was the resurrected Christ who opens up the Bible and shows them how it all points to him. Jesus takes these men to real verses in the Old Testament and demonstrates how it is about him. Consider how wonderful it would have been to experience this! To have Jesus opening up the Old Testament and conclusively demonstrating from a range of passages how it was all about him.
Practically, this means that we should have no issues with seeing Jesus in the Old Testament. We are simply following the example of our Lord and Savior. Clearly, Jesus thought it was appropriate to find himself in “all the Scriptures” without threatening the original intent of the author. We are not misreading Scripture by seeing Jesus in the Old, we are reading it the way it was intended to be read.
3. Jesus Reveals We Can.
If the above is true, then how come so many people seem to miss Jesus in the Old Testament? For example, why do modern Jewish people fail to see Jesus as the promised messiah? Doesn’t this show us that maybe Jesus is not as clearly portrayed in the Old as we think he is? I would like to argue that it does not mean this. Jesus is clearly shown to us in the Old Testament. The reason people fail to see him there is not because he isn’t there. It is because they are blinded by sin.
The Apostle Paul makes this argument in 2 Corinthians 3. One of the things that always grieved Paul was that many of his fellow Jews did not come to believe in Jesus. Paul tells us that the reason for this is because “their minds were hardened” (3:14). He likens their inability to see Jesus in the Old Testament to being blindfolded. They have a “veil” over their eyes. He writes, “For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted.” They are unable to see Jesus in the Old Testament because there is a spiritual veil blocking them from comprehending the Old Testament Scriptures.
How then is this veil removed? Paul tells us, “But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed” (3:16). The theological term for this is illumination. When a person comes to trust in Jesus, the Holy Spirit removes this veil and allows them to understand the truths of Scripture. This explains why so many of our family and friends can read the Bible, but still not believe. Taking Scripture as God’s Word is a work of the Spirit which takes place when we come to trust in Christ. For this reason, we can see Jesus in the Old Testament when others don’t, because Jesus reveals himself in the Old Testament by his Spirit to those who trust in him.
We began this article with a question: is it wrong to see Jesus in the Old Testament? Are we undercutting the intent of the Old Testament authors by seeing Jesus there? Are we reading Jesus into the Old Testament rather than discovering him there? The answer to all of these questions is an emphatic no! We are completely justified in finding Jesus in the Old Testament. Jesus tells us explicitly that the Old Testament is about him. Likewise, he walked with his disciples and demonstrated to them how it points to him. Lastly, he has revealed to us that it is about him by removing the spiritual veil that prevents us from seeing him there. We can see Jesus in the Old Testament knowing that we are not committing some grave hermeneutical error. As David Murray writes, “What’s the Old Testament all about? Jesus’ emphatic answer is ‘Me! Me! Me!’”[1]
[1] David Murray, Jesus On Every Page: 10 Simple Ways to Seek and Find Christ in the Old Testament (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2013), 18.