the new testament use of the old testament · 2019. 9. 13. · 1 of 12 lesson 07 of 12 hr501 the...

Biblical Hermeneutics

Transcript - HR501 Biblical Hermeneutics Understanding Biblical Interpretation© 2019 Our Daily Bread University. All rights reserved.

1 of 12

LESSON 07 of 12HR501

The New Testament Use of the Old Testament

Biblical HermeneuticsUnderstanding Biblical Interpretation

Welcome everyone. Let’s open in a word of prayer and then get at our topic for today.

And so, Lord, thank You for day after day, and month after month, and year after year of Your goodness. You visit us every day with life and breath and health, and we are astonished. We had no claims over any one of the days, and yet You have added so many to us. And then, Lord, You have walked with us and talked with us and You have given to us Your Word, a Word that is sufficient, It is adequate, and full of the power and authority that is needed for ministry and for living in this day and age. Guide us, therefore, as we look at the topics today, and may Your hand be upon us for good. For it is in that glorious and great Name of our living and coming God we pray, Amen.

Our topic is the search for meaning, and an introduction to biblical interpretation. Again, why in the world do we do interpretation? We began reading, and they didn’t give a course, when I was in first grade, on the hermeneutics of Dick and Jane. We just began reading, “See Dick, See Jane, See Spot” And then there was something like, “Dick and Jane are running from Spot.” “Spot has rabies” or something like that. It was very simple, but that was part of our culture. We knew people who were called Dick, we knew people called Jane, we knew Spot— some dogs were named Spot—it wasn’t separate. But now we read the Bible, and here is a book that God has communicated over 1,500 years, as I’ve said, with 40 different authors, and therefore we need some adjustment [to interpret the Bible adequately].

Well today our first lecture is on the issue of the New Testament use of the Old. My goodness, you have to see the fuss that’s being raised in our day over this particular topic. Why? Well there are almost 300 citations from the Old in the New [Testaments]. As a matter of fact, every New Testament book except three: Philemon, II John and III John (actually any chapter in those three books will do, but [because] they don’t have chapters. That’s the point. We

Walter C. Kaiser Jr., Ph.D.Experience: President Emeritus and

Distinguished Professor of Old Testament and Ethics at Gordon-Conwell Theological

Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts

Transcript - HR501 Biblical Hermeneutics Understanding Biblical Interpretation © 2019 Our Daily Bread University. All rights reserved.


2 of 12

Lesson 07 of 12

always take a test this way: we give jokes and if no one smiles, you’re in trouble. You really have to begin back. Some years ago a man asked me—he said, “What are you going to speak on?” I said, “The last book in the Old Testament.” I was in Toledo, Ohio— 2,000 people [were there] for a national [conference]. I won’t tell you what sort of denomination it was. I said, “The last book in the Old Testament.” Then I saw him take his Bible and start riffling through the Bible as we were walking up to the platform. And I thought “Oh-Oh.” Sure enough, he introduced me and said, “Our speaker is going to speak on the book of Ma-lat-chi.” There wasn’t a whimper in the whole group. So I thought I’d take another run at it and I said, “I’m glad to be here to speak on the Italian prophet of the Old Testament.” And three Dallas grads laughed, but that was about all.) So we really mean to come to hear this particular passage and how many allusions are there. That is, it’s not a direct citation, obviously there is an informing theology from the Old Testament text (we’ll be talking about this later on) in which it comes over to the New Testament and informs it, because that’s the background. Just like in our day and age, you have a lot of people who will say “9/11,” and that’s almost universally understood. But there is going to come a generation, not too far from now, to which you’re going to have to explain that [was a major event in 2001].

I’ve been teaching long enough, 51 years, in which some of the allusions and the jokes I used now have to be explained, which is not good for the whole thing (I was teaching, and I thought this was [a] good [illustration], but I forgot a generation had passed. I was talking about how Moses went down into Midian and there he found this girl, Zipporah. Now I said “Zippor” means bird and “a,” is feminine. So he married “Ladybird” here on a ranch in Midian. No response. No response whatsoever. Such good material! But at any rate, you just have to kind of keep explaining this material back and forth [from President Lyndon B. Johnson’s ranch in Texas].

So just in terms of its frequency, [there are] 1,600 allusions or more; some say up to 4,000 allusions. And they help tremendously, just as an allusion to something like “9/11” [attack on U.S. soil in 2001] or to say, “Columbine High School” [Colorado high school shooting in 1999]. See, that’s part of our culture—that would be an allusion. Or we could say “Virginia Tech” [university shooting in 2007], or we could say Northern Illinois [university shooting in 2008]—those are all part [the United States of America’s history]. But later on they’re going to have to take a hermeneutic course to



3 of 12

Lesson 07 of 12

find out what that is, because they’ve lost that immediate contact with the allusion or the citation.

Now when we come to the New Testament itself, I think that we need to notice how many times the biblical text is using the Old Testament for defense reasons. We use the big word apologetics. Apologetics doesn’t mean “to apologize,” to say “excuse me,” but it means “a defense” [of the Christian faith.” So how do we get the number of times here in which the Bible is used either in an apologetical way or in a doctrinal way? Now you can cite a passage or make a historical allusion, but you are just taking the words out of context. For example, my question was today, “To be or not to be . . . at the seminar?” Now that has nothing to do with [Shakespeare’s] Romeo and Juliet. They were in much more serious business. But “to be or not to be,” I just borrowed the words. But that’s not what we’re talking about; that’s not critical at that point. What is critical would be if I thought I was telling you what Romeo and Juliet were all about in Shakespeare. That would be critical, and that’s where this New Testament use of the Old Testament is at a fever pitch.

Now what also makes this difficult is the way in which it [the topic] is brought up. The New Testament writers use the Old Testament, and many want to say, “They use it better than they know.” One of my dear friends of many, many years, who is my senior by a good number of years (long time ago in 1967, he and I were on a panel—Roger R. Nicole, [who is] of Swiss origins, and still keeps the same kind of accent. And every time he sees me, he gives me a great big hug and says, “My good friend Caiaphas!” and so I’m his good friend Caiaphas), he was alluding to John 11:49-52. In John 11:49-52, Roger brought up this text to show me that indeed it’s possible for a writer to write down, in Scripture, words that he is not even aware of the meaning of them, especially citing the Old Testament. You and I grew up hearing it said frequently enough, maybe even we said it ourselves, “The writers of the Bible wrote better than they knew” (I thought that was a scriptural reference for a while. I’ve looked in a concordance under “better,” and “knew,” and it’s not there. So if it’s cited from anywhere, it really comes from the Book of Hesitations 1:2, but it is not part of the Canon at all).

But look at the passage in John 11:49-50, “One of them named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, ‘You know nothing at all! You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people, than that the whole nation perish.’” He did not say this on his own (Roger says, “See that! He didn’t say



4 of 12

Lesson 07 of 12

this on his own). But as high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and to make them one. So from that day on, they plotted to take His, that is Jesus’, life.” Now my point with my good friend was to look at verse 51. Is verse 51 describing the effect of Caiaphas’ speech? I think Caiaphas was being politically sagacious. He is saying, “Look, friends, if the Romans find out that we’re in turmoil here over this one Man, the whole nation is going go up for hock. Don’t you think it’s better, right or wrong, to sacrifice one rather than sacrificing all [everyone]?” He’s giving [what is] political expediency, and therefore from his point of view it makes a whole lot of sense. But John now picks it up and says, “Touché. Way to go!” He didn’t say this on his own. He was high priest that year, yes, and he [unwittingly] prophesied.

I think what John is saying is, “His words can be picked up and used against him because Jesus was to die for the whole nation.” Yes you’re right. It’s better that one man die. But you don’t know, Caiaphas. This one Man has got to give His life for the sins of the whole nation, and not only for that nation (see, he goes way beyond Caiaphas—Caiaphas was only interested in what’s happening to that little Jewish community there in Israel or Palestine) but also for the scattered children of God [worldwide]. He is worried about the scattered children of God all over the world, goyim, Gentiles, and to bring them together and make them one.

Make Jew and Gentile one. Did Caiaphas say that? No! Was Caiaphas aware of that? No! Did Caiaphas speak better than he knew? Yes, better than he realized in that his words could be used in terms of John, who now takes them in verse 51 and runs with it. But the question still is here, “Do the prophets write or speak better than they know?” This is going to be the heart of the cry of most of the debate over the New Testament use of the Old Testament in those passages exclusively out of the 294 [direct] citations where they quote the Bible apologetically—that is, in defense of the Bible—or doctrinally.

Now the prevailing view has come in scholarly circles to go the other way. In scholarly circles now they are beginning to say, “You do have a surface meaning that is on top of the text, and everyone can get that. But below this surface meaning, there is a deeper meaning, which is sometimes called a sensus plenior, which is Latin—a multiple, or a plurality, or many meanings; many senses,” This view was developed by a Father [Andre] Fernandez, who in Latin America, Roman Catholic, in 1927 said, “We need to really



5 of 12

Lesson 07 of 12

get back [to the deeper meaning]”

Remember when we began our history [and] we were talking about the whole question of the normal, literal, real sense of the passage over against all sorts of ways they tried to get it, but mainly in an allegorical sense. And it got so that for a while they were trying to say there are three or four or many [unlimited] meanings to every text. I heard a Bible teacher at a very well known Christian College recently say to his students, “There is an infinite number of meanings to every biblical text.” Infinite number of meanings? Which one then is the one that has the authority of God behind it? How can we say the Bible therefore is sufficient? How can we say it’s adequate if we are going to say it has an infinite number of meanings to every text? But in an attempt to still get at this allegorical or deeper meaning, or to try to get at, “Oil always means a type of the Holy Spirit,” there was an attempt, then, to “go back,” and this new term was introduced.

Well in 1955, Father Raymond Brown did a doctoral dissertation an American university [St. Mary’s University], and he did it on the sensus plenior. His idea was, “Yes, there is a surface meaning—this is what the human author said. But there was a deeper meaning, and this is what the divine author said.” Now as soon as you cut the two apart, [however] you’re in for trouble. You’re in for real trouble, because if a surface meaning is only giving us history and culture and background, and the deeper meaning is what really comes from God, then why did we put a division between the two and try to cut them apart? And they said, “Well because look at what Caiaphas did. Caiaphas said things there that he didn’t know.” Yes, but I need John’s authority under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to teach me that, in verse 51, “he did not say this on his own.” I think there is the providential work of God, while Caiaphas means this to be a politically expedient message in which “Better we cut one loose than to get the whole nation in trouble.” And I can see it from that point of view. He has a point.

But John picks it up and says, “But you don’t know you really hit the nail on the head! That’s what the Gospel is about! It’s about one giving His life for the many. And you can’t receive it, and you won’t believe it because you say, “That’s no concept of God!” I could never believe that a high priest in that day would have accepted the concept of what John was trying to teach here [in the text]. They were just dead set against it. But nevertheless, some have tried to say, “Well Caiaphas didn’t mean this, but this came at a deeper meaning—not from John, the one who writes the word here, but John is still operating with the surface meaning. But it



6 of 12

Lesson 07 of 12

is God who gives this deeper meaning.” Now I find that to be very perplexing, and it was a real debate going on until [the present]. We’ll see later on; I’ll introduce [this further].

In 1967, there was an English teacher at the University of Virginia, [named] E. D. Hirsch. He wrote a book called Validity in Interpretation. In this book, he said, “We must make a distinction between meaning and significance.” He said, “Meaning is what the author intended or what the author asserted.” I don’t want to get into psychological things here, but that’s what meaning was. “Significance, however, names a relationship between what the author said and applying it to a thousand other situations.” That distinction was a great distinction. He put that out in the area of literature because he was an English teacher, but he also meant it for jurisprudence [and biblical interpretation]. This is all a question of our constitutional law. Do we go by the book or do we make up laws? And here’s the great debate in American [The United States] society about the court. Does the court interpret the law that’s there, or does it legislate law, or should that belong to the legislature? This is a major battle in the United States. So in the area of Scripture, in the area of literature, in the area of jurisprudence, this is one of the hottest topics around.

(By the way, it was Yale University Press that put this book out in 1967. It’s still in print.) E. D. Hirsch was bitterly attacked by the biblical scholars, bitterly attacked by literature people and bitterly, most of all, attacked by people in law. They did not like it at all, that there was a meaning to [resident within] the text and that we didn’t bring meaning to that text, that it wasn’t the reader that brought [a new] meaning to it [the text]. We’ll be saying more about that later on, but this is an important background text.

Now the text that really comes up so frequently [in the New Testament use of the Old] is the one found in Matthew’s Gospel. As we start in Matthew’s Gospel, we have this story of Jesus going down into Egypt. Here we have, in Matthew 2:14, “So he got up [Joseph], took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. So was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet.” So now we have an apologetic and a doctrinal argument both: “So was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet.” And he’s going to quote the prophet Hosea 11:1, “Out of Egypt have I called my son.” Now most read that (by the way, when you read scripture—which is not being read in church anymore, and shame on the churches. [Most] read it “Out of Egypt, have I called my son” (where you put the emphasis in a sentence makes a difference. So you really need to know that,



7 of 12

Lesson 07 of 12

as we read Scriptures, we give interpretation too). I think the way you read this is, “Out of Egypt have I called my son.” Why my son? Because “My son” in Exodus 4:22, God says, “Israel is my son, my firstborn.” And then it starts two of the technical terms for the promised plan of God: that this Messiah is not only Seed, but this Messiah is also “My Son,” who is also “My firstborn.” Therefore I think he is saying here, “Just like God delivered Israel during the days” (for Hosea is talking about the Exodus. It’s clear). As they went through, crossed over the Red Sea, and God opened up a path for them to pass through the Sea, so once again God was delivering His Son.”

Or put it this way—if you read the story of the Bible and you see that Israel is about to be attacked by Pharaoh and there are mountains on this side and there’s a sea on this side and here comes the Egyptians in a pincer move right behind them, now start biting your fingernails, because we don’t know if Christmas and Easter are going to be cancelled. For if the one who is carrying the “Seed of the woman” that’s going to come and cross through [the Red Sea], the line from which Jesus is going to come—it could all come to kaput right there. So you read the Bible in line with the great storyline, that it is the Messiah who is coming. And this Son, here, is none other than the Messiah. If you said, “Out of Egypt have I called my Seed,” we’d have gotten it a little better, or “Out of Egypt have I called my Messiah,” we’d have gotten it a little better, see.

As a matter of fact, do you notice where he quoted the verse [in Matthew]? He quoted it as they went into Egypt. If it were His coming out, He should’ve waited until He came down, later on, to verse 22 [if He meant in Exodus]. But this is in verse 15. So when he goes into Egypt he says, “Out of Egypt have I called my Son.” God is the deliverer of the nation, which carries in its bosom that seedling form of the Messiah that’s going to come. But everyone says, “No, no.” Let’s go back one more time to I Peter 1:10-12. Peter has just talked about “so great a salvation”: it’s unrustable, unbreakable, uneverything (this is just really a full guarantee, power train and everything for complete life of the car—complete life of salvation.) Then he says, “Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come” (by the way, it’s interesting that the prophets spoke about the grace of the gospel too, as well. Selah). So they “searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and the circumstances.”

Now some of your Bibles read, “Trying to find out the person and the circumstances” (There are some of my buddies that translated



8 of 12

Lesson 07 of 12

that [differently]. Do not get in line behind them on the final day; it will be held up). But at any rate, I don’t think so. Eis tina a poion kairon, the Greek says—“until what time, or what manner of time.” No word for a person [is] there, unless you’re going to try to get it out of the gender, but he doesn’t make any specific reference to it. Anyway, he is going to talk about the person, so trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them is pointing when he predicted 1) Christ, 2) the sufferings of Christ, 3) the glories of Christ, 4) the glory that would follow (he knew the order), 5) it was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves (these prophets [know this]). “But you,” Peter says to whom they were writing. So [there are] five things the prophets knew.

But this verse is cited against the position I’m taking here. They say, “No, no. The prophets wrote better than they knew. It says here they were trying to find out what person and what time.” [But] it doesn’t say “person” (The NIV didn’t do it that way. The NASV did—the New American Standard—the English Standard Version did it that way, and a number of others [are written that way]. The RSV did not do it that way). But why not? Because when they were pointing to Jesus, when they’re pointing to Christ, how could they ask the person when they talked about the person? It doesn’t make sense. The context would be self-contradictory, to put “person” up there onto “what person or what time?”

What was it, the two things they didn’t know? They didn’t know the time, they didn’t know the circumstances. Five things they did know: (1) they knew they were talking about Jesus, the Messiah; (2) they knew He was going to suffer; (3) they knew He was going to become the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, glorified; (4) they knew the order—there was the glory that should follow the suffering; and (5) they knew they were speaking not only to themselves but to us in our day too, as well.

The New Testament writers really talked about the Messiah. This is one of the big topics in the Bible that there is a prediction of the Messiah. In the book here that we just recently enlarged that came out with a second edition—Introduction to Biblical Hermeneutics-The Search for Meaning (which Moises Silva and I did in the first edition, and is being used in a number of seminaries. A number of lay readers have found it much more helpful than some of the more technical ones. There are about three or four major interpretation books [on the Bible] that have come out.) But on page 98, I give just a beginning list here of predictions and the Old Testament reference and New Testament fulfillment.



9 of 12

Lesson 07 of 12

That’s only for starters). [Alfred] Edersheim, in his book, The Life and Teaching of Jesus, The Messiah, as a Jewish writer, he said that, in the Jewish community, up until the Christian Era, they’d listed 565 [or possibly 465] passages in the Old Testament that predicted Jesus.

I’m sure that at least 100 are there. I have another book called The Messiah in the Old Testament, in which I’ve found 73 direct prophecies to the Messiah in the Old Testament. Micah 5:2, everyone gets. “Thou Bethlehem, Ephrathah, though you least are among the . . .” (Ephrathah is the old name for Bethlehem. So Bethlehem, Ephrathah. So it’s in apposition—Ephrathah. You read the book of Ruth; they call Bethlehem Ephrathah. You read the Book of Genesis; Bethlehem is called Ephrathah. It was changed later on—Bethlehem), “But you, Bethlehem, even though you were little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth a ruler.” Where was Jesus to be born? Well the wise men, who came from the east (We always use to stress this at Gordon Conwell [in the Boston, Massachusetts area], that the wise men come from the east. It was just a thought). But at any rate, Micah 5:2, “Really?” they said. “Yes, that does predict that Jesus was going to be born in Bethlehem.” Because the wise men got over in the general vicinity. They said, “The star led them this far,” but they needed Scripture.” This is not a basis for astrology or horoscopes or anything like that. If they had depended only on astrology and horoscopes, those wise men would still be looking. But they summoned the men of his day and said, “Where is the Messiah to be born King of the Jews?”

They said, “Bethlehem.”

“Why?”

“The text [of Scripture] said so.”

Was it a deeper meaning? No! It was a surface meaning. They were combined there. So that one goes easy.

What about the preaching of John the Baptist? Well two texts there—Isaiah 40:3 and Malachi. And there you get also “There is a voice crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord!” And it’s moral preparation. “Get rid of the valleys and crooked roads there. Prepare a highway.” Sure! (Whenever

the king was coming to town, it’s like when the President comes to town, they fix it up! Did you ever notice that? You have potholes from the airport to your house. But if the President is coming



10 of 12

Lesson 07 of 12

that way, they found money last night, miraculously, to fill in the potholes. And all of the homes that were run down, they are either torn down that night or boarded up. And no bare ground—they want the President to see grass. So they put down grass and if they can’t get the grass down, they spray it green. They want him to have [the best appearance of the place]. Why? Because the President is coming to town!)

When the Lord is coming to town, [all were to] get ready morally. Get rid of that crookedness and then prepare the way of the Lord. So that’s not a verse for LeTourneau or bulldozers. But it is a verse for moral straightening out of the whole landscape. That’s what God is after there.

They asked John the Baptist, “John, are you Elijah that is to come?” (John 1:21) Because Malachi also said, “Elijah the prophet will come before the great notable day of the Lord” (Malachi 4:5).

And he said, “No.”

They said, “Jesus, is John the Elijah, that [one who] is to come before you come back again?”

And he said, “Well if you are able to receive it, yes. He came,” Luke 1:17, “in the power and the spirit of Elijah.” Same power, same Spirit in his preaching. “But I tell you, Elijah will come.”

“Excuse me, was that a yes or no.” It was, there is a “now”—he has come—and “not yet.” This is inaugurated eschatology.

You ask, “Well what about [what] the Bible says that the Antichrist (Daniel 11), is [he] going to come?

What about Hitler, Mussolini, Mao Tse-Tung, Kadafi, Khomeini, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein?” Because I John 2:18 says, “Beloved, the Antichrist will come and already many antichrists.” So if your favorite antichrist has died, don’t worry. They’re only in a series. Just like in the Davidic line, there are a whole series of people that carry the Messianic office and the promise up until Christ comes: David, Solomon, and Rehoboam and so forth and so forth and so forth. There is also another line. There is a line of “antimessiahs,” and therefore Hitler, Mussolini, Mao Tse-Tung, Idi Amin, Khomeini, Kadafi, Saddam Hussein. They carry part of the office and the power of “that one that is to come in the final days.”

You say, “I don’t get it.” Okay, another one. Joel says, “We’ve got to repent and turn back to the Lord. The locusts are eating us



11 of 12

Lesson 07 of 12

up.” They did! One wave, two waves, three waves, four waves of locusts, and what’s left? Zilch. So, “the people [Joel 2:18] turned back to the Lord” (in the NIV, the New American Standard, and some others put it in the future tense. No, no! It’s a clear narrative [past] tense in the Bible. They did clear it up in the TNIV—Today’s NIV) At any rate, they said there that “Then Israel will be grieved and will be . . .” No, No! “Then they were grieved and repented and they turned and they said,” And as a result of that, the pastures [grew] green up. The rain, the former and the latter rain [like in California, you have the early spring rain and the autumn rain. Same climate in Israel], they came in their season and then afterward, that came bareshit at first [Joel 2:23].

“After this,” Joel 2:28 continues, “I will pour out my Spirit.” This is not just a sending of the Spirit, this is going to be a downpour. Have you ever been in he tropics at 9:00 to 10:00 at night? The downpour comes and it hits the ground and bounces a foot high. It’s a downpour. It comes in buckets! And so God says, “I’m going to send my Holy Spirit in buckets, and it’s going to be upon your old men, young men, your sons, and your daughters (don’t fuss with me, fuss with the Bible), and what’s more. “What’s more,” He says, “on your menservants and your maidservants.” Who are they? Goyim, Gentiles. “So it make no difference on age, makes no difference on gender, makes no difference in terms of whether you are a race, Jew or Gentile, I’m going to pour down My Holy Spirit.”

Now on the day of the Pentecost, Peter is preaching and he says, “This is that!” So there was a “now,” but we still haven’t seen all of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. You wait until the second coming as it approaches. I tell you, there’s going to be an avalanche, and especially upon who? The people who have been most resistant—Israel—will come flooding back for some reason. Something turns Israel around and they start accepting Christ in droves. So much so that it says, “All Israel shall be saved.” How do I understand “all Israel?” The same way I understand “Everybody was at the game the other night.” Well, yeah, almost everyone. It means “almost everyone” because it took in so many.

Well [there are] many other passages we could speak of that talk of the prediction of our Lord, and this is helping us to understand how to really use the biblical interpretation. There seems to be very little disparity between the two Testaments with regard to the testimony that a Messiah would come, His mission would be described, His birthplace would be described, His announcer would be described, the types of things He would do would be described,

Transcript - HR501 Biblical Hermeneutics Understanding Biblical Interpretation© 2019 Our Daily Bread University. All rights reserved.

Christ-Centered Learning — Anytime, Anywhere

12 of 12

The New Testament Use of the Old TestamentLesson 07 of 12

and then also that was separate from His second coming.

Some years ago, I had a debate on the John Ankerberg Show, five sessions with a Rabbi Pinchas Lapide. They had searched for 5 years to find a rabbi who will debate on the question, “Is Jesus the Messiah?” You’ll be happy to know I took the positive side, and he took the negative side. And we had five 5 half hour sessions that were marvelous. He is one of five Jewish scholars (now deceased), but one of five Jewish Scholars who majored in New Testament. So he knew his New Testament very well, [which] made it fun talking with him. At a certain point, he said, “My good friend Kaiser (that was me),” he said, “You Christians, you say Isaiah 53 is about Messiah, about Yeshua, Jesus.” He said, “No, that was us. We went to Auschwitz, we went to the ovens. We were the ones that were really burned up.” And he said, “That was our suffering, we are the servant of the Lord.” I said, “Rabbi, it is true. The ‘servant of the Lord’ [often] refers to “Israel is my servant,” but out of that group comes One representing the many, and that One is nonetheless than Yeshua.” I said, “You say that’s all Israel; it says there, that ‘this suffering servant, He has done no guile neither is there deceit in his mouth.’” I said, “Does that sound like any mortals you know, much less your own people? Isaiah doesn’t say that. In his whole book, he says that we are sinners, we are [all] sinners.”

My son tells me a funny story. He said that their organist in their church played a very beautiful musical number, but he played it very flamboyantly, to which the whole church clapped their hands. And the pastor got up and said, “That is not the appropriate way to respond. You say, ‘Amen, amen’ in this church when you really like something.” So he got into his message and he said, “Of all, I too am one of the chief sinners.” And up jumped the organist and said, “Amen, amen.” I tell you, God’s people are funny if you just have a sense of humor. Wait awhile and it will come to pass.

When the New Testament writers cite the Old Testament for doctrine or for apologetic reasons, I think they need to root their message in the [biblical] text. Now there are times when they just use the words, but I’m thinking of the vast majority when they use it apologetically and doctrinally.

the new testament use of the old testament · 2019. 9. 13. · 1 of 12 lesson 07 of 12 hr501 the...

Documents