Have you ever read Matthew, Paul or another NT writer quoting the OT in a way that made you scratch your head? “Maybe if I look it up, it will help”. You look up the reference, and…it’s even worse. The writer seems to take the quote totally out of context. The Bible wasn’t prophesying JESUS would come out of Nazareth, was it? Isaiah wasn’t talking about MARY when it referred to the virgin who would bear a child, was it? And what in the world is Paul doing using Hagar as an allegorical figure for ancient Israel? Were all these men misguidedly stretching texts to fit their theological purposes?
While that’s a possibility, I think it’s a lazy intellectual alternative. I’d like to borrow from G.K. Beale’s “Handbook on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament” to offer six theological and biblical assumptions the NT authors make that will shed some light on the thought process behind the sometimes puzzling interweaving of the OT in the New (sometime soon I’ll write a follow-up on specific ways the NT uses the OT):
1. The OT writing is sacred. I wonder if some of the criticism of the NT use of the OT stems from a subconscious assumption that scripture isn’t actually divinely orchestrated. Without this, no quotation of the OT will make sense. Because the OT is God’s word, without the Holy Spirit, there is no understanding the NT use of the OT.
2. Corporate Solidarity. This is a confusing term for us individualistic Americans. So, rather than take the fire myself, I’ll let Walter Kaiser define it: “…[by corporate solidarity] I don’t mean corporate personality. Rather, what I mean is something we can see in the business world of our culture; we can see illustrations of what was meant in Near Eastern culture. In business law, a fictional person is created so that corporations are treated as single individuals. For example, if you buy a ‘lemon’ from one of the Detroit auto makers, you will try to solve the problem through legitimate channels – complaining, talking, pleading, praying – with the car dealer. But if, eventually, you don’t get satisfaction, you will take the company to court. Your court case will read, ‘[Your name] versus GMAC.’ For the purposes of that court case, a legal fiction will be created in which all of General Motors Corporation is treated as one individual versus you, one individual. For the duration of the trial the whole company is treated as if it were a single person, even though behind it is a management team, and behind that is probably a board of directors, and behind that are employees by the thousands, and behind them are stock-holders. That is what is meant by corporate solidarity, in which the whole group is represented by one.”
3. Christ is the corporate head of the true Israel in the OT and NT. Jesus is the legal head of the true Israel of the OT and the church – the true Israel of the NT. Adam is the legal corporate head of the rest of humanity. We bristle against these truths (actually, Christians still bristle over Adam being our corporate head, but we’re fine with Jesus being our corporate head!), but in order to understand the New Testament, we must understand this essential assumption of its authors.
4. God’s history is united. The NT assumes that there are two true authors behind every text and historical event: 1.) The man who wrote it truly wrote it, with his own style, background and perspective. The historical characters really, genuinely acted according to their wills. 2.) God also fully wrote the text, and at times, God has things in mind the authors of the OT don’t. Not only this, but the NT assumes that God sovereignly orchestrated the events and personalities of the OT in order to correspond to the later parts of the story He is telling. This is the story of the people of Israel, but it is also God’s story – he designed it from the beginning, and each part has meaning and purpose (see Matt 5:17, 11:13, 13:16-17). Each person, each story, each event is divinely designed to point to the climactic later events. So is this God’s story or theirs? Yes.
5. The age of fulfillment has come. When Paul says these are the “last days” he really means it. Paul and the other NT writers assume that everything the OT foreshadowed and spoke about was fulfilled in Christ. This age, the age of Jesus, is the point. We can now look back at the OT and see what it all meant, for the grand narrative has reached its climax. Like reading any brilliant story, we reach the end and realize every single detail was purposefully placed to this end – we can now re-read the story in a new light. Things that made little sense before suddenly shine with clarity. Every portion that seemed to be poorly written or purposeless suddenly jumps out as a meaningful, ingenious addition to the beautifully interwoven story.
6. Christ is the goal. Because this is the age of fulfillment, Christ is the key to interpreting all of the OT. The Bible is not full of heroes, but of one hero – Jesus Christ. He is the only hero of every OT story. No faithful man of the OT fully succeeds as Christ does; no king, no prophet, no priest could accomplish what He could accomplish. Some foreshadow him by contrast, some by similarity, but every biblical character, every story, is about one thing: Jesus Christ.
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