I said to a friend recently that the “Bible was all about Jesus”, and that you could get to Jesus from any passage in Scripture. He responded -

I think it’s incipient Docetism to try to torture every syllable of Scripture into saying something directly about Jesus, when a whole lot of them are about how people who believe in Jesus should relate to God, other believers, unbelievers, their bosses, spouses, children, neighbors, things.

To be frank, I was making a bit of a motherhood statement. His challenge has made me reconsider. What are your thoughts?

Hi Craig

It is all about Jesus, but it’s not a game of ‘Where’s Wally.’ I’ll cut and paste a reply I made recently on a blog that exists to reject the Bible on the basis that our God is cruel. It concerns the story of Elisha calling bears upon little children. That was the purpose of my response, but you will also see that the first century ministry of Jesus is prefigured over and over again in the Old Testament. God bless you.

“Hello Steve

Interesting site. With all due respect, you unbelievers are like 2D creatures trying to make sense of a 3D object as it passes through your world. The Bible, like Jesus’ parables, was written to be wrestled with. If you believe, the Spirit will guide you to make sense of it. If you don’t, it will confuse you. It is a sword that divides the sheep from the goats.

There is a lot more going in this passage than is immediately apparent. Those who are offended by the events it records seem to ignore the context. This is not a game of totem tennis. It’s part of a cricket test match.

Firstly, it takes place within the Covenant. Israel was a nation of priests mediating before God for the rest of humanity. Depending on their obedience, this would bring great blessings or great curses (read Deut 28 and Lev 26). Judgment begins at the house of God. God’s people are MORE accountable to Him, and when they rebel, their sin is high-handed because they have more to rebel against.

Secondly, after the showdown between Ahab and Jezebel’s Baalism, and Elijah, Ahab still did not repent. Elijah became a new Moses. He did not run away as many suppose, but walked straight to the same mountain, the same cave, where Moses saw the glory of God. Elijah became the Moses of a new interim covenant with a remnant of believers (Paul and Revelation refer to this 7000 remnant as the pattern repeats itself in the first century). That is why, in the passage in question, there are two ‘water crossings’. Covenant makings always follow a seven point pattern, which not only corresponds to the seven days of the Creation week (as a new heavens [head] and new earth [body]), but also the annual feasts as recorded in Leviticus 23. You also see the ‘head and body’ of the sacrifice ritual from Leviticus 1:

EXODUS FROM THE NORTHERN KINGDOM

Sabbath - God’s word comes as initiator
The sons of the prophets are told that Elijah will ascend

Passover - Elisha follows Elijah into the wilderness. Elijah parts the Jordan with his cloak, and the two parts of the “sacrifice” are washed (Leviticus 1)

Firstfruits - Elijah, who is the flaming chariot, ascends to heaven as the head of the “sacrifice”

Pentecost - Elisha receives Elijah’s robe (the skin of the sacrifice given to the priest), and a “double mouthful” of the Spirit

Trumpets - Elisha’s house is established when Elijah cannot be found (Moses’ secret grave)

Atonement - Elisha tips a bowl of salt water into the bitter spring of Jericho and lifts the curse of barrenness from the Land. False prophet interns (or children) threaten Elisha and are eaten by beasts (bears) as the ‘scapegoat’ sent to destruction

Booths - Elisha returns ‘home’ as a new Joshua (Booths)

...

...So, you can see the entire Exodus, wilderness, Jordan, promised Land pattern here. The pattern is also the deep structure of the entire New Testament, where Jesus as Moses and Elijah ascends to God (as head of the church - the Adam captain) and sends the Spirit upon the church (Elisha - the body - the Eve army). In this case, Jericho was the corrupted religion of Herod’s temple, and Jesus came in judgment in AD70, vindicating His predictions. This explains a lot of the symbols used in Revelation, which predicted these events.

Regarding the insult ("Go up, bald head") perhaps this had to do with the ascension of Elijah as the ‘head.’ Elisha, as the body, seemed without a visible ‘Christ.’

Regarding the bears, being torn in two by scavenging birds and wild beasts was a curse of the Covenant that is often repeated throughout the Bible, beginning with the raven sent out by Noah, that fed on the floating bodies until the waters went down. Tearing one’s robes symbolised this also. If you remember, Jezebel was eaten by dogs, Saul’s sons were hung high but one of their mothers chased the birds away. Abraham chased the birds away from the divided animals that purified the Land, etc. There are many more examples.

The Lord’s throne is often described as coming from the north (Ezek. 1). In the stars, His throne is polar north, and there are two bears guarding it (I would also mention that the woman and the dragon of Rev 12 are also in the stars, and that the order of the tribes around the Tabernacle followed the 12 constellations, the ones that bowed to Joseph). Elisha is simply extending the dominion of God’s throne over the Covenant breakers. In AD70, 6000 women and children died when cloisters collapsed at the end of the Roman seige. Like the Amorites in Canaan, Jezebel’s time was up. The curses of the Old Covenant fell for the last time.

There is a spiritual war going on. One thing you must understand is that committing one sin brings the death penalty. God is within His rights to destroy us instantly - and He does this a few times in the Bible to remind us. The miracle is that He doesn’t. Our problem is that we use His mercy and patience to compound our sin.

So these children or youths are the “children of Jezebel”, and the point is that the idolatrous/adulterous woman will have no children (read Numbers 5), but the faithful woman will have many. God applied this test to Israel when they worshipped the golden calf. The generations of the wicked will be cut off. Israel’s time had run out, and the attack by the bears simply prefigured God’s use of the Assyrian and later the Babylonian invaders to ‘flood in’ and wipe out the unfaithful ‘sons of God’ (Gen 6) who should have been faithful priests.

I hope that helps. If we use peace-time morality to judge war-time measures (ie. sticking a knife in someone is bad unless you are cutting out cancer) we will misinterpret the Scriptures.

We are free to reject the Scriptures, but I think we ought to do our homework first.”

[Previous to this post, there was discussion about the merit for the argument that the ‘little children’ were actually young men, interns in the worship of Baal near one of Jeroboam’s golden calves. It is possible, but cannot be proven. The argument above makes this irrelevant anyway.]

The Bible is entirely about Jesus, in that the entire universe is about Jesus as it was made by, for and through him. But it’s quite obvious that some of the Bible is a lot more directly related to Jesus than that. I don’t think it’s helpful to say the other parts are about Jesus.

Hi Dannii

What other parts?

Phinehas’ covenant is my current favourite example. Though I’d love to be proved wrong if there is a much stronger connection between his covenant and Jesus.

Good one. The toughest ones usually turn out to be the biggest blessings.

Balak (the idolatrous king), afraid of a “new people” in his land, employed Balaam to curse Israel. When that failed, Balaam convinced them to commit adultery. Phinehas put a javelin through some adulterers and inherited the priesthood. The bad girls were slain, but the virgins were kept.

In the first century, Herod (the idolatrous kings) rebelled against the words of Christ that the Temple would be destroyed and went on building it. The Balaamites were the false prophets troubling the churches and encouraging spiritual adultery (see Rev 2-4). Herod’s Temple became a graven image that could speak (the image of the beast). The first century saints are pictured in Revelation as virgins, Nazirites who kept themselves from women, like Phinehas, during holy war. As Phinehas, they would even spear their sons if they became false prophets (see Zechariah) and because of this faithfulness, the Christian church inherited the priesthood. The virgins were kept, but the adulterers were slain in AD 70 when God wiped out Judaism.

In all this, the church followed the example of Christ, who also kept His Nazirite vow, pictured in His abstaining from wine until His personal holy war was over: “I thirst… It is finished.” For His faithfulness, He became our High Priest, with the difference that He was speared for our transgressions.

I don’t think you’ve dealt with Phinehas’ covenant at all. It was an perpetual covenant of peace, to his physical children. It may or may not be a good analogy for what has happened with Christ, but you haven’t shown how the endless covenant given to Phinehas is related to Christ.

(I also don’t think that analogy is shown anywhere in the Bible either… I’d be reluctant to introduce too many analogies that the Bible doesn’t make itself. There are enough already.)

Dannii

Firstly, the entire Old Testament is not only history, but typology. That is the way it is all related to Christ. I recommend reading ‘Jesus as Israel: the Typological Structure of Matthew’s Gospel’ by Peter Leithart, available from www.leithart.com
The Bible is designed to be read typologically. It is absolutely, totally, unequivocally, irretrievably laced with it. The ones made obvious to us are only scratching the surface. That’s why the minimalistic, over-cautious GH expositors can’t make sense of the prophets or Revelation and reduce it to mere ideology. We need to think like Hebrews.

Secondly, the word translated “everlasting” in Numbers 25 means “age-enduring”. Because of his faithfulness, the Aaronic priesthood was continued through the family line of Phinehas. Aaron was ‘Adam’, representing the human race before God. Phinehas became the chosen son of Adam - or anointed son of ‘man’. He prefigures Christ and the establishment of the New Covenant priesthood very obviously.

With respect,
Mike

Since I have an exam on the doctrine of Scripture tomorrow, I wonder if posting here counts as study? ;) But because I’m not really convinced of the validity of that argument this post will be brief :)

I think I’d argue that the Bible IS all about Jesus insomuch as the Bible is God’s self-revelation which he purposes and uses to make himself and his plan of salvation known to us. This plan, of course, centres wholly around Christ - and so yes, I would say it is all about Jesus.

So whilst we might argue that one passage or another doesn’t seem to be specifically about Jesus, those passages all reveal something to us about the character and the nature of our merciful God whose purpose is to save his people, through Christ. I think that’s because we need to locate our theological understanding of Scripture in the larger context of our doctrine of God, rather than as a first premise in and of itself.

I think it is also worth exploring the link between Jesus Christ as the incarnate word of God and Scripture as the word of God… but not now for me :)

Hi Dani

I think my main point is that many of the events in the OT are structured to prefigure the entire ministry of Christ, and so not always obvious to us Greeks who love to compartmentalise. A good example would be the sign of Jonah, which can send us for a spin. It’s a bit ‘out there’. Jesus spoke of the sign of Jonah as the one sign of His victory. Often we take this only to refer to His three days in the “heart of the earth” and His resurrection. But it’s more than that. Taking the gospel to the gentiles to provoke the Jews to obedience was also part of the sign of Jonah. Paul was an obedient Jonah.

Dannii Willis - 24 June 2008 06:41 PM

I don’t think you’ve dealt with Phinehas’ covenant at all. It was an perpetual covenant of peace, to his physical children. It may or may not be a good analogy for what has happened with Christ, but you haven’t shown how the endless covenant given to Phinehas is related to Christ.

I’ve been wondering about Phinehas too Dannii. Particularly in the light of Ps 106:30-31 and how much Paul makes of that kind of language applied to Abraham in Rom 4. It would seem in Phinehas we have a counter-point to both the eternal priesthood of Michizedek (Ps 110/Heb 7) and justification by faith (Gen 15/Rom 4). Niether of which is explicitly linked to Christ! I haven’t figured out what to make of Phinehas either.

Hi Nathan

Like Abraham, true faith is demonstrated by obedience. Phinehas showed that he believed God, not Balaam, the false prophet. As explained above, this prefigured the events of the first century. After the gospel’s initial success, Satan revived Judaism, both within and without the church (Balaamites), the False Prophet.

Jesus warned that prior to His coming to destroy Jerusalem, many false prophets would arise (Matthew 24:24). Zechariah prophesied that the converted Jews would not listen to false prophets but would, like Phinehas, run them through (Zechariah 13:3). These believing Jews, like Phinehas, inherited the priesthood under a New Covenant.

Mike

I’d go with the Bible is all about Jesus, it is also all about the Father, it is also all about the Spirit. It is also all about man and redemption.
It can be dissected. In fact it should be. But it is also a whole. In the whole it is about these and other subjects. Under dissection different emphasis can be found in particular passages.

I think we may be hitting a divide not unllike Hellenistic thinking vs Hebrew thinking. There are implicit assumptions operating. eg; The full intent of a passage is implicit in the words. Context is also an important part of the meaning. Context includes not only the rest of the Bible, but also the culture, language and paradigm of the time, and later times… hmmm and earlier ones as well.

Owen

I agree. “All of God does all that God does,” and we see that in Jesus’ ministry.
But Jesus said the OT predicted Him, not the Father or the Spirit. It was Jesus who sent the Spirit. He draws men to the Father. He is the One we are to lift up. He was the Ark of the Covenant walking around like an open scroll bringing blessings and curses. The mystery of God was finally opened. The key to the OT is the New. All must now be read with the ministry of Christ in view.

I like your emphasis on context. The Bible was written for us, but it wasn’t necessarily written to us. We need to teach biblical theology in our churches. Christians aren’t dumb. I get through more Bible in one Scripture lesson with unchurched teenagers than most churches get in 6 months. It’s pitiful.

Here’s a snip from my blog to bore you

“There are at least three good reasons for a renewed emphasis on teaching biblical theology to everyone in church:

1 We don’t know how to read the Bible. We need to interpret it properly before we can apply it. We forget we are reading someone else’s mail, and take it out of context. We apply texts directly to ourselves or to current newspaper headlines with disastrous results. When we meet together, we search our feelings or latch onto any old idea we find rattling around in our subconscious, pool our ignorance and claim we are taking the Bible at “face value.” We wouldn’t treat any other literature this way. Who was it written to? What events were on their horizon? What previous events could the author be referring to? Where does the passage fit in history? What previous history does the text have in Scripture? Without checking for ‘previous’, we have no frame of reference for our interpretation of a passage before we make an application of its truth;

2 We ignore or isolate the Old Testament. We stay in safe, familiar territory which leaves most of the Bible unexplored and foreign to us. And when we do deal with the Old Testament, it is presented as disconnected morality tales rather than as waves in an increasing conquest. This leaves Christians without a clue about how God works in history. We also fail to see Christ in all the Scriptures. The entire Old Testament predicted Him. This is bigger than a “Where’s Wally” hunt for Jesus. There are recurring event-patterns and symbols in the Old Testament that must be observed if we are to understand the structure of Jesus’ ministry, the goal of the Great Commission and the history of the first-century church;

3 We misinterpret much of the New Testament, including some of its key passages, because we are ignorant of how God’s plan unfolded in the Old Testament. How can you understand the last chapter of a book if you only ever read the last chapter? One example would be those tricky verses in Hebrews that seem to imply that Christians can lose their salvation, but refer to the first century Jew’s temptation to return to the ‘Egypt’ of Judaism that would soon be destroyed. Another would be interpreting the Revelation correctly. Understanding the foundations laid during the Restoration period for the events of the first century is absolutely crucial for interpreting the “apocalyptic” passages of the New Testament.”

Basically, we need adult Sunday school in a big, integrated way.

Hi Mike

Care to explain this one to me? I’m pretty sure you can’t be saying what I think you are saying.

Michael Bull - 01 July 2008 11:25 AM

These believing Jews, like Phinehas, inherited the priesthood under a New Covenant.

Nathan