Picturing Theology, Revised Edition

100 | Picturing Theology, Revised Edition

Promise vs. Prediction: The Apostolic Hermeneutic of the Old Testament Adapted from Christopher J. H. Wright

And So It Was Fulfilled: Five Scenes of Jesus’s Early Life

The Old Testament Reference

Commentary on the Actual Historical Context of the Old Testament Text Immanuel prophecy was given as a sign to King Ahaz in his own historical context, and does not immediately provide any sense of a long range prediction of Messianic relevance A direct Messianic prediction about the birthplace of the future Governor of Israel and the nations No prediction present; Hosea reference is a prophetic allusion to the Exodus of the people of God from Egypt. The Old Testament text is a figurative picture of the mourning of Rachel (Israel) at the time of the Exile in 587 BC after the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians. No explicit Messianic prediction is contained in the text. Texts have relevance within their setting, but not in an explicit way to fulfill Messianic predictions.

Incident in Jesus’s Life

Matthew Citation

Hermeneutic Significance

Assurance to Joseph concerning the child conceived in Mary

Matthew 1:18-25

Isaiah 7:14, the Immanuel sign given to King Ahaz by Isaiah

The Holy Spirit provided the Apostles with divine wisdom in making connections with not only the plain Messianic predictions, but also those aspects of the history of Israel which represent in a direct way some aspect of the life and ministry of Jesus. The ability to correlate particular events of Israel to the life and ministry of Messiah Jesus is precisely the nature of the apostolic Spirit-illumined hermeneutic which coincides with divine and Spirit-inspired Scripture. We are invited to exegete the Scriptures and make correlations in the same way as the Lord and the Apostles, although our connections should never be considered normative in the same way as theirs.

Jesus’s birth in Bethlehem, the city of David

Matthew 2:1-12

Micah 5:2, prophecy of the Governor and Ruler of Israel to

come from Bethlehem

The escape to Egypt, and the return from there

Matthew 2:13-15

Hosea 11:1, God’s deliverance of his people Israel, his “son,” out of Egypt at the Exodus Jeremiah 31:15, Jeremiah’s lament for the Israelite nation who were going into exile, into Babylonian captivity

Herod’s murder of the boys in Bethlehem

Matthew 2:16-18

Jesus’s family settlement in Nazareth of Galilee

Matthew 2:19-23

Several possible allusions in the Old Testament, Judges 13:5; 1 Samuel 1:11; Amos 2:10-11