The Old Testament Witness to Christ and His Kingdom, Mentor's Guide, MG09

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T H E O L D T E S T A M E N T W I T N E S S T O C H R I S T A N D H I S K I N G D O M

A serious study of OT Messianic prophecy reveals that God has extended the promise and blessings of Abraham to the Gentiles, to all who believe in Jesus Christ as Messiah. The three critical movements in the NT’s use of OT Messianic prophecy include 1) Jesus’ explanation of the OT predictions about himself, 2) the apostles’ commentary on Jesus’ meaning in the NT writings, especially in the preaching of the book of Acts, and 3) the Church’s application of the apostles’ commentary of Jesus’ understanding of the OT. God included the salvation of the Gentiles in the promise to Abraham. Now in this age God has unveiled the mystery that was hidden in past ages and times but now revealed through the prophets and the apostles, namely that Gentiles are fellow heirs of the covenant and heirs of salvation. Clues were given prophetically of this inclusion throughout Scripture, e.g., in the protoevangelium and God’s promise to bless all the families of the earth in Abraham. The apostolic use of OT Messianic prophecies in their preaching as recorded in Acts and the Epistles reveal their developing understanding of Gentile inclusion in the faith. The OT Messianic prophecies regarding the Gentiles show the plan and purpose of God for the nations; not only has God fulfilled his promise for salvation to Abraham, but he also includes the salvation of the Gentiles in that salvation promise. The term for Messiah in the Greek is messias , the Aramaic form of the Hebrew mashiach , which means “to anoint”; Christos is the equivalent NT terminology meaning “anointed one.” The OT Messianic prophecy includes a handful of basic characteristics, including its focus on the deliverance of God’s people, its strong use of figurative language, its predictions in the “prophetic perfect” tense (as if they were already accomplished), and their lack of easy-to-understand timetables as to their precise fulfilment. The main characteristic is its linkage of the testaments to Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of its prophetic descriptions. The key to tracing the Messiah’s family lineage is following the clues from the beginning of Messianic shared his idea about the Passover, and one of the elders responded with a concerned look. “Pastor, I know that you want us to understand the Jewish Roots of our faith, and all. But, honestly, some of us are not seeing the point of all of this. We’re not under the Law anymore; we’ve had 21 centuries of Christian faith and practice, and it has not been Jewish in most cases. I just don’t see what you’re getting at. Isn’t that whole thing over and done with, I mean, the Jewish focus of the faith?” If you were the pastor, how would you answer the elder’s honest question about the place of Jewish roots and Gentile salvation today?

Restatement of the Lesson’s Thesis

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