Jesus and Israel
0 comments | Posted by Steven Layson on 07 Dec 2008 in From Steve's Study ::
Have you ever walked in on a conversation half-way through and totally misunderstood what was going on? John Dickson, in his book A Spectator’s Guide to Jesus, compares this situation to the one we meet when we open the pages of the New Testament. Some of the stories and ideas, of the gospels particularly, may strike us as strange because we have “missed” the first part of the conversation.
As we’ve seen over the last 2 weeks, this conversation started many centuries earlier in the pages of the Old Testament. As we look through its pages, we see the history of God’s people and in particular how, despite God’s continual love and kindness towards them, they consistently turned away from him (just read through the pages of Exodus and Numbers in particular to see just how true this is).
As we turn to the Gospels, we meet Jesus, who is portrayed as the “true Israel” and “re-enacts” the story of Israel as it should have been. For example, Jesus was “called out of Egypt”, but did not then go on to move away from God (Matthew 2:14-15 cf Hosea 11:1-2).
Similarly, Jesus “re-enacts” Israel’s time in the wilderness. The nation of Israel spent 40 years in the desert, grumbling and disobeying God before they entered the Promised Land (See the book of Numbers). Before Jesus began his public ministry in the land of Israel, he spent 40 days in the desert (see Matthew 4:1-11). During this time he was tempted in the very ways Israel were tempted (to grumble about food, to put God to the test and to worship other gods), yet he did not fall as they did.
In these and many other ways, Jesus is set up as the model for how the people of God should always have lived, but he is also portrayed as our representative before God. He lived as we could never live & gave his life so we could partake in his goodness. As we celebrate the birth of the Son of God this Christmas, let’s marvel again at the age-old story that finds its climax and fulfillment in the person of Jesus.
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