The Story of Redemp­tion, Part III: From Eden to Jesus

In the fallen human race, God con­tinu­ally finds someone in whom he is pleased, people through whom he passes on the hope of sal­va­tion: Noah, later Abra­ham, then Joseph, whom God chose to keep his fam­ily alive dur­ing a time of fam­ine. As God’s chosen one, he exper­i­enced much rejec­tion, humi­li­ation and suf­fer­ing. In all these situ­ations, he remained faith­ful to God, who even­tu­ally exal­ted him.

Moses, who delivered the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt and led them to the Prom­ised Land, was also faced with sim­il­ar dif­fi­culties. Steph­en, the first Chris­ti­an mar­tyr, men­tions Joseph and Moses in his defence speech when he con­fronts his accusers with the fact that they also rejec­ted Jesus—just as their fore­fath­ers did to Joseph and Moses—and even killed him. Steph­en sealed his testi­mony with his blood:

Which of the proph­ets did your fath­ers not per­se­cute? And they killed those who announced before­hand the com­ing of the Right­eous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered (Acts 7:52)

On this path of suf­fer­ing, God ever more deeply reveals his love for us human beings, the sal­va­tion he has pre­pared for us. So we pro­gress from the prom­ises made to Dav­id to the words of the proph­ets that speak of the suf­fer­ing ser­vant of God. All these prom­ises are ful­filled in Jesus.

1 From Para­dise to Egypt

God has mercy even on man­kind after the Fall. Not even sin can extin­guish his caring love. This is expressed in the fol­low­ing pas­sage, which speaks about the situ­ation after the Fall:

And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife gar­ments of skins and clothed them. (Gen­es­is 3:21)

How­ever, people do not appre­ci­ate this love, but with their sins have worsened the ava­lanche set in motion by the first sin.

1.1 Noah—Comfort After the Flood

Des­pite the rap­id increase in sin, God “finds” a man: Noah, who found favour in his eyes:

The Lord saw that the wicked­ness of man was great in the earth, and that every inten­tion of the thoughts of his heart was only evil con­tinu­ally. And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have cre­ated from the face of the land, man and anim­als and creep­ing things and birds of the heav­ens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favour in the eyes of the Lord. These are the gen­er­a­tions of Noah. Noah was a right­eous man, blame­less in his gen­er­a­tion. Noah walked with God. (Gen­es­is 6:5–9)

If we read the story of the Flood through the eyes of faith, we see God’s mes­sage that the path of sin leads to destruc­tion. But God is love. He responds to even the smal­lest good thing. He “finds” a God-fearing per­son. In this way, redemp­tion con­tin­ues on the nar­row path of hope through a hand­ful of people in his­tory. God makes a cov­en­ant with man­kind in the sym­bol of the rainbow.

God’s first response to the wicked­ness of man­kind was the Flood. As a con­sequence of sin, it stands as a warn­ing sign for all time. But then God also made the rain­bow a sign of the cov­en­ant and hope.

“Behold, I estab­lish my cov­en­ant with you and your off­spring after you…”
“When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remem­ber the ever­last­ing cov­en­ant between God and every liv­ing creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the cov­en­ant that I have estab­lished between me and all flesh that is on the earth.” (Gen­es­is 9:9, 16–17)

1.2 Abraham—In Whom the Nations are Blessed

The hope con­tin­ued. Again God “found” a man in whom he was well pleased, whom he called to give him a new prom­ise of the com­ing deliv­er­ance. God called Abram:

Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your coun­try and your kindred and your father­’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a bless­ing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dis­hon­ours you I will curse, and in you all the fam­il­ies of the earth shall be blessed.” So Abram went, as the LORD had told him… (Gen­es­is 12:1–4)

Yes, there was a man who was pre­pared to leave his rel­at­ives, his “secur­ity” behind^[1] and set off towards an “uncer­tain” future. Simply because he believed and trus­ted God. This is how the child­less Abram^[2] received the prom­ise that he would become the fath­er of many chil­dren, that he would become Abra­ham^[3] (see Gen­es­is 17:5).

God said to him: “Walk before me, and be blame­less” (Gen­es­is 17:1). This expresses Abra­ham’s faith. This faith and love can also be seen in the fact that he was pre­pared to sac­ri­fice the most pre­cious thing he had, the son prom­ised to him, his only son, Isaac, whom he loved^[4].

He (i.e. God) said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do any­thing to him, for now I know that you fear God, see­ing you have not with­held your son, your only son, from me.” (Gen­es­is 22:12)

This is the atti­tude that pleases God. This is a sac­ri­fice that pleases him! That is why God renewed the prom­ise to him:

“… and in your off­spring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.” (Gen­es­is 22:18)

Paul explains who this off­spring is:

Now the prom­ises were made to Abra­ham and to his off­spring. It does not say, “And to off­springs”, refer­ring to many, but refer­ring to one, “And to your off­spring”, who is Christ. (Gala­tians 3:16)

The prom­ise giv­en to Abra­ham already gives us a glimpse of the awaited one who will be will­ing to “render him­self as a guilt offer­ing” so that he may “see his off­spring” (see Isai­ah 53:10 NASB), just as the grain of wheat that dies gives new life to many (see John 12:24–25). Like Abra­ham’s sac­ri­fice, God also sees in Jesus’ will­ing­ness to devote him­self a sac­ri­fice in a sim­il­ar way. God blesses this and gives him many sons, whom he leads to glory^[5].

In this way, Abra­ham becomes the fath­er of faith for all those who not only name them­selves after him^[6] but also fol­low his works of faith.

Abra­ham^[7] was able to see in Isaac, the son of the prom­ise, the begin­ning of the ful­fil­ment of the promise.

We then encounter a situ­ation in which the sov­er­eign God deems it good that the path of sal­va­tion should not con­tin­ue through Esau, the eld­er son of Isaac, in accord­ance with the birth­right, but that his young­er broth­er Jac­ob should be the heir to the birth­right bless­ing^[8].

1.3 Joseph—The Des­pised Deliverer

Fol­low­ing the path of the pat­ri­archs, we arrive in Egypt, where the story of Joseph, one of Jac­ob’s sons, teaches us a great deal about God’s love. Joseph, who was chosen by God (see Gen­es­is 37:1–11; Deu­ter­o­nomy 33:16), was hated by his broth­ers. When he sets out to vis­it them at his father­’s request, they plan to kill him^[9].

It pleased God to make him their deliver­er, the one to whom they would turn for food at the time of fam­ine in Egypt. Joseph, whom they intend to kill, is there wait­ing for them as their saviour. That’s what God is like. He turns evil to good.

As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about^[10] that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. (Gen­es­is 50:20)

A pro­found truth already appears here, which takes on its true mean­ing in the full­ness of time:

Joseph, the chosen one, sets out to vis­it his broth­ers. They do not see him as the chosen one, they do not recog­nise him as the one sent by God. They reject him and want to kill him. Nev­er­the­less, God saves them from the fam­ine through him. In the same way, when the Light came to his own, to his broth­ers accord­ing to the flesh, his own did not accept him. Nev­er­the­less, he became the author of sal­va­tion to those who accept him (see John 1:9–13, Hebrews 5:9). Just as the stone that the build­ers rejec­ted has become the corner­stone, so he became the rock of sal­va­tion for those who believe, and stum­bling block for those who do not believe.^[11]

Then Joseph could not con­trol him­self before all those who stood by him. He cried, “Make every­one go out from me.” So no one stayed with him when Joseph made him­self known to his broth­ers. And he wept aloud, so that the Egyp­tians heard it, and the house­hold of Pharaoh heard it. And Joseph said to his broth­ers, “I am Joseph! Is my fath­er still alive?” But his broth­ers could not answer him, for they were dis­mayed at his pres­ence. So Joseph said to his broth­ers, “Come near to me, please.” And they came near. And he said, “I am your broth­er, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be dis­tressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to pre­serve life… And God sent me before you to pre­serve for you a rem­nant on earth, and to keep alive for you many sur­viv­ors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God. (Gen­es­is 45:1–8)

We find an inter­est­ing par­al­lel here that is worth reflect­ing on. It is inter­est­ing because it expresses the basic truth that God turns evil into good (Gen­es­is 50:20). It is obvi­ous that God nev­er wants evil!

… God can­not be temp­ted with evil, and he him­self tempts no one… Do not be deceived, my beloved broth­ers. Every good gift and every per­fect gift is from above, com­ing down from the Fath­er of lights with whom there is no vari­ation or shad­ow due to change. (James 1:13, 16–17)

Even the shad­ow of evil is far away from God. Then it is also clear that God did not want his chosen one, Joseph, to be killed or sold by his broth­ers. For that was wicked­ness. Nev­er­the­less, Joseph him­self expresses in the above-mentioned pas­sage that it was God who sent him to Egypt.

It is as if we are faintly hear­ing the words of Peter here, who would later proclaim:

“Let all the house of Israel there­fore know for cer­tain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you cru­ci­fied.” (Acts 2:36)

“But you denied the Holy and Right­eous One, and asked for a mur­der­er to be gran­ted to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are wit­nesses.” (Acts 3:14–15)

Joseph said that God wanted it that way, and so it is. But we can under­stand what this means from the pas­sage already quoted in Gen­es­is 50:20: “But God meant it for good.”

As we have already men­tioned: God does not want evil, but he can turn it to good. God wanted to save Jac­ob from the fam­ine. But how this happened also depended on the sons of Jac­ob. God takes into account the decisions of his creatures, who have an influ­ence on his plan of sal­va­tion in this way.

So God’s pres­ence per­meates his­tory in an invis­ible yet very real way. He is both the sov­er­eign Almighty and the humble ser­vant. He allows him­self to be “influ­enced”, he “adapts”, that is, he respects the will of his creatures. Nev­er­the­less, he is able to carry out his plan. This is a mir­acle that leads us to awe and won­der, a mir­acle that often sur­passes our under­stand­ing.^[12]

Oh, the depth of the riches and wis­dom and know­ledge of God! How unsearch­able are his judge­ments and how inscrut­able his ways!
“For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counsellor?”
“Or who has giv­en a gift to him that he might be repaid?”
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory for ever. Amen. (Romans 11:33–36)

A new chapter in the his­tory of sal­va­tion begins in Egypt with Moses, and with the nation chosen by God.

2 Israel, the People of the Covenant

2.1 Moses—Deliverance from Egypt

Give ear, O heav­ens, and I will speak,
and let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
… ascribe great­ness to our God!
The Rock, his work is perfect,
for all his ways are justice.
A God of faith­ful­ness and without iniquity,
just and upright is he.
They have dealt cor­ruptly with him;
they are no longer his chil­dren because they are blemished;
they are a crooked and twis­ted generation.
Do you thus repay the Lord,
you fool­ish and sense­less people?
Is not he your fath­er, who cre­ated you,
who made you and estab­lished you?
… But the Lord’s por­tion is his people,
Jac­ob his allot­ted heritage.
He found him in a desert land,
and in the howl­ing waste of the wilderness;
he encircled him, he cared for him,
he kept him as the apple of his eye.
Like an eagle that stirs up its nest,
that flut­ters over its young,
spread­ing out its wings, catch­ing them,
bear­ing them on its pinions,
the Lord alone guided him,
no for­eign god was with him.
He made him ride on the high places of the land,
and he ate the pro­duce of the field … (Deu­ter­o­nomy 32:1–14)

This is a song about God’s love for his people. He cared for them, pre­served them like the apple of his eye, like an eagle hov­er­ing pro­tect­ively over its young. But at the same time, there are also pain­ful overtones:

But Jeshur­un^[13] grew fat, and kicked;
you grew fat, stout, and sleek;
then he for­sook God who made him
and scoffed at the Rock of his salvation.
They stirred him to jeal­ousy with strange gods;
with abom­in­a­tions they pro­voked him to anger.
They sac­ri­ficed to demons that were no gods,
to gods they had nev­er known,
to new gods that had come recently,
whom your fath­ers had nev­er dreaded.
You were unmind­ful of the Rock that bore you,
and you for­got the God who gave you birth. (Deu­ter­o­nomy 32:15–18)

Again, we see in the his­tory of Israel what is also char­ac­ter­ist­ic of the his­tory of humanity.

In the Acts of the Apostles (see Acts 7:17–53) we can read how Steph­en, more than a thou­sand years later, assesses what was anti­cip­ated in the Song of Moses with the eyes of faith. We would like to high­light here what he said about Moses in verses 25 and 35:

He sup­posed that his broth­ers would under­stand that God was giv­ing them sal­va­tion by his hand, but they did not under­stand. (Acts 7:25)

This Moses, whom they rejec­ted, say­ing, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’—this man God sent as both ruler and redeem­er by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush. (Acts 7:35)

Verse 35 con­firms what we have already seen in the story of Joseph: God has sent him, whom his broth­ers rejec­ted, as “ruler and redeem­er”. In his speech, Steph­en draws an obvi­ous par­al­lel between Moses and Jesus: Moses did not come to be rejec­ted, but so that they would listen to him. What he pro­claims to them is God’s word for their own good.

Moses was the arche­type of the com­ing Mes­si­ah to whom he pointed:

The Lord your God will raise up for you a proph­et like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen. (Deu­ter­o­nomy 18:15; Acts 3:22–26)

Unfor­tu­nately, they did not listen to him.

But let us now return to Egypt with Stephen:

This man led them out, per­form­ing won­ders and signs in Egypt and at the Red Sea and in the wil­der­ness for forty years. (Acts 7:36)

God has made his power mani­fest.^[14] So God brought his people out of slavery without pay­ing a ransom for them or owing it to him­self. God did this for free, out of his grace, because he is love. His love is the only basis of redemp­tion.^[15]
God led his people into the desert and made a cov­en­ant with them.

He chose and called Israel, he cared for them and pre­served them for the bene­fit of all people. In and with Israel He pre­pared the way of sal­va­tion. He did this for all people through many struggles and pains! God wanted them to be a king­dom of priests and a holy nation so that through them, all nations might come to know God.^[16]

… while Moses went up to God. The Lord called to him out of the moun­tain, say­ing, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jac­ob, and tell the people of Israel: You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyp­tians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now there­fore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my cov­en­ant, you shall be my treas­ured pos­ses­sion among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a king­dom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.” (Exodus 19:3–6)

But that is not how it turned out. God planted a choice vine. But it only yiel­ded wild grapes.

Let me sing for my beloved
my love song con­cern­ing his vineyard:
My beloved had a vineyard
on a very fer­tile hill.
He dug it and cleared it of stones,
and planted it with choice vines;
he built a watchtower in the midst of it,
and hewed out a wine vat in it;
and he looked for it to yield grapes,
but it yiel­ded wild grapes. (Isai­ah 5:1–2)

Des­pite all the care they received, they acted like Adam because they fol­lowed their own will and not God’s will.

2.2 David—The King and Shep­herd of Israel

God mer­ci­fully and patiently car­ried his people in the desert and dur­ing the time of the judges. Then the people deman­ded a king (see 1 Samuel 8:4–7). They did not want Yah­weh to be their king. Des­pite their defi­ance, God remained faithful.

Here again we can see God’s infin­ite humil­ity. He “adap­ted” to them.

And all the people said to Samuel, “Pray for your ser­vants to the LORD your God, that we may not die, for we have added to all our sins this evil, to ask for ourselves a king.” And Samuel said to the people, “Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil. Yet do not turn aside from fol­low­ing the LORD, but serve the LORD with all your heart… For the LORD will not for­sake his people, for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased the LORD to make you a people for him­self.” (1 Samuel 12:19–20, 22)

And God “finds” Dav­id, who found favour in the sight of God (see Acts 7:46), who by his faith fol­lowed in the foot­steps of Abra­ham when he attrib­uted his strength and his vic­tor­ies not to him­self but to God (see 1 Samuel 17:37, 45).

The psalm­ist called him the shep­herd of his people:

He chose Dav­id his servant
and took him from the sheepfolds;
from fol­low­ing the nurs­ing ewes he brought him
to shep­herd Jac­ob his people,
Israel his inheritance.
With upright heart he shep­her­ded them
and guided them with his skil­ful hand. (Psalm 78:70–72)^[17]

He is the pro­to­type of the Good Shep­herd who was to come when the time was ful­filled. In him, the proph­et­ic word would take on its full mean­ing. God him­self comes to his flock!

“For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out… I myself will be the shep­herd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord GOD. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will des­troy. I will feed them in justice.” (Ezekiel 34:11, 15–16)

He who is to come will be born of a vir­gin as a des­cend­ant of Dav­id, whose name is Immanuel, that is, God is with us (see Isai­ah 7:14).

The light comes to those who dwell in dark­ness and the shad­ow of death.

The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shined…

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the gov­ern­ment shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Won­der­ful Coun­sel­lor, Mighty God,
Ever­last­ing Fath­er, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his gov­ern­ment and of peace
there will be no end,
on the throne of Dav­id and over his kingdom,
to estab­lish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and for evermore.
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this. (Isai­ah 9:2, 6–7)

The one on whom the Spir­it of the Lord rests will come.

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
And the Spir­it of the LORD shall rest upon him,
the Spir­it of wis­dom and understanding,
the Spir­it of coun­sel and might,
the Spir­it of know­ledge and the fear of the LORD.
And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
or decide dis­putes by what his ears hear,
but with right­eous­ness he shall judge the poor,
and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
Right­eous­ness shall be the belt of his waist,
and faith­ful­ness the belt of his loins. (Isai­ah 11:1–5)

One who is on the throne of Dav­id will come who will build the temple of the Lord and whose reign will be without end.

When your days are ful­filled and you lie down with your fath­ers, I will raise up your off­spring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will estab­lish his king­dom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will estab­lish the throne of his king­dom for ever. (2 Samuel 7:12–13)

Even though this ini­tially refers to Solomon, the dir­ect des­cend­ant of Dav­id, who was to build the temple in Jer­u­s­alem, this proph­ecy of Nath­an sub­sequently points to the “Son of Dav­id”. From the per­spect­ive of the New Test­a­ment, we see that the Mes­si­ah has built anoth­er, etern­al house for God, which, like his king­ship, will last forever.

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spir­it dwells in you? (1 Cor­inthi­ans 3:16)

And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our con­fid­ence and our boast­ing in our hope. (Hebrews 3:6)

God is not con­cerned with temples, cathed­rals, basilicas, houses of pray­er, king­dom halls, … which are built of stone, but not of love. The house of God is the temple, which Scrip­ture also calls the body of Christ^[18] , the com­munity of Chris­ti­ans, the bride wait­ing for her bride­groom^[19]. For this is the goal of redemp­tion: com­mu­nion with God and with one anoth­er in holi­ness and love. This fel­low­ship already begins here on earth.

But let us return to Dav­id, or rather to Steph­en. In his speech, Steph­en makes spe­cial ref­er­ence to the temple. In doing so, he touched on a sens­it­ive point and events accel­er­ated. But we are still a mil­len­ni­um away from the ful­fil­ment of the prom­ise made to Dav­id, that is, that the Mes­si­ah would be his des­cend­ant (which is why Jesus is often called the Son of David).

We can see what happened dur­ing these thou­sand years in the Song of Moses and in Steph­en’s speech.

The proph­et Hosea sum­mar­ised this beautifully:

When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.
The more they were called,
the more they went away;
they kept sac­ri­fi­cing to the Baals
and burn­ing offer­ings to idols.
Yet it was I who taught Eph­raim to walk;
I took them up by their arms,
but they did not know that I healed them.
I led them with cords of kindness,
with the bands of love,
and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws,
and I bent down to them and fed them.
They shall not return to the land of Egypt,
but Assyr­ia shall be their king,
because they have refused to return to me.
The sword shall rage against their cities,
con­sume the bars of their gates,
and devour them because of their own counsels.
My people are bent on turn­ing away from me,
and though they call out to the Most High,
he shall not raise them up at all.
How can I give you up, O Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, O Israel?
How can I make you like Admah?
How can I treat you like Zeboiim?
My heart recoils with­in me;
my com­pas­sion grows warm and tender.
I will not execute my burn­ing anger;
I will not again des­troy Ephraim;
for I am God and not a man,
the Holy One in your midst,
and I will not come in wrath. (Hosea 11:1–9)

2.3 The Time of the Prophets—Light in the Darkness

Dur­ing the cen­tur­ies of king­ship, when most kings after Dav­id did not walk with God, the people con­tin­ued their unfaith­ful­ness, their many sins, their idol­atry under the lead­er­ship of their polit­ic­al and reli­gious rulers. Along with their con­tin­ued idol­atry, they also con­tin­ued the temple wor­ship. The blood of sac­ri­fices flowed in tor­rents and fest­ivals were cel­eb­rated. God admon­ished the people through the words of the proph­ets, he called his people unceas­ingly to repentance.

The ox knows its owner,
and the don­key its mas­ter­’s crib,
but Israel does not know,
my people do not under­stand. (Isai­ah 1:3)

Hear the word of the LORD,
you rulers of Sodom!
Give ear to the teach­ing of our God,
you people of Gomorrah!
“What to me is the mul­ti­tude of your sacrifices?”
says the LORD;
“I have had enough of burnt offer­ings of rams
and the fat of well-fed beasts;
I do not delight in the blood of bulls,
or of lambs, or of goats.
When you come to appear before me,
who has required of you
this tramp­ling of my courts?
Bring no more vain offerings;
incense is an abom­in­a­tion to me.
New moon and Sab­bath and the call­ing of convocations—
I can­not endure iniquity and sol­emn assembly.
Your new moons and your appoin­ted feasts
my soul hates;
they have become a bur­den to me;
I am weary of bear­ing them.
When you spread out your hands,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even though you make many prayers,
I will not listen;
your hands are full of blood.
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes;
cease to do evil,
learn to do good;
seek justice,
cor­rect oppression;
bring justice to the fatherless,
plead the wid­ow’s cause.” (Isai­ah 1:10–17)

“For from the least to the greatest of them,
every­one is greedy for unjust gain;
and from proph­et to priest,
every­one deals falsely.
They have healed the wound of my people lightly,
say­ing, ‘Peace, peace’,
when there is no peace.
Were they ashamed when they com­mit­ted abomination?
No, they were not at all ashamed;
they did not know how to blush.
There­fore they shall fall among those who fall;
at the time that I pun­ish them, they shall be overthrown,”
says the LORD.
Thus says the LORD:
“Stand by the roads, and look,
and ask for the ancient paths,
where the good way is; and walk in it,
and find rest for your souls.
But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’” (Jeremi­ah 6:13–16)

How­ever, the people did not listen to the proph­ets which is why they announced judge­ment. How­ever, their admon­i­tions only provided tem­por­ary relief. The proph­ets had to explain to them that it was because of their sins that they would be crushed and sub­jug­ated, that they would have to go into exile. Not because God is weak, nor because of the sins of their ancest­ors, but because they them­selves have fol­lowed in the foot­steps of their fath­ers!^[20]

God is waging a life-and-death struggle for his people through the proph­ets: will they remain his people or will they all become idolat­ers? Dur­ing such a dark time, even the unwaver­ing proph­et Eli­jah was shaken:

Then he was afraid, and he arose and ran for his life and came to Beer­sheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his ser­vant there. But he him­self went a day’s jour­ney into the wil­der­ness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, say­ing, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no bet­ter than my fath­ers.” … There he came to a cave and lodged in it. And behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and he said to him, “What are you doing here, Eli­jah?” He said, “I have been very jeal­ous for the LORD, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have for­saken your cov­en­ant, thrown down your altars, and killed your proph­ets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.” (1 Kings 19:3–4, 9–10)

And what does God do?

And he said, “Go out and stand on the mount before the LORD.” And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the moun­tains and broke in pieces the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. And after the wind an earth­quake, but the LORD was not in the earth­quake. And after the earth­quake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whis­per. And when Eli­jah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him and said, “What are you doing here, Eli­jah?”… “Yet I will leave sev­en thou­sand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.” (1 Kings 19:11–13, 18)

He speaks and com­forts in a soft, gentle voice: “Eli­jah, you are not alone. There is a small rem­nant of people who have remained faith­ful. Through them, the path of sal­va­tion will continue.”

God speaks gently to those who call out to him, who are tor­men­ted by the many sins and injustices they see. But for those who wor­ship God only with their mouth but whose heart is far from God (Isai­ah 29:13; Mat­thew 15:7–9), there is a wind that tears moun­tains apart and shat­ters rocks, earth­quakes and fire as a sign of the com­ing judgement.

This dark peri­od of time was also a great chal­lenge for the proph­et, just as there have always been dark, chal­len­ging peri­ods in the course of his­tory, as there are today in the “Chris­ti­an West”, where sin runs its course, as do the cel­eb­ra­tions, the church services …

The proph­et­ic word came like a bolt of light­ning into this dark­ness: it will not always remain dark!

The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shined. (Isai­ah 9:2)

For the prom­ised Saviour is com­ing! Who he will be, when he will come, what he will be like—that was a mys­tery the proph­ets pur­sued with great longing.

Con­cern­ing this sal­va­tion, the proph­ets who proph­esied about the grace that was to be yours searched and enquired care­fully, enquir­ing what per­son or time the Spir­it of Christ in them was indic­at­ing when he pre­dicted the suf­fer­ings of Christ and the sub­sequent glor­ies. (1 Peter 1:10–11)

But they announced what had been giv­en to them. The word of the proph­ets is the instru­ment of salvation.
But the time had not yet come.

Behold, the vir­gin shall con­ceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel (God with us). (Isai­ah 7:14)

Who would have dared to believe that the true God would come to us in the one in whom this prom­ise finds its com­plete fulfilment!

He who is to come “shall not judge by what his eyes see… but with right­eous­ness he shall judge…” (see Isai­ah 11:1–5).

He is the king, the shoot from the tribe of Dav­id, the one who is anti­cip­ated in the fairy tales and legends of the peoples of the world — without any real hope of this wish being ful­filled (indeed, it becomes appar­ent that people have a vague image of a right­eous king deep in their hearts).

But here is a proph­et of the people of Israel speak­ing, a her­ald of the word of God! Hear, O nations! He will not only be the saviour of Israel!

He says:
“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to bring back the pre­served of Israel;
I will make you as a light for the nations,
that my sal­va­tion may reach to the end of the earth.” (Isai­ah 49:6)

The one about whom the Lord has spoken will come:

“You are my Son; today I have begot­ten you.” (Psalm 2:7)

One will come whom they will call the Son of Dav­id, but who will nev­er­the­less be the Dav­id’s Lord.^[21]

But how can this hap­pen? In Jew­ish think­ing, the des­cend­ant can­not be the Lord of the pre­de­cessor. This was also dis­cussed at the time of Jesus (see Mat­thew 22:41–46). So the fig­ure of the Mes­si­ah remains hid­den, but it can be sur­mised that he will be great­er than Dav­id.^[22]

And when he really comes as king, will he judge the nations imme­di­ately? People will obey a king who comes with power all the more easily!

This is what was expec­ted, but it did not turn out that way.

2.4 The Proph­ecies about the Ser­vant of God

A ser­vant has come, or rather, a king who has come to serve! It is in keep­ing with God’s nature that he demon­strates his power primar­ily in his love.

Nor was it hid­den. The proph­ets already spoke about it.

But will people recog­nise the king in the ser­vant? Will the vinedress­ers recog­nise the son of the own­er of the vine­yard?^[23] Or will they deal with him as they did with the ser­vants sent before him, namely the proph­ets?^[24]

These are troub­ling ques­tions which the proph­ets addressed. At the time of their ful­fil­ment, all who have ears to hear will under­stand and believe.
The book of Isai­ah shows us the Mes­si­ah as the ser­vant of God who, like the very proph­ets who announced his com­ing, him­self will be rejec­ted, indeed will suf­fer and die.

Behold my ser­vant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my Spir­it upon him;
he will bring forth justice to the nations.
He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice,
or make it heard in the street;
a bruised reed he will not break,
and a faintly burn­ing wick he will not quench;
he will faith­fully bring forth justice.
He will not grow faint or be discouraged
till he has estab­lished justice in the earth;
and the coast­lands wait for his law. (Isai­ah 42:1–4)

But I said, “I have laboured in vain;
I have spent my strength for noth­ing and vanity;
yet surely my right is with the LORD,
and my recom­pense with my God.” …
Thus says the LORD,
the Redeem­er of Israel and his Holy One,
to one deeply des­pised, abhorred by the nation,
the ser­vant of rulers:
“Kings shall see and arise;
princes, and they shall pros­trate themselves
because of the LORD, who is faithful,
the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.” (Isai­ah 49:4.7)

The Lord GOD has opened my ear,
and I was not rebellious;
I turned not backwards.
I gave my back to those who strike,
and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard;
I hid not my face
from dis­grace and spitting.
But the Lord GOD helps me;
there­fore I have not been dis­graced … (Isai­ah 50:5–7)

Behold, my ser­vant shall act wisely;
he shall be high and lif­ted up,
and shall be exalted.
As many were aston­ished at you —
his appear­ance was so marred, bey­ond human semblance,
and his form bey­ond that of the chil­dren of mankind …
For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
and no beauty that we should desire him.
He was des­pised and rejec­ted by men;
a man of sor­rows, and acquain­ted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces he was des­pised, and we esteemed him not …
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shear­ers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth …
Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;
by his know­ledge shall the right­eous one, my servant,
make many to be accoun­ted right­eous^[25] … (Isai­ah 52:13–53:12)

Per­haps it is no coin­cid­ence that these proph­et­ic words were spoken at a time when Israel, instead of rul­ing over the nations, was in Baby­lo­ni­an cap­tiv­ity. Their temple was des­troyed, Jer­u­s­alem dev­ast­ated. Through their sins they had des­troyed the temple of God.^[26] Being in cap­tiv­ity taught them to aban­don their idols. How­ever, it also taught them that in this world, which had fallen because of sin, some­thing new, pure and good can only emerge vic­tori­ous through the path of struggle and suf­fer­ing.^[27] But this is not because God wanted it that way from the beginning.

These words of the proph­ets are fol­lowed by long cen­tur­ies of wait­ing. No one had a great­er desire for the com­ing of the Saviour than God him­self. Nev­er­the­less, he waited patiently until the time had come.

Only we humans hurry ahead, everything has to hap­pen quickly for us. Where is he now? What is God doing? Why is he not com­ing? Why is he not act­ing? This is how many people thought at the time of Jesus. We have to act, to accel­er­ate the com­ing of the king­dom of God by force of arms. That’s how the Zealots thought. They trus­ted in their own wis­dom.^[28]

Let us turn to two more pas­sages from the last book of the Old Testament:

Behold, I send my mes­sen­ger, and he will pre­pare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will sud­denly come to his temple; and the mes­sen­ger of the cov­en­ant in whom you delight, behold, he is com­ing, says the LORD of hosts. But who can endure the day of his com­ing, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner­’s fire and like fullers’ soap. (Mala­chi 3:1—2)

Behold, I will send you Eli­jah the proph­et before the great and awe­some day of the LORD comes. And he will turn the hearts of fath­ers to their chil­dren and the hearts of chil­dren to their fath­ers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruc­tion. (Mala­chi 4:5—6)

God also helped by send­ing his mes­sen­ger just before the Saviour. God sent John the Baptist so that people would recog­nise through him that the com­ing of someone great­er and more sig­ni­fic­ant than John was near.

In the begin­ning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Fath­er, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1, 14)

A king who comes as a ser­vant moun­ted on a don­key will not be as eas­ily recog­nised as one who is car­ried on a throne and is pre­ceded by his fore­run­ners. The goal is clear, only the real­isa­tion does not cor­res­pond to our ideas, espe­cially if the fore­run­ner also appears as a ser­vant in poor cloth­ing. But is this not pre­cisely what man needs in order to under­stand that when the King comes in the form of a ser­vant, he him­self can­not rule over him­self and oth­ers? God calls us to humil­ity and to serve others.

For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Mark 10:45)

This is what God teaches us!

But this teach­ing can­not be under­stood with the mind­set of a Zealot, a Phar­isee, a theologian-scribe or a high priest.

In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spir­it and said, “I thank you, Fath­er, Lord of heav­en and earth, that you have hid­den these things from the wise and under­stand­ing and revealed them to little chil­dren; yes, Fath­er, for such was your gra­cious will.” (Luke 10:21)

Our jour­ney through the Old Test­a­ment, in which God pre­pared the com­ing of the Saviour, has come to an end. We can only par­tially suc­ceed in por­tray­ing the love, joy, patience, endeav­our and pain with which God pre­pared the mir­acle of redemp­tion over many cen­tur­ies. He did this by includ­ing people with their weak­nesses and sins.

Per­haps it has also become clear from the above that the Old and New Test­a­ments can­not be sep­ar­ated from each oth­er. Just as a flower emerges from the dry earth, just as a shoot bursts forth from a tree stump that already appeared dead, so the New Cov­en­ant blos­somed out of the soil of the Old Cov­en­ant through our Lord Jesus Christ.

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. (Isai­ah 11:1)

It is God’s work, which he pre­pared before etern­ity as a unique and unre­peat­able miracle:

God became man.