A Redemptive-Historical, Christocentric Approach

The only Bible Jesus had was what we call the Old Testament (OT), and he believed many of its elements concerned him (Luke 24:27). Jesus opened his disciples’ minds to “understand the Scriptures,” and he empowered them to see a unified, overarching message in the OT regarding a suffering and sovereign Messiah who would spark a global mission of reconciliation with God (Luke 24:45–47). Christ’s followers should aim to properly magnify Jesus where he is evident in the Scriptures. As John Owen said in 1684, “The revelation … of Christ … deserves the severest of our thoughts, the best of our meditations and our utmost diligence in them.”^[1] I propose the most biblically faithful way of doing this is through a multi-faceted approach that accounts for the central role Jesus plays in redemptive history.

Author’s Note: I am deeply grateful to the editors and to my research assistants, Brian Verrett and Nicholas Majors, for their help in editing and cutting down the word count of this essay.

1. John Owen, “Meditations on the Glory of Christ,” in The Works of John Owen, ed. William Goold, 23 vols. (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1965), 1:275.

PART 1: The Nature of Scripture

Christ Is Central in God’s Redemptive-Historical Purposes

The fundamental presupposition of evangelical hermeneutics is that Christian Scripture, both the OT and NT, is God’s revealed word (2 Tim 3:16), which by nature implies inspiration, inerrancy, unparalleled authority, and unity amid the diversity. Redemptive history is the progressive unfolding of God’s saving purposes disclosed in Genesis to Revelation, all of which grow out of and culminate in God’s commitment to glorify himself in Christ. Jesus is, therefore, the beginning and end of the Bible, holding it and all else together (Col 1:16–17).

Scripture progresses through five distinct but overlapping covenants (see below) and through various events, peoples, and institutions, all of which climax in the person and work of Christ. The OT’s history (Matt 2:15), laws (5:17–18), prophecy (Acts 3:18), and wisdom (1 Cor 1:23–24) all point to Jesus. Indeed, in him the OT’s problems find their solution. All that the OT anticipated is eschatologically realized as shadow gives rise to substance (Col 2:16–17), types move to antitype (e.g., Rom 5:14; 1 Cor 10:6, 11), and what God promised he now fulfills (Luke 24:44; Acts 3:18).

Christ Jesus stands as both the climax and center of God’s saving purposes. This is why Jesus told the religious leaders, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life” (John 5:39–40).^[2] It also explains why Jesus told his disciples that we have come to “understand the Scriptures” if we see the OT’s message climaxing in his death and resurrection and sparking a world-wide missions movement (Luke 24:45–47; cf. Acts 26:22–23).^[3]

2. John 5:39 provides believers a “comprehensive hermeneutical key” for rightly interpreting the entire OT, according to D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, PNTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 263.

3. For the central place of these verses in Luke-Acts’s theology, see Brian J. Tabb, After Emmaus: How the Church Fulfills the Mission of Christ (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021).

In Christ, the new creation, new age, and new covenant overcome the old creation, old age, and old covenant as the end of history intrudes into the middle of history. Scripture’s redemptive story culminates in Christ’s first and second coming, and through him God fulfills all OT hopes. Hence, “No matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in [Christ]” (2 Cor 1:20).

Jesus Is Central to Biblical Interpretation

In considering the relationship of the Testaments and its unity centered on the divine Son, G. K. Beale has identified five principles that are rooted in the OT’s own story of salvation history and that guided the NT authors’ OT interpretive conclusions:^[4]

4. Summarizing G. K. Beale, Handbook on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament: Exegesis and Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012), 53, 95–102.

1. NT authors always assume corporate solidarity, in which one can represent the many.
2. The Messiah represented the true (remnant) Israel of the old covenant and the true (consummate) Israel, the church, of the new covenant.
3. God’s wise and sovereign plan unites salvation history in such a way that earlier parts correspond to later parts.
4. Christ has initiated the age of eschatological fulfillment.
5. Christ stands as the climax and center of history such that his life, death, and resurrection provide the key for fully understanding the earlier portions of the OT and its promises.

Within God’s redemptive purposes, Jesus operates as the culmination of salvation history and provides both the beginning and end of OT interpretation. This––Beale’s last principle––is perhaps the most controversial, but it finds support from both testaments and impacts all biblical inquiry.

The OT Anticipates That God’s People Will Only Understand Its Full Meaning when the Messiah Comes

Many texts in the OT identify how the rebel majority in the old covenant were truly unable to know God’s word, see his glory, or hear his voice (Deut 29:4 [29:3 MT]; Isa 29:9–12; cf. Rom 11:7–8). However, Yahweh’s prophets had promised that God would overcome his people’s resistance when he raised up a covenant-mediating prophet like Moses (Deut 18:15–20), the one we know of as Jesus (John 6:14–15; Acts 3:22–26). To him the restored community would listen, and they would then obey all that Moses had taught (Deut 18:15; 30:8; cf. Matt 17:5) because through this Messiah God would have put his words in their hearts (Deut 30:14; Isa 59:20–21), taught them (Isa 54:13), and given them spiritual sight and hearing (Isa 29:18).^[5] Thus, only in the latter days of the Messiah and the new covenant would God empower his people to more fully accept and understand his OT word. Christ’s person and work supply a necessary lens for rightly grasping all that God intended through his OT prophets.

5. For this future-oriented reading of Deut 30:11–14 with Rom 10:6–9, see, especially, Colin James Smothers, “In Your Mouth and in Your Heart: A Study of Deuteronomy 30:12–14 in Paul’s Letter to the Romans in Canonical Context” (PhD diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2018).

Concerning the prophets, we know that they usually understood at least most of what they were predicting, for they “searched [the Scriptures?] intently and with greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow” (1 Pet 1:10–11; cf. John 1:45; 5:46; Rom 1:1–3). Most OT prophets were probably like Daniel whom God empowered to comprehend “mysteries” (Dan 2:19; 4:9) and who gained “understanding of the message” (10:1; cf. Acts 2:30–31). Nevertheless, in at least one instance, the Lord declared he would only reveal full understanding in the future “time of the end” (Dan 12:8–9).

The NT Identifies Jesus as the Lens for Fully Understanding the OT’s Meaning

The above passages disclose (1) that believers today can understand and appropriate the OT better than any of the old covenant rebel majority could, and (2) that, in at least some instances, we on this side of the resurrection can understand the OT mysteries more than the prophets themselves did. The NT affirms that unregenerate Jews could not understand how the OT pointed to Christ (John 5:37; cf. Rom 11:8; 2 Cor 3:14). It also affirms how the elect disciples did not even fully understand the OT’s meaning until Jesus’s resurrection (John 2:20–22; 12:13–16),^[6] but that it was the OT itself that clarified it meaning (Luke 24:27, 32; cf. 16:29–31). Indeed, it was after the resurrection that Jesus opened “their minds to understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:45). The OT gives necessary backdrop to Jesus’s resurrection, and through Jesus’s resurrection God supplies guides our OT interpretation, revealing the end and by this allowing us now to arrive at the fullest meaning he originally intended.

6. D. A. Carson, “Understanding Misunderstandings in the Fourth Gospel,” TynBul 33 (1982): 59–91; Ardel Caneday, “The Word Made Flesh as Mystery Incarnate: Revealing and Concealing Dramatized by Jesus as Portrayed in John’s Gospel,” JETS 60 (2017): 751–65.

Thus, God has now “revealed and made known through the prophetic writings” the full meaning of his mystery that was present but latent in the OT all along (Rom 16:25–26). Through Christ, the veil is removed (2 Cor 3:14).^[7] Additionally, only by Christ’s spiritually transforming us through his saving work does God enable believers to accept and understand the OT’s ethical expectations (cf. 1 Cor 2:14).

7. For more on the theme of mystery and the centrality of Jesus in biblical interpretation, see Jason S. DeRouchie, “The Mystery Revealed: A Biblical Case for Christ-Centered Old Testament Interpretation,” Themelios 44 (2019): 226–48.

Grasping Authorial Intent

So how should we understand authorial intent? Scripture calls us to see both an organic unity and a progressive development between the testaments. Often the OT authors appear to have grasped both the shadow and the substance, the acorn and the oak tree, in relation to what they were writing (e.g., Dan 10:1; John 8:56; Acts 2:30–31). Other times, however, while the typological nature of an event, person, or institution was innately present from the beginning (1 Cor 10:6, 11), the full meaning (and perhaps even the predictive recognition) of that type may have only been understood in retrospect. In such instances, it is as if the OT gives us the start of a pattern in which we read “2” followed by “4,” but we need the NT to clarify what comes next (2 → 4 → NT?). If the NT identifies that the OT finds its fulfillment in Christ as the digit “6,” then we know not only the final answer but also that the OT problem was “2 + 4.” If, however, the NT establishes that the next digit is “8,” then we know both the answer and that the OT problem was “2 x 4.” The coming of Christ often supplies both the answer key and the algorithm that clarify how the divine author desired all along for us to read the OT and to grasp the relationship of the parts.

PART 2: Interpretive Steps for Readers

Interpret through Christ and for Christ

Though elements of discontinuity exist, we must presuppose a fundamental unity from Old to New Testaments since all Scripture comes from God. The whole Bible progresses, integrates, and climaxes in Christ, and Scripture discloses a God-intentioned unity in how the unchanging Lord is working out his purpose of exalting himself through Jesus (Eph 1:9–10, 20–21).^[8]

8. For more on the centrality of Jesus in whole Bible theology, see Jason S. DeRouchie, Oren R. Martin, and Andrew David Naselli, 40 Questions about Biblical Theology, 40 Questions (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2020).

In God’s good purposes already set forth in the OT, when John, Peter, and Paul met the resurrected Christ, their reading of the OT was never the same. Indeed, “only in Christ” is the veil removed that allows one to read and appropriate the old covenant material as God intended (1 Cor 2:13–14; 2 Cor 3:14). By disclosing Christ as OT’s goal, the Father also illuminates his intent for the earlier parts. And in turn, those earlier parts then clarify the meaning of Jesus’s person and work. We may initially come to Scripture reading it front to back. However, when God the Father has given us “the Spirit of wisdom and revelation” and “enlightened the eyes” of our hearts through Christ (Eph 1:17–18), we read Scripture back to front and then front to back.

The flow of God’s saving purposes in history demands that Christian OT exposition start and end with Christ. That is, our OT interpretation is both redemptive-historical and Christocentric: it must flow from Jesus and point to him. The divine Son is at the heart of all exegesis and theology because he is the means and focus of God’s self-revelation through his Scriptures.^[9] This is what I mean that my approach is Christocentric.

9. This study approaches the question of Christ in the OT in a broad rather than narrow sense by seeking to identify any legitimate means for magnifying Jesus from his Scripture.

Assess a Passage’s Three Overlapping Contexts

Faithfully seeing and celebrating Christ in his Scriptures requires a multi-form approach, because Jesus fulfills the OT in various ways (Matt 5:17; Luke 24:44). Working through rigorous exegesis and theology, the Christian interpreter must follow the signals God supplies us to properly magnify the Messiah and his work.^[10] Rightly identifying these signals requires that we interpret Scripture along three distinct but overlapping contexts,^[11] enabling us to understand most fully what God intended a given OT passage to mean and how a passage points to Jesus.

10. Elsewhere I have summarized a twelve-step exegetical and theological process in Jason S. DeRouchie, How to Understand and Apply the Old Testament: Twelve Steps from Exegesis to Theology (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2017).

11. For these headings, see Trent Hunter and Stephen J. Wellum, Christ from Beginning to End: How the Full Story of Scripture Reveals the Full Glory of Christ (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2018), 42–69. My categories are similar to but not identical with the textual, epochal, and canonical “horizons” found in Richard Lints, The Fabric of Theology: A Prolegomenon to Evangelical Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 293–310.

1. The “close context” (C1) focuses on a passage’s immediate literary context within the whole book. Here we observe carefully what and how the text communicates, accounting for both the words and the theology that shapes those words.
2. The “continuing context” (C2) considers the passage within God’s story of salvation. We examine how an OT text is informed by antecedent Scripture (e.g,. the OT use of the OT) and contributes to God’s unfolding drama, whether by progressing the covenants or developing a biblical theme or typological pattern that culminates in Christ.
3. The “complete context” (C3) concerns a text’s placement and use within the broader canon. We consider whether and how later Scripture uses or builds upon this passage and keep in mind revelation’s progressive nature, the way Christ’s work influences all history, and how the divine authorship of Scripture allows later passages to clarify, enhance, or deepen the meaning of earlier texts.

Principles for Seeing and Celebrating Christ in His Scriptures

My redemptive-historical, Christocentric approach identifies at least seven possible ways of faithfully magnifying Christ in the OT. All seven principles assume that we are reading the OT through the lens of Christ, for only in him are we empowered to see, live, and hope as God intended from the beginning.^[12]

12. For more on these seven areas, see Jason S. DeRouchie, “Question 3: How Does Biblical Theology Help Us See Christ in the Old Testament,” in 40 Questions about Biblical Theology, by Jason S. DeRouchie, Oren R. Martin, and Andrew David Naselli, 40 Questions (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2020), 41–47.

1. See and Celebrate Christ through the OT’s Direct Messianic Predictions (P1).

Christ fulfills the OT as the specific focus or goal of direct Messianic predictions and redemptive-historical hopes. The OT contains many explicit and implicit predictions.^[13] For example, Peter agrees that Isaiah’s words directly predict the Messiah: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds we have been healed” (1 Pet 2:24; cf. Isa 53:5).

13. For a few examples, see Gen 22:17–18 with Gal 3:8, 14; Ezek 34:23 with John 10:16; Mic 5:2 with Matt 2:6.

2. See and Celebrate Christ through the OT’s Salvation-Historical Story and Trajectories (P2).

Scripture’s entire storyline progresses from creation to the fall to redemption to consummation and highlights the work of Jesus as the decisive turning point in salvation-history (cf. Luke 16:16; Gal 3:24–26). Five major covenants guide this storyline, each of which finds its terminus in Christ (Adamic/Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, David, new).^[14] Furthermore, various themes develop or progress as God gradually reveals more of himself and his ways, including covenant, God’s kingdom, law, temple and God’s presence, atonement, and mission. Christ fulfills all of the OT’s salvation-historical trajectories.

14. See Jason S. DeRouchie, “Question 22: What Is a Biblical Theology of the Covenants?,” in 40 Questions about Biblical Theology, by Jason S. DeRouchie, Oren R. Martin, and Andrew David Naselli, 40 Questions (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2020), 215–26.

3. See and Celebrate Christ through the Similarities and Contrasts of the Old and New Ages, Creations, and Covenants (P3).

Jesus’s saving work creates both continuities and discontinuities between the old and new ages, creations, and covenants. For example, while both the new and old covenants contain a similar structure (i.e., God redeems and then calls his people to obey), only the new covenant supplies freedom from sin and power for obedience to all covenant members; the old covenant did not change hearts (Deut 29:4; Rom 8:3). Similarly, whereas Adam disobeyed and brought death to all, Christ obeys and bring life to many (Rom 5:18–19). Whereas access to Yahweh’s presence in the temple was restricted to the high priest on the Day of Atonement, Christ’s priestly work opens the way for all in him to enjoy God’s presence (Heb 9:24–26; 10:19–22). These kinds of similarities and contrasts between the old and new ages, creations, and covenants encourage a messianic reading of the OT within the redemptive-historical approach.

4. See and Celebrate Christ through the OT’s Typology (P4).

The author of Hebrews said the OT law was “a shadow of good things to come” (Heb 10:1), and Paul spoke similarly (Col 2:16–17). In the NT, these anticipations and pointers are called “types” or “examples” (Rom 5:14; 1 Cor 10:6) that in turn find their counter in Jesus as their ultimate realization. God structured the progressive development of salvation-history in such a way that certain OT characters (e.g., Adam, Melchizedek, Moses, David), events (e.g., the flood, the exodus, the return to the land), and institutions or objects (e.g., the Passover lamb, the temple, the priesthood) bear meanings that clarify and predictively anticipate the Messiah’s life and work.

5. See and Celebrate Christ through Yahweh’s Identity and Activity (P5).

When we meet Yahweh in the OT, we are catching glimpses of the coming Christ. Recall that Jesus said that “no one has ever seen God” the Father except the Son (John 1:18; 6:46), but that “whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). Minimally, this means that those who saw God in the OT enjoyed preliminary and partial glimpses of his glory (Exod 33:18–23). It also may imply that, at least in some instances where Yahweh becomes embodied in a human form in the OT, we may be meeting the pre-incarnate Son (e.g., Gen 18:22; 32:24–30; Josh 5:13–15). Additionally, since the NT identifies Jesus with Yahweh (cf. Phil 2:10–11; Isa 45:23), when we hear God speaking or acting in the OT as the object of people’s faith, we are seeing the very one who would embody himself in the person of Jesus (see, e.g., Heb 11:26; Jude 5).

6. See and Celebrate Christ through the Ethical Ideals of OT Law and Wisdom (P6).

The OT’s laws and wisdom provide fodder to magnify Christ’s greatness. The Mosaic law pointed to the importance for Christ in the way it identified and multiplied sin (Rom 3:20; 5:20), imprisoned the sinful (Gal 3:10, 13, 22), and showed everyone’s need for atonement. The law by its nature, therefore, predicted Christ as “the end of the law” (Rom 10:4).

Moreover, as God’s word was made flesh, Jesus manifests in his person the essence of every ethical ideal aligned with Yahweh’s revealed will, and he then imputes this perfection to believers (cf. Rom 5:18–19; cf. Phil 3:9). When you observe how the OT law and wisdom express ethical ideals, know that the justifying work of the divine Son fulfills them all.

7. See and Celebrate Christ by Using the OT to Instruct or Guide Others in the Law of Love (P7).

Jesus came not “to abolish the Law or the Prophets … but to fulfill them” (Matt 5:17), and the way he fulfills the various precepts guides our pursuit of love. While old covenant instruction no longer bears direct authority in the Christian’s life, it still indirectly guides us when read through the mediation of Christ (2 Tim 3:15–16). Through Christ, the very texts that used to condemn now lead us in a life of love, and God empowers such love (Rom 13:8–10) by changing our hearts and filling us with his Spirit (Ezek 36:27; Rom 2:26, 29). Every step of our Christian obedience magnifies Jesus’s sanctifying work.

PART 3: Applying the Approach––Three Case Studies

Having presented seven principles for seeing Christ in the OT Scriptures, I now apply this redemptive-historical, Christocentric approach to Genesis 22, Proverbs 8, and Isaiah 8.

Genesis 22:1–19: Proof and Pledge that Yahweh Will Fulfill His Offspring Promise

Placing the Offspring Promise in the Context of Genesis

Before considering Genesis 22’s messianic predictions, which are both typological (P4) and direct (P1), the interpreter must first place the passage within the continuing context of God’s story of salvation (C2). Genesis is threaded by the promise of “offspring,” which includes not only peoples but a person. Due to Adam’s sin bringing both curse upon the whole world and corruption within all humanity (3:14–19; 6:5, 11–12), the Lord declared that a single, male “offspring” (zera‘) of the first woman would, through his own personal tribulation, triumph over the evil serpent, thus reversing the curse and bringing new creation (Gen 3:15).^[15] From this point forward, the world’s only hope for blessing and reconciliation with God rested on Yahweh’s preserving and realizing the promise of this singular offspring.

15. Collins rightly notes that Hebrew authors make explicit whether the collective singular noun zera‘ (“seed, offspring”) bears a singular or plural referent by including singular or plural adjectives and/or pronouns (whether independent, object, or suffix pronouns). The lexicalized singular pronoun hû’ in 3:15 identifies that the woman’s “seed” as a male individual (cf. 2 Sam 7:12–13). C. John Collins, “A Syntactical Note (Genesis 3:15): Is the Woman’s Seed Singular or Plural?” TynBul 48 (1997): 139–48, esp. 142–44.

16. See Gen 2:4; 5:1; 6:9; 10:1; 11:10, 27; 25:12, 19; 36:1 [+ 9]; 37:2; Jason S. DeRouchie, “The Blessing-Commission, the Promised Offspring, and the Toledot Structure of Genesis,” JETS 56 (2013): 219–47.

The narrator ties Genesis 3:15’s offspring promise to the patriarchs by the book’s repeated heading (“this is the account of X’s family line”) and the linear genealogies in 5:1–32 and 11:10–26.^[16] Genesis 22:1–19 occurs within Terah’s family line cycle (11:27–25:11). This cycle begins with Yahweh promising that Abra(ha)m would (1) become a great nation (12:2), (2) be the agent of curse-overcoming blessing (12:3), and (3) have offspring who would inherit the promised land and become numerous like the dust (13:15–16).

Genesis 15 builds on these promises by stressing that the patriarch has yet “no offspring” (v. 3, author’s translation) but believes (v. 6). Yahweh’s promise that one “offspring” from his own loins will be his heir and become countless as the stars (v. 5).^[17] This astronomical imagery connects directly with the singular seed of Genesis 22:17 (see below), where God promises, “I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars in the sky” (author’s translation). Abraham would become the father of many nations (17:4; cf. Gen 12:2–3) in many lands (26:3–4; cf. Rom 4:13) through the promised offspring’s arrival (Gen 22:17–18).

17. Note the singular pronoun and verbs in v. 4. For more on Gen 15:1–6, see Jason S. DeRouchie, “Lifting the Veil: Reading and Preaching Jesus’ Bible through Christ and for Christ,” SBJT 22.3 (2018): 167–77.

Two elements in Genesis 22:1–19 indicate that the offspring promise provides a governing backdrop for the narrative. First, the narrator stresses that the patriarch must sacrifice his “son” (22:2), frequently repeats the word “son” (22:3, 6–10, 12–13, 16), and notes Abraham’s fatherhood (22:7). These elements recall God’s earlier pledge, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned” (21:12; cf. 17:19, 21), which distinguishes Isaac from the coming offspring (cf. Gen 26:3–4). Second, Yahweh directly predicts how the individual offspring will multiply like the stars, possess the gate of his enemies, and be the instrument of blessing to the nations (22:17–18). Thus, I summarize Genesis 22:1–19’s point as follows: God tests whether Abraham will fear him and obey the divine call to sacrifice his only son, thus proving that he truly believes that Yahweh will fulfill his promise of a singular, male offspring through Isaac who will deliver and bless all nations.

Indirect/Typological Foreshadows of Christ in Genesis 22:1–19

Genesis 22:1–19 narrates Abraham’s obedient willingness to offer his son as a burnt offering, Isaac’s sacrificial role and deliverance, and Yahweh’s providing the ram as a substitute sacrifice. Through these features, the passage typologically foreshadows (i.e., P4) that God would not spare his own Son (Rom 8:32; cf. Isa 53:6, 12), Christ would die and rise to life (Heb 11:19), and he would serve as a substitute sacrifice for sinners (2 Cor 5:21; Gal 3:13–14; 1 Pet 2:24). Scripture suggests that the patriarch himself understood to some degree the predictive nature of his test.

The father did not spare his son. By recalling the complete context (C3), we see that the Synoptics (Mark 1:11; 9:7; Luke 20:13) and John’s writings (John 3:16; 1 John 4:10) may present Jesus as the antitypical beloved son whom Isaac anticipated (cf. Gen 22:2, 12, 16). Romans 8:32 likely provides a more direct allusion, however: “He who did not spare his own Son [idiou huiou ouk epheisato], but gave [paredōken] him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” Along with seeing an allusion to Isaiah 53:6, 12 (Yahweh gave up [paredōken, LXX] his servant to death for our sins), many scholars propose Paul is alluding to Genesis 22:12, 16, where the Lord declares to Abraham, “You have not spared your beloved son [huiou … ouk epheisō, LXX].”^[18]

18. E.g., Mark A. Seifrid, “Romans,” in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, ed. G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 634; Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans, 2nd ed., BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018), 451.

Ironically, while father Abraham, like Father Yahweh, was willing to give up his son, God did not allow the patriarch to complete the sacrifice. The typology in this instance is, therefore, only partial, or perhaps better, inverted (or ironic). That is, Jesus alone as God’s Son fulfills Abraham’s hope that “Yahweh will see” (cf. Gen 22:14) and stands as the antitype to the substitutionary role Isaac foreshadowed but could not fulfill and that the ram supplied.^[19]

19. For more on inverted typology, see Beale, Handbook on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, 92–93.

Isaac, the potential burnt offering. Abraham’s test required that he willingly “sacrifice [Isaac] as a burnt offering” at Moriah (Gen 22:2–3; cf. 22:6–8, 13). Prior to the tabernacle’s construction and the incorporation of the sin and guilt offerings, the burnt offering was the only atoning offering for human sin.^[20] Texts like Leviticus 9:24–10:2 (C3) demonstrate that burnt offerings can consist of substitutes (9:24) or sinners (10:1–2),^[21] but only the killing of the substitute allows the repentant rebel a renewed relationship with God.

20. Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), 176–77.

21. Other texts identify as sacrifices the sinners Yahweh destroys at the day of his coming––e.g., Isa 34:6; Jer 46:10; Ezek 39:17; Zeph 1:7.

Was Isaac to die as a substitute or a sinner? Scripture most commonly uses the language of “burnt offering” with respect to substitution, and nothing in the close context (C1) draws attention to a wickedness in Isaac demanding immediate justice (contrast Deut 9:4–6). Hence, God likely sets Isaac forth as a vicarious sacrifice standing in for the sinner Abraham or a broader community.

However, God did not allow Isaac to stand as a substitute sacrifice, likely because he himself was a sinner. The complete biblical context (C3) informs us that burnt offerings would continue until the ultimate substitute’s arrival since they functioned as an “illustration/figure” (NIV/ESV, parabolē) pointing to what God would accomplish in Christ during “the time of the new order” (Heb 9:9–10). Abraham, like Noah before him (Gen 8:20–22), required sustained substitutionary expressions. Isaac could not stand as the substitute, for he himself bore sin’s blemish.

God supplies a curse-bearing substitute. Within the story of God’s salvation (C2), the Lord had promised Abraham, “Whoever curses you I will curse” (Gen 12:3). When ratifying his covenant of land, offspring, and blessing to the patriarch, Yahweh dramatically passed between the animal parts signaling that he would bear the curse of death if his fulfilling the covenant with Abraham was jeopardized (15:9–18; cf. Jer 34:18–20).^[22] But since he also conditioned the fulfillment of the covenant promises on the obedience of Abraham’s children (Gen 18:19) and because all people were innately wicked (8:21), Genesis both anticipates that God would be forced to curse them and implies that the Lord would, in turn, have to curse himself.

22. On reading the covenant ratification ceremony as a self-maledictory oath sign, see Meredith G. Kline, By Oath Consigned: A Reinterpretation of the Covenant Signs of Circumcision and Baptism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), 16–17, 41–42; Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum, Kingdom through Covenant: A Biblical-Theological Understanding of the Covenants, 2nd ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), 286–94.

We now see the significance of the coming offspring and the way Genesis 22 points to the new Son of God who would himself stand as humanity’s substitute. At the beginning of Genesis (C1), God promised that an offspring of the woman and divine-image-bearing son would destroy the evil one and his sinful work (3:15; cf. 5:1–3). Thus, where the first man and son of God failed to provide and protect (2:15 with 3:6), thereby bringing curse to the original creation, the logic of Genesis 3 and complete biblical context (C3) teaches that this new man and son of God would succeed thereby securing blessing for a new creation (cf. Rom 5:18–19; 1 Cor 15:45; 2 Cor 5:17). Nevertheless, while God would raise up this new son, his victory would be costly. The serpent would smite the man’s heel (Gen 3:15), which when considered from the complete context (C3), at least implies that this son would endure a blow from the one who has been “a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44). From the start, therefore, Genesis anticipates that the promised offspring would in some way bear the curse but overcome (smiting the serpent’s head, Gen 3:15), thus reconciling the world to God.^[23] Before Genesis 22, the narrator has already intimated for the reader the future curse of both the offspring and God himself. Later prophetic revelation (C3) further associates the self-sacrificing royal deliver with Yahweh (e.g., Ps 2:1–7; Isa 7:14; 9:6) and God with his wise royal son (e.g., Ps 45:6–7 [45:7–8 MT]).

23. See Alan F. Segal, “‘He Who Did Not Spare His Own Son …’: Jesus, Paul, and the Aqedah,” in From Jesus to Paul: Studies in Honour of Francis Wright Beare, ed. Peter Richardson and John C. Hurd (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1984), 175–77.

Prior to Genesis 22 (C1 and C2), the narrator has already associated Isaac with the coming offspring (Gen 15:3–5; 21:12; cf. 26:3–4), such that Isaac’s arrival reinforces the certainty that the deliverer will come after (and from) him. Since Isaac’s life is so bound with the offspring who is to experience tribulation unto triumph, one is not surprised that Isaac will endure suffering to foreshadow the one to come. Yet he is not sufficient for the role. In Abraham and Isaac’s dramatic dialogue up the mountain, the father declared, “God himself will provide a lamb for a burnt offering, my son” (22:8). The Hebrew term rendered “lamb” is śe (Greek probaton), a generic term for any small livestock beast. After Yahweh’s angel held back the patriarch’s death-bringing hand, the specific type of beast God supplied was a “ram” (22:13). Perhaps to distinguish the type from its antitype, Isaiah notes that the suffering servant was “led like a lamb [Hebrew śe; Greek probaton] to the slaughter” (Isa 53:7). Both Isaac and the substitute are figures for the greater substitute that Genesis itself anticipates (cf. John 1:29; Acts 8:32–35; 1 Pet 1:18–19).

Abraham rejoiced that he would see Christ’s day. At least two features within Genesis 22:1–19 (close context) suggest that Abraham himself understood predictive significance in his test. First, even after seeing the substitute ram and offering it “as a burnt offering instead of his son” (22:13), Abraham called the place “Yahweh will see” (yhwh yir’ê), not “Yahweh has seen” (22:14). Abraham recognized the replacement ram as a foreshadowing of how “Yahweh will see” to fulfilling the offspring-promise and overcome the curse with blessing (22:18). Thus, his testimony became a perpetual statement of hope in the one we call the Christ: “At the mount of Yahweh it will be seen” (22:14, author’s translation).

A second feature indicating that Abraham saw his test as predictive further supports this reading. The three-day journey from the region of Beersheba in the Philistines’ land (Gen 21:33–34) to Moriah (approx. 91km/56.5m) was unnecessary if Yahweh only desired to test Abraham, for this could have been done without distant travels.^[24] By means of this journey the patriarch would have recognized something more about the promised offspring as a person and about the location, means, and timing of how God would secure his victory.

24. So too, Walter C. Kaiser Jr., “Genesis 22:2: Sacrifice Your Son?” in Hard Sayings of the Bible, by Walter C. Kaiser Jr. et al. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 126–27.

As for the location, God brings Abraham to a mountain in “the region of Moriah” (Gen 22:2), the future location of temple sacrifices (2 Chr 3:1) and, ultimately (C3), Christ’s sacrifice (Mark 10:33; Acts 10:39). The Chronicler explicitly identifies Moriah as the place of sacrifice, showing that he saw Abraham’s words as prospective.

With respect to the person, in coming to Moriah, Abraham has returned to the region of (Jeru)Salem and the King’s Valley where priest-king Melchizedek of (Jeru)Salem blessed him (Gen 14:18–20). By this act and for Abraham’s benefit, Yahweh is likely associating Melchizedek, the “king of righteousness” and “peace,” with the promise of the offspring whose coming the patriarch’s obedience at the mountain would secure (cf. Ps 110:1–2, 4; Heb 7:17, 21).

As for means, Yahweh calls a father to give up his son. Within the complete biblical context (C3), this act points to the Father’s greater gift in Christ (cf. John 3:16; Rom 8:32; 1 John 4:9–10). The Lord also restores this son and supplies a substitute to bear the wrath he deserved (John 1:29; 2 Cor 5:21). Abraham knew his son would return with him, by whatever means the Lord chose. Thus, Abraham told his servants regarding him and his boy, “We will worship and then we will come back to you” (Gen 22:5). The author of Hebrews saw in Abraham’s statement his belief that God could “even raise the dead” (Heb 11:19). Within the complete context (C3), Isaac’s “resurrection” anticipates the promised offspring, who likewise would triumph through tribulation (Gen 3:15; 49:8–12; cf. Col 2:13–15).

Regarding timing, the narrator identifies that Abraham’s test culminating in his figuratively receiving back his son from the dead occurred “on the third day” after he began his journey (Gen 22:4). As such, this narrative may be one of the instances where in Scripture (C3) “this is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day” (Luke 24:46; cf. 1 Cor 15:3–4).^[25]

25. See Jason S. DeRouchie, “Why the Third Day? The Promise of Resurrection in All of Scripture,” Midwestern Journal of Theology 20.1 (2021): 19–34.

Direct Predictions of Christ in Genesis 22:1–19

In his second speech, Yahweh’s messenger makes two promises, both expressed by an infinitive absolute + yiqtol construction in Hebrew: “I will surely bless you and will surely make your offspring as the stars of the heavens and as the sand that is on the seashore” (22:17, author’s translation). Yahweh’s commitment to bless recalls his words in 12:2. His mention of the stars alludes to 15:5, which identified that the offspring who would come from the son from his loins would become countless like the stars. Against the NIV, we should regard the offspring in 22:17b as singular since the verb “multiply” (rbh) commonly means to produce children when it governs living organisms (e.g., 1:28; 9:1, 7; 17:2, 20).^[26] In light of this, it seems possible that the “offspring” in Genesis 22:17 is actually the singular deliverer who will himself multiply into a community. The masculine singular pronoun “his” modifying “offspring” in verse 17 further supports this conclusion. Moreover, Genesis’s overall plot-structure witnesses a narrowing of vision that moves from the world to Israel to a royal offspring in Judah’s line upon whom all the world’s hopes rest (Gen 49:8–12).^[27]

26. I thank my research assistant, Brian Verrett, for this observation.

27. DeRouchie, “The Blessing-Commission,” 235.

The offspring in Genesis 22:17–18 is singular on account of Collins’s understanding that an adjective or pronoun’s number make explicit whether zera‘ (“seed, offspring”) bears a singular or plural referent.^[28] The close proximity of the three instances of zera‘ in 22:17–18 suggests that all are singular in this context.^[29] The flow of thought is as follows:

28. Collins, “A Syntactical Note,” 142–44. For texts, see footnote 15 above.

29. Contra Alexander and Steinmann, who affirm a singular referent for zera‘ in 22:17c–18 but a plural referent in 22:17b. T. Desmond Alexander, “Further Observations on the Term ‘Seed’ in Genesis,” TynBul 48 (1997): 365; Andrew E. Steinmann, “Jesus and Possessing the Enemies’ Gate (Genesis 22:17–18; 24:60),” BSac 174 (2017): 17.

1. The singular, male offspring of the woman who will strike a death-blow to the head of the serpent (3:15) and whom Yahweh will name through Isaac (21:12) will multiply like the stars (22:17).
2. The first result of this community will be that the singular offspring will possess the gate of his enemies (22:17; cf. 24:60).
3. The second result is that all the nations of the earth will regard themselves blessed in this offspring (22:18; cf. Ps 72:17; Isa 65:16; Jer 4:2).

The earth’s nations counting themselves blessed (22:18) constitutes the promised great multiplication (22:17) and likely signals the eschatological shift from Abraham fathering one nation (Israel during the old covenant) to fathering many nations (the church, united to Jesus the true Israel, in the new covenant) (17:4–5). All these are in some way incorporated into the singular offspring (22:18), and through their multiplying, he claims enemy turf (22:17). This suggests that during the reign of the male deliverer, the “land” promised to Abraham will expand to “lands,” which is exactly what Yahweh promises Isaac in 26:3–4. Furthermore, when considering the complete context (C3), both Peter and Paul regard 22:18 as a messianic text (see Acts 3:13, 18, 24–26; Gal 3:8, 13–14, 16, 29). I suggest, therefore, that Genesis 22:15–19 amounts to a direct messianic prophecy (P1).

Conclusion

In Genesis 22:1–19 Yahweh tests Abraham to reveal whether he would fear God and obey the divine call, thus proving that he truly believed that Yahweh would fulfill his promise of a singular, male offspring through Isaac (21:12). In response to the patriarch’s obedience (22:18; cf. 26:5), Yahweh both typologically confirms (P4) (22:11–14) and directly predicts (P1) (22:15–19) that he will indeed realize what he has promised. He will do this by providing a penal substitutionary sacrifice for sinners (vv. 13–14) and by multiplying the male offspring into a massive community, which will result in the singular offspring overcoming his enemies’ stronghold (v. 17) and in his being the one in whom some from all the earth’s nations regard themselves blessed (v. 18).

Proverbs 8:22–31: Wisdom Is God’s Royal Son by Whom He Creates the World

Overviewing the Poem

In Proverbs 8’s immediate context (C1), personified wisdom urges listeners to embrace the truth of her instruction (vv. 4–11), identifies her noble associations and the benefits she brings (vv. 12–21), notes her eternal origins and joyful involvement in creation (vv. 22–31), and charges her “sons” to heed her voice to experience life rather than death (vv. 32–36). This meditation on creation includes many semantic and conceptual links with Genesis 1:1–2:3 (C3).^[30] Analyzing the discourse suggests that the unit divides into two parts (Prov 8:22, 23–31), both of which offer interpretive challenges.

30. See Michael B. Shepherd, The Text in the Middle, StBibLit 162 (New York: Lang, 2014), 10.

Concerning part one, wisdom declares that Yahweh “possessed” (qnh) her before he did any acts (8:22, ESV). The verb qnh in Proverbs 8:22 means “to possess,” whether by acquisition (e.g., Exod 15:16; Isa 11:11; Prov 1:5; 4:5, 7, purchase (e.g., Gen 47:22; 49:30; Lev 25:30; Jer 32:9), or generation (Gen 4:1; Deut 32:6; Ps 139:13). The NIV’s “brought forth” derives from the verb’s use in the contexts of generation, but “to possess” still appears to be the base meaning of qnh.^[31] God has always “possessed” wisdom, which was present with him before he created anything. It was present as an underlying divine quality or function that his being generates and that is essential or organic to his nature.^[32] I render Proverbs 8:22 as follows: “Yahweh possessed me, the beginning of his way, earlier than his acts from then.” The phrase “the beginning of his way” stands in apposition to “me” and likely marks wisdom as the preeminent element of his purposes (cf. Job 40:15; Col 1:15).

31. See R. B. Y. Scott, Proverbs-Ecclesiastes, AB 18 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1965), 72; Bruce Vawter, “Prov 8:22: Wisdom and Creation,” JBL 99 (1980): 205–16.

32. See the discussion below on Prov 30:4.

Second, wisdom declares herself to be Yahweh’s means for carrying out his intentions both before creation (vv. 23–26) and at creation (vv. 27–31). Before creation, Yahweh installed wisdom as his representative (v. 23: “I was formed” [NIV] or “I was set up” [ESV). The verb nsk with this meaning occurs elsewhere only in Psalm 2:6: “I have installed my king on Zion.” Solomon likely associates wisdom’s primordial exaltation in Proverbs 8:23 with the future anointed King’s exaltation in Psalms 2:6 (see below). At the very least, the link probably identifies wisdom’s royal status in relation to God even before time began. Thus, the JPS renders Proverbs 8:23: “From the distant past I was enthroned.”

Wisdom portrays itself as God’s commissioned image bearer or royal agent who has enjoyed this post “from eternity [mē‘ôlom] … from the beginning, from times before earth” (Prov 8:23, author’s translation). The noun ‘ôlom means only “a remote time,” but the close context (C1) concerns eternity past. As Postell notes, “Because Wisdom precedes creation, it must be regarded as uncreated, and, as a consequence, eternal.”^[33]

33. Seth D. Postell, “Proverbs 8––The Messiah: Personification of Divine Wisdom,” in The Moody Handbook of Messianic Prophecy: Studies and Expositions of the Messiah in the Old Testament, ed. Michael Rydelnik and Edwin Blum (Chicago: Moody, 2019), 652.

Yahweh “brought forth” or “strengthened” (ḥyl) wisdom before the waters, mountains, and fields (8:24–26 ESV). While interpreters debate the precise meaning of the Hebrew verb ḥyl the text’s overall flow depicts wisdom as an eternal effect of God himself.

Next, at creation wisdom was Yahweh’s constant companion (8:27–31)––present when he established the heavens (v. 27) and joyfully and faithfully (’āmôn) serving beside him when he made the earth (vv. 28–31). The noun ’āmôn in verse 30 is likely a bi-form of the adjective ’ēmûn (“faithful”) and noun ’ēmûn (“faithfulness”). While some point to Song of Songs 7:1 [7:2 MT] and Jeremiah 52:15 to render ’āmôn “artisan” or “craftsman” (NKJV, NRSV, NETB, ESV, CSB, NASB), the meaning “faithful one” works fine in these contexts. The NIV’s “I was constantly at his side” adequately captures the meaning.^[34] At creation wisdom constantly rejoiced before Yahweh, in his earth’s soil, and with the sons of Adam (8:30–31).

34. Cf. Prov 3:19–20; see Bruce K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs: Chapters 1–15, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 417–20.

Wisdom as God’s Son in Proverbs 8:22–31

Solomon portrays wisdom as a woman to entice his royal son(s) to desire her (cf. 1:8; 2:1; 4:10). Nevertheless, wisdom’s female persona is secondary to the book’s message, for the royal son(s) should not only embrace but also embody wisdom. Furthermore, in Proverbs 8:22–31 wisdom is neither a feminine part of God nor his consort. Instead, the first-person speech (“I, me, my”) mutes the feminine portrayal, thus allowing wisdom to be both with God and of God.

Significantly, at the book’s end (close context) a certain Agur son of Jakeh asks four rhetorical questions whose contents recall Yahweh’s queries in Job 38 and echo Yahweh’s creative acts that Proverbs 3:19–20 and 8:27–31 describe: “Who has gone up to heaven and come down? Whose hands have gathered up the wind? Who has wrapped up the waters in a cloak? Who has established all the ends of the earth?” (30:4). He then queries, “What is his name, and what is the name of his son? Surely you know!” Sailhamer claims that this verse intentionally alludes to wisdom’s part in creation (8:27–31) in order to raise “the question of the identity of the One who is with God.”^[35]

35. John Sailhamer, NIV Compact Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 354.

More specifically, 30:1–6 is prophetic speech, making up what 30:1 terms an “inspired utterance” (NIV) or “oracle” (ESV, maśśā’). The text reinforces this through the phrase “the man’s utterance” (ne’um haggeḇer), which occurs elsewhere only three times and always at the head of (messianic) predictions (see Num 24:3, 15; 2 Sam 23:1).^[36] Contemporary translations consistently render 30:3b negatively, as the last of four declarations of ignorance. However, the Hebrew retains no negative in 30:3b, and the word order suggest a contrast with what precedes: “I have not learned wisdom, but knowledge of Holy Ones I know” (author’s translation). Despite being weak and uneducated (30:2–3a), Agur received an “oracle” (30:1)––a truthful “word of God” (30:5) that supplied “knowledge of Holy Ones [qedōšîm]” (30:3b). The plural form “Holy Ones” is unexpected as a reference to God. In Scripture, its only other unambiguous use as a substantive with reference to God is in Proverbs 9:10, which captures the book’s thesis at the end of the first main unit: “The beginning of wisdom is the fear of Yahweh, and knowledge of Holy Ones is understanding” (author’s translation). Most interpreters view these examples as plurals of majesty, following the pattern of ’elōhîm (“God”), so they give the plurals a singular referent, “Holy One.”^[37] However, these would be the only such examples in Scripture, and the singular forms ’ēl (30:1) and ’elôah (30:5) for “God” draw further attention to the plural qedōšîm. McKenzie and Shelton rightly note, “The occurrence of the duo at the end of verse 4 suggests a plurality in the holy ones here in verse 3.”^[38] Similarly, the Father and Son in 30:4 naturally point back to the “Holy Ones” of 30:3. This link identifies a united holy nature in the distinct persons of the Father and his Son. Furthermore, the connection with 9:10 (cf. 1:7) strongly associates the relationship of the Father and Son in 30:4 to Yahweh and an eternally begotten wisdom in 8:22–31. Targum Neofiti ties these texts together by rendering Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning, with wisdom, the Son of Yahweh completed the sky and the land” (cf. Jer 10:12; Ps 104:24).^[39]

36. For these links, see Tracy J. McKenzie and Jonathan Shelton, “From Proverb to Prophecy: Textual Production and Theology in Proverbs 30:1–6,” Southeastern Theological Review 11.1 (2020): 8–11.

37. The NRSV is an exception, rendering qedōšîm as “holy ones” in Prov 30:3 but not 9:10. Nevertheless, the phrase’s limited use within Proverbs suggests both instances envision the same referent.

38. McKenzie and Shelton, “From Proverb to Prophecy,” 13.

39. As cited in Shepherd, The Text in the Middle, 11.

The Wise King as God’s Son in Proverbs and Beyond

Additionally, Proverbs most commonly uses the language of “sonship” with respect to the royal line that we learn elsewhere will culminate in a King whose dominion will never end. While Proverbs never explicitly mentions the promises of 2 Samuel 7:12–16, the superscription identifies Solomon as the “son of David, king of Israel” (1:1), which places Proverbs within this historic and prophetic continuing context (C2).^[40] Furthermore, Proverbs intends to train the royal “son(s)” whose wisdom is grounded in the fear of Yahweh. It is here that Solomon’s allusion to Psalm 2 becomes significant. Just as Yahweh from eternity past installed his wisdom-Son to represent him (Prov 8:23), so also Yahweh designates his messianic King his “begotten Son” (Ps 2:7) upon his installation as King in Zion, having triumphed over his enemies (Ps 2:1–2, 6; cf. Acts 4:24–28; 13:32–33). Utilizing the complete biblical context (C3), Schreiner notes, “If Proverbs is viewed from a canonical perspective, the ideal picture of the king points to a future king––a king who fulfills the promise of the covenant with David … Jesus Christ.”^[41]

40. So, too, Barry R. Leventhal, “Messianism in Proverbs,” in The Moody Handbook of Messianic Prophecy: Studies and Expositions of the Messiah in the Old Testament, ed. Michael Rydelnik and Edwin Blum (Chicago: Moody, 2019), 639–40.

41. Thomas R. Schreiner, The King in His Beauty: A Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013), 294.

The internal witness of Proverbs suggests that those who composed and/or compiled the book portrayed wisdom as God’s eternally begotten Son and also believed that the royal Son of David and of God would be wisdom incarnate. This accords with the complete context (C3) when on considers the NT’s description of Jesus. What “the wisdom of God said” (Luke 11:49–51), Jesus says, thus identifying himself as wisdom. ^[42] Jesus’s wisdom exceeds Solomon’s (Matt 12:42), and he proves it in his deeds and testifies to it in his teaching (11:2, 19; 13:54). Christ is God’s wisdom who stands against foolish human speculations (Col 2:1–8) and who becomes our wisdom through his cross-victory (1 Cor 1:24, 30; cf. 2:7–8).

42. Hartmut Gese, “Wisdom, Son of Man, and the Origins of Christology: The Consistent Development of Biblical Theology,” HBT 3 (1981): 43.

Other NT texts identify Jesus as wisdom when they declare him to be the divine Word through whom “all things were made” (John 1:1, 3, 14) and the “very nature God” who becomes human, dies a substitutionary death, and then is “exalted … to the highest place” (Phil 2:6–11). Perhaps the clearest parallels appear in Colossians 1:15–20. Here Paul alludes to the wisdom-Son of Proverbs 8 and 30 when he identifies that God has brought believers “into the kingdom of the Son” (Col 1:13), who is “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation” (1:15), the one who “is before all things, and in [whom] all things hold together (1:17), and the one in whom all God’s “fullness” dwells (1:19).

Conclusion

As Yahweh’s eternally begotten Son, wisdom was the beginning of God’s way, which manifests itself both in Yahweh’s appointing wisdom as his representative even before creation and by wisdom’s serving joyfully and faithfully beside Yahweh at creation. Alongside the Father, the wisdom-Son was one of the Holy Ones, which implies the Father and Son enjoyed a unified nature but were distinct in person. As Son, wisdom incarnate would represent the Father by reigning as the messianic King, fulfilling the promises to David and standing greater than Solomon as the bestower of wisdom on future children of God. Thus, Prov 8:22–31 magnify Jesus through a blend of principles 5 (Jesus as Yahweh) and 6 (Jesus as Ethical Ideal).

Isaiah 42:1–9: The Servant-Person Will Give
Justice and Bring Light to the World

An Overview Isaiah 42:1–4

Inspecting Isaiah 42:1–9 (close context) reveals these verses provide a direct messianic prediction (P1) in that they communicate the Servant-person will faithfully give justice to the nations and be empowered by Yahweh as a covenant for people and light for nations. After identifying the world’s folly in pursuing idolatry (41:21–29), Yahweh advances his servant as the remedy––one who will care for the wounded and the weak and faithfully give justice to the nations. Yahweh upholds and delights in his servant, who is endowed by God’s Spirit (42:1). Yahweh then highlights both the nature and certainty of the justice that the servant will bring. He will give justice “to the nations” (42:1d), and he will do so “in faithfulness” (42:3c). His pattern of justice will be neither self-advancing and assertive (42:1d) nor dismissive and abusive (42:3ab). And he will persevere until his task is accomplished––establishing justice throughout the earth and satisfying the longing coastlands with his law (42:4). The Lord of creation (42:5) commits to empower his servant as a covenant for people and a light for nations (42:6–7), all for the sake of his own name and purpose (42:8–9).

Significantly, 42:10–17 ring out that Yahweh will accomplish the very things he calls his servant to fulfill: the coastlands will sing his praise (42:10, 12; cf. 42:4) as he leads the blind (42:16; cf. 42:7), shines light into darkness (42:16; cf. 42:6), and receives the worship he is due (42:17; cf. 42:8). These links suggest that the servant of 42:1–9 is closely associated with Yahweh and serves as the very means by which God fulfills his restoring work.

Isaiah’s King, Servant, and Anointed Conqueror

42:1–9 is the first of four “Servant Songs” (cf. 49:1–13; 50:4–11; 52:13–53:12), which, along with many other texts from Isaiah, Christians have long believed anticipate an eschatological king, servant, and anointed conqueror who will reign in righteousness over a righteous community (11:1–9; 32:1–8), save the Lord’s multi-ethnic people by providing them righteousness (49:6; 53:11; 54:14, 17), and effect righteousness by overcoming opposition, delivering the wounded and bound, and inaugurating the new creation (59:21; 61:1–3; 63:1–6).^[43] Yahweh chooses his servant (42:1; 49:7), empowers him with his Spirit (42:1; cf. 11:2; 59:21; 61:1) and word (49:2; 50:4), and declares him righteous (50:8–9; 53:11). Bearing no guilt (50:5, 8–9; 53:9) and triumphing through struggle and abuse (42:4; 49:4, 7; 50:6–7; 53:3, 7–8), this servant will instruct and give justice to the nations (42:1, 3–4; cf. 9:7; 11:3–4), sustain the weary by his teaching (42:3; 50:4), be highly exalted and praised by kings (49:7; 52:13, 15), and restore Israel and save many from the world (49:6; 53:11). He will accomplish this by serving as a vicarious, atoning sacrifice (53:4–6, 10–12) and as a covenant for people and light for nations (42:6–7; 49:6, 8; 55:3; cf. 54:10; 60:3) in order to herald the good news (52:7; cf. 61:1), heal the disabled (42:7; 53:5; cf. 61:1), free captives (42:7; 49:9; cf. 61:1), generate a context of security and justice (42:3; cf. 4:6; 9:7; 11:6–9; 61:2), and create lives that evidence the new creation (53:11; cf. 4:2–4; 61:3), all for God’s glory (42:8; 49:3; cf. 11:9; 61:3). At least six key conceptual connections working along all three interpretive contexts indicate Isaiah’s portraits of king, servant, and anointed conqueror throughout the book all refer to the same person:

43. See Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah: An Introduction and Commentary (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 13–16.

1. Yahweh endows this figure with his Spirit and the word (11:1–2, 4; 42:1; 49:1–3; 50:4; 59:21; 61:1–3).
2. Righteousness distinguishes both the person (9:7; 50:8; 53:11; 61:10) and his work (11:4; 53:11; 54:17; 61:3).
3. The prophet equates the individual with the Davidic descendant who would be God’s son and reign forever over God’s kingdom (9:6–7; 55:3; cf. 2 Sam 7:14).
4. Operating as a signal or banner to which the nations will gather (Isa 11:10, 12; 49:22; 62:10), this person will reign over and redeem a global people (11:6–12; 19:23–25), extend revelation and salvation to the ends of the earth (42:1–4; 49:6; 52:13–53:12; 55:3–5), and deliver a multi-ethnic remnant (56:6–8; 66:19–20)––all of whom Yahweh will centralize in a restored Zion that will stretch across the new creation (2:2–4; 11:6–9; 54:2–3; 55:5; 59:20; 60:1–22; 62:11–12; 65:17–18, 25; 66:20–22).
5. The person is human yet truly God. He is both David’s descendant (11:1) and the source from which David came (11:10)––“God with us” (7:14) and the “mighty God” (9:6). While bearing human form and ancestry (52:13; 53:2; cf. 11:8) and experiencing human suffering (49:7; 50:6; 52:14), he was sinless and righteous (50:5, 8–9; 53:9, 11) and the very “arm of Yahweh” (53:1), who is endowed with Yahweh’s garments of salvation (11:5; 59:17; 61:10) and through whom Yahweh delivers and conquers (51:9; 52:10; 59:16; 63:5).
6. The NT clearly associates Jesus with the king (e.g., Matt 1:23; 4:15–16; Rom 15:12), servant (Matt 8:17; 12:18–20; Acts 8:32; 13:34; 26:22–23; 1 Pet 2:22–25), and anointed conqueror (Luke 4:18–19).

Isaiah’s Messianic Hope in the Servant-Person

Recognizably, some like the Ethiopian eunuch have wondered whether the servant of the Servant Songs refers to Isaiah himself: “Who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” (Acts 8:34). Yahweh refers to Isaiah as “my servant” in 20:3, and Isaiah may be “his servant” in 44:26. The autobiographical, first-person speech in the second and third Servant Songs (49:1–6; 50:1–9; cf. 61:1–3, 10–11; 63:1–6) certainly could also point in this direction, but it does not explain the biographical portrayal of the servant in third-person in 42:1–9 and 52:13–53:12.^[44] Moreover, the prophet appears to include himself among those for whom the servant’s atoning death works (53:6), and no one who is merely human has sprinkled many nations with atoning blood (52:15) and served to see God’s “salvation … reach to the ends of the earth” (49:6).

44. G. P. Hugenberger, “The Servant of the Lord in the ‘Servant Songs’ of Isaiah: A Second Moses Figure,” in The Lord’s Anointed: Interpretation of Old Testament Messianic Texts, ed. Philip E. Satterthwaite, Richard S. Hess, and Gordon J. Wenham (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1995), 9.

The term “servant” occurs twenty times in Isaiah 40–53, always in the singular. Some of these instances clearly refer to the collective and rebellious nation of Israel (42:19, 22; 43:8, 10). But this chosen servant does not need to fear, for the Lord will strengthen him (41:8–10) and pour out his Spirit on his offspring, making them blossom in new creation (44:1–5). With predictive certainty as if already accomplished, God has forgiven his servant’s sins and redeemed him. He will confirm this coming redemption by raising up Cyrus to return Israel from Babylon to the land (44:21–28; 48:17–20).

Many texts, including 41:8–10, support reading the “servant” in 42:1–4 as corporate Israel. The LXX made this view explicit by including “Jacob” and “Israel” before “servant” and “chosen,” respectively, thus reversing the order found in 41:8 but identifying the same referent––the nation. However, the following reasons lead me to see the eight instances of “servant” in the Servant Songs (42:1; 49:3, 5–7; 50:10; 52:13; 53:11) (C1) as direct prophecies (P1) of the singular eschatological Messiah of whom the earlier and later parts of the book speak.^[45]

45. Cf. Hugenberger, “The Servant of the Lord in the ‘Servant Songs’ of Isaiah,” 4–7; Walter C. Kaiser Jr., “The Identity and Mission of the ‘Servant of the Lord,’” in The Gospel According to Isaiah 53: Encountering the Suffering Servant in Jewish and Christian Theology, ed. Darrell L. Bock and Mitch Glaser (Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic, 2012), 89–92.

1. The Lord gives his servant as “a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles” (42:6; cf. 49:8). The singular “people” contrasts with the plural “Gentiles” and refers to collective Israel. The servant here is not the people but represents them, and his covenant-mediating sacrifice will be for them and on behalf of the broader nations (cf. 55:3–5).
2. Isaiah 49:3 and 6 explicitly distinguish the servant-person named Israel from the servant-people also named Israel. Yahweh gives the former a mission to restore the latter and also to save peoples to the ends of the earth.
3. The chosen servant of Isa 49:1–13 is the one Yahweh redeems, whom kings worship, and who is “despised and abhorred by the nation” (49:7; cf. 50:6; 52:15; 53:3).
4. Unlike the nation of Israel (1:4; 42:18–25; 43:8–13; 46:12; 59:2; 64:7), within Isaiah (C1), the servant-person is righteous (50:8; 53:11) and guiltless (50:9), having not rebelled (50:5) and done no violence or deceit (53:9). Indeed, he can operate as “an offering for guilt” (53:10, ESV), which Lev 5:15, 18 identify had to be “without defect.” None in the nation could save (59:16), so Yahweh would act by raising up the Messiah who stands distinct from the nation of Israel just like the servant from our passage in question (cf. 42:6; 53:6).
5. In 53:1, the prophet queries, “Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?” (cf. John 12:38; Rom 10:16). In the close context (C1), the “arm of the LORD” is none other than the “servant” (53:10, 12), whom God reveals to an unbelieving people (53:1) and to believing outsiders (52:13; cf. Rom 15:21). Later Yahweh asserts, “All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people” (Isa 65:2; cf. Rom 10:20), and this people is none other than corporate Israel, whom, therefore, we cannot equate with the servant.
6. This servant was “cut off,” and Yahweh “punished” him “for the transgression of my people” (53:8). The stress here is on penal substitution, with God’s just wrath falling on the substitute rather than on the sinners. A collective servant does not die on behalf of itself and still live, but the servant-person does just this and brings righteousness and life to the many (53:11).^[46]
7. The nation Israel was incapable of fulfilling the demands of world-wide justice and restoration for the weak within 42:1–4. Israel’s inability to accomplish such a task suggests that an individual messianic figure rather than the nation is the servant from verse 1.

46. Thomas D. Petter, “The Meaning of Substitutionary Righteousness in Isa 53:11: A Summary of the Evidence,” TJ 32 (2011): 165–89.

The NT Identifies Isaiah’s Servant-Person as the Christ

Matthew notes how Jesus’s healing ministry fulfills Isaiah’s assertion: “He took our illnesses and bore our diseases” (Matt 8:17; cf. Isa 53:4). Peter too, after noting how “Christ suffered for you,” cites Isa 53:7–9, stressing how Jesus never sinned or retaliated under abuse as he bore our sins” and brought healing (1 Pet 2:21–25). When the Jews reject Messiah Jesus (John 12:38; Rom 10:16) and the Gentiles receive him (Rom 15:21), they fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy (Isa 52:15–53:1).

More specifically with respect to Isaiah 42:1–9, Yahweh marks Jesus as his promised “chosen” one (Luke 9:35; cf. 23:35), and Jesus identifies himself with Isaiah’s Spirit-empowered agent of God’s good news who would give sight to the blind (Matt 11:5; Luke 4:18–19; cf. Isa 42:1, 7; 61:1–2). Matthew freely translates the Hebrew text of Isaiah 42:1–4 in its entirety, declaring that Jesus willingly healed those who followed him “to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah” (Matt 12:17–21). While one could posit that Matthew treats Jesus as ultimate Israel (via typology or sensus plenior) or portrays Jesus’s healings as a second fulfillment after the nation of Israel’s prior acts (whatever those would be),^[47] my argument above clarifies that Isaiah (and Matthew) would have seen Jesus’s person and work directly fulfilling the earlier predictions (P1). Drawing together Isaiah’s images of the hoped-for king and servant (Isa 9:2; 42:7; 49:6), Zechariah highlighted how Jesus would “give light to those who sit in darkness” (Luke 1:79, ESV). Similarly, Simeon stressed that Jesus was “a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel” (Luke 2:32; cf. Isa 42:6; Acts 26:23). Jesus claimed that he was “the light of the world” (John 8:12), and Paul asserted that Jesus brought “the message of light to his own people and to the Gentiles” (Acts 26:23; cf. Isa 42:7; 49:6)––a mission he continued in Christ (Acts 13:46–47; 26:18). Without exception, the NT identifies the individual of Isaiah’s Servant Songs as Jesus.

47. E.g., Craig L. Blomberg, “Matthew,” in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, ed. G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 43.

Conclusion

Isaiah directly predicted a Messiah who would be king, servant, and anointed conqueror (P1). Isaiah 42:1–9 speaks of a servant-person who would right every wrong, heal the hurting, proclaim God’s law, and mediate a covenant that would bring saving light to many resulting in eyes that were blind seeing and lives bound being freed. Jesus realizes Isaiah’s hopes and ours.

Conclusion

Scripture bears an overarching unity and Christocentric framework, which we grow to appreciate only when God grants us spiritual sight and discloses to us the revealed mystery of the gospel through Jesus’s saving work (Rom 16:25–26; 2 Cor 3:14; 4:6). Christian interpreters are uniquely qualified to allow the Bible to speak in accordance with its own contours, structures, language, and flow. Doing so should disclose both an overall consistent message concerning Christ and varied organic (i.e., natural, unforced) salvation-historical and literary-canonical connections between the parts, all of which directly or indirectly relate to Christ, in whom “all things hold together” (Col 1:17).

As Christians, we must approach the OT through Christ and for Christ using a multi-orbed approach that assesses Scripture’s close, continuing, and complete contexts (C1–3) and considers in what way(s) the OT magnifies Jesus. I propose seven possible ways: (P1) direct messianic predictions; (P2) the salvation-historical story and trajectories; (P3) similarities and contrasts between the old and new ages, creations, and covenants; (P4) typology; (P5) Yahweh’s identity and activity; (P6) ethical ideals; and (P7) obedience to the law. Interpreting in the light of all three contexts, I identify Christ through typology and direct messianic prediction in Genesis 22:1–19, through Yahweh’s identity and ethical ideals in Proverbs 8:22–31, and through direct messianic prediction in Isaiah 42:1–4.

Editor’s Note: The above is an excerpt from Five Views of Christ in the Old Testament: Genre, Authorial Intent, and the Nature of Scripture. It is republished here with the gracious permission of the author and publisher.