Old Testament Gospel

After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying,

“Do not fear, Abram,

 I am a shield to you;

 Your reward shall be very great.”

2 Abram said, “O Lord God, what will You give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 And Abram said, “Since You have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir.” 4 Then behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “This man will not be your heir; but one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir.” 5 And He took him outside and said, “Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them “ And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” 6 Then he believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness. 7 And He said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess it.” 8 He said, “O Lord God, how may I know that I will possess it?” 9 So He said to him, “Bring Me a three year old heifer, and a three year old female goat, and a three year old ram, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” 10 Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, and laid each half opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds. 11 The birds of prey came down upon the carcasses, and Abram drove them away.
   12 Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, terror and great darkness fell upon him. 13 God said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. 14 But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions. 15 As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age. 16 Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.”
   17 It came about when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces. 18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying,

“To your descendants I have given this land,

 From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates:

19 the Kenite and the Kenizzite and the Kadmonite 20 and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Rephaim 21 and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Girgashite and the Jebusite.”

—Genesis 15

In this chapter, God once again demonstrates the absolutely unilateral nature of salvation. Iain Duguid explains:

   At the conclusion of a covenant agreement, it was sometimes the custom for the parties to walk between the pieces of a torn up animal. This served as a kind of acted out curse. What they were saying was, “If I break the covenant, may I be torn in pieces like this animal.” But in God’s covenant with Abram, only one of the parties passed between the pieces: God himself in the form of a blazing, smoking torch (v. 17). That foreshadowed the pillars of cloud and fire on Mount Sinai. The one who would give the law was here showing that grace comes first, for this was a totally one-sided covenant.

—Iain Duguid, Living in the Gap Between Promise and Reality: The Gospel According to Abraham (P&R, 1999), 39.

So they went into the ark to Noah, by twos of all flesh in which was the breath of life. Those that entered, male and female of all flesh, entered as God had commanded him; and the Lord closed it behind him.

—Genesis 7:15–16

A few years ago, I began reading John Bunyan’s Exposition of the First Ten Chapters of Genesis. I didn’t get far before Bunyan’s extreme allegorizing of the text almost made me wonder if he believed it was an actual historical account. Since then I have been very wary of any preaching that imposes symbolic meanings where Scripture doesn’t specify them. You might want to keep that in mind as you read what follows, and beware of the possibility that I might be taking the allegory too far. Of the substance of theology, I am sure. That it can definitely be drawn from this text, I am not so certain.

1 Peter 3:18–21 tells us that the Genesis flood serves as an allegory of the wrath of God against sin and the salvation of his elect in Christ. (I wrote about that three weeks ago.) From Peter we know that the flood and the ark are symbols of Christ’s death and resurrection and the necessity of being in Christ. Like the New Testament parables, we must be careful not try to drag meaning out of every detail, but I do think there is soteriological significance in the phrase “the Lord closed [the door] behind him,” or as the KJV has it, “the Lord shut him in.” Matthew Henry wrote,

3. Those that by faith come into Christ, the ark, shall by the power of God be shut in, and kept as in a strong-hold by the power of God, 1 Pet. 1:5. God put Adam into paradise, but he did not shut him in, and so he threw himself out; but when he put Noah into the ark he shut him in, and so when he brings a soul to Christ he ensures its salvation: it is not in our own keeping, but in the Mediator’s hand. 4. The door of mercy will shortly be shut against those that now make light of it. Now, knock and it shall be opened; but the time will come when it shall not, Luke 13:25.

—Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible (Hendrickson, 1991), 1:50.

Following Peter’s formula, we could say:

Those that entered the ark were shut in by the power of God; corresponding to that, those who are in Christ are kept in by the power of God. While the door was open, there was hope of survival, but when it closed, it was closed for good, there was no alternate means of rescue, and all who remained outside were destroyed; corresponding to that, all who reject Christ while he offers salvation in himself will one day find the door closed, and it will be too late. (See also Psalm 95:8–11, cf. Hebrews 3–4.)

As discussed previously, God has made a unilateral covenant with his people. He alone has made a promise, and he alone will be the promise keeper. And, as Duguid explains, he alone has the authority to set the terms of the covenant.

What does it mean when we say our relationship with God is based on a covenant? In the first place, it means that we cannot set the terms of our relationship with God. the terms of the covenant are not negotiable.
   Imagine the weaker king in an ancient covenant saying to the great king, “Fine. Let’s do a deal here, but I want to be in charge in this relationship. I want to say what you can do and what you can be like—and don’t come making demands of me.” It’s absurd, isn’t it? He would have found his head on a pole and his limbs distributed to the four corners of the empire before you could say, “Assyria rules, okay!” Yet many people think that they can strike their own bargains with God. They say, “I like to think of God as . . .”—as if they can decide what God will be like. They want to pick and choose what they will believe and what they will do—and they certainly don’t want a God who makes too many demands on them. “My God isn’t like that,” they will tell you. In other words, they don’t want a God who is God.
    The real question, however, is not what you would like God to be like God to be like, but what he is really like. And he has revealed himself as the God who has made a covenant with his people. When the great king comes and offers to establish a covenant with you, you really have only two choices: you can accept the covenant relationship on his terms and receive its benefits, or you can refuse it and face the consequences.
   Many people approach religion as if they were interviewing God for a job, the position of “personal deity in my life.” “I want to find a philosophy that works for me,” they say. But if God is really who he claims to be, Almighty God, then that is what he is, whether the idea “works for you” or not. You can interview idols and ideologies, but the God who created the universe offers you only two choices: surrender on his terms of face the consequences.

—Iain Duguid, Living in the Gap Between Promise and Reality: The Gospel According to Abraham (P&R, 1999), 75.

I believe that most of the controversial doctrines of Scripture are disputed only because men and women want some control over whom and how they will worship. They hear a doctrine that challenges autonomy, and reason thusly: if a, then b; b is unacceptable, therefore a must be false. But God has no interest in conforming to our opinion of what is right and acceptable. He is Lord; we are not. Our opinions must conform to the truth that is, the truth that our Sovereign has declared. When we get our view of God straight, we will cease protesting against the truths revealed in Scripture.

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; it was he to whom it was said, “In Isaac your descendants shall be called.” He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type.

—Hebrews 11:17–19

Just a few quick observations from this text:

• By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac . . . Genuine obedience is by faith (Romans 14:23).
• By faith Abraham . . . was offering up his only begotten son; it was he to whom it was said, “In Isaac your descendants shall be called.” . . . Abraham trusted God to keep his promise, in spite of incomprehensible evidence to the contrary.
• By faith Abraham . . . was offering up his only begotten son; . . . He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead . . . Abraham believed that God was able to do the impossible to keep his promise.
• By faith Abraham . . . offered up Isaac [and] also received him back as a type. This passage is thick with typology. First, Abraham typifies the Father, offering his only son. Isaac typifies Christ, willingly and knowingly laying down his life in obedience to his father. Abraham’s faith is an example of saving faith in Christ: Abraham surely believed that Isaac would die, yet believed that God would keep his promise and raise him from the dead. Finally, the ram is a type of Christ, and an illustration of substitutionary atonement. Abraham owed God a supreme sacrifice. That sacrifice was his only son, who was more than just precious as a beloved son, but also the fulfillment of God’s promise of Abraham’s future legacy. Isaac was Abraham’s everything, his very life. And that is our debt to God, for our sin. We owe him a death, and he will be paid. But he has provided a substitute. Abraham called the place Jehovah-jireh (the Lord will provide, Genesis 22:14). Jesus is our “ram caught in the thicket.” Calvary is our Jehovah-jireh. Most immediately important to us is that, in Isaac, we see ourselves, desperately in need of a substitute that only God can provide.

Iain Duguid on election:

The doctrine of election is a difficult one for many people. They struggle with the justice of the idea that God chooses some for salvation and passes over others. Some people, therefore, have argued that it is a matter of God’s foreknowledge. God knows in advance which people are going to choose him, and therefore he responds by choosing them. The Bible, however, is clear. God’s love for his chosen people existed long before their birth, all the way back to the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4-5). God does not love us because he foresaw we would love him. Rather, we love God because he loved us from the first (Rom. 9:16).

Yet, as we pointed out earlier, even though God’s election is sovereign, it is not arbitrary or unjust. It is not as if Esau desperately wanted to be a chosen son and God harshly turned him away, not allowing him a place among his chosen people. No, Esau has twice turned his back on his spiritual birthright. First, he sold his birthright to his brother for a bowl of lentil soup (Gen. 25:31–34). Now he compromised the fundamental goal of God’s election: the creation of a separate, holy people for God. Under the circumstances, Esau could have no complaints about being passed over.

We should also notice, however, that Jacob is not chosen because, in contrast to Esau, he is such a wonderful person. Jacob shows himself to be a scheming, conniving, calculating little rat, especially during the first part of his life. Nonetheless, because God’s choice rests upon him out of his sovereign mercy, God is going to work on Jacob, reshaping him, purifying him into a person he can use. Neither Jacob nor Esau deserves God’s grace in his life, but God’s sovereign mercy rests upon Jacob for his blessing, and so his grace begins the transforming work in his heart.

So it is also for us. Our election and our salvation are entirely of grace. God did not choose you because you were better or smarter or more beautiful or holier than everyone else. God did not choose you because he foresaw that you would exercise faith while others wouldn’t. God chose us while we were still filthy sinners, because of his electing grace. Even with his transforming power at work in our hearts, thou, the best of saints make only small beginnings on the path of holy living. We never outgrow our need for grace while we live on earth.

But God’s sovereign choice on salvation is not arbitrary. Those passed over by God have no cause for complaint. Their condemnation is thoroughly deserved. Even though we plead with them with tears to abandon their self-destructive course and find salvation in Jesus Christ, they will have none of it. The whole idea is foolishness to them. Those whom God chooses, he then begins to reshape into a people for his pleasure. As Ephesians 1:4 puts it, “He chose us . . . to be holy and blameless in his sight.” The result is that those chosen have no cause of arrogance. Their justification is undeserved by them. It is merited only by the righteousness of Christ that is credited to their account, and it is worked on them by the indwelling power o the Holy Spirit. All is of God, so that God may receive all the glory.

That truth should give us boldness in our sharing of the gospel. We may freely call all who will come to Jesus and be saved. The invitation to the party is open to all. Whoever you are, whatever you have done, your sins too can be paid for by the death of Jesus on the cross. No one is too guilty or too defiled to come. You too can receive Christ’s righteousness credited to your account. You too can participate in the feast that God has prepared for all who are his people on the final day. It’s a genuine offer, and we pray fervently and intently that many people will respond to it in faith. But we trust the outcome of our evangelism to the care of a good god, who chose a people who would be his before the foundation of the world.

That too is a comforting thought, given the imperfection of so much of our gospel witness. It is God who determines the outcome of our speaking for him, not the quality of our speech. It is God’s choice whither our words fall on the ears of an Esau, to whom they are all nonsense, or on the ears of a Jacob, for whom the road to faith may be long and hard but will eventually bring him to glory. It is God’s choice whether our words fall on the ears of an Abraham who is ready now to hear and trust and believe. We therefore invite all to come to Christ of receive the living water from him, confident that all those whom the Lord our God is calling to himself will hear his voice and will come. To him indeed be all the glory.

This truth should also give us great joy on the midst of our manifold sins and failures. Do you know yourself to be a sinner in God’s sight? Are there areas of your life where you continue to fail God over and over again? If so, the bad news is that you are normal. But the good news is that if God has laid hold of you by his electing grace, he will sustain you by that grace through every step of your earthly journey. He will use even that son which you find so difficult to combat as a means of driving you back to the cross. And one day, at the end of all things, you too will be purified completely by his grace and will stand before him without fault or blemish. What a wonderful, heartwarming, comforting, doctrine the doctrine of God’s election is!

—Iain Duguid, Living in the Grip of Relentless Grace: The Gospel in the Lives of Isaac and Jacob (P&R, 2002), 27–29.

Dan Phillips lists “eleven benefits resulting from the fear of Yahweh” found in the book of Proverbs. Among them is “a fountain of life,” from Proverbs 14:27.

The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life,
that one may turn away from the snares of death.

The form is consequence (B is what happens when you A). the meaning of this verse is related to [Proverbs 10:27]. Beyond that, it has a valid application on the eternal level. We are all born rebels, enemies of God and under His death sentence. When we come to know and fear God as He truly is, we receive eternal life, and turn away from the snares of everlasting death under His judgment in Hell.

This is one of many proverbs that suggest to me that “fear Yahweh” is the Old Covenant equivalent of “believe in the Lord Jesus” (Acts 16:31). It is a distillation of the Gospel, in Old Covenant terms. It could be “translated” for Christians with no changes other than greater New Covenant specificity:

Faith in Christ as Lord is a fountain of life,
For turning away from the snares of death.

—Dan Phillips, God’s Wisdom in Proverbs (Kress Biblical Resources, 2011), 88–89.

Genesis 28 tells the story of Jacob's encounter with God at the place he would call Bethel. This is where we read of Jacob's ladder, and from whence comes that theologically stupid song you learned in Sunday school. At Bethel, Jacob had a dream in which he saw a ladder upon which angels ascended and descended.

Whatever happened to Jacob’s ladder? The image virtually disappears in Old Testament history. Centuries pass with no mention of it. Then suddenly, it appears again in the New Testament:

Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote-Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked. “Come and see,” said Philip. When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, “Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false.” “How do you know me?” Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Then Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.” Jesus said, “You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You shall see greater things than that.” He then added, “I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” John 1:45–51 NIV

Jesus’ words to Nathanael were radical. In this conversation He declared that He is the ladder of Jacob; He is the bridge between heaven and earth; He is the one who spans the chasm between the Transcendent One and mere humans. The angels of God ascend and descend on Him. He makes the absent God present among us.

—R. C. Sproul, The Holiness of God (Tyndale, 1985), 173–174.