Christ in the Writings
Christ in the Writings
The third division of the Old Testament was “the Writings,” sometimes called “the Psalms,” because the Psalter (our book of Psalms) was the chief book of this section. Several psalms are applied to Jesus Christ in the New Testament, psalms which include references to his deity, humanity, sufferings and exaltation. Thus the words “You are my Son; today I have become your Father” were used (at least in part) by God the Father in direct address to his Son at both his baptism and his transfiguration. The allusions in Psalm 8 to man as “made … a little lower than the heavenly beings” and “crowned … with glory and honor” are applied to Christ by the author of the Letter to the Hebrews. Jesus himself quoted Psalm 22:1 from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” claiming that he had personally experienced and fulfilled the terrible God-forsakenness which the psalmist expressed. He also quoted David’s saying in Psalm 110:1, “The LORD says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet,’ “ and asked his critics how the Messiah could be both David’s Lord and David’s son.
“The Writings” contain, in addition, what is often called the wisdom literature of the Old Testament. The “wise men” appear to have become a distinct group in Israel during the later period of the monarchy, alongside the prophets and the priests. They knew that the beginning of wisdom was to fear God and depart from evil. Often they extolled wisdom in glowing terms, as more precious than gold, silver and jewels, and occasionally they appeared even to personify wisdom as the agent of God’s creation:
I was there when he set the heavens in place,
when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep,
when he established the clouds above
and fixed securely the fountains of the deep,
when he gave the sea its boundary
so the waters would not overstep his command,
and when he marked out the foundations of the earth.
Then I was the craftsman at his side.
I was filled with delight day after day,
rejoicing always in his presence,
rejoicing in his whole world
and delighting in mankind. (Prov. 8:27–31)
Christians have no difficulty in recognizing that this wisdom of God is uniquely incorporated in Jesus Christ, the personal “Word” who was in the beginning with God and through whom all things were made (see John 1:1–3; Col. 2:3).
The Old Testament expectation of Christ—in the Law, the Prophets and the Writings—is seen to have been extremely diverse. Jesus himself summed it up in the comprehensive question: “Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” (Luke 24:26). The apostle Peter took up the phrase, conceding that the prophets did not fully understand “the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow” (1 Pet. 1:11). But this double strand of prophecy was there, representing him as the priest who would offer himself as a sacrifice for sin and the king whose glorious reign would know no end.
In fact, another way of summing up the Old Testament witness to Christ is to say that it depicts him as a greater prophet than Moses, a greater priest than Aaron and a greater king than David. That is to say, he will perfectly reveal God to man, reconcile man to God and rule over man for God. In him, the Old Testament ideals of prophecy, priesthood and kingship will find their final fulfillment.