Christ in the New Testament
Christ in the New Testament
If the idea of discovering Christ in the Old Testament seems at first sight strange, there is no similar difficulty about finding him in the New. In the Gospels—each with its own viewpoint, as we shall see in chapter 4—we find the story of his birth, life, death and resurrection, together with a sample of what he said and what he did.
These “memories of the apostles,” as they used to be called in the early church, came rightly to be known as “Gospels,” for each evangelist tells his story as “gospel” or good news of Christ and his salvation. They do not present him as a biographer might. They are essentially witnesses, directing their readers’ attention to one they believed to be the God-man, born to save his people from their sins, whose words were words of eternal life, whose works dramatized the glory of his kingdom, who died as a ransom for sinners, and who rose in triumph to be Lord of all.
You might suppose that the Acts of the Apostles, which tells the story of the early days of Christianity, is more about the church than about Christ. Yet this would misrepresent its nature. Luke, its author, has a different emphasis. In introducing his work to Theophilus (for whom he is writing) he describes his first book (the Gospel of Luke) as containing “all that Jesus began to do and to teach.” The implication is that the Acts story will contain all that Jesus continued to do and teach through his apostles. So in the Acts we listen to Christ as he was still speaking to men, though now through the great sermons of the apostles Peter and Paul which Luke records. We also see the miracles which he did through them, for “many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles” in the name and with the power of Jesus Christ (Acts 2:43). And we watch Christ building his own church by adding converts to it:
And the Lord added to their number daily those who were
being saved. (Acts 2:47)
The Epistles extend the New Testament’s witness to Christ by unfolding further the glory of his divine-human person and saving work, and by relating the life of the Christian and of the church to him. The apostles exalt Christ as the one in whom “God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell” and through whom we ourselves have “fullness in Christ” (Col. 1:19; 2:9–10). In Christ God has “blessed us … with every spiritual blessing,” they say (Eph. 1:3), so that we can do all things through him who inwardly strengthens us (Phil. 4:13). The Christ the apostles present is an all-sufficient Christ, who is able to save to the uttermost and for all time “those who come to God through him” (Heb. 7:25).
The Bible’s showing-forth of Christ reaches its climax in the Revelation of John. He is portrayed in the vivid imagery which characterizes this book. First he appears as a glorified man “among the lampstands.” These represent the churches, which the risen Christ is seen to patrol and superintend, so that he is able to say to each, “I know your deeds” (Rev. 2–3). Then the scene changes from earth to heaven, and Jesus Christ appears as “a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain.” The countless international crowd of the redeemed are even said to have “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb,” by which John means that they owe their righteousness to Christ crucified alone (Rev. 5:6; 7:14). Then towards the end of the book Christ is seen as a majestic rider on a white horse, going forth to judgment, with his name inscribed upon him “KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS” (Rev. 19:11–16). Finally we are introduced to him as the Heavenly Bridegroom for, we are told, “the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.” His bride is the glorified church which is then seen “coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband” (Rev. 19:7–9; 21:2). Almost the last words of the Revelation are “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come!’ And let him who hears say, ‘Come!’… Come, Lord Jesus” (Rev. 22:17, 20).
There is great diversity of content, style and purpose among the books of the Bible, and in some of them the witness to Christ is indirect, even oblique. But this brief survey of the Old and New Testaments should be enough to demonstrate that “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Rev. 19:10). If we want to know Christ and his salvation, it is to the Bible we must turn. For the Bible is God’s own portrait of Christ. We can never know him otherwise. As Jerome put it in the fourth century AD, “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.”
Just as in a children’s treasure hunt, one is sometimes fortunate enough to stumble immediately upon the treasure but, more usually, has to follow laboriously from clue to clue until at last the treasure is found, so it is with Bible reading. Some verses point one direct to Christ. Others are remote clues. But a painstaking pursuit of the clues will ultimately lead every reader to that treasure whose worth is beyond price.