How Much of the Old Testament is About Jesus?

Some say that the Old Testament is all about Jesus and some say it isn't.

So, which is true? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Hi, this is Bill Meyer along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. CORE, that's 1-833-843-2673.

You can also post your question on our Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts, or email us at questions at corechristianity.com. Well, what's a restaurant owner to do in the face of COVID restrictions? Well, one restaurant owner in Europe decided to get creative. Hit by a plunge in business after foreign tourists vanished, a gourmet restaurant in Budapest, Hungary did something new. The restaurant, called Costas, is now offering Skyline Dining on the Budapest Eye Ferris Wheel in order to serve meals in a COVID-proof environment. Costas owner Karoly Garandil says, Now that there are not many people on the Ferris Wheel or in the restaurant because there are no tourists, the opportunity arose that we could do this.

So tickets for this novel dining experience cost 154 bucks for a gourmet four-course meal. They sold out in a couple of days, and it sounds like, I was thinking, Adriel, it sounds like a really cool experience, unless, of course, the wind kicks up right while you're having your soup. Hmm, that would not be good. So wait, are you saying, Bill, that these people are riding a Ferris Wheel while eating dinner? What they do, I guess they put them on the Ferris Wheel, and then it doesn't move while you're eating.

Oh, okay. That sounds like a disaster. Like, that sounds like, you know, you're gonna get dizzy as you're taking a bite into your mashed potatoes. No, you are totally up at the top looking at the skyline of the city and so romantic. Unless there's lightning strike, then it wouldn't be so romantic. Well, let's get to our first question. One of our listeners who wanted to stay anonymous asked this question on our Facebook page. He or she says, I want to be a Christian, but I'm not sure how to do it.

Can you please help me? One, thank you for that question. And I guess there are a few different ways of answering this. You know, all sorts of passages are coming to my mind right now. I think about what Paul told the Philippian jailer, you know, when the jailer asked him, what must I do to be saved? And he said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. So really, in the New Testament, you have this call to faith, to believe in Jesus, to trust in Jesus. Now, that's more than, you know, just admitting that Jesus existed or being willing to say, yeah, he's the Son of God. It's truly embracing that with your heart and trusting in him personally, recognizing that he is the only one that can save you, that you're a sinner, first and foremost, and that we need God's grace.

We can't save ourselves. So you have that call to faith everywhere in the New Testament. But I also think of that scene in John chapter three, and this is one of the most well known passages of scripture, especially when you get to verse 16.

And I just want to read John chapter three up to verse 16, but beginning in verse one, because I think it really helps to answer your question. There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these things that you do unless God is with him. Jesus answered him, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to him, How can a man be born when he is old?

Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? And Jesus answered, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is flesh and that which is born of spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again.

The wind blows where it wishes and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus said to him, How can these things be? Jesus answered him, Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak what we know and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony.

If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Now, to you asking this question, in some ways you remind me of Nicodemus wanting to remain anonymous. Nicodemus came to Jesus by night.

He was a ruler of the Jews, someone who happened to be pretty steeped in the religion of the Jews, someone who was respected. And yet he knows that there's something about this Jesus that they can't really put their finger on. He knows that he's a teacher come from God, and he's trying to understand what it is that Jesus is about, who it is that Jesus is.

And Jesus says, Here's what you need, Nicodemus. It's not enough to simply be religious. And I think this is a really important point for us to grasp today. It's not just religion that saves someone. A lot of people think, you know, so long as you're sincere, so long as you're religious, a good person, that that's what gets you in. And it doesn't really matter what you believe, so long as you believe something. That's not what Jesus says. What you believe really matters.

Who you're trusting in or what you're trusting in is a matter of life and death, a matter of spiritual life and spiritual death. And Jesus says to Nicodemus, Yeah, I know you're the teacher in Israel, but here's what you need. You need to be born again. That is, you need to be born of the Spirit.

It's what we refer to as regeneration, the new birth. And it comes by the grace of the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ. And Jesus calls Nicodemus here also to faith.

He says, God loved the world so much that he gave his only son so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. So the first question I would ask you is, do you believe in Jesus? Do you trust in him? Maybe you recognize, like Nicodemus recognized, yeah, there's something to this Jesus.

I'm religious, but I don't have a personal relationship with Christ. Well, turn to him. Trust in him. And practically speaking, you need to be in a church.

Go through the membership class at the local church that preaches the Bible, teaches the scripture. Ordinarily, that's a part of how God is working in our lives. It's one of the ways we know that we know the Lord is because we're a part of his body. We have a relationship with Christ.

We also have a relationship to the church, his body. And so trust in Jesus and be a part of a church. That's what God calls you to. And continue to grow in your faith, walking with the Lord and understanding what the scriptures teach, digging into the scriptures. And so I just want to encourage you in that way. Trust in Christ and be a part of a Bible teaching church.

God bless you. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adrielle Sanchez. If you have a question for us, you can call us at 833-THE-CORE. That's 1-833-843-2673. Hello, this is Lavette from Dallas. I would like to know if you could explain the parables in Mark 2, verses 21 to 22. Thank you.

Hi, Lavette. Thank you so much for your call and your question. And let me just read the passage so that our listeners can follow along with us. And I'm going to start actually in verse 18, just to give us a little bit more of the context. It says, Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting, and people came and said to him, Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast? And Jesus said to them, Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast.

The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day. No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins.

But new wine is for fresh wineskins. So as Jesus is going about teaching and making disciples, you have people who were concerned about what it was that he was saying, in particular the religious leaders, the Pharisees. And they looked at Jesus and his disciples, and they said, They're not as pious as we are. They don't fast like we do. And so people come to our Lord and they say, Well, why is it that your disciples don't do the same religious rituals that we do? They're not fasting like we fast. And Jesus first says, Look, I'm the bridegroom. I'm here with them.

This is a time of celebration, a time of joy. Fasting is typically associated with sorrow, with crying out to the Lord because of some great turmoil or difficulty. And yet Jesus says, That's not the job of my disciples right now.

No, I'm here. Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? But then he goes a step further and he begins talking about, and this is what you were I think we're most curious on, was this idea of new wine into old wineskins. What Jesus is saying here is his teaching, what he's bringing is the new wine. Ultimately, I think he's referring here to the new covenant. A covenant is sort of like a promise. It was this promise, this pledge that God made to his people way back in the prophets in Jeremiah chapter 31, where he was going to forgive all their sins and fill them with the Holy Spirit. This is what Jesus came to accomplish. You think about the meal that he instituted on the night that he was betrayed, the Lord's Supper with bread and wine. Jesus came bringing the new wine of the kingdom, and it wasn't going to be contained under the old covenant. You couldn't fit it in there.

I think that's the idea. You see, in those days, we have water bottles and Nalgene or whatever those things are called, the stuff that you put your drink in. Well, in those days, they'd put wine into wineskins, and new wineskins, they were pretty flexible.

Over time, they'd grow harder. And if you had a break in your wineskins, you wouldn't put a new wineskin patch on the old wineskin. Otherwise, when you put fresh wine into it, the new wineskin would shrink and tear the entire thing, and you'd lose it all. Well, I think what Jesus is getting at here is his teaching. The new covenant that he was accomplishing wasn't going to be restricted, confined to the old covenant. That old covenant was being done away.

It was passing away. Now Jesus is bringing the new wineskins. And so he's suggesting to these Pharisees and those who come to him that he's coming bringing something new, something fresh, something life-changing. It's the new covenant.

And that's what he's getting at here with this parable of the wineskins. Thank you for your question, LaVette. Thanks so much, LaVette, for being one of our regular listeners here at CORE Christianity.

You're listening to CORE Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. And we know it can be difficult to begin reading the Bible for the first time, and many Bible reading plans can be somewhat complex and daunting. So we have a resource that will help your Bible study become more meaningful. Yeah, Bill, I mean, for the reasons you just mentioned, at CORE Christianity, we wanted to create a Bible reading plan that would do two things. One, it would help someone new to the Bible cultivate a joy for reading the Bible.

And two, it would help someone who may have lost that joy to find it again. The CORE Christianity Bible reading plan is a free resource when you sign up for our weekly newsletter, and it will take you about 10 minutes per day to complete and last for the entire year. Through this Bible reading plan, you will be introduced to the big narrative, the grand themes of the Bible. It's a plan that won't take you through the entire Bible in a year, but it will help you develop a sustainable habit of reading the Bible for one whole year. After all, it's better to read a little bit every day than to read a lot only occasionally. This plan is designed to help you develop a habit of reading without requiring a large time commitment. Our prayer is that this new habit will carry on through the years to come so that over time you'll grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus. If you'd like to download the CORE Christianity Bible reading plan, just head over to corechristianity.com forward slash reading plan. That's corechristianity.com forward slash reading plan.

Here's an email that came in from Stephanie Adriel. She says, I know in my head that God is good and uses things for his glory, but my daughter and I both have learning disabilities that make life very difficult. Why would God allow that and how can it possibly be used for his glory? Well, first let me just pray for you and for your daughter, and thank you for that question. Father, we lift Stephanie up to you and her daughter, and we thank you, Lord, for calling them to yourself through Jesus, your son. We thank you, Lord, for the love that you have for them and for the fact, God, that you use us despite our weaknesses, despite our disabilities, and I pray for Stephanie and for her daughter that you would give them a sense, Lord, of how it is that you are using them for your own glory, that you would comfort them, that you would bless them, that you would be with them, Lord, giving them a sense of your presence, especially in this Christmas season, Lord. I pray for them. I thank you for this question, and I ask God that through the Scriptures we might receive comfort now.

In Jesus' name, amen. Well, Stephanie, all disability is a part of the fall. I mean, sin has affected every part of us, including our minds, our ability to learn. There isn't one part of us that isn't affected by sin, and that's why we can't save ourselves. That's why it's a work of the Holy Spirit, of God's grace. We also know that despite this, God is in complete control, and I think that that's a really important point, because there are some people that might say to you, you know, this is so horrible, or, you know, we're so sorry, Stephanie, about this disability, and God is up there in heaven, and, you know, this caught them by surprise.

He would never, ever allow something like this to happen if He could have not allowed it to happen, and I think there's a problem with that kind of theology. Oftentimes, that's how some believers will try to comfort people when they get a question like this, and yet we know, according to the Scriptures, that God, even in these things that are so often difficult for us, can cause a lot of pain and frustration, even in these things, God is still in control. When the Lord called Moses to bring the people out of Egypt, if you remember, Stephanie, in the book of Exodus, Moses objected because he said, God, I'm not really good at speaking.

I have a stutter. And do you remember what God said to Moses, Stephanie? It's in Exodus 4, verse 11, the Lord said to him, Who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind?

Is it not I, the Lord? In other words, God said to Moses, Moses, I'm going to use you just the way you are. Stephanie, our weaknesses and our disabilities, whatever they may be, right, they cause us all kinds of frustration and pain, but here's what they aren't. They aren't something that will keep God from using you for His glory. I spoke to a dear brother who had just been diagnosed with incurable cancer, and he shared with me how the disease had really put things in perspective for him. He recognized that it wasn't a good thing.

Sickness is horrible. It is, like I said, a part of the fall, yet he understood that God was using it in his life, and I remember him telling me something that I'll never forget. He said, We often want to be great in the Lord, but I'm finding that as I get older, more and more, I get smaller and God gets bigger.

His words struck me as we were talking in my living room. I wanted to encourage him, but I found that he was really ministering to me, speaking to me. God wants to make himself big in us, in you, Stephanie, and often what I found in life is that God makes himself great, not through our strength, the stuff that we think we're really good at, where I really shine, but that puts the attention on me. Often it's through our weaknesses, even our disabilities, that God causes his son, Jesus, to shine through. So, Stephanie 1, I know it has to be frustrating, and at times you have to wonder, Why, Lord?

Why this for me? Why this for my daughter? I just want to say, offer yourself up to the Lord and know that God is in control, that he loves you, and that he will still use you, and that often he uses us in the very places where we think we're the most weak. So, may the Lord bless you, and may the Lord bless your daughter this Christmas season. God bless you, and thank you for your question. Stephanie, thank you so much, and we'll be praying for you and your daughter.

We know that's a really tough situation. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Callie posted this on her Instagram page, and she says, In Hosea 11.1, the Bible says, When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. Is that referring to Jesus or Israel? I've heard pastors argue for both interpretations. It seems that if all of these Old Testament texts were only about Jesus, then the Israelites in the Old Testament wouldn't have known what they were about.

What do you think? Yeah, I mean, we're getting here into the question of Bible interpretation, how we should understand the Scriptures and their relationship ultimately to Jesus. Callie, one of the things that I love about the Bible is how unified it is, and it really testifies to a central theme, a central reality, and that's God's salvation in his son Jesus. It's a promise that's given to us way back in the very beginning of the book of Genesis, in Genesis chapter 3 verse 15, the first preaching of the gospel, if you will, where God says that the seed of the woman is going to crush the head of the serpent. And ultimately, we know that that seed, the seed of the woman, is Jesus Christ.

He's the one who, through his death and resurrection, crushed and conquered Satan. And Jesus taught us, he's the one who taught us that all Scripture points to him. You think of the discussion that he had with his disciples on the road to Emmaus at the end of Luke's gospel. He opened up the Scriptures to them to show them how the Scriptures all pointed to him, or even his discussion with religious leaders in John chapter 5. He says, you search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, but these very Scriptures testify of me. Moses, he said, wrote about me.

So then how do we understand passages like this? Hosea 11 one, when Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. And I think you're asking this question because you know that the apostles in the New Testament actually applied this verse to Jesus.

It's a passage of Scripture that maybe we're reading more frequently now because it's, you know, the Christmas season, we're meditating upon the birth of our Lord Jesus. But in Matthew chapter 2, beginning in verse 13, it says this, when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, rise, take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him. And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. And then here's the quote from Hosea 11, out of Egypt I called my son. That's really interesting, and really I think the answer here is that Hosea 11-1 can have more than one referent. What I mean by that is in the context of Hosea 11, I mean, it's clear that God is talking about his love for Israel as a nation, the people of God. And I mean, ultimately, the prophet Hosea is talking about the ways in which the people of God had turned away from him, rebelled, and yet God's pursuing love continued to chase after them. And yet the apostles and the disciples of our Lord took Hosea 11-1 and they applied it to Jesus because they recognized that he was the true Israelite, that he had come as the perfect son of God. And ultimately what he's doing is he's fulfilling everything that Israel fell short of under the old covenant.

So it's so fascinating to me. I think that this is really amazing when you see, look at the early chapters of Matthew and you think of everything that's happening in the first two chapters, and it seems as if Jesus is walking in the footsteps of Israel, the same footsteps that Israel walked in in the Old Testament. For example, they come out of Egypt, right?

Out of Egypt I called my son. And then what happens after they come out of Egypt? They go through the water. Well, after Jesus comes out of Egypt, then in Matthew chapter 3, he's baptized by John in the Jordan. And then what happens after they come through the water?

Well, Israel was tested for 40 years. They wandered in the wilderness. What happens with Jesus after he comes out of the water? So chapter 2, he leaves Egypt. Chapter 3, in Matthew's Gospel, he's baptized through the water. Chapter 4, he's tempted by the devil for how long?

40 days. Then after the temptation, what happens? Well, after they came out of the wilderness, the Israelites received God's law on Mount Sinai. What does Jesus do in Matthew chapter 5? He goes on a mountain and he basically preaches the kingdom and the law.

You have heard that it was said, but I say to you. And he talks about how ultimately he's the fulfillment of the law. It's really amazing when you think about it, but what Jesus is doing here is he's walking in the footsteps of Israel, and yet the difference that we find is that everywhere where Israel failed, where they didn't believe, where they fell short, this one, the true Israelite, the eternal Son of God, obeys. We've broken God's law. We've failed time and time again. The good news of the gospel is not that we should obey God's law or that we can obey God's law perfectly.

We can't. The good news of the gospel is that God has sent his Son, Jesus, into the world that he was born of the Virgin and lived his life perfectly fulfilling the law everywhere where Israel fell short and everywhere where you fall short and where I fall short. So what we see is Jesus perfectly walking in the footsteps of Israel so that he might be our representative, our advocate, our righteousness. When you contact us, please let us know how you've been encouraged by this podcast, and be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's Word together.