And all the pressures that life will dump on you, Christ still expects you. to serve him in the midst of whatever you got going on. It's not like, okay, I want to take a break. There is no break. It doesn't have to be either.
Because while we're licking our wounds, and sometimes we are doing just that. Those wounds are part of the process to strengthen us. To be servants. These things tell us who Christ really is. That's the purpose of these.
appearances of Christ in the Old Testament. This is Cross Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Ricky is the pastor of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through a topical series. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross Reference Radio.
specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick as he begins his message, Jesus in the OT. We begin. A series on addresses. and responses to those invited questions.
that we when we put the black boxes in the back for folks to put questions in.
So we got about Six questions. A couple of them have multiple questions within it, so We'll see how this goes, but we'll get this one. The question is. Jesus in the Old Testament. And in parentheses with this question was Luke 24, 27.
And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the scriptures The things concerning himself.
Well, the Jesus is pointing back to the Old Testament. That the Old Testament spoke about him. Quite a bit. He wanted them to know more about him from the scriptures. Nothing's changed, it's still that way.
Christ wants us to know. More about him From the scriptures.
Now, it's not the only way in serving the Lord faithfully, of course. There are Other influences and lessons that God has for us about Him. By living the Christian life. But never will it contradict Scripture.
Now I've chosen a verse from John to begin my response to the question. about Jesus in the Old Testament. The verse I chose to start comes from John's Gospel, chapter one. Verse forty-five Philip found Nathaniel, and said to him, We have found him. Of whom Moses in the law And also the prophets wrote.
Jesus of Nazareth, The son of Joseph. And so those first century Jews, before they even knew who Christ was, knew that they had to look to the Bible to find out about him. That God had prepped humanity Through scripture to receive the Saviour. And the Old Testament was the Bible that the first church used. to reach the lost world.
The New Testament evolved. into what we have today. John's Gospels opens with a tsunami of truth about deity. The deity of Christ So the first three Gospels, Matthew through Luke, They're biographical mainly. They're synoptic.
You're dealing with What Jesus did, how he got here. From Bethlehem to the ascension. John comes along and With an independent gospel. And from the beginning, he gets right at it. Jesus is God.
Well, he's not the only one that put it into writing. Paul, when he writes his Colossian letter, dealing with Heresies that challenge this. came out also. to refute false teachings. And to make it clear, that you are complete in him.
that He is part of the Godhead. Jesus Christ is not only self-existent. But he's eternal. They're two different things. He is without beginning, he is without end.
Now, we Christians accept these are fundamental things if you're a Bible student, but if you're new to Christianity, or if you're new to learning about the Bible, then these things are going to be Very stimulating in a very good way, I believe.
So He is without beginning. He is beginning and the end, the alpha the omega. Various verses express that in the Old and New Testament. Before he showed up in Bethlehem through the virgin birth. He showed up.
in millennium before that on earth. Before he shows up on earth in the Old Testament, He already existed before creation. Of course he is key figure in the creation, but not the sole figure. Bible, we'll get to that in a moment. Isaiah 48:12, I am He, I am the first, I am also the last.
This is Yahweh speaking through Isaiah the prophet, and that's only one of several places that he states that. Then we come to Revelation, of course. I am the Alpha and the Omega, Jesus speaking, the beginning and the end. First and last. No matter how far back you go, He's there.
No matter how far forward you go, Christ is there. And so metaphorically, Parabi. In type and in character, Christ is all over The Old Testament. He is the character, for example, of Isaiah 53. He's the star of the whole.
Chapter of Isaiah 53. They're not the only place that happens. We know him in Genesis as Shiloh. The cornerstone. Wonderful counselor, There are hundreds of names and types A metaphor for Christ.
I've probably too many to track. He is revealed in some way in every book of the Bible. Malachi presents him this way But to you who fear my name, God speaking to his people through the prophet Malachi. The Son of righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings. is personified.
The personal pronoun, his wings.
So he is the sun of righteousness, and that sun as the star. S U N There was the prophet Balaam. That became an apostate, we know that. But before he became an apostate, God used him to speak profound truths. And he said in his prophecy, I see him.
But not now. I behold him, but not near. A star shall come out of Jacob, a scepter shall rise out of Israel. Hundreds of years. Before the coming of Christ.
That's why he says, I see him, but not now. These lessons not only lure us to study, they lift us to serve. That sounds very like old-time preaching because it is. That's a good sentence. These lessons about Christ in the Old Testament they lure us to study more about Him.
To match up in the New Testament. And then to do something with that, I mean, if your purpose of Bible study is just to gain knowledge, then you're missing the point of Bible study. Always learning, never coming into the knowledge. These are experiences with God that go beyond speech. And they include sight.
To see Jesus in the Old Testament. in human form. thousands of years before the virgin birth.
Now, some of these appearances in the Old Testament are debatable. Melchizedek, for example, was that an appearance of Christ in the Old Testament in human form?
Well, many good scholars say no. He was an actual king. A human being, a created being.
Some including myself, lean more towards, no, that was Christ. And in Daniel live several. Christophanes' appearances of Christ in human form. And in chapter 10, there's one that's debated. And there are a few others, Zachariah chapter one, and too many to list.
But even if you just took all the ones that are debatable and put them on the side, you're left with another bunch of them that are indisputable and powerful enough all by themselves. to do something with the Christian walk and the individual student.
So we know from Bible study that Jesus is God the Son, distinct from God the Father, distinct from God the Holy Spirit. Because when you talk about the Holy Spirit, you're talking about God. But never Are any of these isolated from one another? Never are they less than equal. John chapter 1 I mentioned John comes with this just this large wave of doctrine about who Christ is.
John spoke as though. He lived with Jesus and real close to him because he did. He was the one that Christ trusted with his mother. according to the h the his humanity. John writes, No one has seen God at any time.
The only begotten Son. Who is the firstborn of the Father? He has declared him. The Greek word is revealed him, shown him. manifested him, materialized.
So you could write rewrite John's Verse Chapter 1, verse 18. You could rewrite that verse and not lose any of its power if you start off with saying, Jesus has shown us the God. that we've never seen before. He is him. You want to see what God is like?
Look at Jesus. Colossians Paul says he is the image of the invisible God, firstborn of all creation, not firstborn in order. But an authority. He is the primary. Because he is the creator.
1 Timothy Paul writes this: This is beautiful language: without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness.
Now, without controversy, amongst believers. Who are filled with the Spirit because the world will certainly go against it all. But he says, God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among The Gentiles, that would be all humans. If you preach Gentiles, you get everybody, Jews too. Believed on in the world, received up in glory.
This is a man who took many beatdowns for Christ.
So here you are, just an average Christian trying to get on with your life and all the pressures that life will dump on you. Christ still expects you. to serve him in the midst of whatever you got going on. It's not like, okay, I want to take a break. There is no break.
It doesn't have to be either. Because while we're licking our wounds, and sometimes we are doing just that. Those wounds are part of the process to strengthen us. to be servants. These things tell us who Christ really is.
That's the purpose of these. Appearances of Christ in the Old Testament. The New Testament saints had no reference point. Except What they saw in Christ when he lived, and what the scriptures said to match that. And so, take a moment to talk about pre-existence versus pre-incarnate.
A big word is only a big word when you're not familiar with it. Preexistence is, of course, his existence before creation. We've covered that. He's always been. He's self-existent, he is eternal.
But preincarnate, on the other hand, Is His appearance in his creation. before his birth from the Virgin before Bethlehem. He existed. Christ has no birthday. John chapter 5, verse 26, one of the verses we use to proof text for his eternal state.
Jesus said, For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself. 1 John Chapter. One. The life was manifested. He's speaking about Jesus.
We have seen him. And bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life, which was with the Father, was Manifested to us, materialized, made physical. You can touch it. John's writing that second letter to refute that heresy of Gnosticism that sort of reduced Jesus to some sort of phantom. John says, This is nonsense.
I was there, I touched him. I saw him.
So he was active in creation. In creation of creation.
So, when you turn your Bibles to Genesis chapter 1, you read, God says, Let us make man in our image. See, the Godhead is involved in creation. Us. You're plural. plurality of God.
Genesis 1:2, the earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God. Was hovering over the face of the waters. And a word for hovering really is agitating and doing something.
So the Godhead, very active, Christ, very much a part of that because He's equal with the Father. It is no lack within the Godhead. John again chapter 1. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made. It was pretty much in your face.
I mean, you'd like to think that the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons would say, you know what? This guy must be God. And there's none like him. Again, Colossians chapter One. By him all things were created that are in heaven.
And that are on earth. Visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things consist. Not only does he make them, he keeps them, he holds it together. He keeps it from falling apart.
So no meteorite slams into the planet. It's not going to happen. What beautiful language. You can just spend a sermon right there on that Colossian. Section right there.
Helping us. learn about our Savior in this lifetime.
So we could do something with the information. At least learn to pray. A little bit more effectively. I hope As you go through the years, you're still learning how to pray. Prayer is not natural.
How do you praise God? We have to learn that. It's not natural. I mean, there's ways it comes easy. You know, we thank him.
What do we pray?
Well, one thing we praise him for is that he didn't leave us the sinners that we are.
So, I would encourage Christians learning how to pray and relearning. You learn Bible verses, and if you don't keep them up, you've got to go back and relearn them. They're harder I find them harder to learn the second time.
So what is the meaning of these? Pre-incarnate. experiences of Jesus.
Well, that Jesus of the New Testament is Yahweh. Of the Old Testament. That's one of the great lessons because as we go through some of these incarnations, we'll find out: hey, wait a minute, that's Yahweh. Oh, but it's Jesus. Jesus must be Yahweh.
That being Yahweh of the Jews, Jesus is Almighty God, Creator of all. These are the lessons that come out of the Old Testament. Jesus himself confirmed that we can do this. He laid out the precedents for us. In other words, he came along and said, I'm telling you now, you can look back in the Old Testament and you can see me walking around with some of those Old Testament.
patriarchs and prophets. In every case, Be it a Christophany or Theophany, it is Christ.
Now, the difference between a Christophany and a Theophany, well, Any appearance of God in creation Through created things, is a theophany. Whether he is in materialized human form or in a cloud. And that's a theophany. But a Christophany just takes apart as a subgroup to Theophany. It says, okay, but when he goes human on us, That's a Christophany.
That's an appearance of Jesus. That allows us to connect everything.
So we're not groping around who's, yeah, wonder what that meant. Who was that? We know who it is. Identification comes by how This particular figure is treated by those. whom he appears to.
Some of them straight out call him God. Judges chapter 13. the parents of Samson, Manoah, and his wife We read: When the angel of Yahweh appeared no more to Manoah and his wife, then Manoah knew that was The angel of Yahweh. And Manoah said to his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God. To which she replied, You nitwit, if that were true, we'd be dead.
She was right. But he was, you know, that's a children. He just got emotional with those. He was so excited. He's not, you know, a goofy thing to say.
But there's a case that the angel of the Lord They just said, He's God. We've seen God. We did not die. Not in his essence. No one can handle that.
But it's it's downsized for us. It's toned down. He's dialed it back a bit. In Christ.
So, there are other appearances of the angel of the Lord. Many of them are God, some of them are not specified.
Some of them are angels. that belong to Yahweh. Versus messengers that come from hell. But the context will guide us. Otherwise, we would know all the time when it was a Christophany.
Like I started off in the beginning, there are times we're not so sure because it's not as. clear as it usually is. According to Jesus himself, We are to look back at the Old Testament and find him. Jesus said in John's Gospel, chapter 8. He said this to the Pharisees: Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad.
How could he do that? He's been dead a few thousand years now. Unless When Jesus showed up, In the Old Testament, That's who Abraham dealt with. Then is the prophet Isaiah. This is Jesus.
Telling us I want you to do this. I want you to find me in the Old Testament. The pieces of the puzzle are there. They're imperfect pieces in that they have lines that separate one piece from the other. But When you put them together, you'll identify what the picture is.
You will understand 100%. You put any puzzle together when you say, okay, that's the face, that's the bird, that's the mountain, whatever it is. John chapter twelve Verse 41. John talking about Jesus. These things Isaiah said when he saw his glory and spoke of him.
Well, when on earth did Isaiah see the glory of Christ when he said, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple. That's Yahweh. God Almighty else you die. You're not going to divide the Trinity. Don't even try.
They have a role in their relationship to us to help us learn about God. But they're indivisible.
So Jesus is saying. In John's Gospel alone, yeah, that's me.
Well, that gives me again License By Christ to understand what a Christophany is. That subcategory of a Theophany, Theo God. A manifestation of God in any form.
Now, I've covered that, and we just say, well, Give me an example of God showing up. Even when Moses went before the bush to burn, Christ spoke to him, appeared to him, the scripture said. Moses worshipped. He was worshiping the bush. He was worshiping the one that was communicating with him, just like we do.
You know when the Holy Spirit communicates with you. In fact, you know it so well when he doesn't, you get It d it's disappointing. Of many levels.
Well This Created element in one example, other than the Shekinah that the Jews follow Solomon when he dedicated the temple. And the cloud filled the sanctuary, filled the temple, so they couldn't even minister in there. That was the presence of God. That's a theophany. And when God showed up to Hagar.
It doesn't say he appeared to her, he spoke to her. That's a theophany. Genesis twelve, one now Yahweh had said to Abram. Get out from your country, from your family, and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you.
Now, God is not trying to be. Trying to, listen, there are some people, they weren't raised in a good family.
Some people are raised in families where there's substance abuse and there's violence and criminals, and God is saying, get out from them. Not all cases, of course, but this is the case with Abraham and his father, because Abraham's father. was a pagan. And God wanted to get him out of there, and it took some time to do it. Then it goes on in that same section.
When God said to Abraham, was Abram God will change his name to Abraham from exalted father to father of many. Genesis 12:7, then Yahweh appeared to Abram and said, Now here is he is Yahweh. It says, Yahweh appeared to Abram. And he said to him, To your descendants I will give this land. And there he built an altar to Yahweh, who appeared to him Well he's worshiping now.
That's how we know it's Yahweh, because Abraham would not worship. False God. And this is the case many times with these Appearances. Manifestation of God in human form.
Sometimes It's in a vision. Or dream. Daniel had a vision. Daniel had a dream that had visions in it. Here's a show-off.
He wasn't on a show up, but it's He he got the whole thing there.
So Not always is Christ Most of the time, as a matter of fact, I don't know about most of the time, but often he's not easily recognized. And he initiates the events and it unfolds before the individual, such as with Manoah and his wife. And with Gideon, Gideon said, Okay, I want you to show you know Gideon. Gideon's like, I'm not believing anybody. I'm from New York, and everybody's up to something.
So he says, He lays out these. Things for him to do. And he goes, I'm going to kill a fatted calf and all of this. Anyway, we're not going to get to Gideon. But there's Jesus in the Old Testament.
He was initially recognized. As God Which, when he is recognized as God, even if not initially, These are reference points for future students of the scripture, all the way through the apostles who gave us the New Testament. these materialized Appearances have given us the doctrine. It originates in the Old Testament. Because when he comes in, when he's born of a virgin, it's not a Christophany now.
Now it's an incarnation.
Now he's here, and he's going to go through life until they crucify him, and then there's another phase of his crucifix. relationship with us, his coming into view for us, and that's his glorification, and that will factor into all of this also. It's quite significant when we get to the ancient of the days in Daniel. Thanks for tuning in today to Cross Reference Radio, where Pastor Rick has some answers for various questions that have been asked. We can't fully express how grateful we are that you've been with us today.
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