When it comes to reading the Old Testament, many Christians are intimidated and might even ignore it all together. However, you can’t retreat into the New Testament for long without realizing the Apostles are constantly referencing, interpreting and preaching from the Old Testament. Not only does 2 Timothy 3:16 tell us that, “all Scripture is breathed out by God” (which would include the Old Testament) but the context (vs. 15) makes evident that the Apostle Paul primarily has the Old Testament in view. We therefore do not have the option to avoid the first two thirds of our bible or relegate it to some sort of lesser status.
There is a difference in knowing IF we should read the Old Testament and HOW we should read the Old Testament as Christians. To read it rightly, we have to walk the narrow path between the twin ditches of mysticism and moralism. Mysticism completely ignores the original author and audience to find a deeper meaning; it uses allegory and symbol to adjust the Old Testament to fit the new. Moralism on the other hand reduces the Old Testament to a collection of guidelines and examples. Both however, are sub-christian in nature (any Jew, Muslim or Gnostic can read the bible this way) and both are avoided by simply reading the Old Testament like Jesus. In other words, to read the Old Testament like a Christian; read it like Christ.
Jesus’ view of the scriptures denies a mystical approach. He was consistently seeking meaning of Old Testament passages in the intent of its original author. Take for example the way he answers the Sadducees question about the resurrection in Matthew 22:31-32:
“And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.”
How does he come to his conclusion that the verse he quotes (Exodus 3:6) proves the resurrection? He pays attention to the grammar. God says “I am” present tense not “I was” past tense. He doesn’t need to allegorize a passage to support this doctrine, he interprets it the same way we would any other book. Just because the bible is divinely written doesn’t mean that it should be interpreted in some “spiritual sense” removed from the normal cues of an authors meaning. I’ve always enjoyed this quote from Walter Henrichsen on this subject,
“If you were to say to an audience, ‘I crossed the ocean from the United States to Europe,’ you wouldn’t want them to interpret our statement to mean that you crossed life’s difficult waters into the haven of a new experience. Likewise, no journalist would like to write of the famine of a country such as India and have his words interpreted to mean that the people of India were experiencing a great intellectual hunger.”
This approach to the bible corresponds better with the person of Jesus. The apostle John tells us that God revealed himself through the incarnation, God becoming man. Jesus taking on flesh was a way of God humbling himself to make himself understandable. We see the same thing in Genesis 15 when God makes a cutting covenant with Abraham. God condescends to a local cultural form of contract so that Abraham can understand that he intends to fulfill his promise. He submits himself to a cultural practice to make what he is saying clear. In the bible God is doing the same thing; he condescends to the rules of language and grammar because he desires to be understood. To read the bible like Jesus we must abandon our search for meaning in subjective mysticism and focus on what the Old Testament says as written by its original author and to its original audience.
Although a fence has been firmly planted to keep us out of the ditch of mysticism, we still must avoid the ditch on the other side of the road. Reading the Old Testament like Jesus also protects us from moralism. In John 5:39 Jesus criticizes how the Pharisees read the Old Testament and then gives them the single most foundational principle of a Christian understanding of the Old Testament. He says,
“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me.”
He does the same thing with his disciples after his resurrection. First for the two disciples on the road to Emmaus and then to the twelve in Jerusalem Jesus opens their minds to understand the scripture by explaining the entire Old Testament in relationship to himself. (Luke 24:13-47) Not only do we find numerous prophesies throughout its pages that speak specifically of Jesus’ person and work, but the Old Testament reveals God’s entire plan that begins in Genesis 3 and culminates in Jesus. It proves beyond a shadow of a doubt our need for Jesus as a single nation (Israel) is given every advantage and still finds themselves sinners deserving of judgment. We find countless preemptive pictures of Jesus’ sacrifice. Every great theme of who God is and what he is like is amplified and climaxes in Jesus’ coming. If we are to read the Old Testament as Christians we need to read it as if Jesus is the main subject, and even the main character, just like Jesus did.
When we begin to read the Old Testament like Jesus, that’s when we begin to reclaim it and recognize that it is living and powerful. We find unity between the testaments and relevancy in our lives. Don’t make the mistake of a sub-christian approach to reading the Old Testament; follow Jesus’ footsteps down the narrow path avoiding both moralism and mysticism.
