Sunday School | Jesus in the Old Testament

Introduction

All right. Good morning. I'm very impressed that you got out of bed this morning on this cold, yucky day. Welcome. Glad you're here. We're weeks and weeks into a series. We might be getting close to the end, but there's still a bunch of questions, so we'll see.

But we've been looking at the red letters, stuff that Jesus said, and so every week, we kind of grab a passage or two that somebody has asked a question about something that Jesus said. And here, what we're gonna do today is going to be a little bit of a survey. I'll give you the setup, the question, and then we're going to look at a whole bunch of different passages.

So our anchor passages are from Luke 24 and John 5. Somebody asked me, Could you please compare Luke 24 and John 5 and this notion that all of the Scriptures and what Moses wrote about me? Okay, so here's the idea here. Those two passages, both in John 5 and Luke 24, Jesus makes very explicit what many have observed throughout the centuries, namely that the entire Bible is about Jesus, that the whole thing is pointing towards him, is anticipating him, is talking about him. That when he comes, he's the fulfillment of everything.

That, on the one hand, it may not sound controversial to claim that Jesus is the centerpiece of the Bible, but I mean that at a level perhaps more radical than you might expect. So I'll show you the two passages first, and then we'll see where it goes.

Jesus and the Fulfillment of Scripture

In John 5, and I'll give you these two. John 5, verse 39, Jesus said, and he's talking to the Pharisees, he says, You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me. And then he says, And yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

Before he gets to that verse, in verse 39, You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the books of Moses, the prophets, the writings, the history book—that the whole thing is saying something about him, and I agree with that.

And then in Luke 24, the other passage is a little more developed, and I'll just give you the highlight of it. In Luke 24, after the Resurrection, Jesus is walking down the road towards Emmaus with a group of disciples. The disciples were not among the 12. They were kind of like second-tier disciples, and Jesus shows up and he walks among them, but they don't realize that it's him.

In fact, they're rather glum because, as far as they know, Jesus, well, they know that Jesus died, and they just presume it is reasonable to presume that he's still dead. He's walking down the road with them, and they're all sad, and he says, So, you guys seem like you're really sad. What's wrong? And they're like, Do you mean what's wrong? Where have you been? Have you not heard what had happened?

And he's like, Well, tell me what happened. They begin to lament how they met this guy and thought he was the Messiah, but the wheels have all fallen off. And he says to them, How foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe. And he begins to expound to them the Scriptures. If you pick it up in Luke 24, verse 25, it says, He said to them, how foolish you are, how slow of heart to believe, all that the prophets have spoken. Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory? Beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

Again, Jesus has this overwhelming consciousness that the book is about Him. I don't know if you've ever played this game with yourself, but if you could travel to any place at any time in human history, where would you go? What would be the moment that you would choose? Notwithstanding the fact that I don't speak Aramaic, and so this entire thing would be lost on me, if in addition to time travel I suddenly got some capacity to understand languages I don't know, this would be the moment right here for me: to be at this Bible study where Jesus is explaining how the Scriptures point to him. It would be lights out—that's what I would pick, to be right there, to see the resurrected Christ explaining how it's all about Him.

Because this particular theme, I love this question because probably—I mean, I love God's Word, it's full of the golden nuggets that one ever finds when you realize, Oh, this is—it's Jesus. I don't know if you have this phenomenon, but when I read The Chronicles of Narnia, the stories are great, but the best parts, by far, the very, very, very best parts of every story are when Aslan shows up, right? And it's the same way in the Scriptures.

When I'm reading this and I realize how this—oh, that is about Christ. That points to Him, that anticipates Him. To have Jesus walk through—like, Did you ever notice this? What's going on with here? It's just, for me, it is the top of the mountain to understand and to see how it all points to Christ.

And so what I want to do with you today, this could not possibly be exhaustive, but I do want to look at a handful of these things—where is it? Or I want you to help me build a map of where in the scriptures this phenomena occurs. Here's the thing: that phenomena in Luke 24, Jesus is walking with them. He is present with them, but He's hidden. He's there, but they don't know that He's there. When they're walking down the road in Luke 24, well, what He's explaining while He is present but hidden, is that everywhere in the Scriptures, He is present but hidden.

And then their eyes are opened, they see Him, they’re like, Oh, it's you! They figure it out. They see Him, and that phenomena—the joy they have when He goes from being hidden but present to seen and present—that is what happens in the Scriptures. He's hidden but present all over the place.

But there are a handful of places where He makes it explicit, where He kind of gives you the punchline of the joke, where Jesus will say, You know that passage in the Old Testament about thus and such? That one was about me. You know this passage in the Old Testament about thus and such? That one was about me. You know this one? Also me. So what we'll do today is just try to grab a handful of these. There's a bunch, and then there’s a bunch that are not explicitly named by Jesus, but that once you catch on, you realize, Oh, gosh, there's like 150 of these. There's 300 of these, and we're gonna see them, okay?

The Explicit References to Jesus in the Old Testament

Katherine, okay, so we'll start there. The question is—Katherine anticipates my question—where does Jesus make explicit that an Old Testament story that you might not have had any idea had anything to do with Him was a snake? Okay, give me either the Old Testament or the New Testament point of this. Do you remember where?

Testament. Okay, where's the Old Testament story? It's Exodus. It's later than Exodus, but it's in that same time period. Okay. It is Numbers 21.

Yes? Yeah, Numbers 21. And so we'll just do this one really quick. Any one of these could turn into the entire class, but we'll just hit them quick.

So Numbers 21. Numbers is about the wilderness period. You know why we call it Numbers? So they take a census at the beginning and they take a census at the end. All the boring stuff that you skip is what they name the book after, okay?

And then in between these two censuses is this map where they're like, They're cruising around following the cloud and the smoke around the kingdom. So if you go to Numbers 21, they've been doing this for a while. They hate it. They're so sick and tired of it. And we're going to do this really, really fast.

In verse 5, they're super mad, and they spoke against God and said, You brought us out of Egypt to die. Why have You brought us out of Egypt to die in the desert? There's no bread, there's no water, and we detest this miserable food. Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them, and they bit the people, and many Israelites died.

And the people came to Moses and said, We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us, which is a pretty reasonable request. Like, Take away the snakes. Take away the snakes.

And God does not take away the snakes. Instead, what does He do? Sends one more, right? And He says, Make a snake. He says to Moses, Make a snake and put it up on a pole. Anyone who was bitten can look at it and live.

So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole, and then anyone who was bitten by the snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived. Okay? Now, we're doing this, this should be an hour-long conversation, but a couple of quick observations.

Why does God send snakes in the first place? Because that's weird. Why does He send snakes? What's that? It's terrifying. It's a punishment. It's a judgment, for sure. Do you want to say— okay, this is an excellent answer. Whenever you see a snake in the Bible, it's a brilliant answer, okay? Whenever you see a snake in the Bible, it should remind you of what snake in the Bible?

It's taking us back to Genesis. It's taking us back to this original—it's the serpent who deceives them. And so here's what's happening. It's very odd. The people think that God is evil. You brought us out into the desert to die. Your motives were bad. You're bad. This whole thing is bad. As long as the people of God think that God is evil, which is exactly what they're saying, they will never turn to Him. They will never respond to Him because He's the—the one thing they need is the last thing they want, so they're turning away from Him.

So what He does is He dresses Himself up in the suit that they have made Him. They're like, You're just like the devil of hell. He's like, Okay, fine. And He sends in snakes. He enters into, He embodies this absurd fantasy they've come up with as a way to shake them out of their stupor. Like, Look at me! He's waking them up out of their stupor, and it works. And He's like, Okay, you're right. You're good. Sorry. Get rid of the snakes.

But He doesn't get rid of the snakes. Instead, He sends one more, and the reason He sends one more is He wants them to understand that your judge, I fear, the very one who has the right to judge you, can in fact be nailed to a pole, lifted up, and if you will look to Him in faith, you will be healed.

Does that begin to sound familiar to anyone? Okay? And so Jesus unpacks this where? Where does Jesus say, Yo, Numbers 21, that was about me? Do you know where it is? It's John chapter three.

So in John three, Jesus is telling Nicodemus it's the most famous verse in the entire Bible, and in this conversation, in John 3:5, Jesus says, We're just jumping into the Nicodemus conversation, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he's born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, You must be born again. The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear a sound, you can't do it. So it is with everyone born of Spirit.

And then Nicodemus says, I don't understand. How can this be? And Jesus is a little disappointed in him, which is a bummer when Jesus is disappointed in you. And in verse 10, He says, You're Israel's teacher, said Jesus, and you don't understand these things? I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, we testify of what we've seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony.

Let's skip down to verse 14. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life. Undisputedly, that is Numbers 21. And then Jesus says, For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

And here, in verse 17, in light of Numbers 21, for God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, I.e., I'm not the snake in the sand. I have not come to bite, have not come to destroy. Rather, God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.

He's saying, Nicodemus, I'm the snake lifted up. I'm the one who has come to bring forgiveness. Look to me and be saved because you're never going to get this done on your own righteousness. John 3, Jesus is explicitly saying that Numbers 21 was about Him—that is one of scores of these.

Good enough? All right, there's a bunch more. Anybody need to? Where else did Jesus do this? Chris? Jonah. Okay, very good.

So Jesus talks in Matthew—so what is the Jonah connection? Yes. Very good. So we saw this last week. We talked about the whole—when was Good Friday, Good Thursday, whatever, you know, what's the deal with that? Right? How does that work out? Jesus was saying that there was something about Jonah's life—the fact that he spent three days and three nights in the belly of the fish—when the Messiah comes, he will spend three days and three nights in the belly of the earth. So Jonah goes down into the fish, comes up proclaiming a message of grace and salvation. So it is with Christ—that he's going to spend three days and three nights in the belly of the earth, and as he comes out of that tomb, he comes with a message of grace and forgiveness and salvation. So the sign of Jonah, the snake lifted up.

Let's do a few more. Where else do you see this? They're everywhere. Yeah, Virgil? Son of Man. Okay, so the very grabbing of the title of the Son of Man. Did you notice this? Jesus' favorite title for Himself is that He is the Son of Man, which might seem strange to us because we kind of feel like maybe His Son of Godness is a bigger deal than the Son of Manness, but you've got to recognize, I mean, He's been the Son of God for all eternity. This human thing is new to Him, right? It's different. And He always calls Himself the Son of Man. Now, where is He borrowing that language from? Daniel. Daniel.

Do you guys know the scene? Do you know the picture of this? This is one of my very, very, very favorite passages in all the Bible. Do you remember what chapter it is? Okay, so I guess go back to Daniel 7. This is a little bit embarrassing because I talk about this all the time, so if you guys are like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, we've heard it, forgive me. But what's going on in Daniel 7 is that all these nations are fighting. There's all this slander and all this going on, and they all want power, they all want rule, and God pictures them as snarling beasts, these vicious, devouring animals.

And while they're here fighting with each other and trying to see who's going to be in charge, the scene changes. Boom. And then we're lifted up to see the throne room of God. And in the throne room, what you see is this. Let's see, where do we pick it up? We'll start on verse 11, give you a little bit of the context. No, I don't know. We'll start at verse 9. Here's what he sees: Daniel says, I looked and thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat. Who is that? God the Father. It's not Jesus. The Ancient of Days is God the Father. His clothing was as white as snow, the hair of his head was white like wool, and his throne was flaming with fire and all its wheels were ablaze. A river of fire was flowing, coming out from before him. Thousands upon thousands attended him. 10,000 times 10,000 stood before him. The court was seated. The books were opened.

He's in the throne room of God. Then the scene changes back down to verse 11. The boastful horns, all these animals fighting and destroying and going after it. And then verse 13, we're back up to this heavenly realm, and here it is in verse 13: In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one, and here's our phrase, like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into His presence, and He was given authority, glory, sovereign power. All peoples, nations, and men of every language worshiped Him, and His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and His kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

In this context, right here in verse 13, when Daniel says, I saw one like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven, what does he mean when he says it? I saw someone like a son of man. What does that mean, Gina? Everything else doesn't look like humans? Yes, that's right. She said everything else doesn't look like humans. This is a scene of unimaginable splendor. The divine God seated on this throne, which is odd. Everything's on fire. There's 10,000 times 10,000 angels and seraphim and cherubim and craziness, and then into it walks a human being.

And it's very much from Daniel's perspective, it's like, Woah, one of these things is not like the other. Right? We see glory and angels and God Himself, and then somebody with elbows walks in the room, and he looks—I mean, if you look at him, you'd swear that he was a human being. But that can't be, because how could a human being survive in this place? How could a human being, and not only does he survive, but he is given glory, authority, sovereign power, all men and nations worship him? What is going on here? That a son overwhelmed, that's shocked by the humanity of this person—that a son of Adam will be given the world to rule.

And when Jesus refers to Himself countless times in the Gospels as the Son of Man, every time your mind should link back to, This is Daniel seven. Jesus is saying, Daniel seven was about me—that I have been granted, or I will be, not quite yet. I'm about to be granted authority over the cosmos. I'm the guy. It's an incredibly significant one.

Okay, good. So He is the snake of Numbers 21. He is the Son of Man of Daniel 7. I've already forgotten. What did we just say? What was the other one? Jonah. Yeah, the sign of Jonah. He is the true and better Jonah, who goes three days and three nights from the belly of the earth. What else? What does He fulfill? Can you think of Him using language in the Gospels that links back to something that you might not have known was about Him? Yes, Lily. Something greater than the temple was. Okay, good. Very good.

Okay, so could go to John 4 if we want. So go back to John 4. Remember this? I preached on this a couple of years ago. It was super fun. Go to John 4 and let's see. No, I'm sorry, John 2. Go to John 2. And remember this here? Let's see. Where did we pick it up? 213. When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and in the temple courts He found men selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money.

So He made a whip out of cords and He drove them all from the temple area. Landon and I kind of co-taught this. He did, like, what did you call it, bro? You gave Him some little pithy name. Is it, like, Jesus driving, clearing the temple? I did. Or did you do? You did the wine, then I did the whip. It all just blurs away from my mind, okay? So this was my passage. Okay, great.

So Landon did the Canaan wine thing, and then I did this thing. And do you remember when it's all done, after He clears out the temple and they ask Him, in verse 18, Prove to us your authority to do all this. Who are You to be cleansing the temple? And do you remember His answer? It's this: Destroy this temple, and I will raze it again in three days. They think that He means the building, but in fact, what is He referring to? He's referring to Himself.

Destroy this temple. And what He's doing here—I unpacked this for you guys. I'm surprised I didn't remember that it was me. Unpacked this whole thing. There is this temple, there's this notion, right? It begins in the Garden, that the Garden of Eden is a temple. It's the place where the walls draw thin and where God meets with man. And then there's the tabernacle and there's David's temple and there's Solomon's temple. One day there's this other temple that Ezekiel sees, right? And what Jesus is saying in this, at this very moment here in John 2, is He's saying, Why do I have the authority to cleanse the temple? It's because I am the temple. I am the place where the sacrifice is offered. I am the sacrifice. I am the place where heaven meets earth. I am the place where God and man literally meet. He is not only the snake lifted up, not only the true and better Jonah, not only the what did I say? I'm having a brain freeze again. What's the other one? Son of Son of Man. Not only am I the temple, but I am the Law and the Prophets fulfilled, and it is absolutely the case that whatever we see in the Law, when we look at the Law, we see the holy will and nature of God, we see what He is, we see what we ought to be, we see what we cannot do, and the consequence of failing to complete it—all those things are fulfilled in Him, because He does keep the Law in our place and for our good, and He suffers the consequence of failing it also in our stead.

So He's not the Law, but He is the fulfillment of the Law, for sure, for sure.

Catherine, you got another one? Yeah, He said I am the Law and the Prophets. He doesn't say that He is the Law and the Prophets, He says that He fulfills the Law and the Prophets, and it is absolutely the case that whatever we see in the Law, when we look at the Law, we see the holy will and nature of God, we see what He is, we see what we ought to be, we see what we cannot do, and the consequence of failing to complete it—all those things are fulfilled in Him.

And the ark. And what's that? Okay. Do you mean the—now Jesus never says that He is the boat, but He is the boat, right? So you think about this, the story of Noah's Ark, right? When the judgment falls, it falls indiscriminately. But if you're in the boat, then you are safe, right? In the same time, as God's judgment falls, the only safe place to be when the judgment falls is to be in Christ. And if you are in Christ, you are in this place of safety.

So this Jesus is not one of the ones that Jesus makes explicit. It's a 100% true, for sure.

Eric? Yeah. The first place I could go through in the Bible is Genesis 1:26, and it's just He's part of us. When God says, let us make man in our image. Yes. He's—He's us. For sure.

Okay, so you could—so Genesis 1:26, what Herrick is pointing out is that when God speaks here, Let us make man in our own image, it's plural pronouns. You might think, Who are You talking to? And the answer is—the other persons of the Trinity is who He's talking to. And so we absolutely understand that Jesus believed that He was Yahweh. We see, not only does He use all of these I am statements throughout John's Gospel—"I am the bread of life," one we could double click on that in a minute. I am—well, won't give them all away because the I am statements are a great place to mine for this, to give you a clue.

But ultimately, the preeminent I am statement is when Jesus says, I am, in John 8. He says, Before Abraham was born, I was—in reference to His preexisting eternality. Except, grammatically, He screws it up, and He doesn't say, Before Abraham was born, I was. He says, Before Abraham was born, I am. And in that manner, He is claiming the name of Yahweh, which means I am. He's saying, I am the I am. I'm the fulfillment. Not only of that—it would be me.

For I am, and I always have been, right? Not only that, but in the garden—have we talked about this in this room?—When Jesus is being arrested, do you know this scene? I guess this is worth looking at because it's just so odd. Go to—it's probably 19, but it might not be. Let's see. Go to Genesis 19, we'll start there. Genesis 1. Oh, did I say Genesis? John, sorry. Sorry. No, no. Okay, it's gonna be before that. It's gonna be more like maybe 18. Hang on. Bear with me. So definitely John. That part's true. John 18. Yeah, here it is. So in John 18, it's in the Garden of Gethsemane, and it says—let's pick it up in verse 2. Now Judas, who betrayed him, knew the place because Jesus had often met there with His disciples.

So Judas came to the grove guiding a detachment of soldiers, some officials from the chief priests and the Pharisees. John 18:2. Sorry, did I screw it up? John 18:2. Thank you. Sorry, are we good? So, I'll start again. John 18:2. Now Judas, who betrayed Him, knew the place because Jesus had often met there with His disciples. So Judas came to the grove guiding a detachment of soldiers and some officials from chief priests and Pharisees, and they were carrying torches, lanterns, and weapons. Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen to Him, went out and asked them, 'Who is it you want?' 'Jesus of Nazareth,' they replied. A pause. So there's Jesus, unarmed Jesus, and this bunch of soldiers with torches and swords and spears, and they ask Him, I'm looking for Jesus of Nazareth, and His response is actually butchered a little bit here in John 18:5. Jesus' response is not, I am He. His response is, I am. And Judas the traitor was standing there with Him. And when Jesus said, I am, they drew back and fell to the ground.

It's a very strange response. So a bunch of armed soldiers show up and say, Hey, we're looking for Jesus? And Jesus says, I am, and they fall down. What do you think happened there? Do you know what John is revealing? When Jesus said, I am, He basically pulled back the curtain and said, It's me. And when they saw, when in that moment, He's revealing He is Yahweh, and that moment, like, just peeks out from behind the curtain. What was it you were looking for? And then He surrenders to them, and they take Him off to be crucified. Looks extraordinary.

Okay, where else? Where else did Jesus say that was me? Chris? You pointed to the bread, I was going to point to the living water. Reminds me of, obviously, Psalm 1. Yes. And then, also, obviously, the bread—one of my favorite verses in the Bible are Numbers. A lot of people complain. Yes. Food, but they have bread. Yes.

Okay, let's do bread before water. We'll do bread and then Kelly, and we'll come back to the water. We've got a little bit of time. We'll come back to the water in a minute, okay? So for the bread, what is the bread, you guys? What's going on with the bread? In what sense, why is Jesus like bread and how does He use it? First of all, what chapter? Where would you go to hear Jesus talking about bread? John 6. John. I would go to John. Well, you're on to four. I would go to John. Four's gonna get you the water. I would go to John 6 for the bread. Okay? And we'll do the water in a minute because the water's actually a special case. John 6, go look at this, okay? In John 6, Jesus says this, look at verse 32. His great discourse on bread is John 6, okay? In John 6:32, Jesus said to them, I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it's My Father who gives you the true bread from heaven, for the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.

What He is saying is, when they were in the wilderness and they were in a desperate situation and they were going to die, God provided something for them—this life-giving thing that would sustain them. Then He says, You are also in a place of death, and you will not survive, and your only hope is that God Himself would lower down something from Heaven that will be your sustenance, and that would be me. I am the bread of Heaven. You thought it was the manna. The manna was a neat trick, but the manna was an anticipation—foreshadowing to prepare you for me, and here I am. That's what He's saying over and over and over again. I am the bread. I am the snake, I am the temple, the whole thing is about Him. Dig it? Kelly Sue? This isn't Jesus' words, but John the Baptist's words when He sees them and says, Behold the Lamb.

Okay, very good. This is a huge one, right? So you're right, I can't maybe—does Jesus ever say that He is the Lamb? I mean, 100% is, okay? Certainly, and the shepherd's another one. We'll come to that, that's good. We'll look at that in John 10. When He says, Behold the Lamb of God, He's doing it again. It's like, that's right, that's right. So Jesus is, there's this bloodbath of all these sheep that we're killing, right? There's a sacrifice, and the lambs are used in a number of different sacrifices, and I don't offhand know, maybe somebody knows, if John the Baptist was referring to the Passover lamb or if he was referring to the Levitical sacrificial lamb, because there's a lot of options, and Jesus says all of them, but He is saying all the sacrifices that we see, those are fulfilled in Christ. He is the sheep. He's the one who has come.

All of them. We're gonna come to water in a second. You mentioned the shepherd. So tell me about the shepherd, Brenda. Just the Good Shepherd. I can't remember. Yep, yep. The Good Shepherd language is John 10, and what He's drawing from there is actually, it's funny, Jesus' language of Good Shepherd is actually a contrast—can you imagine what the Good Shepherd is contrast to? The Bad Shepherd. And the Bad Shepherd, do you know where the Bad Shepherds are? They actually show up in a bunch of places. Jeremiah 23, Ezekiel 34, Zechariah 11. The chief one is gonna be Ezekiel 34. So go back to Ezekiel 34.

The central text on the bad shepherd here, Ezekiel 34. The word of the Lord came to me. Wait a second. Ezekiel is hard to find. Ezekiel 34. The word of the Lord came to me: "Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and say to them, This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves. Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You eat curds, you clothe yourselves with the wool, and the slaughter of the sheep—you know this language.

But you do not take care of the flock. You've not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. Those are all things that Jesus does, by the way. You haven't brought back the strays or searched for the lost. Can you think of anybody that told a story about searching for a lost sheep? That's all Ezekiel 34, you guys.

You've ruled them harshly and brutally, so they were scattered because there was no shepherd. Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered. Do you recognize that language? That's actually Zechariah, but it gets applied in the New Testament to Christ.

Verse 6, My sheep wandered over all the mountains, and on every high hill they were scattered over the whole earth, and no one searched or looked for them. Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord, as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, because my flock lacks a shepherd and so has been plundered and has become food for all the wild animals, and because my shepherds did not search for my flock but cared for themselves rather than the flock.

Therefore, O shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. And as the shepherd looks after His scattered flock when He is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered, on days of cloud and darkness. Do you realize what this means? When Jesus says, I am the good shepherd, what else is He necessarily saying? I am God. I am God, because God has said in Ezekiel 34, Stop it, I'll do it myself. And then Jesus shows up and says, I'm here to do it myself—that's what I am saying, I am, I am. I am the good shepherd. He exists in contrast to the bad shepherds. You can see this, we keep mentioning that, go to John 10.

And in John 10, you'll hear echoes of Ezekiel 34. Let's see where we'll pick it up. Verse 11: I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man who runs away because he's a hired hand cares nothing for the sheep. But I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep and my sheep know me—just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.

He is not the bad shepherd of Ezekiel 34; He is the good shepherd of Ezekiel 34. He is the snake, He is the temple, He is the lamb, He is the shepherd. He's the whole thing.

Virgil? Yeah. He also says, I'm the true vine. Yes. But He not but. And He starts the Gospel of John with changing water into wine. So it's always struck me that He starts with wine and He ends up with an illusion to wine.

For sure. So the whole motif of vine, I think there's probably a number of places He's gonna get that from, but the primary place we see Messianic language in the Old Testament, in this agricultural motif, is gonna be in Isaiah. So in Isaiah, because I want to over and over regear things, okay? So if you go to—let's see.

This will be the last Isaiah, because I want to do two other weird things, okay? So if you go to Isaiah, we'll pick it up at verse 11. We'll go here and let this stand in for this whole motif that runs through Isaiah. In Isaiah 11:1, it says, A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse. From his roots, a branch will bear fruit.

This is an idea Isaiah picks up—there's like four or five instances where he'll give this motif of this branch, this very unassuming thing. In fact, it's coming out of a—you know the image of a stump, and the tree's been cut down and is dead—but then out of the middle of the rotten stump comes up this new thing, and you're like, Who knew? That's not a new seed. That's the original plant. It's just come back to life and it's going to grow.

You know this, right? You've seen these things where you cut off a crepe myrtle and it just grows more crepe myrtles. You know this phenomenon? That's what's happening here. Now that language—that right there of Isaiah, okay? I lied. Go to Isaiah 52, and we'll see the climax of that, but there's a bunch of them in between.

It says Isaiah 52—this is the fourth servant song, and it crosses the bridge from Isaiah 52 into 53. It starts off here, verse 13. I can give you just a little bit of context: See, my servant will act—this is Isaiah 53:1-13—I will bring the good news to Zion; I will make righteousness grow like a plant. He will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted, just as there were many who were appalled at Him.

His appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man, and his form marred beyond human likeness. So will He sprinkle many nations. Kings will shut their mouths because of Him; for what they were not told, they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand.

And then here it is, Isaiah 53:1-3: Who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He, hey, at that point, be your madest shoot to attract us to Him—nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him. So Isaiah, at that point, he brings together this theme he's been building. This is why the Branch Davidians called themselves the Branch Davidians—the Branch of David, the root, this agricultural thing.

And so when Jesus says, I am the vine and you are the branches, He's placing Himself in that storyline—that He is the fulfillment of this branch, this shoot, this life out of death that you see that begins in Isaiah.

Now, for the sake of time, we'll stop all those and get one more. Chris mentioned the water. Here's the thing: Is Jesus the living water? Of course, you're terrified to answer that question, right? Source of the living water? This is it. Who is the living water? Gary? The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, right? So Jesus never says, I am the water. He says, Come to me, all who are thirsty, right? And you can drink. He says in John 7, If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. And then John says, By this He meant the Holy Spirit, right?

So we go back to Ezekiel again; it would be a great place to source this. But Jesus is all these things, but He's not the living water; He is the source of the living water. That shows up—there's this major river at the end of Ezekiel where the temple comes. It's a theme in Zechariah. Zechariah, by the way, nobody knows Zechariah, but if you read it, you might be surprised how many times you're like, I recognize that. And I recognize that, and I recognize that. The New Testament mines Zechariah like a beast, okay? Jerusalem. On that day, living water will flow out from Jerusalem—And that's John 4, John 7, Revelation 22. It's not Jesus; it's the Spirit. But Jesus gives the Spirit. He's the source of that living water. So that one shows up.

It's a little bit of a sidestep away from Him. Cool? All right, that's red letter. This is really quick. The New Testament authors knew this. Paul understood this. Peter understood this. And so what you see Jesus doing over and over in the Gospels—the New Testament writers—they get in on the game, and they're like, Oh yeah, so Jesus gave us these dozen to get us started, but here's one, and here's one, and here's one.

So could you think of other places where the New Testament authors, well, we don't have as much time for this, and we want to try to stay in the Gospels, but I just want you to see, Jesus did it, the New Testament authors did it, and I think we are invited into the same Easter egg hunt—that we would endlessly read our Bibles, always scanning, always looking. How does this anticipate Him? How does this find us fulfillment in Him?

So can you think of any where Paul, Peter, James, these guys make the same connections? Catherine, you want to take a stab? I just have a question. Is it when in John 1, when it says He was the Word, He is the Word? Yes. Okay. So that's true. Although that would be—so that would be an example in the Gospels, but not out of Jesus' mouth. So that's—that's—that's true. Yeah.

So in John, when John says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, John absolutely was in on the secret, like 100%. His Gospel is filled not only in Jesus' own mouth, but all the things where John is like, Do you see this? Do you see this? He's organizing his material to show us that.

Here's this, I'll give you one. How about this? Numbers 20. Go back to Numbers again. In Numbers 20, verse 8, this is wilderness time—instruction is given like this: Take the staff. This is from God to Moses—Take the staff, you and your brother Aaron, and gather the assembly together, and speak to that rock before their eyes, and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock for the community so they and their livestock can drink.

So he and Aaron gathered the assembly, and He said, 'Listen, you rebels. Must we bring you water out of this rock?' And Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.

Anybody know where the New Testament picks that up? Go to 1 Corinthians 10. Here's Paul, and he says this: we'll start at verse 1. He says, For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.

He is saying that when you see the stricken rock in the desert that gives life to the people—that’s an anticipation of Christ who Himself will be struck on our behalf, and in His being struck, life will come forth for us. Paul understood what Jesus was saying, and he's like, yeah, here’s another one, and there’s another one, and there's another one.

Jesus is the true and better—fill in the blank. Hebrews says that He is the true and better Abel, right? For Abel's blood cries out for justice. And Jesus also was murdered. But His blood, according to Hebrews, what's the difference between the blood of Abel and the blood of Jesus? Remember what he says? It says the blood of Christ speaks a better word. His blood cries out for mercy, whereas Abel's blood cried out for justice.

And this is one of the peculiar features—that not only does Jesus fulfill 9,000,000 pictures in the Old Testament, but He overfills them all. He doesn't only do it, but He one-ups it. Not just another temple; He's a better temple. His blood doesn't just speak; it speaks a better word, right? He is better bread. He is a better snake. He's better at all of it.

This whole thing finds its climax, its fulfillment in Him. Man, if this—I'm telling you, if you clue in—I spent the entire year teaching this to the fellows week after week after week. Do we not? Lots of weeks on this because if you get this, it'll transform the rest of your life in the Scriptures—that it becomes this great hunt to discover how does this point to, how does this reveal the glory and the beauty and the excellency of Jesus. And that makes it a whole lot more fun.

Application and Final Thoughts

Brenda, you want the final word? Well, I was just thinking in Hebrews, where it talks about Him being our great high priest. That's right, He's the better high priest. Everything about the Levitical law points to Him. He's better than Moses, He's better than the priest, He's better than the temple—He fulfills it all.

He can give them the law, but He can't take them into the land. The law reveals us who God is, but it cannot save us. What the law could not do, what Moses could not do, Joshua—Yeshua—had to show up and do. Crossing the rivers of the Jordan, out of death into life in the real life, Yeshua, Jesus, shows up, and He's the only one that can cross the rivers of judgment and lead us into the promised land.

The whole story finds its fulfillment in Him. Okay, I’ve got to go to the door—that's all. Good enough?