Christ in all the scriptures.

Somebody asked me this week, "as Christians we don't have to study the Old Testament do we?"
In the same week we had a wonderful talk from Nick McQuaker from the Sussex Gospel partnership on the revelation of Christ in the Old Testament. In John 5:38-40 Jesus himself says the scriptures, (that is the Jewish books of the Law Prophets and writings what we call the Old Testament,) point to Him.
In Matthew 5:17-18 Jesus says the He comes to fulfil everything in the Law and The Prophets, and that He will accomplish all that is set out in the unchangeable scriptures .  So Jesus endorsed the Old Testament, as did God the Father when He raised Christ from the dead, endorsing not just Jesus' sacrifice but all of His teaching .
One of the key themes of the Old testament is outlined for us in the Eden story in Genesis.
God places Adam in the Garden of promise, he sins and is expelled but there is a promise of a seed of Eve who will crush the serpents head as the serpent strikes his heel. Finally accomplished in the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.

So we have this idea of the seed of promise, the liberator who will overcome the serpent and bring the children of God back to the garden of promise. Hence we have the seeming endless genealogies
which trace the descent of the seed as well as the numerous blind alleys. These are summarised in Matthew and Luke as the line of Jesus running from Adam through   Noah and Abraham and the patriarchs  onward through David and the kingly line to eventually arrive at Jesus.

So we have this theme of sin, exile from the Land, appearance of a redeemer and return to the Land of Promise. So we have these key figures called to rescue the people of God but all with feet of clay such as Noah, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, culminating in the enigmatic figure of the Servant of the Lord in Isaiah and quoted by Jesus about Himself in Matthew 12:15-21.

 Which brings us to the theme of covenant. This is basically a solemn promise between parties especially between the creator God and His created beings typified in the agreements with Noah Abraham and the patriarchs and  with David. In the first chapter of Genesis God creates and blesses humankind and in Chapter 2 has a practical relationship with them as he walks and talks with them in the cool of the evening. However Adam and Eve rebel against this overwhelming generosity by seeking self determination and independence and cause a separation between themselves and God which forces them out of the garden.The covenants renewed that relationship, with people who God chose, to be his special blessing to the rest of mankind, by means of his protection, guarantee of a place to live, and guarantee of an eternal inheritance. Thus the need for a barren Sarai to become Sarah and produce a son or seed of promise  .   

One elaboration of this is the theme of a search for a King who will rescue the people and establish the Kingdom of God;  with God dwelling in the centre of the the King's Holy city in the Temple.
This was achieved by David and his son Solomon who established the kingdom and built the Temple where the  Shekinah glory resided. However the dynasty was still fatally flawed and sank from bad to worse until the exile. However God was faithful to His promise to David which was finally fulfilled as Jesus entered Jerusalem as the servant king.  Matthew 21:5

Going back again to Genesis 3  we see that the result of a broken relationship with God is separation and death. This is the righteous judgement of a Holy God who remains in loving harmony with His creation and wants to embrace them into the loving community of the Triune God. So there is a tension in the Godhead between the love that wants to unite and the Holiness which demands separation and death.

The problem is solved by the idea of a substitute who takes the place of the one under judgement.
In the old testament the life is always represented by the life giving blood., by which Gods covenants are sealed. We see the idea in the story of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22 with a ram  provided by God as a substitute for his son.
This is greatly elaborated in the covenant given to Moses with the whole system of sacrifices and the picture of the scapegoat when the high priest places his hand on the goat's head transferring the sins of the people onto the goat which is driven into the wilderness. The high priest was like the king an inherited position. The high priest was the specially representative between God and man and Jesus was the Final Great High priest as explained in Hebrews 4ff
All this points to Jesus'  death on the cross and all that it achieved.

So my post has become overlong but I hope it at least whets your appetite to go and delve into the wonders to be found in the old testament itself.