How The Hebrew Old Testament Pointed To Good Friday

Introduction:

       Why Good Friday is called “Good Friday”. It is an odd name given to a day that recalls the crucifixion of the incarnate Son of God. Good Friday is good because of the incomparable good that He accomplished on the cross (see Romans 5:8). His crucifixion would occur the day after what we’re looking at here in Matthew 26. The Lord’s Supper was Jesus’ preparation for and picturing of what He would accomplish on the cross. The Passover meal Jesus observed would have begun near sundown Thursday in Jerusalem in those days. It was Jesus’ final preparation with His disciples to inform them of three main things:

1. What He was going to endure, the promise of the Holy Spirit’s coming (John 14:16-17; 26-27).

· 2. The institution of the Lord’s Table (recorded in all four Gospels).

· 3. And the announcement of the Holy Spirit’s guiding them to compose what we would know as the New Testament books (John 16:12-15).

    Good Friday was in view and had been so for centuries as we will see from how Jesus either quotes or fulfills the whole of the Old Testament. In this post we will consider how the Old Testament pointed to Good Friday and then consider in the next post how Jesus pointed to Good Friday by way of His institution of the Lord's Supper. 

1. The Old Testament pointed to Good Friday.  Luke 24:44-49

A. Layout of the Hebrew Old Testament.

     To understand how Jesus and the Old Testament pointed to Good Friday, we first must grasp what Jesus had to say about the Old Testament in reference to Himself. Luke 24:27 and 24:44-48 record a conversation Jesus would have with some of His followers following His resurrection. First Luke 24:27 “Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.”  Then Jesus says later in Luke 24:44-48 “Now He said to them, ‘These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.’ 45 Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and He said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, 47 and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things.’”  

     You’ll notice how Jesus describes the Old Testament or Old Covenant books as “Law and Prophets” (note also Matthew 7:12; 22:40; Luke 16:16). The Apostles would use this two-fold description as well (Acts 13:15; Romans 3:21). This two-fold description underscored the key principle behind the Old Testament Canon – God divinely inspiring His words through His God-called prophets (that is, “propheticity”). 

    The three-fold summary by Jesus was the ordering of the Old Testament books in the Hebrew canon. As the late Old Testament scholar R. Laird Harris noted in his helpful book “Inspiration and Canonicity of the Bible”, these were two of the most common ways to summarize what every Jew knew to be what was called the Old Testament Canon. (Josephus’ book “Against Apion” lays out roughly the same ordering as Jesus did in Luke 24:44 above in his discussion about the Old Testament books).  

 Jesus was referring to what we call “the canon of Scripture”. To say “canon” refers to an authoritative group of Divinely inspired books, written by prophets and enabled by God to guide His people, reveal Himself, His salvation, and His Kingdom. If we take that three-fold summary mentioned by Jesus of “Law”, “Prophets”, and “Psalms”, it summarizes how the Jews organized what we know today as the Old Testament books. 

Without getting into too much detail, our 39 books of our English Old Testament were the same in content as what you find in a Hebrew Old Testament today. The Jewish people would combine books together in some places, making what we know as 39 books to be 24 Books in their Hebrew Canon. By taking the book of Ruth and adding it to Judges, and then taking the book of Lamentations to be part of Jeremiah’s prophecies, the total would then be 22. That number “22” corresponded to older versions of the Hebrew alphabet, communicating that the Old Covenant or Testament Scriptures were a complete set or “canon”, just as an alphabet would be.

     Again, without going into extraordinary detail, the three divisions were known as “The Law” or “Torah”, composed of Genesis through Deuteronomy, “The Prophets” or

“Neviim”, Joshua – Malachi, then “the Psalms” or also “the writings” or “ketiviim”, containing Psalms-2 Chronicles. In my library I have a few copies of a typical Hebrew Old Testament with these divisions. Jews refer to it by the acronym “TaNaK” to remind them of the three-fold division (Torah, Neviim, Ketiviim = TaNaK). Jesus stated to His disciples this ordering. Let’s picture what we’ve noted thus far – Jesus layout of the Old Testament. With the layout in place, let’s look at the lamb of God in these divisions.

 

Law or Torah                    Prophets or Neviim                Writings or Ketiviim

Genesis-Deuteronomy       Joshua-2 Kings (Former Prophets)    Psalms-2 Chronicles

                                      Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, @ Minor

                                      Prophets.

 More next time......