P2 How The Hebrew Old Testament Pointed To Good Friday

Introduction:

    In the last post we noted how the Hebrew Old Testament pointed to Good Friday. I wanted to continue with where I left off by considering in this post the centrality of the lamb in each portion of the Hebrew Old Testament. By noting the importance of the "Lamb of God" in the Old Testament we can then see how Jesus and the Old Testament pointed to Good Friday. 

Lamb of God in the Old Testament.

     I laid out in the last post what Jesus would have had in mind when He spoke to His disciples following His resurrection. How would the Old Testament had pointed to Good Friday? A key idea common to all three divisions is that of “the lamb of God”. The “Lamb of God” is central to Good Friday.

      We firstly see the lamb of God imagery in that first division of the Hebrew Old Testament, what we know as the “Law” and they called “Torah” (Genesis -Deuteronomy). In Exodus 12 we read of God’s institution of the Passover to remind the Hebrew people of His deliverance of them from Egypt in the Exodus 12:6 “Your lamb shall be an unblemished male a year old; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. 6 You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to kill it at twilight.”  

      Then notice the second division of what we’d call the “historical books” and “Prophetic books” or what the Jews called together “the former and latter prophets” or “neviim” – “the prophets” (Joshua-2 Kings, Isaiah-Malachi). Isaiah 53:5-6 “gives us a prediction of Jesus and Good Friday: “But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. 6 All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.”      Jesus would be at Lamb led to slaughter, to be our sin-bearer.

 Now notice with me the third main division of the Old Testament Jesus noted in Luke 24:44, what He called “The Psalms” or what the Jews would have called “the writings” or “Ketiviim”. Now why did Jesus call it “the Psalms”? Just as you and have different names for our Bibles (“The Book”, “Scripture”, “God’s Word”), Jesus did the same. In many Hebrew Bibles today as well as the Old Testaments in Jesus’ time, the book of Psalms headlined the third division known as “the writings”. Psalms is full of predictions concerning Jesus’ death and resurrection.

For instance, Psalm 22:1 points us to Good Friday, starting out with what came to be Jesus’ first words from the cross “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”  (compare Mark 15:34). It is in Psalm 118:27 we find reference to the Messiah as God’s sacrificial lamb: “The Lord is God, and He has given us light; bind the festival sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar.”  It was this very Psalm the people were reciting when Jesus rode into Jerusalem. Psalm 118 was also the final Psalm all Jews sung in the Passover and which Jesus and His disciples would had sung as they concluded (Matthew 26:30). Jesus came to be that Lamb of God, God’s final lamb, on Good Friday. The Old Testament pointed to Good Friday.

More next time...