I believe one of the more dangerous approaches to Scripture (though there are many) is that of reading the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures as if Jesus, the Messiah, and the new covenant have not come. All Christians would claim to know and understand such. But too many people still read the Old Testament without the clarifying lens that Jesus and the new covenant have come.
What I mean is that plenty of people have built a theological system looking to argue that we are still awaiting the fulfilment of the promises of God to Israel in the Old Testament. But it is Jesus, as Israel’s Messiah, who has come as the fulfilment of God’s promises and purposes and commands for Israel.
Therefore, this is a paramount statement to recognise from the full story in Scripture: Israel is not the fulfilment of God’s purposes for Israel. Jesus, the Messiah, is the fulfilment of God’s purposes for Israel.
It is Jesus and the establishing of the new covenant that brings forth the great goal of God in Israel, which are hinted at and foreshadowed in the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures. We no longer await a Jewish return from exile-dispersion to a plot of land in the middle-east. Christ has fulfilled this. We no longer await a temple to be built in Jerusalem. Christ is the new temple of God and now he has sent his Spirit to dwell in that new temple being established as a new Jerusalem around the earth. We no longer look to establish any kind of sacerdotal priesthood and sacrifices. Christ is the high priest and sacrifice, or which now we are a priesthood and offer ourselves as living sacrifices.
We must view the Old Testament – it’s story, it’s promises, it’s prophecies – as all being summed up in the life, death and resurrection of Israel’s Messiah. And now, all those in the Messiah, whether believing Jew or Gentile, are the new temple, the new priesthood, the new Jerusalem, the new Israel.
Messiah has done it!
