Hermeneutics: How to Read the New Testament in Light of the Old Testament, Part 1

I get emails —

I really want to get some advice from you for utilizing the Old Testament to gain a new perspective about the New Testament. Your use of the Old Testament in the Real Restoration posts I just finished was wonderful, and I’m sure not nearly as detailed as it could have been.  …

I hope that I am making myself clear about what I am seeking. I guess some direction. Is there some course of study that I should pursue? What about NT Wright that you mention a few times in the posts? Whatever you could advise I would appreciate it. In the meantime I will continue reading the posts.

I actually didn’t start reading the New Testament in light of the Old Testament as I do now until after I began the blog. It’s something I’m still learning to do — with difficulty because my Old Testament training is a bit shallow.

You could fill a library with the books on theories about how to read the Old Testament through the New Testament. But I’m not going to spend a lot of space on theory. Rather, to me, it’s easier and more helpful to begin the subject by example. There are several ways a teacher or student can enrich his New Testament understanding with the Old Testament, and some are pretty simple.

An example of using a cross-referencing Bible

When you read a New Testament passage — even if its meaning is obvious — especially if its meaning is obvious — look for Old Testament parallels. One easy way is to find a Bible with extensive cross-references. In fact, use several.

Read the Old Testament passages referenced. Some will be referenced just because they say about the same thing, but the cool ones are referenced because they give the background for what is being said. Not all cross-referencing Bibles do this well, and none do it consistently.

If the cross reference is to the passage being quoted or paraphrased, you’ve struck gold. Read that passage and the context. Is the New Testament writer just quoting the Old Testament as a proverb or aphorism? Rarely is this true. Usually, Jesus or Paul, for example, assumes his audience will recognize the reference and the context of the referenced Old Testament passage.

In the First Century, there were no chapter and verse numbers. Therefore, a passage was referenced by a brief quotation or paraphrase — much as you or I might say “do unto others” to refer to the Golden Rule or “judge not” to refer to the first several verses of Matthew 7.

When we speak so briefly, we assume our audience knows the entire passage and will apply it. And Jesus and Paul, as rabbis, did the same. The problem is that they assume we know the Old Testament much better than we do! Therefore, we often miss the full impact of what they’re saying.

For example, Jesus said,

(Luk 19:9-10 ESV)  9 And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham.  10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

This is very familiar. We know that v. 10 means we should be like Jesus and be good evangelists. But what did his Jewish audience hear? The ESV cross-references take  you to —

(Eze 34:11 ESV)  11 “For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out.”

This is very similar. Is it what Jesus was alluding to? Consider the context —

(Eze 34:8-12 ESV)  8 As I live, declares the Lord GOD, surely because my sheep have become a prey, and my sheep have become food for all the wild beasts, since there was no shepherd, and because my shepherds have not searched for my sheep, but the shepherds have fed themselves, and have not fed my sheep,  9 therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD:  10 Thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my sheep at their hand and put a stop to their feeding the sheep. No longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them.

11 “For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out.  12 As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness.

Ezekiel is warning the leaders of the Jews that God will remove them from power and become their shepherd himself. This is in anticipation of the fall of Jerusalem at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar. The condemnation of the Jewish leaders is very harsh. Indeed, the ESV cross-references also take us to 34:16, which begins this passage —

(Eze 34:16-21 ESV)  16 “I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice.

17 “As for you, my flock, thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I judge between sheep and sheep, between rams and male goats.  18 Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture, that you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture; and to drink of clear water, that you must muddy the rest of the water with your feet?  19 And must my sheep eat what you have trodden with your feet, and drink what you have muddied with your feet?

20 “Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD to them: Behold, I, I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep.  21 Because you push with side and shoulder, and thrust at all the weak with your horns, till you have scattered them abroad, 22 I will rescue my flock; they shall no longer be a prey. And I will judge between sheep and sheep.  23 And I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd.  24 And I, the LORD, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them. I am the LORD; I have spoken.”

Jesus is therefore saying more than “I’ve come to save souls.” He is also saying —

* I am God. Why? Because it is God himself who seeks and saves the lost.

* I am “David” of the prophecy, that is, the son of David who will sit on the throne of David (vv. 23-24).

* The leaders of the Jews are feeding on the people and leading them astray.

* I will come in judgment, and the fat sheep won’t like the outcome.

The next step is to test the conclusion by seeing whether it fits the context of the New Testament passage. The context is the story of Zacchaeus.

(Luk 19:8 ESV) 8 And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.”

Then Jesus declares that salvation has come! Why? There’s no baptism. There’s no explicit declaration of faith. But Zacchaeus had faith and his faith led him to repent of defrauding his fellow citizens. He was no longer a sheep who preyed on other sheep (v. 22). He was no longer muddying the waters where others drink (v. 18).

You see, there’s a powerful social justice element to this story. It’s not just that Zacchaeus came to faith and is saved. It’s also that he chose to no longer be among those in power who take advantage of the weak in society to gain wealth. And by doing this, he escaped the destruction that was coming — both the temporal destruction of Jerusalem (escaped by Christians) and the destruction in gehenna.

And so, when Jesus came to “seek and save the lost,” he wasn’t just calling the damned to justification, he was called the rich and powerful to no longer prey on the poor.

And he was claiming to be the Messiah and God of the Universe.

Does that mean we’ve always been wrong in our use of this passage? Not at all. It just means that we’ve not learned all the lessons that were there, lessons that a Jewish audience would have picked up easily, because they’d studied Ezekiel 34.

But it does mean that when we use to story of Zacchaeus to speak of the salvation of the rich, we miss the context. Almost entirely. We don’t see it as being in terms of the rich preying on the poor — just as a lesson on being rich. There’s a difference.

What resources did I use to reach these conclusions? Just an ESV cross-referencing Bible. But it helps that I already knew that Ezekiel was written near the time of the Fall of Jerusalem at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, and that I already knew (from N. T. Wright) that is sometimes helps to look for parallels between the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar and the destruction in AD 70 at the hands of the Romans.

Finally, neither the New International Commentary nor the Tyndale Commentary on Luke mention the allusion to Ezekiel 34, although the New International Commentary does see the language as a reference to seeking the lost sheep (comparing the language to Luke 15:4). Does that make me wrong? I don’t think so. It means no commentary can contain the richness of biblical language. And most Protestants see salvation solely in terms of justification and not in terms of social justice — and so the lesson is invisible to many commentators — but it’s there.

The hard part of the study is prayerfully considering the Old Testament passages you discover and deciding whether they really are what the New Testament author was referring to and what lessons might be gained from this material. That takes a lot of practice and a mind willing to explore non-traditional thoughts, but the lessons learned compound. What you learn from one study helps you with the next one.

And whenever you find yourself reading the prophets, spend some extra time there reading the text. The more you know the Law and the Prophets, the more you’ll see the connections.

To me, the hard part is being patient enough to chase these references down — because you often have to go down several dead end streets before you find the really cool, challenging lesson. And sometimes I strike out. Not every saying by Jesus is an Old Testament allusion. And the only way to know for sure is to going looking and find nothing.

The work can be tedious — but I find it incredibly enriching and rewarding.