CHRIST IN ALL THE SCRIPTURES (1)
CHRIST IN ALL THE SCRIPTURES (1)
Yeow Chin Kiong
To identify references to Christ in all of the scriptures of the Old Testament as Jesus Himself instructs us (Luke 24:25-27, 44-47), as did His apostles (Acts 3:18-24), we have to know what to look out for in the Old Testament. To begin with, we must consider inspired records of the actual appearence of Christ to people BEFORE He took human form by being born of a woman, Mary (Galatians 4:4-5). These appearences of the Christ before His incarnation in Mary's womb are called "Christophanies," meaning "appearence of the Christ." The term is a special and specific variant of the more-general word "theophany" which means "appearence of God."
Foreshadowing Jesus Christ's redemptive work and revealing His pre-existence and Divine nature before His birth in Bethlehem, Christophanies were temporary visible or tangible encounters by human beings of appearences or manifestations of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament narrative. These are not human perceptions of the Divine through people's dreams and incorporeal visions, or merely their hearing God's voice but their actual, momentary, meeting with Deity during which He is called "God" and sometimes worshipped as Deity.
In the Bible it is taught that no human can see God (Deuteronomy 4:12; 1 Timothy 6:16; Hebrews 11:27 ) and live after the experience
(Exodus 33:18-23) because He is meant to be invisible to mankind (1 Timothy 1:17). However, the Bible does say some individuals had seen God and lived through the experience and thereafter. The patriarch Jacob even wrestled with Him (Genesis 32:22-30). Moses and some Israelites saw God (Exodus 24:9-11; 33:11). It must have been the Second Person of the triune
Godhead these Old Testament people saw and considered as "God" just the same and they survived the experience, as the New Testament explains (John 1:1, 14, 18; Colossians 1:15). As God the Father has always been,- and remains until today,- invisible to humans, the Person they saw must have been the Christ in Christophany (but not as "Jesus" as He was called after His incarnation, Matthew 1:21 ).
That Christ can be detected in person in various books of the Old Testament should not surprise us. He was, of course, the Active Agent together with God the Father in the act of creating all that ever existed, exists and will exist except the Godhead. As Colossians 1:15--20 explains, "15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. 18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. 19 For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, 20 and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross." Christ was with God the Father and the Holy Spirit before the beginning of everything created. Genesis 1:1-2 has to be read along with John 1:1-3. And Christ was hardly unnoticed in the Old Testament age!
Since creation, when humans "saw" God, it was Christ as Christophany whom they saw, as John 1:18 explains, "No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him." If they saw God and lived after seeing Him, it was Christ they had seen, from before the incarnation of Jesus Christ and since, until the end of time. During this time, God the Father remains invisible to man.
Some prominent Christophanies in the Old Testament narrative are (1) The "angel of the Lord" meets Hagar [Genesis 16:1-14], who spoke with Divine authority to her and is identified as God by her; (2) "The Lord" among the three visitors of Abraham [Genesis 18:1-15] who appears in human form, promises Abraham a son and eats with the patriarch; (3) Wrestling with Jacob [Genesis 32:24-32], a "man" whom the patriarch calls "God" (elohim), declaring that he had seen Him "face to face"; (4) The "angel of the Lord" in the burning bush [Exodus 3:1 to 4:17] who spoke to Moses, identifying Himself as "the God of your fathers"; (5) The commander of Israel's army [Joshua 5:13-15], a man with a sword who appears to Joshua, accepts worship from him and declares that the ground they were standing on was "holy" and (6) The fourth man in the fiery furnace with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego [Daniel 3:1-30, especially verses 25-30], described as "a son of God".