The story moves from God’s promise in Genesis 3:15 to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus in the Gospels. God reveals his plan to save a people for himself through Eve’s son in Genesis 3:15. The rest of the OT reveals God working out this plan. As we move through the OT, we learn more about this promised deliverer: He will be Abraham’s son, and also David’s son.
He will be a prophet like Moses.
He will be a priest like Melchizedek.
He will be a king like David.
We learn not only about his identity but also about his work:
He will save God’s people by suffering for our sin (Isa 53).
Like Noah, he will provide God’s people with refuge from judgment by perfectly obeying God’s words.
Through him, God will bless all nations of the earth.
He will reign as king not only of Israel but of all nations.
As we read the OT, we learn that Jesus’s humanity mattered. He had to be both Abraham’s and David’s Son.
Indeed, how does the NT begin in Matthew 1:1? We read: “This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” In your own words, describe the significance of the NT beginning with a genealogy.
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But we also learn as we read the story of the Old Testament that humans are completely unable to save ourselves.
1 Praise the LORD.
Praise the LORD, my soul.
2 I will praise the LORD all my life;
I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.
3 Do not put your trust in princes,
in human beings, who cannot save.
4 When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;
on that very day their plans come to nothing.
5 Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the LORD their God.
6 He is the Maker of heaven and earth,
the sea, and everything in them—
he remains faithful forever.
7 He upholds the cause of the oppressed
and gives food to the hungry.
The LORD sets prisoners free,
8 the LORD gives sight to the blind,
the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down,
the LORD loves the righteous.
9 The LORD watches over the foreigner
and sustains the fatherless and the widow,
but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.
10 The LORD reigns forever,
your God, O Zion, for all generations.
Praise the LORD.
—Psalms 146:1-10 NIV
As each “hero” arises in the OT, each one proves that mere humans cannot save. From Moses’s death outside the Promised Land to David’s sin with Bathsheba, every human hero in the story fails. None of them can save themselves or others from sin, darkness, and death. As Jonah 2:9 declares: “Salvation belongs to the LORD!” (ESV). We need more than a human. God alone saves: "I, even I, am the LORD, and apart from me there is no savior (Isa 43:11). And the God of the Bible is unlike any other God. We learn in Exodus that he is Yahweh, the Author of the story, the LORD:
Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, Yahweh?
—Exodus 4:11
As Yahweh hardens Pharaoh’s heart and judges the false gods of Egypt, we learn that Yahweh alone is supreme. There is no one like him. The LORD brought Israel out of Egypt. He did it. The LORD alone saves:
See now that I, I am he, and there is not a god beside me! I put to death, and I bring to life! I have wounded, and I will heal! And there is no one who can tear out from my hand!
—Deuteronomy 32:39
This is the God whom the New Testament identifies with Jesus. The Bible defines Jesus not merely as a god or a powerful angel. Instead, the New Testament defines Jesus as Yahweh Incarnate. Indeed, we read in Jude 5 that Jesus “delivered his people out of Egypt.” As we see Jesus heal the sick, raise the dead, forgive sins, curse the wicked, stop the storm, feed the multitudes, seek the lost, show mercy, and love faithfully, we see him do what only Yahweh can do. And so, the four Gospels demand that we identify Jesus with Yahweh. Further, the Old Testament establishes a tension: (1) Yahweh alone saves but (2) Yahweh has promised to save through a human, who is the son of David, the Son of Abraham, and the Son of Eve.
How can the LORD alone save if he will save through a human son? And how can a human save when the Bible teaches and shows that human beings cannot save?
(See page 132 in God the Son Incarnate by Stephen J. Wellum)
Jesus bursts upon the scene in the NT as the answer to this dilemma. The angels announce his birth as the coming of God himself to the earth (Matt 1:22-23; Luke 2:11). John the Baptist goes before him as the one crying, “Prepare the way for Yahweh!” (Mark 1:3). Yet, Jesus arrives as a human baby. The Bible defines Jesus as both Lord and Messiah, God the Son Incarnate, fully God and fully man. He alone fulfills the promises and tensions of the OT. By his incarnation, perfect life, substitutionary death, resurrection, ascension, and promised return, Jesus saves God’s people from the curse of sin and death. He reigns as the Last Adam over a new humanity whom he has blessed by pouring his Spirit upon them (Col 2:20; 3:1, 9-11). And he reigns now—with the authority of heaven and earth—for the good of his people. All that God promised and anticipated in the OT, Jesus fulfills. As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 1:20: “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ.” Christ alone is the sufficient savior because he alone is fully God and fully man. The Bible leaves us with no other option.