At the end of Luke’s Gospel, the physician records a fascinating account regarding the resurrected Christ and two of His followers. These two believers were discussing the events of what we call Holy Week as they traveled to Emmaus, when Jesus joined them on the road. They were prevented from recognizing the Lord, so they shared with Him the disappointment about what had transpired and the strange story of the women at the tomb. Luke then describes how Jesus spent the rest of the journey explaining to these two how the Old Testament point to Him: “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). I can remember the slight twinge of envy I felt when I first read this passage with understanding! What a tremendous privilege it must have been to have heard the Lord interpreting the Word, showing them how it all described Him.
Since that time, several approaches have been employed to help those “on the road to Emmaus” learn more about how the Old Testament described Christ. Some passages are relatively straightforward; that is, there are passages that are clearly about the coming Messiah. Yet others are not so obvious at first glance, such as how Joseph was a type for Christ. There have been a multitude of approaches suggested: some tend to be broader, some more specific, and still others more of an eclectic mix. An example of the broad approach is the “fallen condition focus,” or FCF. Throughout the entirety of the Old Testament, the authors never whitewashed any of the characters (including themselves!) into perfect heroes worthy of our adoration, but instead showed us the real people, warts and all. They showed their fallen, imperfect natures in order to show us how God acted with grace toward them. Since we share the fallen condition with the original audience of Scripture, we too can benefit from seeing how the grace of Christ meets our condition today just as it did then.
Others tend to be more specific with their categorizations, suggesting that every OT passage falls under one of three umbrellas: election, ethics, or redemption. Christ is at work in all three areas. When the Old Testament shows us that God chooses specific people to be His own (this applies to both the ancient Hebrews as well as those outside of the Abrahamic covenant, such as Melchizedek), we know this is done in Christ. When we see God redeeming His people, we see a foreshadowing of the permanent work that Christ would accomplish on the cross. And when we see ethical commands, we understand that this is how we are to live in Christ’s Kingdom.
Still others have adopted a more eclectic approach, asserting that each passage of the Old Testament points to Christ in one of seven ways: the redemptive-historical narrative, promise fulfillment, typology, analogy, longitudinal themes, New Testament references (a backwards-looking approach), and contrast (where Jesus is different than what you see in the Old Testament, such as with the sacrifice of bulls and goats).
Each of these has its strengths, which is perhaps why I am more drawn to the eclectic approach. Given that Scripture is composed of several different literary genres, it makes sense that we will see Christ in various ways in its pages. When we are reading the poetry of the Psalms, we might find analogies and contrasts as opposed to specific typologies or narratives, considering the nature of poetic language. Likewise, the historical books can provide us with the narrative and longitudinal themes that might be missing within a Psalm. Yet this eclectic approach need not be limited to strictly those seven ways; indeed, there is nothing that would prohibit us from incorporating the FCF or those three categories into this eclectic model. Indeed, seeing how each of these approaches complements one another can benefit us as we gain the richer understanding that those disciples received on that Judean road in the first century. Just something to think about…
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