1 Introduction

In the fall­en human race, God con­tin­u­al­ly finds some­one in whom he is pleased, peo­ple through whom he pass­es on the hope of sal­va­tion: Noah, lat­er Abra­ham, then Joseph, whom God chose to keep his fam­i­ly alive dur­ing a time of famine. As God’s cho­sen one, he expe­ri­enced much rejec­tion, humil­i­a­tion and suf­fer­ing. In all these sit­u­a­tions, he remained faith­ful to God, who even­tu­al­ly exalt­ed him.

Moses, who deliv­ered the peo­ple of Israel from slav­ery in Egypt and led them to the Promised Land, was also faced with sim­i­lar dif­fi­cul­ties. Stephen, the first Chris­t­ian mar­tyr, men­tions Joseph and Moses in his defence speech when he con­fronts his accusers with the fact that they also reject­ed Jesus—just as their fore­fa­thers did to Joseph and Moses—and even killed him. Stephen sealed his tes­ti­mo­ny with his blood:

Which of the prophets did your fathers not per­se­cute? And they killed those who announced before­hand the com­ing of the Right­eous One, whom you have now betrayed and mur­dered. (Acts 7:52)

On this path of suf­fer­ing, God ever more deeply reveals his love for us human beings, the sal­va­tion he has pre­pared for us. So we progress from the promis­es made to David to the words of the prophets that speak of the suf­fer­ing ser­vant of God. All these promis­es are ful­filled in Jesus.

2 From Paradise to Egypt

God has mer­cy even on mankind after the Fall. Not even sin can extin­guish his car­ing love. This is expressed in the fol­low­ing pas­sage, which speaks about the sit­u­a­tion after the Fall:

And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife gar­ments of skins and clothed them. (Gen­e­sis 3:21)

How­ev­er, peo­ple do not appre­ci­ate this love, but with their sins have wors­ened the avalanche set in motion by the first sin.

2.1 Noah—Comfort After the Flood

Despite the rapid increase in sin, God “finds” a man: Noah, who found favour in his eyes:

The Lord saw that the wicked­ness of man was great in the earth, and that every inten­tion of the thoughts of his heart was only evil con­tin­u­al­ly. And the Lord was sor­ry that he had made man on the earth, and it griev­ed him to his heart. So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have cre­at­ed from the face of the land, man and ani­mals and creep­ing things and birds of the heav­ens, for I am sor­ry that I have made them.” But Noah found favour in the eyes of the Lord. These are the gen­er­a­tions of Noah. Noah was a right­eous man, blame­less in his gen­er­a­tion. Noah walked with God. (Gen­e­sis 6:5–9)

If we read the sto­ry of the Flood through the eyes of faith, we see God’s mes­sage that the path of sin leads to destruc­tion. But God is love. He responds to even the small­est good thing. He “finds” a God-fear­ing per­son. In this way, redemp­tion con­tin­ues on the nar­row path of hope through a hand­ful of peo­ple in his­to­ry. God makes a covenant with mankind in the sym­bol of the rain­bow.

God’s first response to the wicked­ness of mankind was the Flood. As a con­se­quence of sin, it stands as a warn­ing sign for all time. But then God also made the rain­bow a sign of the covenant and hope.

“Behold, I estab­lish my covenant with you and your off­spring after you…”

“When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remem­ber the ever­last­ing covenant between God and every liv­ing crea­ture of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have estab­lished between me and all flesh that is on the earth.” (Gen­e­sis 9:9, 16–17)

2.2 Abraham—In Whom the Nations are Blessed

The hope con­tin­ued. Again God “found” a man in whom he was well pleased, whom he called to give him a new promise of the com­ing deliv­er­ance. God called Abram:

Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your coun­try and your kin­dred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a bless­ing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dis­hon­ours you I will curse, and in you all the fam­i­lies of the earth shall be blessed.” So Abram went, as the LORD had told him… (Gen­e­sis 12:1–4)

Yes, there was a man who was pre­pared to leave his rel­a­tives, his “secu­ri­ty” behind¹ and set off towards an “uncer­tain” future. Sim­ply because he believed and trust­ed God. This is how the child­less Abram² received the promise that he would become the father of many chil­dren, that he would become Abra­ham³ (see Gen­e­sis 17:5).

God said to him: “Walk before me, and be blame­less” (Gen­e­sis 17:1). This express­es Abra­ham’s faith. This faith and love can also be seen in the fact that he was pre­pared to sac­ri­fice the most pre­cious thing he had, the son promised to him, his only son, Isaac, whom he loved⁴.

He (i.e. God) said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do any­thing to him, for now I know that you fear God, see­ing you have not with­held your son, your only son, from me.” (Gen­e­sis 22:12)

This is the atti­tude that pleas­es God. This is a sac­ri­fice that pleas­es him! That is why God renewed the promise to him:

“… and in your off­spring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.” (Gen­e­sis 22:18)

Paul explains who this off­spring is:

Now the promis­es were made to Abra­ham and to his off­spring. It does not say, “And to off­springs”, refer­ring to many, but refer­ring to one, “And to your off­spring”, who is Christ. (Gala­tians 3:16)

The promise giv­en to Abra­ham already gives us a glimpse of the await­ed one who will be will­ing to “ren­der him­self as a guilt offer­ing” so that he may “see his off­spring” (see Isa­iah 53:10 NASB), just as the grain of wheat that dies gives new life to many (see John 12:24–25). Like Abra­ham’s sac­ri­fice, God also sees in Jesus’ will­ing­ness to devote him­self a sac­ri­fice in a sim­i­lar way. God bless­es this and gives him many sons, whom he leads to glo­ry⁵.

In this way, Abra­ham becomes the father of faith for all those who not only name them­selves after him⁶ but also fol­low his works of faith.

Abra­ham⁷ was able to see in Isaac, the son of the promise, the begin­ning of the ful­fil­ment of the promise.

We then encounter a sit­u­a­tion in which the sov­er­eign God deems it good that the path of sal­va­tion should not con­tin­ue through Esau, the elder son of Isaac, in accor­dance with the birthright, but that his younger broth­er Jacob should be the heir to the birthright bless­ing⁸.

2.3 Joseph—The Despised Deliverer

Fol­low­ing the path of the patri­archs, we arrive in Egypt, where the sto­ry of Joseph, one of Jacob’s sons, teach­es us a great deal about God’s love. Joseph, who was cho­sen by God (see Gen­e­sis 37:1–11; Deuteron­o­my 33:16), was hat­ed by his broth­ers. When he sets out to vis­it them at his father’s request, they plan to kill him⁹.

It pleased God to make him their deliv­er­er, the one to whom they would turn for food at the time of famine in Egypt. Joseph, whom they intend to kill, is there wait­ing for them as their sav­iour. That’s what God is like. He turns evil to good.

As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about¹⁰ that many peo­ple should be kept alive, as they are today. (Gen­e­sis 50:20)

A pro­found truth already appears here, which takes on its true mean­ing in the full­ness of time:

Joseph, the cho­sen one, sets out to vis­it his broth­ers. They do not see him as the cho­sen one, they do not recog­nise him as the one sent by God. They reject him and want to kill him. Nev­er­the­less, God saves them from the famine through him. In the same way, when the Light came to his own, to his broth­ers accord­ing to the flesh, his own did not accept him. Nev­er­the­less, he became the author of sal­va­tion to those who accept him (see John 1:9–13, Hebrews 5:9). Just as the stone that the builders reject­ed has become the cor­ner­stone, so he became the rock of sal­va­tion for those who believe, and stum­bling block for those who do not believe.¹¹

Then Joseph could not con­trol him­self before all those who stood by him. He cried, “Make every­one go out from me.” So no one stayed with him when Joseph made him­self known to his broth­ers. And he wept aloud, so that the Egyp­tians heard it, and the house­hold of Pharaoh heard it. And Joseph said to his broth­ers, “I am Joseph! Is my father still alive?” But his broth­ers could not answer him, for they were dis­mayed at his pres­ence. So Joseph said to his broth­ers, “Come near to me, please.” And they came near. And he said, “I am your broth­er, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be dis­tressed or angry with your­selves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to pre­serve life… And God sent me before you to pre­serve for you a rem­nant on earth, and to keep alive for you many sur­vivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God. (Gen­e­sis 45:1–8)

We find an inter­est­ing par­al­lel here that is worth reflect­ing on. It is inter­est­ing because it express­es the basic truth that God turns evil into good (Gen­e­sis 50:20). It is obvi­ous that God nev­er wants evil!

… God can­not be tempt­ed with evil, and he him­self tempts no one… Do not be deceived, my beloved broth­ers. Every good gift and every per­fect gift is from above, com­ing down from the Father of lights with whom there is no vari­a­tion or shad­ow due to change. (James 1:13, 16–17)

Even the shad­ow of evil is far away from God. Then it is also clear that God did not want his cho­sen one, Joseph, to be killed or sold by his broth­ers. For that was wicked­ness. Nev­er­the­less, Joseph him­self express­es in the above-men­tioned pas­sage that it was God who sent him to Egypt.

It is as if we are faint­ly hear­ing the words of Peter here, who would lat­er pro­claim:

“Let all the house of Israel there­fore know for cer­tain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you cru­ci­fied.” (Acts 2:36)

“But you denied the Holy and Right­eous One, and asked for a mur­der­er to be grant­ed to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are wit­ness­es.” (Acts 3:14–15)

Joseph said that God want­ed it that way, and so it is. But we can under­stand what this means from the pas­sage already quot­ed in Gen­e­sis 50:20: “But God meant it for good.”

As we have already men­tioned: God does not want evil, but he can turn it to good. God want­ed to save Jacob from the famine. But how this hap­pened also depend­ed on the sons of Jacob. God takes into account the deci­sions of his crea­tures, who have an influ­ence on his plan of sal­va­tion in this way.

So God’s pres­ence per­me­ates his­to­ry in an invis­i­ble yet very real way. He is both the sov­er­eign Almighty and the hum­ble ser­vant. He allows him­self to be “influ­enced”, he “adapts”, that is, he respects the will of his crea­tures. Nev­er­the­less, he is able to car­ry out his plan. This is a mir­a­cle that leads us to awe and won­der, a mir­a­cle that often sur­pass­es our under­stand­ing.¹²

Oh, the depth of the rich­es and wis­dom and knowl­edge of God! How unsearch­able are his judge­ments and how inscrutable his ways!
“For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his coun­sel­lor?”
“Or who has giv­en a gift to him that he might be repaid?”
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glo­ry for ever. Amen. (Romans 11:33–36)

A new chap­ter in the his­to­ry of sal­va­tion begins in Egypt with Moses, and with the nation cho­sen by God.

3 Israel, the People of the Covenant

3.1 Moses—Deliverance from Egypt

Give ear, O heav­ens, and I will speak,
and let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
… ascribe great­ness to our God!
The Rock, his work is per­fect,
for all his ways are jus­tice.
A God of faith­ful­ness and with­out iniq­ui­ty,
just and upright is he.
They have dealt cor­rupt­ly with him;
they are no longer his chil­dren because they are blem­ished;
they are a crooked and twist­ed gen­er­a­tion.
Do you thus repay the Lord,
you fool­ish and sense­less peo­ple?
Is not he your father, who cre­at­ed you,
who made you and estab­lished you?
… But the Lord’s por­tion is his peo­ple,
Jacob his allot­ted her­itage.
He found him in a desert land,
and in the howl­ing waste of the wilder­ness;
he encir­cled him, he cared for him,
he kept him as the apple of his eye.
Like an eagle that stirs up its nest,
that flut­ters over its young,
spread­ing out its wings, catch­ing them,
bear­ing them on its pin­ions,
the Lord alone guid­ed him,
no for­eign god was with him.
He made him ride on the high places of the land,
and he ate the pro­duce of the field … (Deuteron­o­my 32:1–14)

This is a song about God’s love for his peo­ple. He cared for them, pre­served them like the apple of his eye, like an eagle hov­er­ing pro­tec­tive­ly over its young. But at the same time, there are also painful over­tones:

But Jeshu­run¹³ grew fat, and kicked;
you grew fat, stout, and sleek;
then he for­sook God who made him
and scoffed at the Rock of his sal­va­tion.
They stirred him to jeal­ousy with strange gods;
with abom­i­na­tions they pro­voked him to anger.
They sac­ri­ficed to demons that were no gods,
to gods they had nev­er known,
to new gods that had come recent­ly,
whom your fathers had nev­er dread­ed.
You were unmind­ful of the Rock that bore you,
and you for­got the God who gave you birth. (Deuteron­o­my 32:15–18)

Again, we see in the his­to­ry of Israel what is also char­ac­ter­is­tic of the his­to­ry of human­i­ty.

In the Acts of the Apos­tles (see Acts 7:17–53) we can read how Stephen, more than a thou­sand years lat­er, assess­es what was antic­i­pat­ed in the Song of Moses with the eyes of faith. We would like to high­light here what he said about Moses in vers­es 25 and 35:

He sup­posed that his broth­ers would under­stand that God was giv­ing them sal­va­tion by his hand, but they did not under­stand. (Acts 7:25)

This Moses, whom they reject­ed, say­ing, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’—this man God sent as both ruler and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush. (Acts 7:35)

Verse 35 con­firms what we have already seen in the sto­ry of Joseph: God has sent him, whom his broth­ers reject­ed, as “ruler and redeemer”. In his speech, Stephen draws an obvi­ous par­al­lel between Moses and Jesus: Moses did not come to be reject­ed, but so that they would lis­ten to him. What he pro­claims to them is God’s word for their own good.

Moses was the arche­type of the com­ing Mes­si­ah to whom he point­ed:

The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall lis­ten. (Deuteron­o­my 18:15; Acts 3:22–26)

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, they did not lis­ten to him.

But let us now return to Egypt with Stephen:

This man led them out, per­form­ing won­ders and signs in Egypt and at the Red Sea and in the wilder­ness for forty years. (Acts 7:36)

God has made his pow­er man­i­fest.¹⁴ So God brought his peo­ple out of slav­ery with­out pay­ing a ran­som for them or owing it to him­self. God did this for free, out of his grace, because he is love. His love is the only basis of redemp­tion.¹⁵
God led his peo­ple into the desert and made a covenant with them.

He chose and called Israel, he cared for them and pre­served them for the ben­e­fit of all peo­ple. In and with Israel He pre­pared the way of sal­va­tion. He did this for all peo­ple through many strug­gles and pains! God want­ed them to be a king­dom of priests and a holy nation so that through them, all nations might come to know God.¹⁶

… while Moses went up to God. The Lord called to him out of the moun­tain, say­ing, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the peo­ple of Israel: You your­selves have seen what I did to the Egyp­tians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now there­fore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my trea­sured pos­ses­sion among all peo­ples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a king­dom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the peo­ple of Israel.” (Exo­dus 19:3–6)

But that is not how it turned out. God plant­ed a choice vine. But it only yield­ed wild grapes.

Let me sing for my beloved
my love song con­cern­ing his vine­yard:
My beloved had a vine­yard
on a very fer­tile hill.
He dug it and cleared it of stones,
and plant­ed it with choice vines;
he built a watch­tow­er in the midst of it,
and hewed out a wine vat in it;
and he looked for it to yield grapes,
but it yield­ed wild grapes. (Isa­iah 5:1–2)

Despite all the care they received, they act­ed like Adam because they fol­lowed their own will and not God’s will.

3.2 David—The King and Shepherd of Israel

God mer­ci­ful­ly and patient­ly car­ried his peo­ple in the desert and dur­ing the time of the judges. Then the peo­ple demand­ed a king (see 1 Samuel 8:4–7). They did not want Yah­weh to be their king. Despite their defi­ance, God remained faith­ful.

Here again we can see God’s infi­nite humil­i­ty. He “adapt­ed” to them.

And all the peo­ple said to Samuel, “Pray for your ser­vants to the LORD your God, that we may not die, for we have added to all our sins this evil, to ask for our­selves a king.” And Samuel said to the peo­ple, “Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil. Yet do not turn aside from fol­low­ing the LORD, but serve the LORD with all your heart… For the LORD will not for­sake his peo­ple, for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased the LORD to make you a peo­ple for him­self.” (1 Samuel 12:19–20, 22)

And God “finds” David, who found favour in the sight of God (see Acts 7:46), who by his faith fol­lowed in the foot­steps of Abra­ham when he attrib­uted his strength and his vic­to­ries not to him­self but to God (see 1 Samuel 17:37, 45).

The psalmist called him the shep­herd of his peo­ple:

He chose David his ser­vant
and took him from the sheep­folds;
from fol­low­ing the nurs­ing ewes he brought him
to shep­herd Jacob his peo­ple,
Israel his inher­i­tance.
With upright heart he shep­herd­ed them
and guid­ed them with his skil­ful hand. (Psalm 78:70–72)¹⁷

He is the pro­to­type of the Good Shep­herd who was to come when the time was ful­filled. In him, the prophet­ic word would take on its full mean­ing. God him­self comes to his flock!

“For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out… I myself will be the shep­herd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord GOD. 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.” (Ezekiel 34:11, 15–16)

He who is to come will be born of a vir­gin as a descen­dant of David, whose name is Immanuel, that is, God is with us (see Isa­iah 7:14).

The light comes to those who dwell in dark­ness and the shad­ow of death.

The peo­ple who walked in dark­ness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep dark­ness,
on them has light shined…

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is giv­en;
and the gov­ern­ment shall be upon his shoul­der,
and his name shall be called
Won­der­ful Coun­sel­lor, Mighty God,
Ever­last­ing Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his gov­ern­ment and of peace
there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his king­dom,
to estab­lish it and to uphold it
with jus­tice and with right­eous­ness
from this time forth and for ever­more.
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this. (Isa­iah 9:2, 6–7)

The one on whom the Spir­it of the Lord rests will come.

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
And the Spir­it of the LORD shall rest upon him,
the Spir­it of wis­dom and under­stand­ing,
the Spir­it of coun­sel and might,
the Spir­it of knowl­edge and the fear of the LORD.
And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
or decide dis­putes by what his ears hear,
but with right­eous­ness he shall judge the poor,
and decide with equi­ty for the meek of the earth;
and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
Right­eous­ness shall be the belt of his waist,
and faith­ful­ness the belt of his loins. (Isa­iah 11:1–5)

One who is on the throne of David will come who will build the tem­ple of the Lord and whose reign will be with­out end.

When your days are ful­filled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your off­spring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will estab­lish his king­dom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will estab­lish the throne of his king­dom for ever. (2 Samuel 7:12–13)

Even though this ini­tial­ly refers to Solomon, the direct descen­dant of David, who was to build the tem­ple in Jerusalem, this prophe­cy of Nathan sub­se­quent­ly points to the “Son of David”. From the per­spec­tive of the New Tes­ta­ment, we see that the Mes­si­ah has built anoth­er, eter­nal house for God, which, like his king­ship, will last for­ev­er.

Do you not know that you are God’s tem­ple and that God’s Spir­it dwells in you? (1 Corinthi­ans 3:16)

And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our con­fi­dence and our boast­ing in our hope. (Hebrews 3:6)

God is not con­cerned with tem­ples, cathe­drals, basil­i­cas, hous­es of prayer, king­dom halls, … which are built of stone, but not of love. The house of God is the tem­ple, which Scrip­ture also calls the body of Christ¹⁸ , the com­mu­ni­ty of Chris­tians, the bride wait­ing for her bride­groom¹⁹. For this is the goal of redemp­tion: com­mu­nion with God and with one anoth­er in holi­ness and love. This fel­low­ship already begins here on earth.

But let us return to David, or rather to Stephen. In his speech, Stephen makes spe­cial ref­er­ence to the tem­ple. In doing so, he touched on a sen­si­tive point and events accel­er­at­ed. But we are still a mil­len­ni­um away from the ful­fil­ment of the promise made to David, that is, that the Mes­si­ah would be his descen­dant (which is why Jesus is often called the Son of David).

We can see what hap­pened dur­ing these thou­sand years in the Song of Moses and in Stephen’s speech.

The prophet Hosea sum­marised this beau­ti­ful­ly:

When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.
The more they were called,
the more they went away;
they kept sac­ri­fic­ing to the Baals
and burn­ing offer­ings to idols.
Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk;
I took them up by their arms,
but they did not know that I healed them.
I led them with cords of kind­ness,
with the bands of love,
and I became to them as one who eas­es the yoke on their jaws,
and I bent down to them and fed them.
They shall not return to the land of Egypt,
but Assyr­ia shall be their king,
because they have refused to return to me.
The sword shall rage against their cities,
con­sume the bars of their gates,
and devour them because of their own coun­sels.
My peo­ple are bent on turn­ing away from me,
and though they call out to the Most High,
he shall not raise them up at all.
How can I give you up, O Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, O Israel?
How can I make you like Admah?
How can I treat you like Zeboi­im?
My heart recoils with­in me;
my com­pas­sion grows warm and ten­der.
I will not exe­cute my burn­ing anger;
I will not again destroy Ephraim;
for I am God and not a man,
the Holy One in your midst,
and I will not come in wrath. (Hosea 11:1–9)

3.3 The Time of the Prophets—Light in the Darkness

Dur­ing the cen­turies of king­ship, when most kings after David did not walk with God, the peo­ple con­tin­ued their unfaith­ful­ness, their many sins, their idol­a­try under the lead­er­ship of their polit­i­cal and reli­gious rulers. Along with their con­tin­ued idol­a­try, they also con­tin­ued the tem­ple wor­ship. The blood of sac­ri­fices flowed in tor­rents and fes­ti­vals were cel­e­brat­ed. God admon­ished the peo­ple through the words of the prophets, he called his peo­ple unceas­ing­ly to repen­tance.

The ox knows its own­er,
and the don­key its mas­ter’s crib,
but Israel does not know,
my peo­ple do not under­stand. (Isa­iah 1:3)

Hear the word of the LORD,
you rulers of Sodom!
Give ear to the teach­ing of our God,
you peo­ple of Gomor­rah!
“What to me is the mul­ti­tude of your sac­ri­fices?“
says the LORD;
“I have had enough of burnt offer­ings of rams
and the fat of well-fed beasts;
I do not delight in the blood of bulls,
or of lambs, or of goats.
When you come to appear before me,
who has required of you
this tram­pling of my courts?
Bring no more vain offer­ings;
incense is an abom­i­na­tion to me.
New moon and Sab­bath and the call­ing of con­vo­ca­tions—
I can­not endure iniq­ui­ty and solemn assem­bly.
Your new moons and your appoint­ed feasts
my soul hates;
they have become a bur­den to me;
I am weary of bear­ing them.
When you spread out your hands,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even though you make many prayers,
I will not lis­ten;
your hands are full of blood.
Wash your­selves; make your­selves clean;
remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes;
cease to do evil,
learn to do good;
seek jus­tice,
cor­rect oppres­sion;
bring jus­tice to the father­less,
plead the wid­ow’s cause.” (Isa­iah 1:10–17)

“For from the least to the great­est of them,
every­one is greedy for unjust gain;
and from prophet to priest,
every­one deals false­ly.
They have healed the wound of my peo­ple light­ly,
say­ing, ‘Peace, peace’,
when there is no peace.
Were they ashamed when they com­mit­ted abom­i­na­tion?
No, they were not at all ashamed;
they did not know how to blush.
There­fore they shall fall among those who fall;
at the time that I pun­ish them, they shall be over­thrown,”
says the LORD.
Thus says the LORD:
“Stand by the roads, and look,
and ask for the ancient paths,
where the good way is; and walk in it,
and find rest for your souls.
But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’” (Jere­mi­ah 6:13–16)

How­ev­er, the peo­ple did not lis­ten to the prophets which is why they announced judge­ment. How­ev­er, their admo­ni­tions only pro­vid­ed tem­po­rary relief. The prophets had to explain to them that it was because of their sins that they would be crushed and sub­ju­gat­ed, that they would have to go into exile. Not because God is weak, nor because of the sins of their ances­tors, but because they them­selves have fol­lowed in the foot­steps of their fathers!²⁰

God is wag­ing a life-and-death strug­gle for his peo­ple through the prophets: will they remain his peo­ple or will they all become idol­aters? Dur­ing such a dark time, even the unwa­ver­ing prophet Eli­jah was shak­en:

Then he was afraid, and he arose and ran for his life and came to Beer­she­ba, which belongs to Judah, and left his ser­vant there. But he him­self went a day’s jour­ney into the wilder­ness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, say­ing, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no bet­ter than my fathers.” … There he came to a cave and lodged in it. And behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and he said to him, “What are you doing here, Eli­jah?” He said, “I have been very jeal­ous for the LORD, the God of hosts. For the peo­ple of Israel have for­sak­en your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.” (1 Kings 19:3–4, 9–10)

And what does God do?

And he said, “Go out and stand on the mount before the LORD.” And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the moun­tains and broke in pieces the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. And after the wind an earth­quake, but the LORD was not in the earth­quake. And after the earth­quake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whis­per. And when Eli­jah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him and said, “What are you doing here, Eli­jah?”… “Yet I will leave sev­en thou­sand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.” (1 Kings 19:11–13, 18)

He speaks and com­forts in a soft, gen­tle voice: “Eli­jah, you are not alone. There is a small rem­nant of peo­ple who have remained faith­ful. Through them, the path of sal­va­tion will con­tin­ue.”

God speaks gen­tly to those who call out to him, who are tor­ment­ed by the many sins and injus­tices they see. But for those who wor­ship God only with their mouth but whose heart is far from God (Isa­iah 29:13; Matthew 15:7–9), there is a wind that tears moun­tains apart and shat­ters rocks, earth­quakes and fire as a sign of the com­ing judge­ment.

This dark peri­od of time was also a great chal­lenge for the prophet, just as there have always been dark, chal­leng­ing peri­ods in the course of his­to­ry, as there are today in the “Chris­t­ian West”, where sin runs its course, as do the cel­e­bra­tions, the church ser­vices …

The prophet­ic word came like a bolt of light­ning into this dark­ness: it will not always remain dark!

The peo­ple who walked in dark­ness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep dark­ness,
on them has light shined. (Isa­iah 9:2)

For the promised Sav­iour is com­ing! Who he will be, when he will come, what he will be like—that was a mys­tery the prophets pur­sued with great long­ing.

Con­cern­ing this sal­va­tion, the prophets who proph­e­sied about the grace that was to be yours searched and enquired care­ful­ly, enquir­ing what per­son or time the Spir­it of Christ in them was indi­cat­ing when he pre­dict­ed the suf­fer­ings of Christ and the sub­se­quent glo­ries. (1 Peter 1:10–11)

But they announced what had been giv­en to them. The word of the prophets is the instru­ment of sal­va­tion.
But the time had not yet come.

Behold, the vir­gin shall con­ceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel (God with us). (Isa­iah 7:14)

Who would have dared to believe that the true God would come to us in the one in whom this promise finds its com­plete ful­fil­ment!

He who is to come “shall not judge by what his eyes see… but with right­eous­ness he shall judge…” (see Isa­iah 11:1–5).

He is the king, the shoot from the tribe of David, the one who is antic­i­pat­ed in the fairy tales and leg­ends of the peo­ples of the world — with­out any real hope of this wish being ful­filled (indeed, it becomes appar­ent that peo­ple have a vague image of a right­eous king deep in their hearts).

But here is a prophet of the peo­ple of Israel speak­ing, a her­ald of the word of God! Hear, O nations! He will not only be the sav­iour of Israel!

He says:
“It is too light a thing that you should be my ser­vant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to bring back the pre­served of Israel;
I will make you as a light for the nations,
that my sal­va­tion may reach to the end of the earth.” (Isa­iah 49:6)

The one about whom the Lord has spo­ken will come:

“You are my Son; today I have begot­ten you.” (Psalm 2:7)

One will come whom they will call the Son of David, but who will nev­er­the­less be the David’s Lord.²¹

But how can this hap­pen? In Jew­ish think­ing, the descen­dant can­not be the Lord of the pre­de­ces­sor. This was also dis­cussed at the time of Jesus (see Matthew 22:41–46). So the fig­ure of the Mes­si­ah remains hid­den, but it can be sur­mised that he will be greater than David.²²

And when he real­ly comes as king, will he judge the nations imme­di­ate­ly? Peo­ple will obey a king who comes with pow­er all the more eas­i­ly!

This is what was expect­ed, but it did not turn out that way.

3.4 The Prophecies about the Servant of God

A ser­vant has come, or rather, a king who has come to serve! It is in keep­ing with God’s nature that he demon­strates his pow­er pri­mar­i­ly in his love.

Nor was it hid­den. The prophets already spoke about it.

But will peo­ple recog­nise the king in the ser­vant? Will the vine­dressers recog­nise the son of the own­er of the vine­yard?²³ Or will they deal with him as they did with the ser­vants sent before him, name­ly the prophets?²⁴

These are trou­bling ques­tions which the prophets addressed. At the time of their ful­fil­ment, all who have ears to hear will under­stand and believe.
The book of Isa­iah shows us the Mes­si­ah as the ser­vant of God who, like the very prophets who announced his com­ing, him­self will be reject­ed, indeed will suf­fer and die.

Behold my ser­vant, whom I uphold,
my cho­sen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my Spir­it upon him;
he will bring forth jus­tice to the nations.
He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice,
or make it heard in the street;
a bruised reed he will not break,
and a faint­ly burn­ing wick he will not quench;
he will faith­ful­ly bring forth jus­tice.
He will not grow faint or be dis­cour­aged
till he has estab­lished jus­tice in the earth;
and the coast­lands wait for his law. (Isa­iah 42:1–4)

But I said, “I have laboured in vain;
I have spent my strength for noth­ing and van­i­ty;
yet sure­ly my right is with the LORD,
and my rec­om­pense with my God.”
Thus says the LORD,
the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One,
to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nation,
the ser­vant of rulers:
“Kings shall see and arise;
princes, and they shall pros­trate them­selves;
because of the LORD, who is faith­ful,
the Holy One of Israel, who has cho­sen you.” (Isa­iah 49:4, 7)

The Lord GOD has opened my ear,
and I was not rebel­lious;
I turned not back­wards.
I gave my back to those who strike,
and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard;
I hid not my face
from dis­grace and spit­ting.
But the Lord GOD helps me;
there­fore I have not been dis­graced… (Isa­iah 50:5–7)

Behold, my ser­vant shall act wise­ly;
he shall be high and lift­ed up,
and shall be exalt­ed.
As many were aston­ished at you—
his appear­ance was so marred, beyond human sem­blance,
and his form beyond that of the chil­dren of mankind…
For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
and no beau­ty that we should desire him.
He was despised and reject­ed by men;
a man of sor­rows, and acquaint­ed with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not…
He was oppressed, and he was afflict­ed,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaugh­ter,
and like a sheep that before its shear­ers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth…
Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be sat­is­fied;
by his knowl­edge shall the right­eous one, my ser­vant,
make many to be account­ed right­eous²⁵… (from Isa­iah 52:13–53:12)

Per­haps it is no coin­ci­dence that these prophet­ic words were spo­ken at a time when Israel, instead of rul­ing over the nations, was in Baby­lon­ian cap­tiv­i­ty. Their tem­ple was destroyed, Jerusalem dev­as­tat­ed. Through their sins they had destroyed the tem­ple of God.²⁶ Being in cap­tiv­i­ty taught them to aban­don their idols. How­ev­er, it also taught them that in this world, which had fall­en because of sin, some­thing new, pure and good can only emerge vic­to­ri­ous through the path of strug­gle and suf­fer­ing.²⁷ But this is not because God want­ed it that way from the begin­ning.

These words of the prophets are fol­lowed by long cen­turies of wait­ing. No one had a greater desire for the com­ing of the Sav­iour than God him­self. Nev­er­the­less, he wait­ed patient­ly until the time had come.

Only we humans hur­ry ahead, every­thing has to hap­pen quick­ly for us. Where is he now? What is God doing? Why is he not com­ing? Why is he not act­ing? This is how many peo­ple thought at the time of Jesus. We have to act, to accel­er­ate the com­ing of the king­dom of God by force of arms. That’s how the Zealots thought. They trust­ed in their own wis­dom.²⁸

Let us turn to two more pas­sages from the last book of the Old Tes­ta­ment:

Behold, I send my mes­sen­ger, and he will pre­pare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will sud­den­ly come to his tem­ple; and the mes­sen­ger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is com­ing, says the LORD of hosts. But who can endure the day of his com­ing, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refin­er’s fire and like fullers’ soap. (Malachi 3:1—2)

Behold, I will send you Eli­jah the prophet before the great and awe­some day of the LORD comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their chil­dren and the hearts of chil­dren to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruc­tion. (Malachi 4:5—6)

God also helped by send­ing his mes­sen­ger just before the Sav­iour. God sent John the Bap­tist so that peo­ple would recog­nise through him that the com­ing of some­one greater and more sig­nif­i­cant than John was near.

In the begin­ning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glo­ry, glo­ry as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1, 14)

A king who comes as a ser­vant mount­ed on a don­key will not be as eas­i­ly recog­nised as one who is car­ried on a throne and is pre­ced­ed by his fore­run­ners. The goal is clear, only the real­i­sa­tion does not cor­re­spond to our ideas, espe­cial­ly if the fore­run­ner also appears as a ser­vant in poor cloth­ing. But is this not pre­cise­ly what man needs in order to under­stand that when the King comes in the form of a ser­vant, he him­self can­not rule over him­self and oth­ers? God calls us to humil­i­ty and to serve oth­ers.

For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ran­som for many. (Mark 10:45)

This is what God teach­es us!

But this teach­ing can­not be under­stood with the mind­set of a Zealot, a Phar­isee, a the­olo­gian-scribe or a high priest.

In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spir­it and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heav­en and earth, that you have hid­den these things from the wise and under­stand­ing and revealed them to lit­tle chil­dren; yes, Father, for such was your gra­cious will.” (Luke 10:21)

Our jour­ney through the Old Tes­ta­ment, in which God pre­pared the com­ing of the Sav­iour, has come to an end. We can only par­tial­ly suc­ceed in por­tray­ing the love, joy, patience, endeav­our and pain with which God pre­pared the mir­a­cle of redemp­tion over many cen­turies. He did this by includ­ing peo­ple with their weak­ness­es and sins.

Per­haps it has also become clear from the above that the Old and New Tes­ta­ments can­not be sep­a­rat­ed from each oth­er. Just as a flower emerges from the dry earth, just as a shoot bursts forth from a tree stump that already appeared dead, so the New Covenant blos­somed out of the soil of the Old Covenant through our Lord Jesus Christ.

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. (Isa­iah 11:1)

It is God’s work, which he pre­pared before eter­ni­ty as a unique and unre­peat­able mir­a­cle:

God became man.

1. Because they were idol­a­tors, see Joshua 24:1–2 ↩
2. Abram means exalt­ed father ↩
3. Abra­ham means father of a mul­ti­tude ↩
4. see Gen­e­sis 22:1–18 ↩
5. see Hebrews 2:10 ↩
6. There were and are many who claim to be Abra­ham’s phys­i­cal or spir­i­tu­al chil­dren, Jews, Mus­lims and peo­ple who call them­selves Chris­tians. Among the lat­ter, there are those who, refer­ring to Abra­ham’s faith, teach that man is saved by faith alone with­out works. Oth­ers refer to Peter and con­sid­er them­selves his suc­ces­sors. Because peo­ple in Jesus’ time also liked to refer to them­selves as Abra­ham’s chil­dren in this way, Jesus clear­ly said that those who do the works of Abra­ham are Abra­ham’s chil­dren (John 8:39). He called those who only refer to Abra­ham the chil­dren of anoth­er father (John 8:31–47). Jesus would also say some­thing sim­i­lar to those who make a claim on Peter. Paul, guid­ed by the Spir­it, also expressed some­thing sim­i­lar: ‘But if you call your­self a Jew (a Chris­t­ian) …’ (Romans 2:17–29). More on this here: Faith and Works and What Does it Mean to be a Chris­t­ian? ↩
7. Gen­e­sis 18:19 — Abra­ham did not want Isaac to return to his rel­a­tives, who wor­shipped idols, but rather to dis­tance him­self from god­less­ness — Gen­e­sis 24:6–8 ↩
8. Here we get a glimpse of the mys­tery of how God inter­venes in his­to­ry. He gives man free will. Nev­er­the­less, it is God who con­tin­ues the sto­ry with his almighty will. In this case by choos­ing Jacob. He does not do this on the basis of his mer­its, but accord­ing to his sov­er­eign will. It is not a ques­tion of Jacob being cho­sen for sal­va­tion and Esau for damna­tion. No, he called Jacob to take the place in sal­va­tion his­to­ry that God intend­ed for him accord­ing to his will. Here we see the sov­er­eign­ty of God, who does not act accord­ing to human expec­ta­tions. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, Romans 9:10–13 has been mis­un­der­stood in an extreme way. This leads to a dis­tor­tion of the truth and to a false doc­trine. More on this: Pre­des­ti­na­tion. ↩
9. see Gen­e­sis 37:12–18 ↩
10. In the sto­ry of Joseph, we can already sense some­thing of what is so often echoed in the New Tes­ta­ment or in the words of Jesus: ‘This has hap­pened so that the Scrip­tures might be ful­filled.’ If we under­stand just this one exam­ple, we can see that when Jesus or the apos­tles spoke about Scrip­ture in this way, they did not under­stand Scrip­ture like a screen­play. Fur­ther events will show how the bib­li­cal authors under­stood this ful­fil­ment of Scrip­ture. (One thing is cer­tain in any case: God hides these things from the wise and under­stand­ing, but reveals them to lit­tle chil­dren — cf. Matthew 11:25). There­fore, we do not need to adapt the events to the Scrip­tures, but we should see the real events of his­to­ry with the eyes of faith and thus recog­nise how God works in his­to­ry. ↩
11. Matthew 21:42–44 ↩
12. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, there are peo­ple who, in their con­cern about God’s sov­er­eign­ty, deny man’s free will. But God’s pow­er is much more recog­nis­able when man has free will. What is the greater hon­our? To dom­i­nate an ene­my who is bound with chains or to over­come a per­son in full bat­tle gear through love. God’s sov­er­eign­ty can also only be prop­er­ly under­stood in the light of his love. ↩
13. ‘Jeshu­run’ is a poet­ic name for the peo­ple of Israel. ↩
14. That is also part of the sto­ry. How does God do that? So that cer­tain nat­ur­al process­es hap­pen right then and there (accord­ing to God’s will, of course), or through super­nat­ur­al process­es? That usu­al­ly remains hid­den. It is quite like­ly that those who argue about this will miss the point. That is not the essen­tial ques­tion, but the point is that the believ­er sees the work­ing God behind the event. For those who do not believe will not be helped by a mir­a­cle either. Or, in Jesus’ words, he will not believe even if some­one ris­es from the dead (Luke 16:31). God has cre­at­ed a real world in which the laws of nature are at work. He did not do this in order to con­stant­ly change them. For a mir­a­cle is a super­nat­ur­al and rare event. God has giv­en such mir­a­cles as con­firm­ing signs at sig­nif­i­cant times in the his­to­ry of sal­va­tion. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant in the his­to­ry of Israel. For the expe­ri­ence that God deliv­ered his peo­ple from Egypt with a mighty hand and made a covenant with them remains a sign for the peo­ple for­ev­er. The Israelites refer to this for cen­turies and pass it on to their chil­dren even at times when no mir­a­cles occur. Their God-fear­ing chil­dren believe this. Per­haps we can also sense a par­al­lel here to the peo­ple of God under the new covenant, when many mir­a­cles took place at the time the new covenant was estab­lished, espe­cial­ly through Jesus and the apos­tles. These were writ­ten down so that we might believe. These mir­a­cles do not need to be repeat­ed for us to know that God is the same faith­ful, mighty and strong God now and for­ev­er. ↩
15. see Isa­iah 43:25 — I, I am he who blots out your trans­gres­sions for my own sake, and I will not remem­ber your sins. ↩
16. “I will make you as a light for the nations, that my sal­va­tion may reach to the end of the earth.” Isa­iah 49:6, cit­ed in Acts 13:47. ↩
17. see also Ezekiel 37:24 ↩
18. see 1 Corinthi­ans 12 ↩
19. cf. 2 Corinthi­ans 11:2 ↩
20. cf. Isa­iah 59:1–2 — Behold, the Lord’s hand is not short­ened, that it can­not save, or his ear dull, that it can­not hear; but your iniq­ui­ties have made a sep­a­ra­tion between you and your God, and your sins have hid­den his face from you so that he does not hear. ↩
21. The LORD says to my Lord… (Psalm 110:1; cf. Luke 20:41–44). ↩
22. This is con­firmed even more by the mys­te­ri­ous Son of Man in the Book of Daniel (Daniel 7:13–14). ↩
23. cf. Matthew 21:33–46. ↩
24. cf. Matthew 23:34–35. ↩
25. Or “instruct many in right­eous­ness” (Dar­by). ↩
26. com­pare the words of Jesus about this in John 2:19–21. ↩
27. In cer­tain cas­es, suf­fer­ing leads to death. See, for exam­ple, Socrates’ strug­gle for virtue when he was con­demned to death because of his teach­ing. If he flees, his teach­ing los­es its seri­ous­ness if he does not seal it with his life. ↩
28. Since then, and even today, many have been impa­tient and unbe­liev­ing. They pro­claim that Jesus will return at such and such a time and with him the end of the world will come. They say he is already at the door. They also describe exact­ly how every­thing will be. But unfor­tu­nate­ly, many for­get one thing: to live as if Jesus were com­ing today. ↩