CHRIST IN THE TORAH

One Christian challenged me with this statement: “Jesus is supposed to be found throughout the Scriptures [John 5:39], but I could only find one prophecy [Deuteronomy 18:15-] about Him in the Torah [the Five Books of Moses]. Also, Jesus had claimed that Abraham had seen His day and was glad [John 8:56], but I just don’t see any evidence of this in the Patriarchal accounts.”

The Apostle Paul had made virtually the same claim about Abraham hearing the Gospel:

·       And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” (Galatians 3:8; ESV)

The Book of Hebrews also suggests that Abraham (along with the other Patriarchs) knew something about the Good News:

·       These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland…they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. (Hebrews 11:13-14,16)

Do we find evidence for this in the Torah, or, as the rabbis claim, do the New Testament writers see in the Torah what is not really there? If Abraham did see Jesus’ day, where is the evidence from the Torah?

For one thing, Abraham had many encounters with the Divine:

·       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 dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1-3)

In his earthly life, Abraham saw the fruition of only a tiny part of this prophecy. Did he have reason to believe that the rest would be fulfilled? Was he shown the Good News and the afterlife (Galatians 3:8)?

Afterwards, Abraham had a mysterious encounter with a priest named Melchizedek, whose name means "Righteous King." He is also variously described as the priest of the Most High God and the King of Salem—or "peace," in Hebrew. Abraham recognized His authority and gave tithes to Him (Genesis 14:20; see also Psalm 110). In fact, Melchizedek seems to be more than human. We are told that he had no parents:

• He is without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God he continues a priest forever. (Hebrews 7:3)

Only God has no beginning or end. Therefore, Abraham’s experience with Melchizedek must have been a Christophany – an appearance of Jesus. Judging from Abraham’s subsequent actions, this encounter seems to have been transformative for the patriarch. He gave Melchizedek a tenth of everything he had won when he rescued Lot. Why? Perhaps it was because Melchizedek had just revealed to him that his victory over the marauders had been a gift from God.

·       After his return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley). And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High.) And he blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!” And Abram gave him a tenth of everything. (Genesis 14:17-20)

Right after this, the generally conniving and cowardly Abraham (Genesis 20:13) declared to the King of Sodom that he would take none of the plunder that had been won. Why? Evidently, Abraham must have been convinced about the Personhood of the Priest Melchizedek. However, this encounter also seems to fall short of the revelation of the Good News.

In the following chapter, Genesis 15, Abraham seems to have had another Christophany, or divine encounter with Jesus. Abraham had asked God to confirm His promises to him. God complied to the request with a covenant-making ceremony. In the forms of a blazing torch and a smoking firepot—symbols of wrath and judgment—He passed between the butchered parts of animals. In this intensely symbolic and visually striking way, God pledged to honor the promises He had made to Abraham in the Covenant.

However, dread and darkness came upon Abraham in the process, and the pledge that God had taken was associated with symbols of wrath and judgment. Why? It seems that God had been conveying to Abraham the means by which He would accomplish His promise – the judgment that He would unleash upon Himself, as Paul had explained:

·       For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory. (2 Corinthians 1:20)

Without the Cross, there would only be destruction (Romans 6:23). Only the Cross would allow God’s glorious plan to proceed. There was no other way. Jesus had prayed for another way apart from the Cross, but He submitted to the will of the Father and to the inevitability of the Cross.

This very theme had been reenacted in heaven for the Apostle John:

·       Then I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?” And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.” (Revelation 5:1-5)

John’s tears had been very appropriate. He understood that the redemptive plans of the Father could not proceed. However, he was failing to see the vital missing link – the Cross of Christ, which was able to pay for the sins of the world. This established the worthiness of Jesus to open the scroll.

This piece of the puzzle was cryptically revealed at just the right time – at the time that God’s “very good” creation had been torn apart by sin and rebellion. As the Son of a woman, Jesus would reverse the Fall by crushing Satan, the malevolent force behind the serpent in the Garden of Eden. However, in the process, the “serpent” would strike His heel, thinking that the victory was his (1 Corinthians 2:8). 

Here is what God said to the serpent after Adam and Eve had sinned:

• “And I will put enmity

between you and the woman,

and between your offspring and hers;

he will crush your head,

and you will strike his heel.” (Genesis 3:15).

Satan struck the heel of Christ on the Cross, failing to understand that his victory was actually his “death blow.” This entitled God to move decisively against sin without destroying the entire world. Thus, sin was conquered through the Cross.

Why am I going into all of this detail? Yes – to establish the case that the Gospel had been revealed to Abraham and that Christ was manifested throughout the Torah. However, I also have another purpose – to show the unity between the two Testaments, a unity which points to God’s unifying authorship over the entirety of Scripture. So let’s move on to the next account which is even more revealing.

Abraham had been asked to sacrifice his “only son” Isaac on Mt. Moriah (Jerusalem). (Remember that Abraham’s literal firstborn was Ishmael.) This was a foreshadowing of the way that God would give “His only begotten Son” on Calvary. However, before Abraham went through with the sacrifice, the Angel of the Lord intervened and provided a ram for an offering instead of Isaac:

• And the angel of the LORD [“Yahweh”] called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, “By myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you…” (Genesis 22:15-17a)

Interestingly, Abraham understood far more about this encounter than might seem readily apparent. Instead of naming the mountain upon which he was to sacrifice Isaac, “God has provided,” which would have described what had taken place, Abraham named it, “God will provide.” This suggests that Abraham had been shown that God would one day provide a sacrifice on that very same mountain:

• So Abraham called the name of that place, “The LORD will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided.” (Genesis 22:14) 

Evidently, Israel too had understood this as prophetic. And, just what would be provided? An offering similar to the one that Abraham had been asked to provide…a Father offering His Son! Perhaps Jesus was thinking of this milestone of the Hebrew Scriptures when He said:

• “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” (John 8:56)

What was it that Abraham saw? What was Jesus’ “day”? It was the day of His glory:

• And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:23-24)

Why did Abraham rejoice to see Jesus’ day? He understood that God the Father would, on that day, offer His only-begotten Son as he had been directed to do as a foreshadowing of this Messianic event. And His offering would not only be the substitute for Abraham’s son, but for the sins of the entire world.

    Who was this Angel of the Lord that Abraham had encountered on Mount Moriah? In the above account, He is also called “Yahweh,” a term that only refers to God. We, therefore, call these appearances “Christophanies,” or “theophanies.” “The Angel of the LORD” is the phrase most closely associated with these appearances. There is evidence that this “Angel” is actually God the Son. Let's take a look at the first manifestation of this mysterious Angel when He appeared to Hagar, Abraham’s concubine and the mother of Ishmael:

• The angel of the LORD found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. And he said, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” She said, “I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai.” The angel of the LORD said to her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her.” The angel of the LORD also said to her, “I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude.” And the angel of the LORD said to her, “Behold, you are pregnant and shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, because the LORD has listened to your affliction. He shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen.” So she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.” (Genesis 16:7-13)

This narrative claims that it was the LORD—Yahweh—who spoke to Hagar. Hagar claimed that she had seen God, revealed to her in the Person of the Angel of the LORD.

Two chapters later:

• The LORD [Yahweh] appeared to him [Abraham] by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. (Genesis 18:1) 

Please note that, according to Exodus 33:20, Yahweh—the Father—appears to no one. Therefore, this appearance must have been a Christophany of Yahweh, the Son. 

Returning to the Genesis 18 account, we see that the angels who were accompanying Yahweh began to make their way toward Sodom. But Abraham used this time as an opportunity to petition the LORD. After their conversation:

• The LORD [Yahweh, the Son] went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place. (Genesis 18:33)

Many years later, Abraham’s grandson Jacob wrestled all night with a “man.” Jacob soon realized that this “man” was actually God:

• So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” (Genesis 32:30)

Had God revealed the Gospel to Jacob? At the end of his life, while he was blessing the sons of Joseph, Jacob identified God as the “Angel” with whom he had wrestled so many years before:

• And he [Jacob] blessed Joseph and said, “The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day, the Angel who has redeemed me from all evil, bless the boys; and in them let my name be carried on, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.” (Genesis 48:15-16)
  

So, after Jacob had invoked “God” twice and "the Angel" a third time, he implored them—in the singular—to bless his family. Therefore, it is clear that Jacob understood that the Angel of the LORD was also God.

Here is yet another observation that confirms the identity of "the Angel of the LORD" as God: Jacob claimed that it was this Angel who had “redeemed me from all evil.” However, we know that it is God who is clearly identified as the Redeemer (2 Samuel 4:9; Psalm 34:22; 121:7; Isaiah 44:22-23; 49:7). Therefore, “the Angel of the Lord” and God and the Redeemer are all referring to the same divine Person, the second Person of the Trinity, and Jacob somehow understood that this divine Being had “redeemed” him from all of his evil. How? This Angel had allowed Himself to be physically abused while wrestling with Jacob, who ironically had been blessed in the midst of his sin (Hosea 12:2-4). Odd, right? Evidently, from this revealing encounter, Jacob understood that he had been redeemed. He had done evil but received the Good News of redemption and a foretaste of its blessings.

Yes – Jacob had been left crippled by this engagement, but his infirmity became his strength in the Lord (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). After this, we begin to observe that the life of this conniver was being changed.

Much later, the prophet Isaiah wrote that the “Angel of His Presence” had saved and redeemed Israel:

• In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the Angel of His Presence saved them; in His love and in His pity He redeemed them; and He bore them and carried them all the days of old. (Isaiah 63:9)

Thus, it is plain to see that Isaiah also equated this Angel with God.

Let us not overlook one of the most famous theophanies, when the Angel appeared to Moses in the midst of a burning bush in the middle of the desert:

• And the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.” When the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” (Exodus 3:2-4)

We should notice in these verses that this Angel is called both “LORD" and “God.” All of these appearances provide us with incontrovertible evidence that God—or Yahweh—is not the single Person that the rabbis claim of God. As we have seen, the Son—manifested especially as “the Angel of the LORD”— appeared on a number of occasions. Furthermore, all of these references should put to rest the rabbinic claim that God does not take on human form. Instead, these appearances of a Messianic figure provide us with powerful evidence for the Trinity.

v v v

The Angel of the LORD appears in many other places throughout the Pentateuch. He was the One who brought Israel out of Egypt:

• When we cried out to the Lord, He heard our voice and sent the Angel and brought us up out of Egypt… (Numbers 20:16a)

However, there are other verses that claim that it was the LORD who brought Israel out of Egypt:

• And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. (Exodus 13:21; see also Deuteronomy 31:2-3)

There are, in addition, other verses that mention “the Angel of God

How do we resolve this apparent contradiction? From Numbers 20:16, it is clear that the Angel Himself is God, and yet He seems to be presented in a very distinct way, and as a very distinct Person. For, if we examine the verse again, we can see that the Lord “…heard our voice and sent the Angel…”

In the following verses, we can see once again that God differentiated Himself from His Angel:

• "Behold, I send an Angel before you to keep you in the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared. Beware of Him and obey His voice; do not provoke Him, for He will not pardon your transgressions; for My name is in Him.” (Exodus 23:20-21)

When the Word declares that God’s “name is in Him,” this is the same as saying that “My essence, or nature, is in Him.” This is more proof that God and the Angel are one—and yet they are distinct. In yet another verse, God the Father makes a sharp differentiation between Himself and the Divine Angel:

• “And I will send My Angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanite and the Amorite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; for I will not go up in your midst, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people." (Exodus 33:2-3)

From this verse, we can see that God the Father could not be in the presence of Israel. Furthermore, Scripture proclaims that the Father can never be seen because He dwells in unapproachable light:

• God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen. (I Timothy 6:15b-16)

In addition, we have these words from the Old Testament: 

• But He said [to Moses], "You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live.” (Exodus 33:20)

That is why God the Father sent His Angel to accompany Israel out of Egypt. Nevertheless, as it turned out, God was seen:

• So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. (Exodus 33:11a)

How is it that God was seen and yet cannot be seen? This dilemma is resolved when we recognize that it must have been God the Son Who was seen, and not God the Father.

Let's take a look at another passage that demonstrates this truth. God had reprimanded Moses’ sister and brother, who were attempting to usurp some of Moses’ authority:

• And he said, “Hear my words: If there is a prophet among you, I the LORD make myself known to him in a vision; I speak with him in a dream. Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house. With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?” (Numbers 12:6-8)

Again, this sounds like a contradiction. Either God cannot be seen...or Moses had actually seen Him. There is an explanation that makes perfect sense: Moses had actually seen God in the person of the Angel of the LORD, the second Person of the Trinity. In an awe-inspiring Christophany on Mt. Sinai, Moses had seen a pre-incarnate manifestation of Jesus Christ.

To back up this claim, there are other proofs. Stephen, before his martyrdom, also described the giving of the Law on Mt. Sinai as an encounter with the living Christ:

• "This is the one [Moses] who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel [of the LORD, or Christ] who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our fathers…" (Acts 7:38a)

The Apostle Paul, writing about the same scene, claimed that Moses had encountered an “intermediary”:

• Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. (Galatians 3:19; see also Hebrews 2:2)

This “intermediary” was the second Person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ.

What about the appearance of God in the Temple, portrayed to us in Isaiah 6?

• In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. (Isaiah 6:1-2)

Did Isaiah actually see God the Father? Not according to the Apostle John. He identifies the One Whom Isaiah saw as Jesus. In addition to the quotation from Isaiah 6, John quoted several other passages from Isaiah and then made this categorical statement:

• Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus’ glory and spoke about him. (John 12:41)

Without an adequate understanding of the multiple Persons of the Godhead, there is no way to resolve some of these Scriptural paradoxes. And yet, when these and similar verses are properly understood, they provide us with wonderful glimpses of the Trinity in the Torah.

v v v

God gave Israel many previews, or foreshadowings, of the Cross. He was always preaching the Gospel. Shortly after celebrating God’s goodness in bringing them to safety through the sea, the Israelites rebelled against the Lord. They were so thirsty that they wanted to kill Moses for bringing them out of Egypt. He cried out to the Lord.

• And the Lord said unto Moses, Go on before the people, and take with thee of the elders of Israel; and thy rod, wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thine hand, and go. Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. (Exodus 17:5-6, KJV)

Israel wanted to indict God, and He was surprisingly ready to submit to their charges. Moses was instructed to take his staff of judgment and, followed by the elders, walk through the midst of the people. The Israelites would have unmistakably perceived that Moses’ actions were a sign that there was about to be a trial and an execution. God would stand on the rock before them as a defendant, and Moses would symbolically strike Him down with his staff. However, instead of Israel being punished for their rebellion against God, God would suffer the very execution, which Israel deserved, while they would be blessed exceedingly from the most unlikely place. From a rock, life-giving waters would flow.

From the most unlikely place, this world would later be blessed. In the midst of the worst rebellion imaginable, Israel and the Gentiles would strike down the Savior of the world on a cross. However, instead of punishment for this most heinous of crimes falling upon the guilty, judgment would fall upon the innocent One. Those who were deserving of the ultimate chastisement would be blessed.

Are we wrongly reading this interpretation into the Torah? Is it really there. According to Paul, it is:

·       …and all [Israel] ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. (1 Corinthians 10:3-4)

v v v

Here is another Gospel message from the pages of the Old Testament. In this account, the Israelites had once again rebelled against the Lord. As a result, they were dying from poisonous snake bites.

• The LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live. (Numbers 21:8-9)

Fifteen hundred years later, Jesus explained the symbolism:

• “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” (John 3:14-15)

Israel received physical healing by looking at an evil serpent that had been lifted up on a pole. We experience spiritual healing by looking to our Lord, who had been lifted up on the tree. Jesus had willingly taken evil upon Himself, becoming sin for us…so that we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).

v v v

God sometimes uses the unlikeliest people to spread His Good News. For example, the Lord revealed King Jesus even to a false prophet, Balaam. God had given him a series of astounding prophecies. According to Numbers 24:5, Balaam was enabled to see the loveliness of Israel’s tents—though they were worn out. Even more impressive, Balaam was shown an Israel without any iniquity:

• “No misfortune is seen in Jacob,

no misery observed in Israel.

The LORD their God is with them;

the shout of the King is among them.”

           (Numbers 23:21)

How could this be? The King was in their midst, His Presence made all the difference!

After this, God again revealed to Balaam this mysterious King in the midst of Israel. Paradoxically, Balaam prophesied:

• “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near: a star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel.” (Numbers 24:17; see also Genesis 49:10)

Israel’s King was there, but He wasn’t. He was present, but not in His fullness.

Much later—unwittingly—the Roman magistrate Pilate…

• …wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” (John 19:19)

However, this title troubled the chief priests:

• So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but rather, ‘This man said, I am King of the Jews.’” Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.” (John 19:21-22)

It would stand. Interestingly, Jesus never called Himself “King of the Jews.” Instead, Pilate had seemingly been divinely led to write this. One evil man—Balaam—had prophesied the coming King. Another evil man—Pilate—highlighted the partial fulfillment of this prophecy. And the rabbis could do nothing to change what had been destined.

v v v

Usually, when we think of Christ in the Pentateuch, we think of this prophecy of Moses:

• “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… ‘I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.’” (Deuteronomy 18:15, 18-19; see also Exodus 23:20-23)

However, we must not overlook one last portrait of our Savior. Before the Israelites went in to the Promised Land, God gave Moses a song so that he could teach them about their future. Here are the last few lines:

• Rejoice, O nations, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants; he will take vengeance on his enemies and make atonement for his land and people. (Deuteronomy 32:43, emphasis added)

How strange—God Himself would make atonement! What about the Levites, the priests? Why did He not appoint them to make atonement through the sacrificial system? The answer is profound: only God could provide a truly adequate atonement. Only God could make a satisfactory payment for the sins of the world, a payment that the blood of animals would never be able to provide.

Jesus has mysteriously revealed Himself throughout the Pentateuch, all the books of Moses, the books of the Israelite nation, preaching His Good News to all who have the eyes to see and the ears to hear.

Without Jesus as the key, the Torah remains a shrouded mystery far removed from the understanding of the rabbis. Stumbling over Christ, they have had to resort to sensational means to make sense out of the Torah. Therefore, they often claim that the Torah cannot be literally understood.  Consequently, they have invented other means to “understand” their Scriptures in a way that conforms to their traditions and have resorted to numerology, assigning numbers to each Hebrew letter. They then tally these numbers to derive meanings never intended by its Author. Meanwhile, Moses instructed the Israelites that they didn’t have to resort to extraordinary measures to understand and apply Scripture:

·       “For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it. (Deuteronomy 30:11-14)

While Scripture is deep and rich, it is also plain, accessible to the unlearned. I hope that I have been able to make the reality of Christ in the Torah accessible for you. I also hope that I have been able to demonstrate the unity of the Bible. I have found that when we are enabled to see this unity and singleness of God’s plan that I have been greatly encouraged in my faith. My prayer is that you have been.