John 5:39-40
39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.

Jesus is greater than the angels, because He is the divine King (Heb. 1:4, 6, 8).

Jesus is greater than Moses, because while Moses was a servant of God, Jesus is the Son of God (Heb. 3:3–4).

Jesus is greater than Joshua, because Jesus brings a greater rest to the people of God (Heb. 4:8–9).

Jesus is a greater priest than Aaron, because He is sinless and immortal (Heb. 7:26–28).

The entirety of the Old Testament is about Christ — not only in its prophecies, but also in its history, its promises, its people, its law, its ceremony, its song.

Even though the Bible is made up of various kinds of literature and took almost two millenniums to be written by forty human authors, it is really telling one story about what God is doing in the world through Christ.

3 ways we will look at the Old Testament and see the richness of Christ.

Christ is present in the Old Testament in the form of types or shadows.

The word “type” comes from the Greek word tupos which can mean literally an impress or imprint.

John 20:25
So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.”

Christ is present in the Old Testament through prophecy which time and again proclaims the coming of the Messiah, our Savior.

Christ is present in the Old Testament through promise.

2 Corinthians 1:20
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.

Isaiah 41:10
So do not fear, for I am with you;do not be dismayed, for I am your God.I will strengthen you and help you;I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Deuteronomy 31:8
The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”

Psalms 27:1
The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear?The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid?

Psalms 86:5
You, Lord, are forgiving and good,abounding in love to all who call to you.

Hebrews 11:7
By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith.

The story of Noah’s life involves not one, but two great and tragic floods. The first, was in Noah’s day the world was flooded with evil.

Genesis 6:5
The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.

Genesis 6:11-12
11 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.

Genesis 6:8-9
8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. 9 This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.

Genesis 6:22
Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

The construction of the ark took around 75 years to build.

1 Peter 3:20
to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water,

Noah had a boat, we have the body of Christ.

Just as the ark was planned by God, so is salvation in Christ planned by God (Gen. 6:14-15).

Just as Noah and his family must come into the ark for their safety, so must we come to Christ for our salvation (Gen. 6:18).

Genesis 9:20-25

Salvation in Christ is far greater than any sin or shame we have in our life.

Judges 13:24-25
24 The woman gave birth to a boy and named him Samson. He grew and the Lord blessed him, 25 and the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him while he was in Mahaneh Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.

3 weaknesses we will see in Samson life:
1) Lust: I want it.
2) Entitlement: I deserve it.
3) Pride: I can handle it.

Judges 15:9-11
9 The Philistines went up and camped in Judah, spreading out near Lehi. 10 The people of Judah asked, “Why have you come to fight us?” “We have come to take Samson prisoner,” they answered, “to do to him as he did to us.” 11 Then three thousand men from Judah went down to the cave in the rock of Etam and said to Samson, “Don’t you realize that the Philistines are rulers over us? What have you done to us?” He answered, “I merely did to them what they did to me.”

We see the nation of Israel has become comfortable with the chains of their sin.

Let us not be a people that claim the name of Christ, when all the while never confronting the chains of our sin and somehow thinking Christ will coexist with darkness. May we be a covenant people marked by repentance and obedience to Christ.

Judges 15:17-19
17 As soon as he had finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone out of his hand. And that place was called Ramath-lehi. 18 And he was very thirsty, and he called upon the Lord and said, “You have granted this great salvation by the hand of your servant, and shall I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” 19 And God split open the hollow place that is at Lehi, and water came out from it. And when he drank, his spirit returned, and he revived. Therefore the name of it was called En-hakkore; it is at Lehi to this day.

We see in Samson a man that put his faith in the gifting’s of God instead of God himself.

Judges 16:20-21

Judges 16:28-30

Hebrews 11:32-34

1 Samuel 8:4-9

1 Samuel 8:19-22

Isaiah 11:1-5

We even see in the prophecies of the coming Christ the humility that he modeled.

With all of David’s great victories, and there were many, we also see the depth of his failures and far reaching effect of his sin.

Acts 13:22

We see in David a man after God’s own heart, in Christ we see the full heart of God.

1 Chronicles 28:2-3

1 Chronicles 6:19-20

Job 1:6-12 NIV
6 One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. 7 The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.” 8 Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.” 9 “Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. 10 “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. 11 But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.” 12 The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.”Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.

It’s important to note that God didn’t create the plan for testing Job, but God allowed it.

Job 1:22 NIV
In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.

Job 2:11-13 NIV
11 When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. 12 When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. 13 Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.

“Where is my sin in this situation?”

“What can I take ownership to repent of and change in my life?”

Job’s friends’ devastating error was that they applied a generalization to Job’s situation without really knowing the truth.

John 15:15 ESV
No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.

You were made for friendship with God.

Jesus is our exalted king and he is our truest friend.

Consider how Christ is the greatest friend to great sinners. He draws near in our suffering, and he remains committed even in our stumbling. He lets us all the way in, and loves us to the very end. He doesn’t just justify us and then nudge us aside; he welcomes us into his deepest heart.

Jonathan Edwards wrote, “Whatsoever there is, or can be, that is desirable to be in a friend, is in Christ, and that to the highest degree that can be desired.”

This partnership in the Old Testament is called a covenant.

The Noahic covenant is God’s pledge that He will preserve the stability of nature, a stability that will allow His people to flourish and that will provide an arena for Him to enter history and bring salvation (John 1:14). The Noahic covenant laid out in Genesis 8:20–9:17 is a covenant made with all of humanity, and it marks a new beginning for the world after the flood.

Abrahamic Covenant it comes in the form of a promise to Abraham. God takes the initiative with him, calls him into a relationship with Himself. He promises that Abraham is going to be a great nation, that he is going to be given a land, a place to live, and that through Him, all of the other nations will be blessed.

The Mosaic Covenant was a conditional covenant made between God and the nation of Israel at Mount Sinai seen in the chapters of Exodus 19-24. It is also called the Sinai Covenant but is more often referenced as the Mosaic Covenant because Moses was God’s chosen leader of Israel at that time.

Davidic Covenant was a covenant made between God and David through which God promises David and Israel that the Messiah (Jesus Christ) would come from the lineage of David and the tribe of Judah and would establish a kingdom that would endure forever.

So we see in the Old Covenant God’s faithfulness; fulfilling his end of the partnership. While we were becoming more prideful, full of sin and rebellion, until ultimately we self-destruct.

While the Old Covenant provided guidelines of how to be holy, it could not give us spiritual maturity that allows us growth into Holiness.

Jeremiah 31:33 NIV
“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israelafter that time,” declares the Lord.“I will put my law in their mindsand write it on their hearts.I will be their God,and they will be my people.

Ezekiel 36:26-27 NIV
26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

John 1:17 NIV
For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

This New Covenant God makes with Himself.

John 1:1-5 NIV
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

John 1:14 NIV
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth

Jesus is from the family of Abraham to bring us the full blessing of God to the entire world. To adopt us into this family.

Jesus was a faithful Israelite who fully obeyed and kept all the Law of Moses in its entirety.

Jesus is the true king from the line of David who extends God’s kingdom of justice and peace.