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Apostolic Lenses: Seeing Messiah in the Hebrew Bible · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reformed Thinking. This is our deep dive where we
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try to cut through some of the scholarly noise and give you
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clear, essential knowledge on topics that really shape how we
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understand the Bible. And today we're we're really
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wrestling with a big one. It's one of the most critical
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challenges in theology, I think. How do we make sense of the way
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the New Testament writers cite the Old Testament?
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Yeah, and that's a high stakes question.
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I mean, if you've spent any time reading the Gospels, you've seen
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those phrases, you know this happened to fulfill what was
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written by the prophet. Over and over again.
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And the question is, were they being fair?
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Were they reading their own agenda back into those ancient
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texts, or were their methods actually logical and consistent
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with what the text originally meant?
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That's the core of it. The scholar Walter C Kaiser
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Junior put it really well. He asked, have the New Testament
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writers fairly sighted the Old Testament according to its real
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truth, intention and the original writers meaning?
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And you can feel the weight of that.
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I mean, if the answer is no, if the apostles were just using
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Scripture arbitrarily, just grabbing phrases that sounded
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good, then it sort of throws a whole authoritative character of
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their interpretation into question.
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It does. It would mean we could trust
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their conclusions because they were inspired, but not their
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methods. But what we're going to assert
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is that their methods are not only logical, but they're
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they're discernible. We can see what they were doing
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and we can even reproduce it. So to demonstrate that, we're
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going to use a really powerful case study.
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Matthew, Chapter 2. Right, because this one chapter
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gives us four different citations of the Old Testament,
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and each one shows a distinct but still logical category of
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prophetic fulfillment. By looking at the logic for each
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of the four, we can build a solid defense for how the
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apostles read their Bibles. OK, so let's unpack that.
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Before we even jump into Matthew's 4 examples, we have to
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set the stage for the critique. What are scholars accusing
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Matthew of doing? What's this method he supposedly
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used? Well, the main accusation is
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that the Apostles were using what's known as the rabbinic
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midrashic method, and that gets boiled down to a specific
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process that GF Moore famously called atomistic exegesis.
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OK, that term atomistic exegesis, it sounds, you know,
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really academic. What?
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What are we actually talking about here?
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If you're reading something atomistically, what does that
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look like? Right.
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So imagine you've got a a legal document, a constitution maybe.
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Atomistic exegesis is when you treat that document not as a
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cohesive whole with a history and a context, but as a
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collection of tiny isolated fragments, like atoms.
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You might take a single clause or a phrase, or even just one
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word, and you strip it completely from its original
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setting. You treat it like a freestanding
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Oracle from God. So it's kind of like cutting up
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a long letter into individual words and then just rearranging
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them because they share a word, not because they share a
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meaning. That's a great way to put it.
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The connection is just based on a keyword, A verbal association,
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not the original historical or logical connection the author
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intended. So you know, if one prophet used
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the word stone and another used the word rock, and atomistic
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reading might just smash them together to create a new meaning
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about building, even if the first prophet was talking about
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a boundary marker and the second was talking about God's
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faithfulness. And the context is just gone.
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The context is ignored, and the big implication of this
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critique, which you see in scholars like Aaron Longnecker,
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is that if Matthew did this, then his methods were arbitrary.
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They'd say, OK, his conclusion that Jesus is the Messiah is
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true because of inspiration, but we have no business trying to
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copy his process. So it's a don't try this at home
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kind of interpretation. Exactly.
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And that creates this huge gap between US and the New Testament
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writers. But here's the kicker.
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This whole argument about atomism is historically weak.
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It's it's anachronistic. What do you mean by
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anachronistic here? It means they're applying a
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later standard to an earlier time.
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When you look at studies of Jewish exegesis before the year
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70, the proto rabbinic period, you get a very different picture
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from the later schools that developed after the temple was
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destroyed. And how were they different?
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The interpreters in Jesus Day, they were actually very
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concerned with context. They were looking for the Pisha,
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the plain simple sense of the text.
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They understood that scripture was history and prophecy aimed
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at real people in real time. They weren't just collecting
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loose atoms of text. Their goal was to contemporize
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the text to show its ongoing relevance, but always grounded
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in its original meaning. So the very charge of atomistic
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exegesis, which relies on a later, less rigorous standard,
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it just doesn't fit the historical period of the
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apostles. Matthew was actually following
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the legitimate rules of his day. That's the rebuttal.
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His procedures are logical, they're discernible, and they
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are legitimate. He wasn't being arbitrary.
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And now we can go to our test case, Matthew 2, and see these 4
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legitimate categories in action. OK, let's ground this.
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Matthew 2 is our paradigm, and it's really interesting that you
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pointed out there's a geographical thread that
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connects all four of Matthew's citations in this one chapter.
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Yes, the four citations are tied to four places, Bethlehem,
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Egypt, Rama, and Nazareth, and each one demonstrates a
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different logical way that Matthew argued for Christ's
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fulfillment of prophecy. Let's start with the one I think
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most people are familiar with. The most straightforward one
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category, one direct fulfillment.
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This is the classic Prophecy model.
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Yeah, this is what it sounds like.
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A prophet foretold a specific event, a person, a location, and
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that event happened literally just as it was stated.
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That is direct fulfillment. And the citation is Matthew 2,
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verses 5 and 6. It's about the Messiah's
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birthplace in Bethlehem, and it's quoting Micah 5.2.
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The story is that Herod is panicked by the Magi, so he asks
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the chief priests and scribes, where is the king of the Jews
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supposed to be born? And they don't even hesitate.
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They answer immediately in Bethlehem of Judea, and they
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cite Micah 5.2. This is huge because it confirms
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this prophecy was universally understood in the 1st century as
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a literal geographical prediction about the Messiah.
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Matthew isn't making up a new interpretation.
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He's confirming the consensus. But there's more going on here
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than just geography. The real insight is how Matthew
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confirms it. He's not just showing the
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fulfillment of a location, but the fulfillment of the Messiah's
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very nature. Right Micah 5.2 describes the
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rulers origin by putting 2 very different elements side by side.
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The first is the human and temporal one.
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He's going to come from the line of David, which makes Bethlehem
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the right geographical marker for his historical arrival.
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But then Micah immediately completely follows that with
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something staggering. The divine and eternal element.
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The verse continues, saying his origins are from antiquity,
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Quedum, from eternity, Olam. OK, so talk about those two
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Hebrew words, because that's where the real depth is.
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It is. If you saw those two words
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quedum and olam used separately, they could just mean from a long
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time ago. But Hebrew grammarians have
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noted that when these two specific terms are placed
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together side by side, like they are here, they always denote
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eternity past. Wait.
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Always. Always.
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So that means Matthew isn't just quoting Micah to prove Jesus was
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born in the right town, he's citing the text to show that the
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chief priests, when they quoted the prophecy, were accidentally
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confessing the Messiah's pre existence, his deity.
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That's it. Matthew isn't just interested in
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the GPS coordinates of Bethlehem, he's interested in
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the theological reality of the person born there.
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The prophet established a dual origin, a human origin in
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Bethlehem and a true divine origin that reaches back.
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We can do forever. So in this direct fulfillment,
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Matthew is completely faithful to the whole intention of the
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text. He's saying, look, Micah
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foretold location and nature, and both are realized in Jesus.
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There's no twisting here. It's just the direct realization
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of a very explicit prophecy. And that sets our baseline.
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If Matthew is this logical with direct fulfillment, we now have
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to see if he holds that same standard when he's dealing with
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passages that are, well, a little more complicated.
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Passages that seem to be about someone else.
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Which brings us right to category 2, typical fulfillment
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or typology. And this is the one that really
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causes a lot of friction for the critics, because here Matthew
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applies a passage about the nation of Israel to the
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individual Jesus. Right.
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The citation is Matthew 2.15 after Jesus's family comes back
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from Egypt. Matthew says this fulfilled the
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words out of Egypt. I called my son and he's setting
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Hosea 11.1. OK, now in its original context,
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Hosea 11.1 is very clear. It says when Israel was a child
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I loved him and out of Egypt I called my son.
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The parallelism is right there. Israel is my son.
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It's talking about the Exodus from Egypt.
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So the challenge is fair one how can Matthew take a text about
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the National History of Israel and apply it to Jesus without
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just ignoring what Hosea meant? If he's just swapping Jesus for
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Israel, then he is guilty of that very atomistic reading
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we're trying to refute. OK, so here's where we get into
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the real genius of the Apostolic method.
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Matthew's defense isn't arbitrary at all.
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It's resting on a valid type that was established way earlier
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in the tour itself. He's actually relying on a
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pattern that Moses laid out. Yes, the pattern is found in the
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Balaam Oracles in Numbers chapters 23 and 24.
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Matthew saw that the Pentateuch itself established this link,
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this correspondence between the experience of the nation and the
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experience of the future king. Hold on.
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I need to. I need to get this straight.
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How does the Torah actually do that?
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It's not like there's a footnote saying, by the way, Israel is a
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type. Of the Messiah?
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No, no, it's much more subtle and I'd say intentional than a
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footnote. It relies on a literary
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strategy, the deliberate juxtaposition, the placing side
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by side of two specific oracles from Balaam.
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All right, let's break down the textual evidence from numbers.
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Tell us about the first article in this pair.
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OK, so look at the second Oracle and Numbers 23 verses 22 to 24.
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The focus here is clearly on the nation of Israel.
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That's the type. The language is all about the
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nation. When it talks about the Exodus,
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it says God brings them out of Egypt.
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Notice the plural pronoun them. OK, so it's referring to the
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millions of people? Right.
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And the imagery used for this deliverance is all about
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strength. The nation has the power of a
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wild ox, and it's like a lion. It's celebrating the birth of
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this powerful nation. So the type is set, the nation
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Israel is brought out of Egypt strong as a lion.
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So how does the Torah then shift the focus to the anti type, the
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future king? Now we move to the third Oracle
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and numbers 24 versus 7 to 9. This Oracle is now clearly
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talking about a future king who will rise up from Israel.
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And here's the textual brilliance.
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The text deliberately repeats the exact phrase about the
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Exodus, but it makes one tiny critical change.
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Don't tell me. He uses the singular pronoun God
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brings him out of Egypt. Wow.
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OK, so that switch from plural to singular within the exact
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same phrase, That has to be intentional.
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It's compelling evidence of intentional design.
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And not only that, the third Oracle then immediately repeats
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the identical imagery. The king is also associated with
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the strength of a wild ox and the dominance of a lion.
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So by putting the text about the nation's exodus right next to a
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text about the future King's Exodus, using the same language
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but just changing the pronoun, the Torah itself is establishing
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a rule. A binding rule of typology.
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And the rule is, the king must repeat the historical experience
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of the nation. That is the legal precedent
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Matthew is relying on. He is not being at a Mystic with
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Hosea. He's recognizing a pattern that
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was set by Moses. If the Torah requires the
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Messiah to go through an exodus, then Matthew is just identifying
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the historical event Jesus flight to and returned from
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Egypt as the fulfillment of that required pattern.
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OK, but then why did Matthew pick Hosea 11.1 if the blueprint
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is right there in Numbers 24.8? Why not just quote Moses
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directly? That is a great question, and
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the answer shows how careful Matthew was.
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He chose Hosea because Hosea explicitly included the key
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relationship. Matthew wanted to highlight for
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his readers that the king is God's son.
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Numbers refers to him as the man or the king.
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But Hosea says out of Egypt, I called my son.
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So Matthew is picking the text that best communicates the full
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theological weight of the typology that was already set up
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in the benetuke. And the source material points
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out that Matthew is so careful about this father son
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relationship that he made his own accurate translation from
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the Hebrew. He actually rejected the common
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Greek Septuagint translation which had translated the phrases
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children Tecna, and he chose Son Huios instead.
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He wanted no confusion about the unique cenship of the Messiah.
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That shows an incredible level of scholarly care and textual
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faithfulness. He wasn't just grabbing a quote
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that sounded good, he was carrying out a deliberate
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argument based on a pre-existing type.
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And then he chose the most theologically precise text to
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make his point. That, to me, absolutely
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vindicates his method in this category.
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And now we can move to the third category, where we shift from
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these established patterns to the ongoing relevance of
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Scripture. And we're talking about
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applicational fulfillment. This method doesn't claim a
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direct prediction or a typological repeat, but it shows
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how an ancient principle from a text speaks directly to a new
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crisis. And the citation here is Matthew
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2, verses 16 to 18. Matthew quotes Jeremiah 31.15,
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the verse about Rachel weeping for her children, and he applies
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it to Herod's horrific slaughter of the baby boys in Bethlehem
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and the geographical marker here.
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Rama was very close to Bethlehem.
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So let's first get the original context for Jeremiah.
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Jeremiah was speaking during the time of the exile to Babylon.
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Rachel, the mother of the nation, was buried near Rama,
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which was the sad gathering point for the Jewish captives
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before they were marched away. So Rachel's symbolic weeping was
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for her physical children being taken into captivity.
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The critique here seems obvious. Herod's slaughter is a terrible
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event, but it's not the Babylonian exile.
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They're separated by centuries different circumstances, so why
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is Matthew connecting them? Well, if Matthew were claiming
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that Jeremiah predicted Herod's specific act, the critique would
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be valid. But that's not what he's doing.
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He's using the logic of applicational fulfillment.
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He isn't saying it's a prediction.
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He's pulling out a core principle from Jeremiah's text.
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And what's that principle? The principle is one of deep,
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inconsolable national grief, the sorrow of mothers over the
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violent, politically motivated loss of their children.
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Matthew is saying. The depth of the tragedy that
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was expressed by Rachel's weeping during the exile is now
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being perfectly mirrored in the tragedy caused by Herod in
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Bethlehem. So he's not saying Jeremiah
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predicted Herod. He's he's using Jeremiah's words
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as like the vocabulary for this new tragedy.
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That's it exactly. And again, this fits perfectly
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with the legitimate standards of that proto rabbinic exegesis we
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talked about. This kind of midrash was known
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for trying to contemporize the revelation of God.
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It was a logical way of saying the scripture isn't just dead
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history, it's a living word that has the language and the
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principles we need to make sense of our current suffering.
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I think the modern analogy you mentioned helps clarify this,
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the difference between prediction and application.
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Yes. Think about a believer today
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facing, say, severe persecution for their faith.
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They might quote a text from Daniel about courage in the face
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of a Pagan king. Right, but they're not saying
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that Daniel predicted their specific situation in the 21st
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century. They're saying the principle of
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faithfulness under pressure found in Daniel applies to them
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now, and it gives them the theological words to frame their
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experience. Matthew is doing the very same
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thing with the language of lament.
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He's taking the definitive biblical expression of national
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grief, Rachel weeping at Rama, and applying that principle to
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the new horror in Bethlehem. It keeps the authority of the
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text while making sure it is relevant to the real lives of
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the people. This shows the logic and the
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utility of this third category. And that sets us up for the
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final category, which might be the most subtle of all, Category
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4 summary fulfillment. This is where Matthew doesn't
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quote a single verse, but summarizes a broad theological
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theme found across many different prophetic texts.
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The citation is Matthew 2.23. Jesus's family settles in
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Nazareth and Matthew says this was so that what was spoken by
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the prophets might be fulfilled, that he would be called a
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Nazarene. The big clue here is that he
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doesn't say the prophets singular, he says the prophets
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plural. And that, plus the fact that the
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actual phrase he shall be called a Nazarene is nowhere in the Old
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Testament tells us Matthew is summarizing.
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It's a clear signal he's generalizing.
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The big question is, if it's not a direct quote, what what
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collective prophetic teaching is Matthew summarizing with the
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word Nazarene? And to figure that out, we have
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to understand what that name, that geographical label meant in
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the 1st century. And the cultural meaning is
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critical because it was not positive.
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Nazareth was a tiny, obscure, probably poor, and definitely
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looked down upon village. In Galilee.
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The term Nazarene was basically a synonym for being an outcast,
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an object of scorn. And we have direct biblical
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evidence for this attitude, right in the Gospel of John,
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when Nathaniel hears Jesus is from Nazareth, he says can
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anything good come out of Nazareth?
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It shows that just being associated with the place was a
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social liability. It was so.
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Matthew is using the geographical setting as a kind
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of shorthand. By linking Jesus to this
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despised town, Matthew was encapsulating that whole
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prophetic theme that the Messiah would not come in glory, but
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would be a figure of derision, scorn and rejection.
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I see. So the geographical name itself
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functions as the summary of the prophetic idea.
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Yes, the phrase he shall be called a Nazarene is Matthew's
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way of saying his life will embody the prophets collective
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teaching that the Messiah would be despised.
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And this theme runs all through the Hebrew Bible, this contrast
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between the promised glory and the reality of his humiliation.
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Now, if someone accused us of just making that up that
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Nazarene summarizes projection, we would need to show the
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specific text Matthew was likely drawing from.
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So what profits really build this theme of a scorned king?
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Well, he's definitely drawing from the suffering Servant songs
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in Isaiah. Isaiah flat out predicted the
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Messiah would be despised and abhorred by people.
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That's Isaiah 49.7, and even more famously, that he would be
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rejected by men in Isaiah 53.3. The whole of Isaiah 53 is a
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prediction of deep social rejection and humiliation.
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So Jesus growing up in a place that people look down on, is the
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literal living out of the status Isaiah predicted.
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Absolutely. And then you have the Psalms.
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They depict the Messiah as a figure of extreme, humiliating
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suffering. Psalms 22 and 69 are key.
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Psalm 22 talks about the Messiah being mocked, with people
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shaking their heads and saying he trusts in the Lord, let him
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rescue him. That's that psychological scorn
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that matches Nathaniel's question.
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And you see it in the Minor Prophets too.
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Yes, Zechariah gives another powerful picture of contempt.
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In Zechariah 11, the prophet describes Israel valuing their
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shepherd king at the absurdly low price of 30 pieces of
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silver, the price of a dead slave.
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This just shows the utter contempt the people have for
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their true king. So when you line up those
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passages, Isaiah's servant, the suffering, Psalms, Zechariah's
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low valuation, it becomes clear that the rejection of the
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Messiah is a widespread collective theme.
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Matthew is just using a common cultural shorthand to wrap up
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that whole theological idea. And This is why we can
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confidently set aside other explanations, like the idea that
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Matthew was making a word play in Greek on the Hebrew word
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netzer meaning branch. Why does that theory not work?
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It sounds plausible at first. It doesn't work for a couple of
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reasons. First, the word play is very
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weak, if it works at all in Greek, which is the language
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Matthew is writing in. Second, while Branch is a
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messianic title from Isaiah 11, the context of Isaiah 11 is all
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about glory and power, not ridicule.
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The meaning just contradicts the whole contempt filled context of
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Nazareth that Matthew is clearly highlighting.
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And the idea that it's a confusion with a Nazarite vow.
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That also fails because it confuses two different Hebrew
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roots. A Nazarite meaning a separated 1
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is a totally different word and Jesus clearly did not take the
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Nazarite vow. Matthew's point here is socio
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geographical, not about a religious ritual.
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So summary fulfillment is really a very sophisticated kind of
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interpretation. Matthew is taking the collective
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spirit of the law as defined by the prophet's consensus on the
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Messiah's humiliation, and he's grounding it in a real world,
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verifiable cultural fact, the scorn of being called a
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Nazarene. We've walked through all four
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categories now, direct, typical, applicational and summary
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fulfillment. And we started with the
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question, was Matthew Fair? Was he arbitrary?
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And the answer based on what we've seen just in Matthew 2, is
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a really strong defense of the Apostolic method.
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Matthew did not misuse the Old Testament.
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His interpretations were consistent, they were logical,
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and they were based on legitimate interpretive
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standards that were either set by the Prophets themselves or by
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the literary strategy of the Torah.
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And the result is that they did not use wrong text to preach
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right doctrine. The doctrine, the Messianic
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identity of Jesus, was truly found in the original meaning of
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the Hebrew Scriptures and so vital for us, their procedures
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are logical enough for us to follow.
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OK, let's bring this all home. I find that legal analogy you
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mentioned really helps to to frame these 4 methods.
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Let's walk through that one last time.
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Sure. So imagine the Hebrew Bible is
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the comprehensive legal code for God's covenant Kingdom.
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When Matthew quotes the Old Testament, he's like a legal
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advocate, and he's citing that code using different but all
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perfectly valid legal procedures.
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So first we had direct fulfillment.
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That was Bethlehem from Micah 5.2.
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In legal terms, this is like citing a specific statute that
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explicitly covers the current situation.
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The law says the king will be born here, and he was simple.
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Second typical fulfillment the call out of Egypt from Hosea
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11.1. This is like citing a legal
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precedent. Matthew cited the pattern
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established back in the Balaam oracles.
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That case established the rule what happened to the nation must
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be repeated by the King so that precedent gives him the legal
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standing to apply the Israel passage to Jesus. 3rd
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applicational fulfillment. That was Rama from Jeremiah
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31.15. This is like citing A
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foundational principle of justice that's found in an old
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ruling and applying its moral truth to a new, different
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scenario. Matthew takes the principle of
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national grief from the exile and applies its ongoing
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relevance to the new tragedy of Herod's massacre.
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And finally, summary fulfilment Nazareth attributed to the
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prophets. This is like summarizing the
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spirit of the law or the general legislative intent you find
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across dozens of rulings without citing one specific code.
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Matthew summarized the collective theme of messianic
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contempt found all through Isaiah, the Psalms, and
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Zechariah. And what really stands out when
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you lay them all out like that is that they're all simple,
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plain and logical. There's no secret decoder ring
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needed to figure out what Matthew was thinking.
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His approach really confirms the unified nature of Scripture.
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It shows that the entire Hebrew Bible was written with a
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messianic intention. Yes, the apostles read the
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Hebrew Bible as a single story that points to and ends in
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Christ. They weren't just hunting for
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isolated proof texts. They recognized that the whole
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thing, the history, the laws, the rituals, the prophecies, all
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of it, was pointing forward to Jesus.
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Their method respects that unity.
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So we've walked through the four methods, direct fulfillment at
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Bethlehem, typical fulfillment with the call out of Egypt,
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applicational fulfillment with the grief at Rama, and summary
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fulfillment with the label from Nazareth.
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But these 4 categories show that the apostles exegesis isn't some
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special mysterious arbitrary event that we can't reproduce.
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It's crowded in history and logic and principles that we too
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can use as we try to understand the scriptures.
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And that leads us to our final provocative thought for you to
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take away from this. We spent a good bit of time on
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how the Pentateuch set up such a precise and deliberate typology.
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Israel as the type of the king, just through the careful
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placement of texts and pronouns in the Balaam Oracle.
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The subtlety of that design is just, it's breathtaking.
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So if the Torah uses such careful, almost hidden methods
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to establish patterns that only become fully clear later in
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Matthew, here's the question. What other subtle typological
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parallels exist in the Torah that are still foreshadowing the
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work and person of Christ, just waiting for us to patiently see
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them? How much more of Christ is
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hidden in the textual architecture of the law than we
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currently realize? That is certainly a question
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worth years of careful reading and observation.
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Join us next time for another deep dive.