The OT is Required to Understand the NT

The OT is Required to Understand the NT

Too many Christians neglect the reading of the Old Testament. The OT has a purpose just the same as the NT. In fact, Paul admonished us to read the OT by saying:

Romans 15:4 KJV
For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.

I want to have hope, and I also want to understand what Jesus says and does in the NT. In Matthew 22:41-46, Jesus quotes the OT to stump the Pharisees:

While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, Saying, What think ye of Christ? whose son is he? They say unto him, The Son of David. He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool? If David then call him Lord, how is he his son? And no man was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions.

While the Pharisees were stumped, we don’t have to be. The quote Jesus gives in that passage comes from Psalm 110:1:

The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.

The answer to Jesus’s question is evident when the entirety of scripture has been read. First, Jesus is the biological “son of David” through Mary as a part of the incarnation. Jesus, who is fully God, took on humanity to become fully God and fully man. His earthly mother, Mary, was a descendent of David, so he was as well. However, Jesus also preceded David (as Jesus is God). Jesus was there at creation:

Genesis 1:26 KJV
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Notice “us” in the verse. God is 3-in-1. Fully in unity, but 3 persons. Not to take too long of a bunny trail….but my favorite example to understand the trinity is water. Water can be ice, it can be liquid, and it can be steam. It’s all H2O, but the way we see and experience it changes based on the environment.

Back to the main point, Jesus did the creating, he was not created. David called Jesus Lord because Jesus is greater than he was. David was a mere mortal, Jesus was and is Emanuel, God with us!