Introduction
Christopher J.H. Wright is the international director of the Langham Partnership; who also serves at All Souls Church in London, England. In his book, Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament, Wright seeks to show that Jesus’ identity can be defined by the readings in the Old Testament, and that it was in the Old Testament that Jesus developed his values as well as developed an understanding of His mission. Wright also sets out to show how that we can better understand Jesus by understanding the Old Testament because that is what Wright believes influenced and defined Jesus.
Summary
Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament is separated into five sections involving Jesus as He relates to the Old Testament story, promise, identity, mission and values. In each of these sections Wrights displays how that we can better understand Jesus by understanding what Wright believes aided Jesus in understanding who He was.
Wright uses the genealogy of Matthew as a springboard to show the history of the Jewish people. Israel’s history is shaped in order as Wright states; “.the Old Testament which shows us the nature and extent of sin and evil.” It is those stories in the old that shed light on the redemption found in the New Testament. The genealogy also shows that Jesus was not a starter of a new religion, but rather a perfecter and finisher. Wright uses the information found in the genealogy to show that if you toss out the Old Testament you also lose part of understanding Jesus.
Wright shows that you can view the promise that Jesus fulfilled, in the Old Testament. By utilizing the infancy narratives, Wright seeks to show that Matthew desired to introduce aspects of the promise from the Old Testament: while rejecting the idea that Matthew views Jesus was just the fulfillment of a bunch found in the Old Testament but rather Wright states, “Matthew sees the whole Old Testament as the embodiment of the promise.” In view of the Old Testament promise Wright displays that the Old Testament and New Testament plan of salvation is based on grace. Also it is shown that the promise of the New Covenant echoes parts of the four covenant promises found in the Old Testament.
Furthermore in Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament, Wright examines what the identity of Jesus was and focuses on the statements made by God the Father at his baptism. He breaks down what God said and shows its relation to Old Testament scriptures. Write also emphasizes that in order to know Jesus’ identity in the Old Testament you must look at more than just his titles, but rather you need to look at the many themes that run through Old Testament. One of the main themes Wright illustrates is how the sonship of Israel relates to the sonship of Jesus.
Looking at Jesus’ mission, Wright explains how Jesus’ mission did not meet the expectations that the Israelites were looking for in their Savior. And that the term was so loaded with those expectations that Jesus did not refer to the term as himself, because of those expectations. He shows how the Messiah is discussed in the Old Testament in Daniel 9:25-26 and that in these verses the idea of fulfillment is very strong, the idea that Jesus is going to put an end to transgressions. He states that he believes prior to these verses there isn’t a verse that explicitly states a promised messiah. In focusing on Jesus’ mission it is discussed how He is ushering a new era, by both being the Son of Man and the Suffering Servant.
The rest of the book discusses Jesus’ value system and how it was built on the Old Testament Law and that instead of demolishing it, Jesus fulfilled it. Wright also discusses how Jesus’ whole value system was based on holiness and what holiness means and the importance of human rights.
Critique
In Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament, Wright seeks out to show how to really know Jesus you must look at the Old Testament to truly see where He developed his identity , mission and values. The writer’s goal is to show how Jesus developed into the person He became by looking at the Old Testament and showing the tidbits of his Old Testament Jewish History. He further seeks to show how if you “jettison the Old Testament, we lose most of the meaning of Jesus himself.”
Wright presents a viewpoint that appears to show that he believes Jesus lost many of His attributes of deity when He became man. Wright also demonstrates from his writing that He believes Jesus didn’t fully realize His mission without the Hebrew Scriptures. Wright states:
It was the Old Testament which helped Jesus understand Jesus. Who did he think he was? What did he think he was to do? The answers came from his Bible, the Hebrew scriptures in which he found a rich tapestry of figures, historical persons, prophetic pictures and symbols of worship. And in this tapestry, where others saw only a fragmented collection of various figures and hopes, Jesus his own face. His Hebrew Bible provided the shape for his own identity.
Furthermore, Wright also puts a major emphasis on Jesus’ baptism and that He did not fully understand His mission until after God the Father identified Jesus at His baptism. Wright also mentioned on occasion that it was Jesus’ self conscience confidence that He was the son of God, based on His Father’s identification of Him. Showing that Wright believes that Jesus lacked the knowledge that He was God’s son until He learned of it in the Hebrew scriptures and events in His life. Thus, Wright removes Jesus attributes of deity.
Wright also writes from the perspective that the promises God promised Israel may not happen, and that the prophecies did not have a literal meaning. He states, “to insist on literal fulfillment of prophecies can be to overlook their actual nature within the category of promise, with the potential of different and progressively superior levels of fulfillment.” He appears to come from the standpoint that the Bible doesn’t differentiate from the Israel and the Church and that when Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament, by promise rather than literal fulfillment that all the Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled and denies future fulfillment in the last days.
In seeking to prove the importance of showing how you can identify, know and understand Jesus through the Old Testament, Wright overstresses and stretches aspects of the Old Testament and Jesus’ story, while at the same time neglecting and downplaying other parts of the Old Testament. In seeking to prove the Importance of Jesus’ Baptism in helping Jesus to identify His mission and His identity, he takes God the Father’s words and dissects them, trying to show how they were taken from pieces of the Hebrew Scriptures to show how Jesus identified with his mission. He stretched it too far, and thus I feel did not prove his point.
Overall, though I feel he proves the point, that to truly know Jesus and what his mission, values and identity were, the Hebrew scriptures prove to be a valuable tool. Even though I would not take it as far as Wright took it, that the Old Testament was how Jesus knew who he was, I feel he does show how the Old Testament is very important and thus should not be discarded, because it helps us to know who Jesus was. He showed this by his in depth look at the Old Testament Scriptures showing what Jesus would have learned, read and taught. So even though I disagree with Wrights premise throughout the book, he did show how valuable the Old Testament can be, when it comes to knowing Jesus.
In Horton’s review of Wrights book, he brings out the issue that Wright believes that he takes this belief too far, in that not saying that the promises are figurative and should not be taken literally. This issue is a very relevant issue to bring up, because so much theology hinges on the prophecies and their literal fulfillment, especially regarding the end times, because it is through this and his other writings throughout this book that is from an amillennial standpoint as well as it appears he believes in a replacement theory, all stemming from the Old Testament prophecies, which he states should be taken as promises instead expecting them to be literally fulfilled.
Another important work that has been written on this subject is Walter Kaiser’s Messiah in the Old Testament. In this book Kaiser takes a more literal look at the Messianic prophecies and views them more of a literal fulfillment. Kaiser focuses more on the aspect of looking at the Old Testament prophecies and showing how they show Jesus was the Messiah, while Wright seeks to show how the Old Testament framed who Jesus was, and does not put as much stock in the Messianic prophecies. A major difference between Wrights and Kaiser’s view of the Old Testament and Jesus can be found in their commentary on Genesis 3:15. Kaiser takes them time and goes into a word study, looking at the tenses and shows how the seed can be referring to Jesus. While Wright chooses to focus on the other side of it, that it wasn’t referring to Jesus and does not take the time to back his position.
I feel that Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament can be a useful tool for someone wishing to understand key thoughts on Jesus and how the Old Testament relates to Him. However, I feel like everything you need to separate the good from the bad, and gather what you can out of it, while not believing everything it says. A reader must be careful when he read this because Wright takes a liberal viewpoint on many foundational items, and a person not grounded should be cautioned against reading this book.
If a person, who is grounded in what they believe, and who can differentiate between what is good and bad theology, they can gather valuable insights on how to apply the Old Testament to Jesus, and culturally what the Old Testament meant to him.
Bibliography
Horton, Stanley M. 1997. “Knowing Jesus through the Old Testament.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 40, no. 2: 287. ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials, EBSCOhost (accessed February 14, 2010).
Kaiser, Dr. Walter C.. Messiah in the Old Testament, The. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1995.
Wright, Christopher J. H.. Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1992.
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