I prepared these notes for a study with a friend in 2011.

These notes are based on “Our Lord’s View of the Old Testament” by J. W. Wenham.

References to Old Testament Narratives:

  • …from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation. (Luke 11:51)
  • For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. (Matthew 24:37-39, see also Luke 17, 26, 27)
  • “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” (John 8:56)
  • Moses gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. (John 7:22, see also Luke 7:3)
  • Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town. (Matthew 10:15, see also Matthew 11:23, 24; Luke 10:12)
  • Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot–they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all– so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, let the one who is on the housetop, with his goods in the house, not come down to take them away, and likewise let the one who is in the field not turn back. Remember Lot’s wife. (Luke 17:28-32)
  • I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, (Matthew 8:11, see also Luke 13:28)
  • And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, (John 3:14)
  • He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? (Matthew 12:3-4, see also Mark 2:25, 26; Luke 6:3, 4; Matthew 22:43; Mark 12:36; Luke 20:42)
  • …yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. (Matthew 6:29, see also Matthew 12:42; Luke 11:31, 12:27)
  • But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land, and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. (Luke 4:25-26)
  • And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” (Luke 4:27)
  • But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. (Matthew 12:39-41, see also Luke 11:29-32)
  • …from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation. (Luke 11:51)
  • References to Moses as giver of the law: Matthew 8:4, see also Matthew 19:8; Mark 1:44,7:10, 10:5, 12:26; Luke 5:14, 20:37; John 5:46, 7:19)
  • References to the suffering of the prophets: Matthew 5:12, 13:57, 21. 34-36, 23:29-37; Mark 6:4, Luke 4:24; John 4:44, 12:2-5; Luke 6:23, 11:47-51, 13:34, 20:10-12
  • He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? (Matthew 19:4-5, see also Mark 10:6-8)

Some especially significant statements:

Note particularly that Jesus depends on the literal David authorship of Psalm 110:

But he said to them, “How can they say that the Christ is David’s son? For David himself says in the Book of Psalms, “‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’ David thus calls him Lord, so how is he his son?” (Luke 20:41-44)

Consider the future judgment offered by the “men of Nineveh” in Matthew 12.

The future Judge is speaking words of solemn warning to those who shall hereafter stand convicted at His bar. Intensely real He would make the scene in anticipation to them, as it was real, as if then present, to Himself. And yet we are to suppose Him to say that imaginary persons who at the imaginary preaching of an imaginary prophet repented in imagination, shall rise up in that day and condemn the actual impenitence of those His actual hearers (T. T. Perowne)

Jesus’s Teaching about the Old Testament

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus upholds the Old Testament law:

  • Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:19)

So far as the Pharisees teach the Old Testament, Jesus says they have authority over the people:

  • “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, so practice and observe whatever they tell you–but not what they do. For they preach, but do not practice.” (Matthew 23:2-3)

Likewise, to the Sadducees, Jesus refers to the Old Testament as “what was said to you by God”:

  • “And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” (Matthew 22:31-32, see also Mark 12:26; Luke 20:37)

As I study the Gospel narratives I become more and more convinced that the notion that our Lord was fully aware that the view of Holy Scripture current in His day was erroneous, and that He deliberately accommodated His teaching to the beliefs of His hearers, will not square with the facts. His use of the Old Testament seems altogether too insistent and positive and extreme (J. W. Wenham)

Wenham goes on to defend his case with a handful of references:

  • If he called them gods to whom the word of God came–and Scripture cannot be broken. (John 10:35)
  • For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. (Matthew 5:18)
  • But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to become void. (Luke 16:17)
  • And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men… You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition… thus making void the word of God….” (Mark 7:6-13)
  • But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.” (Matthew 22:29)
  • After the resurrection, Jesus demonstrates to his disciples how the Old Testament spoke of him:
  • And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. (Luke 24:27)

Fulfillment of Prophecy

Jesus refers to a multitude of events in the Gospels as a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies:

  • And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:21)
  • This is he of whom it is written, ‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.’ (Matthew 11:10)
  • And he said to them, “Elijah does come first to restore all things. And how is it written of the Son of Man that he should suffer many things and be treated with contempt? But I tell you that Elijah has come, and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written of him.” (Mark 9:12-13)
  • …for these are days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is written. (Luke 21:22)
  • The Son of Man goes as it is written of him… (Matthew 26:24)
  • Then Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away because of me this night. For it is written…” (Matthew 26:31)
  • You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me… (John 5:39)
  • But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without a cause.’ (John 15:25)
  • …Not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. (John 17:12)

Divine Inspiration of the Old Testament

It is most important to remember how our Lord acknowledged the real authorship of the human writers, yet it is also important to note carefully that His references to human authorship are quite secondary. Often He is content to speak simply of ‘scripture’, God being the implied author. (Wenham)

For example, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). See also Matthew 21:42, 26:54; John 5:39, 7:38. Similarly, Jesus uses the phrases “Have you not read?” and “It is written” to refer to Scripture being the words of God. See Matthew 11:10, 12:3, 19:4, 21:13, 21:16, 22:31, 26:24, 31; Mark 2:25, 9:12, 13, 11:17, 12:10, 26, 14:21, 27; Luke 6:3, 7:27, 19:46

Conclusion

“The evidence is clear: To Christ the Old Testament was true, authoritative, inspired. To Him the God of the Old Testament was the living God and the teaching of the Old Testament was the teaching of the living God. To Him, what Scripture said, God said” (Wenham).