2nd Semester / Week 7
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The following are selections from:
“If you suggested to most evangelicals that Jesus is the second Adam (a fact explicitly stated in Scripture–Romans 5:12-21; 1 Corinthians 15:22; 45) you might find that some of them will acknowledge it–and may even appreciate the theological implications; but, if you suggested to the same group of Christians that He is true Israel you would probably get a mixture of facial responses–ranging from a furrowed brow to a blank stare. This is, however, one of the richest, most necessary and most spiritually comforting truths taught in Scripture. If it is taught in Scripture, why do so many never come to understand this important aspect of God’s Word? While several answers could be given, the principle one is a failure to understand the representative nature of Christ’s work, and the typological nature of covenantal people, places, events, objects, and even nations in the Old Testament.
When investigating Scripture’s teaching about Jesus as true Israel, the first Gospel is a good place to start. Matthew’s Gospel certainly appears to teach that Jesus, as true Israel, recapitulates Old Covenant Israel’s history and purpose. Jesus is “the son of Abraham,” thus making Him Israel. God’s Covenant promises given with respect to Abraham’s seed were really given to Christ. In the unfolding of redemptive history, the seed of Abraham, in typical form, was the nation of Israel–but, as the Apostle Paul says in Galatians 3:16, it was about Christ, the one true spiritual ‘Seed.’
It is interesting to note at this point that the name Israel is not first given to the nation–rather, it is first given to an individual, Jacob. Jacob was a type of Christ–being for a time the head of the Covenant, and as an individual with the name Israel he typifies the Redeemer who was going to be the true Israel. Here the individual precedes the corporate–a significant factor to consider with regard to this discussion. Matthew begins his Gospel with that fact.
At the beginning of the genealogy, Matthew mentions three major epochs in Israel’s history: fourteen generation from Abraham to David, fourteen generations from David to the Exile. The reference to the period from Abraham to David, and from David to the Exile, marks the totality of Israel’s history as they waited for the promise of the Father. The genealogy of Christ is more than a mere record of lineage. It introduces the idea of Christ being the fulfillment of the entirety of Israel’s promises, and prepares the reader for the idea of Christ as the one who recapitulates Israel’s history in order to fulfill those promises.
After He is born, Jesus goes down into Egypt, out of Egypt, through the waters (baptized), into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil (where He overcomes by using Scripture that God gave to Israel in the wilderness), up on the mountain, down from the mountain to feed the people with bread like God fed Israel with manna in the wilderness.
Jesus then recapitulates the Kingdom period, telling the religious leaders of Israel that He was “a greater than David,” “a greater than Solomon,” “a greater than the Temple” (which Solomon built), and had arrived as King (Mat. 12). Jesus explains that He and His disciples were the antitype [an antitype means moving from the type or shadow to its intended ultimate final fulfillment] of David and His mighty men, when He walked through the grain fields on the Sabbath–doing something similar to what David did when he took the showbread for his mighty men! The Kingdom typology runs, not chronologically, but thematically throughout the book. Beside the typology of David and the mighty men, Jesus was the antitypical fulfillment of Solomon’s coronation when He rode into Jerusalem on a Donkey. Solomon had also rode to the throne, unsuspectingly, on a mule. Jesus also said in Matthew 12 that He, with His wisdom, was “greater than” (and yet, in a very real sense, similar to) that of Solomon, who built the Temple.
In addition, Jesus recapitulates the prophetic era and ministry when He pronounces woes on the Pharisees (Matthew 23). Here he promised the destruction of the physical Temple that stood in Israel. As in Ezekiel’s vision of the glory of God departing from the Temple–moving out til it stood at the Mount of Olives–(Ezekiel 1-11), so Jesus (the real glory of God) left the Temple for the last time and went to stand on the Mount of Olives, opposite the Temple.
Finally, He was exiled at the cross, and brought about the restoration (promised by the prophets) of the true Israel in His resurrection.
So what are we to make of all this, if indeed it is what was intended by the Holy Spirit?
The Apostle Paul explained, in 2 Corinthians 1:20, that “all the promises of God in Him (i.e. in Christ) are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.” Jesus, as the true Israel, received the promises of God that were passed down from the fathers (i.e. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob). He said ‘Yes’ to His heavenly Father with regard to all the stipulations and promises of the Covenant. This means He said ‘Yes’ to the demand for perfect obedience; and He said ‘Yes’ to the curses that were threatened for our disobedience. He did this as true Israel, and representative of His people. Just as He was the second Adam, obeying in every place where the first Adam failed to obey, He was as true Israel–obeying where Old Covenant Israel failed to obey. This is most clearly seen in His temptation in the wilderness. He was recapitulating Israel’s temptation in the wilderness.
National Israel failed to battle the temptations of the devil and the flesh by failing to use the word that God gave them in the wilderness. Jesus, in His temptation by the devil, battled back victoriously by appealing to and obeying the word of God that was given to Israel in the wilderness (all three verses came out of Deuteronomy: 8:3; 6:16; 6:13). If it had been possible for Israel to have obeyed when tested, the promise of blessing would have been procured. Israel would have overcome with the weapons God supplied. The true Israel must overcome by the Word of God. It is by faith in Him that the blessings procured now become ours. Fortunately, God does not deal with us in the same way as He dealt with Jesus. The Lord was driven into the wilderness to be tested, and, subsequently, rewarded on the merits of His obedience.
‘He was tempted in all points even as we are, yet without sin,’ that we now have an Advocate in heaven who gives us ‘grace and mercy in time of need.’ He had no help when He was alone in the wilderness. Unlike Him, we are not taken out there to face the devil on our own. We have a victorious Savior–a representative figure–who has come ‘conquering and to conquer.” May God grant us grace to see that we are “complete in Him” and may we know that peace and mercy that now rests upon us, the new Israel, in Him.”
(Information from Nick Batzig, who served as the founding pastor of New Covenant Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Richmond Hill, GA. He is the editor of Reformation21 and the Christward Collective–sites of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. He writes for Tabletalk Magazine, Reformation 21, He Reads Truth, and the Christward Collective and the host of East of Eden, a podcast devoted to the Biblical and Systematic Theology of Jonathan Edwards).
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