Every Story Whispers His Name

Back on May 22nd, I preached from Hebrews 10:1-18. In the passage, the writer quoted from Psalm 40 to describe the offering of Christ which has done away with the need for the animal sacrifices under the Old Covenant. Here are the verses from Hebrews 10 (verses 5-10):

"Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said (here comes the citation from Psalm 40),

“Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’ ”

When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all."

In the sermon I preached on this text, I spent no time analyzing this Old Testament reference, but I said I would revisit it in a blog post for those who might be interested. So here goes!

This is not an easy matter to distill into a brief blog post, and touches on a theme as immense as how the New Testament writers understood and applied the Old Testament Scriptures. I found a helpful treatment of some of the key issues in Tom Schreiner’s commentary on Hebrews. What follows is a summary of his explanation on these verses.

Psalm 40 is a lament Psalm where David asks the Lord to rescue him from his enemies. In the first part of the Psalm, David remembers past instances of God’s deliverance when he was in desperate need. In the Psalm, it seems that verses 6-8 (the part quoted in Hebrews 10) provide a reason for God to deliver David. He has not merely offered sacrifices and offerings, but he has given himself entirely to God. He has pledged himself to do God’s will, and God in His righteousness will deliver and rescue the one who belongs to Him.

But how can the author of Hebrews relate this Psalm to Jesus when its historical context is not an evident prophecy of the Messiah? In the Psalm, David confesses his many sins; surely that part does not refer to Jesus, who was without sin. Nor is it evident in reading the Psalm that it teaches the setting aside of the sacrificial system of the Old Testament, which is the conclusion the writer of Hebrews draws from the text (v.9b). Here are a few points to consider.

First, the New Testament writers read the Psalms (and really, the entire Old Testament) in light of the fulfillment realized in Jesus Christ. They didn’t believe that the Psalms should be read only historically, but also Christologically and eschatologically (which means, in a Christ-centered way, and in view of the totality of God’s revelation from Genesis to Revelation). The Scriptures were written by human authors, but we also need to read them in view of the divine Author who has been weaving the whole story – from start to finish – to magnify the glory of His Son, Jesus.

In other words, the meaning of the Old Testament is now clarified in a way the Old Testament writers and readers could not have completely envisioned, now that Jesus has come. Jesus Himself said this in Luke 24 when He walked with the two disciples on the way to Emmaus. Luke tells us there that beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself (24:27). The message of the Old Testament points to and finds its fulfillment in Jesus. That has profound implications for the way we read the Old Testament.

Second, that said, in reading the Scriptures Christologically, we certainly do not wash away or ignore the original context of a passage. There is something to learn in Psalm 40 about David’s reverence for God and his commitment to serve and obey God with his whole life. We also learn in the Psalm that God had an intention for his people’s heart towards him that went beyond the performance of ritual duties (i.e., the offering of animal sacrifices) to a genuine, heartfelt commitment to do God’s will (cf. 1 Samuel 15:22, with reference to David's predecessor, Saul).

But, thirdly, if Jesus Himself understands that the Psalms bear witness to Him and are fulfilled in Him (Luke 24:44), then we can see that what the Psalms say about David also point to the greater David, the promised son of David who would sit on David’s throne forever (2 Samuel 7). What was said about David anticipates the coming of David’s greater Son, the Lord Jesus.

So when the writer of Hebrews – mindful of Jesus’ teaching on the Christ-centered nature of the Old Testament – peers into Psalm 40 and sees a king who acknowledges the limitations of animal sacrifices, and who announces that he has come not just to perform ritual sacrifices, but to wholeheartedly consecrate himself to do the will of God, he sees in that description a picture of Jesus. His understanding of God and of the Hebrew Scriptures has been so drastically impacted by the appearing of Jesus in the world, that the writer of Hebrews sees Christ pointed to, promised, foreshadowed, illustrated, all over the Bible. In the words of one children’s writer, he now sees that “every story whispers his (Jesus’) name.”

So while he knows that Psalm 40 has historical meaning and context in the life of David, he sees through this historical context to the coming of David’s greater Son, Jesus. He sees Jesus’ perfect submission to God’s will culminating in His willing sacrifice of Himself on the cross, the act of obedience that rendered all the animal sacrifices obsolete, since they had all pointed to Him in the first place. In his own time, David recognized that sacrifices and offerings were in some way insufficient; this is now grasped all the more clearly in light of Christ’s life, death and resurrection. And it now becomes another tool in the writer’s arsenal to exult in the superiority of Jesus and His priestly ministry.

How does this principle impact our own handling of the Old Testament? I’ll give a few illustrations of how this Christ-centered way of interpreting the Hebrew Scriptures influences my own devotional life and preaching in a post next week.