We're gonna get started here. Hope everyone's doing well. It's good to be in the house of the Lord this morning. It's my first time doing this, so they said you don't have to worry about time as much, so might be done by 11 o'clock, so we'll see how it goes. But we're gonna be continuing on with our theme of biblical theology. And we're going to be talking about a subset of that, which is a very important subset, which is the New Testament use of the Old Testament. It's a really important and critical subject to study that affects the way we read our Old Testaments and our New Testaments, and the way we understand what is the message of the New Testament about. So it's a really important study for us to turn our attention to. But before we get into this, I want to ask the Lord for help for this time. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you so much for the blessing to be in your house this morning, to have your Word opened for us today, that we might hear what you have to say to us. Pray that you give us special help in this hour as we consider this very important subject of the New Testament use of the Old. Help us to hear these things and be enriched and edified. Help me as I speak and discuss these things that your word would be better understood and that it would be to the growing up of one mature man in this body. Pray in Christ's name, amen. There are various ways that our Bibles, some of our Bibles draw attention to certain things, particular texts over other texts. The most popular of these is called the Red Letter Bible. And maybe some of you all have a Red Letter Bible here today. Most of you are probably very familiar with this. This is a passage from John 4, 7 to 10. I was curious this week, as I was thinking about this, how did the Red Letter Bible come about? Whose idea was this? When did this get started? So I did a little bit of research and found a good article on Crossway that was discussing this. The very first Red Letter New Testament was published in 1899, and then the first Red Letter Bible followed two years later. It originated with a man named Lois Klopsch, who's the editor of the Christian Herald Magazine, And in the introduction of that Red Letter Bible that he published, he wrote his reasoning for why he did this, why he thought this was important to do. And if it's not obvious from the screen, if you don't know already, the Red Letter Bible is the words of Jesus Christ are in red, as opposed to all the general narration of the scriptures or words that are spoken by other writers. But he wrote his reasoning as to why he did this in his introduction. He writes, modern Christianity is striving zealously to draw nearer to the great founder of the faith. Setting aside mere human doctrines and theories regarding him, it presses close to the divine presence. to gather from his own lips the definition of his mission to the world and his own revelation of the Father. And he speaks elsewhere in the introduction as well about just the general desire to show that Christ is the central theme of the scriptures and to highlight this to everyday believers as they read their scriptures. But I think while he meant well, the Red Letter Bible must fall into this category of most well-meant but most destructive for the church. And what's the problem with it? It might seem fairly innocuous, I don't know what the word is, safe as you have it in your hands, but what's the problem with it? Well, it sort of gives an impression that there's a text within a text. There is some words that are important, but there are some words that are more important. And I don't think Klopps necessarily foresaw this when he did this, but there would actually one day be red-letter Christians. Maybe you have seen someone call themselves a red-letter Christian, where you can tell me all about theology all day, but if it doesn't come from the red letters, it doesn't matter. But what's wrong with this, though? Well, the reality is the author of the black letters is the same author as the words that are in red. And this is clear from Peter's epistles, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours, searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time, the spirit of Christ, them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. He says in a second epistle, for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. So here we see Peter attributes, among other apostles, the author of the scriptures Old and New Testament is the Holy Spirit or the Spirit of Jesus. We may as well put these in red, because they're exactly the same as those that were spoken from the mouth of Jesus Christ. They have the same authority, they have the same origin. We can also put Genesis 1 in red letters as well. All the scriptures, by this understanding of where they come from, do they come from the lips of God, should be red. But this sort of raises a question. So are there any portions of scripture which it's helpful to readers to give particular emphasis to? And maybe not so much that one part is more important than another, but for the sake of alerting the reader maybe to pay more careful attention. And I would say yes. I think a good candidate for this is when God quotes God. When God quotes God, it is something that we should pay extra special attention to. We have this happen all over scripture the Old Testament quotes the Old Testament you see that throughout the prophets are constantly quoting from the Decalogue and from the Pentateuch and earlier prophets and of course the New Testament also references the Old Testament And I think it's appropriate to emphasize these quotes when the Old Testament quotes the Old and the New Testament quotes the Old as well. I think it's very appropriate to emphasize those, not because they're any more important than the rest of the words of Scripture, but because they require a little bit more homework. They're not quite as easy to grasp for a generation that's not as knowledgeable of the Old Testament as the first century church and the apostles who used the Scriptures. is a little bit more homework required for us. So I think it's very appropriate to draw attention to those texts to alert us, not only when we're teaching or presenting to someone, but just for everyday reading that we need to pay extra careful attention and visit that place where they cite and try to understand what's going on that he feels he can reference. And this is important because the New Testament writers, they didn't simply want to describe who Jesus was. They emphatically wanted to identify Jesus by and through the Old Testament witness about him. And that means we need to be sufficiently equipped in the Old Testament in order to appreciate the New Testament at its deepest level. So some of you have a New American Standard Bible. I think this is a very helpful thing that they do. And I don't know how well you can see this, but some of you are pretty familiar with this. The New American Standard Bible puts Old Testament citations in the New Testament in all caps. There's also always almost, there should be a footnote beside all of those at the very beginning. You see here it's an A, out of Egypt, I called my son. And then it takes you to a margin, it says verse 15, A comes from Hosea 11.1. It also says numbers 24.8 is something you should consider as you try to understand this reference. I think this is really helpful. And I think it's one reason that the NAS is a good companion to have when you're doing study. I certainly think there's other translations that are good as well. But something unique about the NAS is that they draw special attention to these, much of these citations, these direct quotations. Now, this is important because New Testament quotations of the Old Testament are very frequently misunderstood or not understood at all. There are some New Testament quotations of the Old Testament which to some readers seem to be misused or used out of context. And this has led some to argue that although the apostles were inspired by the Holy Spirit, in their use of the quotation, there was kind of an exceptional use that they made that was really not appropriate in terms of logical consistency or using someone's ideas, but it's still, the ends justify the means, and the end has inspired scripture, and we shouldn't really pry too deeply into how they got there, but they got there, okay? Now, others have run into some of these difficult texts, and they've actually made shipwreck of their faith. They've seen this, and they've said, this just can't be consistent. If it's not logical, it can't be true. Some of them have concluded that the apostles misused the Old Testament, and even twisted the scriptures, which they point out, even the apostles condemned that, yet they do it themselves, they say. So, I think one of the most notorious passages that people have struggled with is the section in the infancy narratives of Christ in the book of Matthew, chapter two. Specifically, verse 13 and 18, which describe the early movements of the infant Jesus and his parents. There's at least one scholar that I've read who's concluded that Matthew twists the scriptures, and he actually cites Peter, where he says, you know, Paul's really hard to understand, Some people misunderstand him and they twist his words along with the other scriptures to their destruction. He actually cites that verse in the article and says, Matthew's doing this. I'll quote him a little bit later. And he does this, he says, Matthew does this in order to support his particular version of the gospel narratives. So, that raises a pretty big question that I think we should grapple with, and we shouldn't just kind of have this ignorance as bliss understand. I think we can dig into these things. God's Word is able to interpret itself, and we should be able to take a look at this passage, no matter how long it takes, and come away with a very confident understanding of what Matthew's doing in some of these passages which people have struggled with. So we're going to go into this question, did Matthew twist the scriptures this week and next week? And this is an examination of Matthew's use of the Old Testament, specifically in chapter 2, verses 13 to 18. So I just want to read those passages first that are under discussion here. Matthew writes, and he rose, this is talking about Joseph, and he rose and took the child and his mother by night. and departed to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. Out of Egypt I called my son." Now, the bolded portion that you see there is taken from Hosea 11.1, which Matthew quotes from. When Israel was a child, Hosea writes, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more they were called, the more they went away. They kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols." Now, there's a couple things in particular that interpreters have seen in this passage that they've had difficulty with. The first of those is that Matthew says this was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. But there's problem number one, according to some. Hosea 11.1, if you read that verse, is not a predictive prophecy on its own. It just appears that Hosea is recording a historical fact. He's not predicting something that's gonna happen or be fulfilled in a later Messiah. So problem one. Problem two, Hosea was speaking about the nation of Israel. His son, he says, out of Egypt I called my son. He's clearly describing the first exodus. He's describing a whole nation of people. Now Matthew's applying it to a single person, the person of Jesus Christ. So these two issues, among maybe some other smaller ones, have been the main objections for some scholars who've struggled with this passage. And then Matthew 2.18. Matthew writes, then Herod, this is the immediately following passage to what we just read. Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious. And he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah. A voice was heard in Ramah. Weeping and loud lamentation. Rachel weeping for her children. She refused to be comforted because they are no more. And to give the quotation that Matthew makes from Jeremiah 31 15. This is Jeremiah, thus says the Lord, a voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children. She refuses to be comforted for her children because they are no more. So similar problems have puzzled some interpreters here with the same passage. They've asked, what does Rachel weeping for her children have to do with the historical event of the slaughter of the infants in Bethlehem? And what does Rama have to do with Bethlehem? They're not the same place. And number two, why does Jeremiah's record of a historical event require a fulfillment? So here you have, just like the previous passage, some say, well, this is not even a predictive prophecy. It's just a record of pure history. So these are some of the difficulties that have been had with this text. Some have come away discouraged and disbelieving. These have been some of the primary texts that they've walked away from the faith because they can't make sense of these things. They deem it to be sloppy proof texting in the divine text and it's just not consistent. So here I have some quotes from some of these men. There's a man, S.V. McCasland, I think he wrote this sometime in the 1940s. He writes of this passage, I think it's the first citation, Matthew 2.15, it indicates how desperately early Christians searched the Old Testament scriptures to find proof for the things happening among them. And McCaslin, as I said earlier, he accuses Matthew of twisting the scriptures from 2 Peter 3.16, which says, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction. So you can see the implication there, Matthew's the ignorant and unstable, according to McCaslin. He not only has problems with Matthew's use of Hosea, he also accuses Matthew of not understanding Hebrew poetry, Zechariah. I won't go too deeply into that one. He assumes that Matthew would be less familiar with Hebrew poetry than someone in the 20th century, which is kind of remarkable. He also questions if Matthew is not generally manipulating the details of Jesus' life and obviously the Old Testament passages in order to support his particular gospel narrative. You have someone who's a little bit more to the center here is Richard T. Mead. He says the New Testament writers, quote, combine and freely reapply isolated sentences. They divest Old Testament verses of their historical subjects and objects." You have someone here, Richard Mead, who's still assuming a divine text, but he's saying there has to be some kind of non-conventional usage here going on, and it has to be okay. Mead refers to Matthew's use of Jeremiah in Matthew 2.18 as a primary example of violated Old Testament context. In other words, Matthew's not even trying to get at what Hosea is saying. He's just using it, plucking it out of context, and there you go. He also says, the historical Old Testament situation is thoroughly disregarded. That says Richard Mead. So that question's before us. Did Matthew quote the Old Testament out of context? It's a really important question. How would you answer that if someone asked you that in a witnessing encounter? I think it's an important question. But I really think we should, we must answer a resounding no. That can't be an option. There can't be some kind of spirit-inspired misuse of a text or misapplication of a text. And I think that'll be obvious here as we go through some of these principles. When we encounter apparent problems such as these, we need to be quick to see the problem is not with Matthew, not with his understanding of the Old Testament or Hebrew poetry. The problem is with us, the readers, who know too little of what Matthew's actually doing there. So I think there's really three at least three hermeneutical considerations that are really, really important for us to consider that'll help kind of explain why Matthew uses the scriptures in the way he does. It's going to become clear through these considerations that Matthew, this is really important, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, understood the context of Hosea and Jeremiah much more fully than is apparent at the surface level. We call that the surface level. You know, you have the iceberg is 90% below. You only see the 10% of the top. There's your picture of surface level. We have a very surface level understanding of what Matthew's doing. There's much more going on beneath that will help us understand this. The first of these three considerations is the implication of divine authorship. This is really the base. This is really important in considering this, where we have to land on these passages. All scripture is God-breathed. Men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. This is our necessary presupposition that we carry in a text like these, all of it. Every choice of a citation is God-breathed. Every illusion to the Old Testament is God-breathed. The author of the Holy Scriptures is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ. So what we're accusing The authors, the human authors of, we are accusing the divine author of as well. That can't be missed. And we have to ask the question, would the divine author condone the misuse of a text which he himself had inspired at an earlier period? Why wouldn't he just say it differently? If he didn't like the way he said it before, did he change his mind? Would the Holy Spirit stand behind the use of his earlier divine revelation as a sloppy proof text to a later one? Could the end of preaching a sermon about Christ ever justify the means of abusing a text? Is anyone satisfied with the conclusion that the Holy Spirit inspired a portion of text which is as sloppy as a first-year Bible student term paper? Right, Ben? You grade a lot of those. No, I think if one concludes that Matthew is disregarding context in his usage of the Old Testament, I think this raises serious challenges to the claim that what he wrote was ever inspired by the Holy Spirit. I don't think he can have it both ways. That's because at best it seems to downplay the role of the Holy Spirit or introduce some kind of human error into a divine text, which just is not correct. So any allowance for non-contextual usage of the Old Testament, it contains an implicit disregard or disrespect for divine authorship of the Old Testament and of Matthew's gospel. And this is not an acceptable course for us who believe, according to the word of the Proverbs, the words of the Lord are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times. So just have a quick moment if anyone has any questions about what we've covered so far. All right. Go ahead. Yeah, it's convenient to have some kind of standard which you can say, well, only the red letters, only those words of Jesus are really authoritative, so I could disregard everything Paul wrote or say it's kind of optional. Yeah. So that's the first. The first termenutical consideration is the implication of divine authorship. Go ahead. necessarily the substitution. For instance, in our confession, we affirm that the scriptures are inerrant and infallible in their original manuscripts when we make that assertion. But apostles seem to have some freedom there to change the words or quote another version. And it doesn't give me any trouble. I just wonder if you've thought very much about it and what are your thoughts Other than being aware of it, I'll just say that might take three classes just to cover that topic. But yes, there is one additional consideration is that the apostles often used the Greek Septuagint of the Old Testament, which is sometimes different than the Hebrew version of the Old Testament in some areas. Substantially, There's, I don't think there's any kind of difference that's going to result in a different doctrine, but there are points of grammatical difference which have generated thousands and thousands of pages of journals and articles and books. So, yeah, I don't have the time to really delve in, or the knowledge to delve into that this morning, but it is something to be aware of as well. The second hermeneutical consideration has to do with topology. And topology is something that Pastor Ben's covered, I believe, over the course of a few weeks, so this is somewhat of a review. The God of history, this is really important the way this is laid out here, the God of history used real people, places, events, and institutions. So the God of history, the God who inspired the text is also the God who ordained the events of history. He did this in a specific way to prepare a people to understand the significance of the redemptive acts of Jesus Christ. So we don't have a deistic view of history. God's ordained all of history as something that prepared people for who is this person of Christ who would come when he did in history. And theologians refer to this phenomenon as typology. It's called this because of the word used to describe Adam in Romans 5.14. Paul calls him a type of Christ. So anytime we have this principle being used, it's named after that. It's a type of something that's called an anti-type or The type is the symbol, the anti-type is what it ultimately points to. And unlike allegory, which is where you have a disregard for historical context, typology is not used in isolation from the historical and contextual significance of the people, places, events, and institutions. If we understand the usage of typology in Matthew and This didn't start with the New Testament. Matthew sees the same principle being used in Hosea and Jeremiah. Matthew, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is actually understanding the context of Hosea and Jeremiah more fully than is apparent at the surface level because of this principle of topology. He's utilizing a hermeneutical method which, while strange to modern readers, is perfectly legitimate and was well in use by the Old Testament prophets themselves and must be seen as legitimate by us now as well. This is something that the apostles didn't come up with. They saw this being used by the prophets. Persons, places, events in history that God ordained now used to point to a greater reality than what they themselves were. And again, the foundation of typology is that God is the Lord of history, and that history has a specific end or goal. That's that word telos. It means end or goal, among other things. That means It's an inner goal toward which all things are moving. So everything is moving towards Christ in the flesh, in his work, in his words. So everything that God does in history points to that event and explains that event, and that's intended by God. So history is ordered in an intentional way by God to prepare a people for spiritual truths, specifically for the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's important to say again, typology always considers the contextual meaning around it, around the person, place, event, or institution, which is prefigured. It extracts from it a theological seed, and it now escalates in later revelation, and you see the fullness of the tree. But the oak tree comes from the seed of the oak. It's organic, as they say, in that sense. but it is more apparent what it is and what it was in seed form. And Louis Burkhoff says, the truth represented by the symbols, by the symbols he speaks of the first in place event or institution in the Old Testament. The truth represented by these symbols for contemporaries was the same as that which they prefigured as types. though in its future realization that truth was raised to a higher level." So what he's saying here is that there's no contradiction to the symbol or what it stood for, what the type was. It was not used contrary in its fulfillment, but it's always consistent with it. It's always just raised to a higher level, he says. He goes on to stress, Prokof does, the proper way to the understanding of a type lies through the study of the symbol. The question must be settled, first of all, what moral or spiritual truth the Old Testament symbols conveyed to the Israelites. And only after this is answered satisfactorily should the expositor proceed to the further query as to how this truth was realized on a higher plane in the New Testament. So, Berkhoff would say to McCaslin, hey, you just need to go figure out what Hosea was saying first, then come back to Matthew. You haven't really understood Hosea, and that's your problem. I think this picture of a seed and a tree is really important. That's why I wanted to put this here so it's in your mind. This has been used extensively, I think, by Pastor Ben as well, but it's true of what we're talking about this morning. When the New Testament authors use something from the Old Testament, they're using something that was a seed, something that contained all the genetic properties of that oak tree. But now you see the seed has become this oak tree in the New Testament. When Hosea is used by Matthew, Matthew uses him perfectly consistent with what Hosea himself saw. But Matthew sees so much more because of the progression of revelation, the person of Christ, and now the Holy Spirit, which indwells him and inspires what he's writing. So have this in your mind. This is very important when you come to an Old Testament citation that you don't understand. You want to go back to the Old Testament. You want to go to that cross-reference. You want to say, what is the seed of that Old Testament passage that this New Testament writer is fleshing out for us in the fullness, the full light of day? And this is the case because, again, there's one divine author. If God didn't like what he said in the Old Testament, he would change it. But he doesn't. Everything he says is perfect. He said it all. He's the author of it all. So he doesn't change. He doesn't change his word. So we have to understand when we come to these apparent problems, one divine author is developing progressively this idea, this divine truth. Gerardus Vos says that the organic nature of the progression of Revelation explains several things. It explains how Revelation, though diverse, can yet be perfect. It is organic. It is a growing organism. It is interconnected. What may be but in seed form at the beginning becomes mature as redemptive history unfolds and develops. Vos says the organic progress is from seed form to the attainment of full growth. Yeah, we do not say that in the qualitative sense, the seed is less perfect than the tree. So that's, again, that's why we have to reject this balking at Matthew's use. We have to see it as consistent. There has to be a way to understand this text that's consistent with what God initially spoke by Hosea. And again, this chart just helps illustrate this, takes the seed and tree principle. Here, we'll call it divine truth number one, and it's Old Testament context, Hosea 11.1, plus the context of Hosea 11.1, which we'll delve into next week. Then you see it's New Testament. The seed has become a tree. in Matthew 2.15 in the New Testament. Same with divine truth number two, Jeremiah 31.15 in context. There's your seed. It's developed by Matthew, Matthew 2.18 as in the fullness of the tree. And just a quote by D.A. Carson, the New Testament writers do not think they are reading back into the Old Testament things that are not already there germinally. Germinally means in seed form. It's nothing inconsistent with what's there, it can't be. Dennis Johnson, this is a really helpful book if you're curious about delving into these issues deeper. Dennis Johnson, he says, God, as the Lord of history, Canon does design historical persons, offices, institutions, and events to function as incarnate prophecies of the full redemption to come. So these types, these historical figures, become divine prophecies that require fulfillment in the New Testament. And we need to ground this in the scripture itself. I've been saying this is true, and now I want to show you. This was used long before Matthew. Topology was used long before Matthew. Matthew is observing something that's been in use for a very long time. The Old Testament uses the Old Testament in this way, and I just want to give you a couple examples. I don't have time to read this, but creation and new creation in Isaiah 65, 17. Isaiah reaches back and uses categories from the original creation to describe this new heavens and new earth that's coming in the age to come. What he's doing there, he's making creation a symbol of a reality. And he's saying this creation serves a purpose to point to a greater new creation. So true event that happened now points to something beyond itself, greater creation. David and the future David, great David's greater son, some have called it, in Ezekiel 34, 23 through 24. You have the historical figure, David, and this is not unique to Ezekiel, certainly, but you have him being used as a symbol, all that David stood for, a man after God's own heart. The king that united Israel points beyond himself to great David's greater son. This is not unique to Ezekiel, but other prophets as well. The righteous branch of David, I believe it's in Jeremiah's prophecy. Ezekiel speaks along the same lines. There's going to be a David, he specifically says. There's going to be a David to come. And this is obviously grasped by the New Testament generation as they're looking for that David figure to come. Just a few examples, there are numerous. This was a typology, was a practice that Matthew would have observed, very active in the prophets. He's just taking that, he's understanding what Hosea is saying, he's understanding what Jeremiah is saying, he's applying it to his own letter and showing this was fulfilled in the person of Christ. Oh, and I actually do have the, I'll just read these real quick just so you can see here. For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind, but be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create. Then the reference in Ezekiel 34, Ezekiel in the midst of rebuking Israel's bad shepherds promises that God himself will seek out his flock. He will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them. And I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them." So, as we'll see in our study of the two difficult citations in Matthew, Christ was the end toward which the entire Old Testament was moving. Through historical persons, offices, institutions, and events, God was preparing a people for the significance of the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. He's given them categories to understand what's the significance of this man, Jesus Christ. Not only has he given them categories, he's given us categories as well. So there's an intimate connection between typology and the key words used by Matthew in these texts that we're considering. He says, this was to fulfill. Some have balked at that. They've said, how can a historical event require a fulfillment? Well, in this understanding of typology, we know historical events point to greater realities beyond themselves, and they find their fulfillment in that antitype, Jesus Christ. This was to fulfill. It's important here to state this word, as it's used by Matthew, does not always signal an explicitly stated predictive prophecy. This is not unique to chapter two. He uses this in other places as well, although it often does. Many times he does use the words, this was to fulfill. Sometimes it is a direct citation. But it doesn't require explicitly stated predictive prophecy. It could be a type as well. Matthew, I believe, uses this formula to assert a central theme in his gospel, and that is that Christ fulfills the whole history of Israel. So any questions before we move on to the third? So it's really vital to assert that and to understand that. It opens up the entire Old Testament to us and to see how it's all pointed to Christ and not these isolated, explicit, messianic prophecies. Yeah, just to further develop the David example, what's striking about the book of Kings is you have every single king after David is judged by David. So you have this sort of desire that is building up in this generation. When's there going to be another one like David? This is the expectation that you get when you read Kings is, he wasn't like David, or he was like David in this, but not that. So they're looking for another David. The prophets pick up on that same pattern. Do you have your hand up, too? It didn't kind of answer my question, actually. It's been frustrating to read It seems like it's particularly dispensationalists will do this, but they don't go as far as some of the men that you quoted who say, wow, the New Testament authors are wrong. But what they will do is they'll say, well, we have respect for the apostolic authority here. They can do it. And then we can't do it. And so you mentioned Adam at the time. It's OK for Paul to say it, but when we see Christ tempted in the wilderness, Yeah, and I think I mentioned that earlier. Dispensationalists are those who say there doesn't have to be a reason for why they did that. It's kind of mysterious, but the ends justify the means. So they don't want to explain the why of why it was appropriate, because that would obviously lead to the conclusion that, hey, it might be something that can be repeated. Yeah. And it's kind of inconvenient for a lot of their other core tenets as well, that hermeneutic. His, what he was just saying, actually drove me out of dispensationalism into color theology. And it was specifically Peter's use of the Old Testament And it's not Israel, a physical land. But it's Israel, the new heavens, new earth. And you get into the whole concept of the land. But mention one other thing. I had a professor that referred to this as dyplopic. And what dyplopic, dyplopia, is, I think, double vision. And he said, he gave the example that it's like driving, and you're driving west, and you see a mountain range. And it looks like one mountain range. But when you get to the first one, it's really separated. And so what you're seeing is the first one, but then there's a greater second one. And that really, I mean, that was, one of the eye-opening things to understand. Thank you, Mickey. It's good to see you this morning, too. OK, I'm going to move on to our third for the sake of time. And this is the third hermeneutical consideration is just observing the central, one of the central themes of Matthew, not the central theme of Matthew, but a central theme of Matthew. is that Christ is the fulfillment of Israel, and not just Israel, Israel's history as well. That is, Christ recapitulates. That's a big word. What does recapitulate mean? Recapitulate means to sum up to in a sort of repetitive fashion. It's more than just a repetition. It's a summing up of all things. He's summarizing it. He's fulfilling it. That's the recapitulation. Christ recapitulates the history of Israel. I'm going to illustrate this. As a representative, he redeems and fulfills it. And thus the second Adam, the true David, the faithful son of Abraham, is the obedient Israelite in whom Jew and Gentile may be reconciled to the Father." As I've said, Matthew's use of Hosea and Jeremiah falls into a larger pattern in the book of Matthew. And I've said that as well, central to Matthew's gospel is the theme of Christ's recapitulation. And as you read the gospel carefully, maybe some of you picked up on this as well, it's undeniable that many patterns that emerge in Jesus' life, as recorded by Matthew, life and ministry, which are, they're familiar to those, let me read that again, as one reads the gospel carefully, it's undeniable that many patterns begin to emerge in Jesus' life and ministry, which are familiar, which are familiar to those who are more acquainted with the Old Testament. There's some kind of familiarities as you're reading in the Gospels. Maybe you can't quite put your finger on that, but you're like, this is the way it happened to me. It's like, that's kind of familiar, isn't it? And that sort of drives me to the notes in the middle, the citate, the... No, no, not those. Cross-references. That drives me to the cross-references, and sure enough, maybe there's something there. That's why I really recommend you have a good cross-reference Bible. I mean, I think there's nothing, they're certainly very helpful to have a good study Bible. But if your study Bible has really pathetic cross-references, you should probably get a different one. Because that is, I found that to be many times more helpful than the actual comments. It's like divine commentary versus human commentary. So I highly recommend that you make use of that. And I think this is intended by Matthew to support what is a major theme of his gospel. It should read, A, Jesus Christ as fulfillment of the whole history of Israel. So just consider, I'm gonna go through a string of these here. I think there are more than this. Matthew first records the genesis or the genealogy of Jesus Christ. Now maybe you read genealogies and you're just trying to get through it. But I think there's usually some tidbit in there that's why it's there. Choice implies meaning. That's a really important thing. Why did the author develop a whole page of his precious work? This wasn't a word processor. He was writing it on a scroll. It took resources. It was hard. It couldn't get in the hands of everybody. Why did he take that precious ink and paper to say this, okay? Usually there's a really good reason for it, and it's not a good thing to just kind of skip over that. You miss stuff. Well, Matthew used the word Genesis to describe the genealogy, and I think that kind of points back to the Genesis, okay? That sort of starts off all this string of, kind of identifies this origin of Christ with the Genesis by use of the word. Jesus, as Moses, was delivered from infant death, and as Israel, was brought out of Egypt. Just as Israel had done, Jesus underwent baptism in the Jordan River, because it was fitting to fulfill all righteousness. And just want to read a few notes on this, because this could easily be a whole hour to discuss this. Baptism points back to creation and the flood narrative, and indicated a new creation out of judgment. You have sort of this recreation theme. As the flood comes, you have decreation. Then creation comes out again as the waters recede. You have a new covenant. made with Noah. So, Jesus underwent baptism just as Noah was brought through the waters of the flood at the judgment of the wicked. And just as Israel went through the waters of the exodus at the judgment of Pharaoh's army, and again later, the waters of the Jordan, the second generation, after the purging of the unbelieving generation. At Christ's baptism, the Spirit of God descended as a dove upon the Son of God, just as he was hovering over the face of the waters at creation. Here Christ is patterned, I think, as any type of Adam, Noah, and Israel. What Lamech hoped was true of his offspring Noah, this one will bring relief from the curse, was fulfilled in the person and work of God's Son, whose baptism it was pronounced, this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. So even there you see the topology of this going through the Red Sea, and later the Jordan River. escalating to something in the form of Jesus' baptism, and now the command for us all to be baptized into Christ. Consider as well, just as Israel wandered in the desert for 40 years, Christ was led into the wilderness for 40 days to be tempted by the devil, that's symbolic number 40. Of course, he, in stark contrast to Israel, was victorious over the temptation of Satan. Christ symbolically ascended a mountain, like Sinai, to explain the law of God with authority. You have a lot of unhelpful writings on this right here. Just to say briefly, again, this could be a long discussion as well. On the mountain, Christ was in no way advocating for the abolition of the law. He makes that very plain. But for its fulfillment, which he would accomplish, and then its abiding use to the people of God. The law misinterpreted by Israel's leaders needed to be explained again to this unbelieving generation. Consider as well, Jesus performs miracles. This one's fascinating to me. Jesus performs miracles like those recorded in the ministry of Elijah and Elisha. So again, choice implies meaning. Why does he use, Jesus did lots of miracles. John said if we wrote about them all, we'd fill up several books of them. So why did he choose these specific ones to tell us about? And I think that's because they're similar, very similar to the ones done by the Old Testament prophets, particularly Elijah and Elisha. Such as, healing a leper, I wish we had time to go into these citations, but very, very similar. This is one of those passages where you might come to it in the Matthew's Gospel and you might go, I think I've read that before. And maybe you read 2 Kings 5 a couple days before, and it's just very similar. So why does he package it in the same kind of language? I think there's significance there. Also, he healed the servant of a Gentile official, such as was recorded in 2 Kings 5, 1 through 14. There's a child restored from death. It's also done in the ministry of Elijah and Elisha. And he multiplies loaves, just like from the ministry of Elisha. That's a really interesting one to me, is that Elisha also multiplies loaves. Christ does it in an elevated amount of loaves to Elisha. So I think there's significance there. Why did he pick these specific miracles? Well, I think to have cognates in the Old Testament that he's trying to show, you know, Elijah and Elisha, they were anointed men. They were men. They were imperfect men. They were sinners. Here is Jesus Christ, who has the power of the Holy Spirit that they had. He is the true prophet who's come among us. And consider as well, as Joshua led the conquest of Canaan, Jesus cast out demons from Israel. And the word is used to describe the verb that Christ is casting out demons, ekbalah. Same word as casting out the Canaanites. Whereas Israel, when they came into Canaan, they were casting out physical armies. Jesus comes in, casting out legions of demons. So that's an interesting parallel. The one greater than Jonah wakes up from sleep in the boat to a raging sea, but he has authority himself to stop it. He doesn't have to throw himself in, because he's not the sinner. He stops it by his voice. The one greater than Solomon, whose wisdom couldn't be confounded, he opened his mouth in Proverbs. And it strikes me so many times when Jesus speaks, you can hear the echoes of the Psalms in the Proverbs as well. And that's just sort of this It's in his peripheral vision. Jesus was so familiar with Old Testament revelation, he typified it. He was his fulfillment. He speaks oftentimes in psalmic, psalmity language. You can't always see that, well, that's a direct citation, but he seems to speak in that, in a psalmic way. It's really interesting to me. As the persecuted prophets, he spoke woe to corrupt religious leaders. He who is greater than Israel's temple, who would raise up the temple again in three days. He's the same who would raise up the temple in three days. This one is also interesting to me. It's David. He remained an outcast as a wilderness king. Here you have the anointed king who's really in charge of all this by God. He's God's appointed king. He can't come into his kingdom because he's blocked by wicked men, corrupt men who have some kind of hold on it. So just think about the person of David who's forced in the wilderness away from his kingdom by Saul, was persecuted by Saul even though he'd been anointed king. Later on, he flees from Absalom, he can't go to Jerusalem. Well, where does Jesus spend most of his ministry? Not inside Jerusalem. And when he comes to Jerusalem, he's in great danger and everybody knows it. So that's an interesting parallel there between the wilderness king of David and the same as Christ as well. He bore the suffering of the people of God as the prophesied suffering servant to fulfill the scriptures of the prophets. Yet he was raised to sit at the right hand of power to fulfill Psalm 110. These are just some, I think there are more. But again, we come to our question, because we don't have time to get into the actual text today. I hope to do that next week, God willing. But we come back to our question again, did Matthew twist the scripture that he used in the Old Testament out of context? I think it's clear, based on what we've considered today, we'll kind of apply this in the actual text next week. We must conclude that no, he did not. And this is if we bear in mind the implications of divine authorship in the Old Testament and the New. the typological underpinnings of the prophecies that were made in the Old Testament and the types, and three, a central theme of Matthew being that Christ is the fulfillment of Israel's history. This is gonna have a bear on how, a bearing on how Matthew's using Hosea and Jeremiah in our text under consideration. So we must conclude that Matthew knew much better what he was doing than modern skeptics, and I'm almost 100% sure, almost 200% sure that Matthew knew much more about Hebrew poetry than S.B. McCaslin. I'm very sure of that. And I hope to show this in more detail again as we take up the specific text next week. Any final questions, comments? I think I actually ended on time, so 10-10. Go ahead. So you're saying that Jesus not only fulfills the corporate nation of Israel's identity and calling and destiny, but also these specific important people within the nation of Israel, like Moses and Elijah and Elijah and prophets. Yes. David. Yeah. Another way you could add is Matthew 13. You know, Jesus basically applies the calling of the prophet Isaiah to himself, why he speaks in parables. He said, this is, I do this to fulfill what was spoken to the prophet Isaiah. Yeah. Yep, yeah, as these men, some of these men, in the Old Testament themselves, they're representing the nation, like David. You have Elijah representing as the remnant, that 7,000 who didn't bow their knee to Baal, who didn't kiss him. And so you have these men becoming synonymous with that faithful remnant of Israel. So Jesus Christ is that ultimate Moses, ultimate Elijah. Yeah, it's interesting, John, and then he gives some of the iterations of, some say you're Elijah, some, you know, and so forth. So that close identity, obviously, was even public to Israel. Yeah. Yep. Any other questions? Go ahead. Just a comment. I mean, my brain is flooded. It's wonderful. It says something about our spiritual blindness, especially there in the first century. so intentionally with his language, and his words, and his actions, and where he goes geographically, and which miracles he chooses. I've never thought about that. Echoing the Old Testament over, and over, and over. And these non-believing Jews who should have been very familiar with these things, just so many missed it. Because once that is turned on, it's just hundreds of examples to just flood your mind and your soul. It's beautiful. Amen. Praise God.