3 Things Everyone Should Know about Jesus in the OT

Would you like to know more about Jesus in the OT (Old Testament)? Have you looked up a passage that the New Testament says Jesus fulfilled, but found it confusing? Does understanding the Old Testament seem daunting?

If so, you’re not alone!

Here are three things every Christian should know about Jesus in the OT, including timelines.

1. God Planned to Send Jesus Before He Created People

For my seventeenth birthday, my then-boyfriend Clay gave me a white leather Bible containing both the Old and New Testaments. Until then, I’d had only a paperback New Testament. Not having been raised in a Christian home, I was excited to finally be able to read the rest of the Bible and see what it said.

As I read through Genesis, I thought, So that’s what happened! God created people good, and that was Plan A. But they blew it and disobeyed, so God had to go with Plan B, a flood. Later, I read about God calling Israel to be a nation and giving them commandments. But the Israelites blew it and disobeyed God too. I thought, Israel was Plan C, and Jesus was Plan D! God had to keep starting over because people kept messing up his plans.

Wrong!

I had missed the significance of these verses:

Christ…was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times.

1 Peter 1:19-20

… the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world

Revelation 13:8

God…saved us and called us…because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus.

2 Timothy 1:8-10

In other words, the never-changing God of love knew before he created the world and the first humans that Jesus would one day die for the sins of the world. He knew Satan would deceive Adam and Eve, and he had a plan in place to rescue humankind. There was always just one plan. God revealed that plan over time, beginning in Eve’s lifetime.

2. The Old Testament Points to Jesus in Three Ways

Many people think that the only way the Old Testament points to Jesus is through direct prophecy. But that’s not true. The New Testament tells us of three ways.

Promises about Jesus in the OT

In 2 Samuel 7:11-13, God promised King David an offspring whose rule would last forever. The angel Gabriel told Mary that this promise pointed to Jesus (Luke 1:31-33). The Old Testament contains many such promises, some of which take the form of covenants.

Prophecies about Jesus in the OT

In the Bible, God sometimes revealed things to people that they could not see or understand through natural means. These revelations are prophecies. Most prophecies called people to repent to avoid judgment. But sometimes they predicted a significant future event. That is the case in Isaiah 53, which prophesies the coming of a suffering servant who would die and whose soul would make “an offering for guilt” (Isaiah 53:9-10). First Peter 3:22 cites this passage and tells us it refers to Jesus Christ.

Portents of Jesus in the OT

Portents foreshadow something in the future. Some Old Testament people, institutions, and events foreshadow either Jesus or something significant in Jesus’s service or life. Bible translations use a variety of words to describe people and things that foreshadow the future, including portents, patterns, copies, shadows, and types. Jesus and the apostles frequently identified Old Testament types that Jesus fulfilled. They show us the amazing way that God directed history so that people could see his redemptive plan unfolding throughout the ages.

For example, 1 Corinthians 5:7 reads, “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.” Here Paul is saying that the sacrificed Passover lamb that saved the Israelites’ lives in Exodus 12 was a type of Jesus Christ, who now saves our lives through his sacrifice.

3. God Revealed His Plan at Significant Points in History

God revealed his plan to rescue people from slavery to sin and from death gradually. But at crucial historical events, he revealed large parts of the plan all at once. These revelations related to what was happening at the time.

Eve’s Day

After Eve disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit, the Lord God promised her a deliverer who would crush the head of the serpent who deceived her.

Abraham’s Day

At a time when most people had forgotten God, the Lord called Abraham to journey to a foreign land. There God promised to give that land to Abraham’s descendants so that they could be his people and he would be their God. He promised that Abraham’s barren, post-menopausal wife would bear a child—and she did! Abraham and his son Isaac were both prophets to whom God spoke. The New Testament tells us which of God’s promises to Abraham referred to Jesus. God also instructed Abraham and Isaac to act out an event that foreshadowed something monumental in Jesus’s life. In fact, Paul tells us that “Scripture…preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham” (Galatians 3:8).

Moses’s Day

After Egypt enslaved Abraham’s descendants, God sent Moses to deliver the Israelites from slavery and take them to the land God promised to Abraham’s descendants. Through Moses, God made a covenant with the Israelites so they could be his people. They built a tabernacle where God’s presence could dwell in a special way. God gave them commandments so they could have blessed relationships with him and others. Moses told the people that one day a prophet like him would arrive, and the people must listen to him. The New Testament tells us that many of the institutions and events in Moses’s day foreshadowed Jesus.

David’s Day

Eventually, a king arose who had a heart after God. His name was David. The Lord promised David a descendant whose throne would last forever. David was also a prophet to whom God revealed other things about this future king, some of which David turned into psalms.

The Major Prophets’ Day

Many of the kings that followed David weren’t good. Eventually, kings led the people so far from God that he sent prophets to warn them to come back lest he remove them from the land. For example, the prophet Isaiah told a wayward king about coming judgment and restoration. But Isaiah also spoke of a future righteous king and a suffering servant. Later, God spoke through Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel during tumultuous times that included the people being exiled and the temple destroyed. They talked of a new covenant and a mysterious “one like a son of man” who came “with the clouds of heaven” to be presented before “the Ancient of Days” (Daniel 7:13).

The 2^nd Temple’s Day

After a 70-year exile, several groups of people returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. They remained under foreign rule, though. Yet prophets encouraged them to build a new temple and await the future righteous king.

Jesus’s Day

When Jesus came, he explained how the Scriptures spoke of him. The Jews had trouble understanding at first, partly because they didn’t realize that the prophet like Moses, the suffering servant, and the future righteous king were all the same person. They also hadn’t understood how the institutions that Moses put in place pointed to Jesus too.

Today

After Jesus’s death and resurrection, his apostles proclaimed what Jesus taught them. They explained how Jesus wants us to live today, and they told us to look forward to eternity.

Forever

The New Testament writers urged Jesus’s followers to always remember that eternity in Jesus’s Kingdom awaits. He’ll resurrect our bodies into glorious bodies. There will be no more sorrow or pain. We’ll be in God’s loving presence forever.

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Timelines to Download

I’ve created timelines for you to download and print on the Free Resources and Subscriber Specials pages. They’ll help you see at a glance the events surrounding God’s amazing revelations about Jesus in the OT. They go with chapters in our book, Discovering Jesus in the Old Testament.

Want to Know More about Jesus in the OT?

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• Discovering Jesus in the Old Testament by me, Pam Farrel, and Karla Dornacher
• From Eden to the New Jerusalem by T. Desmond Alexander
• Christ from Beginning to End by Trent Hunter & Stephen Wellum
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• Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, ed. by D. A. Carson and G. K. Beale