IS JESUS GOD? THE OLD TESTAMENT ANSWER
“For to us a child is born ... and His name will be called wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isa. 9:6f)
Jesus does not just reveal God. He is God. When we look at the Old Testament it gives hints and express statements that God was coming to come to us as a human being.
A. THE PLURAL NATURE OF GOD (Gen. 1:26-27)
The minute we begin to talk about the Deity of Jesus Christ we also talk about a plural nature in God. This plural nature, this Trinity (as we call it) is a basic message in the Old Testament. When God is introduced in the Bible as the Creator,
He says, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness’ ... and God created man in His own image.” (Genesis 1:26-27).
From the very beginning God gives us a hint, a glimpse into the plurality of His nature. And this is carried out all through the Old Testament.
When the prophets speak about “The Spirit of the Lord” and speak of Him as a person, or about “The Word of the Lord” and speak of this as a person, we have glimpses of God the Eternal Father who lives on high, God the Eternal Word who became man in Bethlehem, and God the Eternal Spirit who lives in our hearts. Blessed Trinity!
Introduced on the first page of Scripture and talked about throughout. So it is no surprise when we read in the New Testament - “And the Word was made flesh;” because when God said in Genesis 1, “Let us make man in our own image,” he was talking to Someone, and that Someone ultimately became Jesus Christ.
B. THE ANGEL OF THE LORD (Genesis 19:24)
The second Old Testament teaching that anticipates the coming of a God to earth is the Angel of the Lord. This mysterious figure is sometimes identified as God and sometimes distinguished from God. The word angel means “messenger” and when these messengers from God appear, they appear as men.
In Genesis 16: 7-14, the Angel of the Lord, comes to Hagar in the desert and the Bible says, “The angel of the Lord found her” (v7). After their conversation, the Bible says, “She called the name of the Lord that spoke to her.” Here Hagar identifies the angel of the Lord as the Lord Himself.
In Genesis 18-19, we have the account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Before the destruction we read , “ the Lord appeared unto Abraham”(Verse 1). He appeared as one of three men who came to Abraham.
In Chapter 19 the two other men are called angels. Here then we have God coming to Abraham in human form. So it is no surprise when we read in the New Testament, “The Word was made flesh.”
When God called Moses at the burning bush, Scripture says, “The Angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush.” (Exodus 3:2)
The Bible also says, “God called unto him out of the midst of the bush” (3:4)—“The Lord said I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” (3:7, 6)
The Angel or Messenger is identified with God, but sometimes He is a separate, distinct individual apart from God. We see this in the awful judgment upon the city of Sodom. Verse 24 says of this messenger previously identified with God,
“The Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.” How can we help but think of Jesus?
C. THE MESSIAH (Isaiah 9:6)
The third Old Testament truth which looks forward to the coming of God into the world, concerns the Messiah, the “Anointed One” (Greek= Christ). He was to the One anointed and sent by God to be the deliverer of the people. Isaiah said, “For to us a child is born ... and His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isa. 9:6f) The Old Testament was a book of expectancy. It looked forward to a coming Deliverer who would be a conquering champion for the people of God. This was the Messiah!
Think about allied armies marching through German occupied Europe and see them tear down iron gates and release the prisoners of war. They were doing what the Jewish Messiah was going to do. He was a deliverer, he was a champion, he was a Savior! There were so many descriptions of Him in the Old Testament that opinions differed concerning Him. Many Jews actually looked for two Messiahs since they believed that no one person could be true to all predictions.
Three offices in the Old Testament were held by anointed men. One was prophet, one was priest, and one was King. All three were fulfilled by Jesus and in the OT, like the angel of the Lord, sometimes the Messiah is identified with God Himself and at other times He is distinguished from God.
Isaiah calls Him a baby and then calls Him the Everlasting Father (9:6).
Isaiah 40-55 describes the Messiah as One who will be “led like a sheep to the slaughter (Isaiah 53). But in chapter 40 this butchered one is introduced this way, “Prepare a way for the Lord” (40:1).
Who is coming? God Himself is coming. . Yet when He comes, He is despised and rejected by men. He is led as a lamb to the slaughter. And we read that, “the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). Here the Lord is punishing the Lord in our place. That’s why Acts 20:28 says God purchased the church “with His own blood.”
The New Testament takes all of these Isaiah Scriptures and applies them to Jesus Christ. In Acts 8:32, we have an Ethiopian man riding in a wagon, reading this very passage of scripture in Isaiah. When he asked Philip, who Isaiah was talking about, Philip “preached unto him Jesus.” God in the OT is unique. He is, from the very first, one God, not three. Yet He is a Trinity. We have a God who not only sends but is sent. He not only lives above the heaven, but walks on earth. This is an anticipation of the arrival of Jesus- God on earth as man.
