4 APPROACHES TO UNDERSTANDING THE REDEMPTIVE NATURE OF SCRIPTURE by Bryan Chapell for Core Christianity
All of Scripture Bears Witness
We should be very willing to learn principles of redemptive interpretation that the New Testament writers employed and exemplified. From these principles we learn that the more common approach to understanding the redemptive nature of all biblical texts is to identify how God’s Word predicts, prepares for, reflects, or results from the person and/or work of Christ. These four categories of gospel explanation are not meant to be exhaustive or kept rigidly separate, but they do help us explain how all of Scripture bears witness to who Christ is and/or what he must do.
1. Some passages—such as the prophecies and the messianic Psalms— clearly predict who Christ is and what he will do.
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Isaiah wrote of the Messiah, that “his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end” (Isa. 9:6–7). This is a clear prediction of Jesus’ person and work, and there are many more such predictions in the prophetic portions of Scripture.
2. Other passages prepare God’s people to understand the grace that God must provide to redeem his people.
When God uses his servant David to show mercy to King Saul’s lame grandson (a royal descendant who would be David’s blood-rival for Israel’s throne), we understand something about God’s ways of forgiving enemies and showing mercy toward the helpless.
Not only do many Old Testament passages prepare God’s people to understand the grace of his provision, they also prepare the people to understand their need. When Paul writes in Galatians 3:24 that the law was our schoolmaster or guardian helping lead us to Christ, we understand that the high and holy standards of the law ultimately prepare us to seek God’s provision of mercy rather than to depend on the quality of our performance to make us acceptable to him. The sacrifice system further prepares us to understand that without the shedding of blood there is no atonement for our failures to keep the law (Heb. 9:22). And because Abraham’s faith was counted to him as righteousness, we are prepared to understand that our standing before God depends upon our faith in the provision of another (Rom. 4:23–24).
