After Jesus rose from the dead, he appeared to two forlorn disciples walking on the road to Emmaus. The account in Luke’s gospel tells us that he spent time explaining how the Old Testament scriptures applied to him, the Messiah.

Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures. Luke 24:27 (NASB95)

The Old Covenant points to our Lord, who fulfilled its types and shadows.

The Old Testament cannot be properly understood unless we see that its purpose was to reveal Christ.

One of the great lies of the last couple of centuries is Dispensationalism, which teaches the heresy that the Old Covenant explains the New. It is exactly the opposite. The Old cannot possibly be understood without what the New Covenant reveals and fulfills.

For example, some teach that the Jewish Temple will be rebuilt before Christ returns, but the New Covenant clearly teaches that Christ’s perfect sacrifice did away with the need and appropriateness of the external symbol of the Temple and its bloody animal sacrifices. It would be blasphemous to rebuild the shadow of what Jesus has perfectly fulfilled. God destroyed the Temple and the sacrificial system using the vehicle of the Roman army in 70 AD because its purpose was completed. If the Temple is ever rebuilt, it will be in defiance of God and an insult to the Messiah’s ultimate sacrifice as the Lamb of Go.

In that He says, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. Hebrews 8:13 (NKJV)

Dispensationalism has given the Body of Christ a false interpretation of God’s end time purposes because it is based on an incorrect premise – that the Old Covenant informs the New. This should be rejected and our eschatologies corrected to fit what the Bible actually teaches. I recommend the excellent book, Victorious Eschatology by Eberle and Trench. For an excellent YouTube presentation by a former Dispensationalist, click here.

A good example of finding Jesus in the Old Testament can be derived from Exodus Chapter 33. This is the account of Moses’ interaction with God following the gross betrayal and idolatry Israel committed when Moses and Joshua were on Mt. Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments. God told Moses that he would not personally accompany the nation any longer, but would send his angel instead. Moses interceded for the nation. Here is his initial request.

“Now therefore, I pray You, if I have found favor in Your sight, let me know Your ways that I may know You, so that I may find favor in Your sight. Consider too, that this nation is Your people.” Exodus 33:13 (NASB95)

Moses asked for three things: to know God’s ways, to know God, and to find favor with God. The New Covenant reveals that all born-again children of God receive these and all blessings in Christ.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, Ephesians 1:3 (NASB95)

In John 14:6, Jesus explained that he is the Way, and no one can come to the Father except through him. It was impossible for God to grant Moses’ requests apart from Christ. This means that the effect of Christ’s sacrificial death and glorious resurrection was experienced by Moses before that event ever took place historically. This is one of the amazing abilities of God. Since he exists outside of time, his actions are eternal, reaching forward and backward through history. From God’s eternal perspective, Jesus was slain before the foundation of the world.

All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Revelation 13:8 (NKJV)

Whatever God does, it is forever. It is eternal. Nothing can be added or subtracted from it.

I know that whatever God does, It shall be forever. Nothing can be added to it, And nothing taken from it. God does it, that men should fear before Him. Ecclesiastes 3:14 (NKJV)

The New Covenant is an eternal covenant that replaced the Old temporary one, and there is no going back.

After Moses made his request. God answered by promising him that his presence would go with him and give him rest. (Exodus 33:14)

This promise was fulfilled in Christ via the Holy Spirit, who resides in every born-again child of God.

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 29 “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. 30 “For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Matthew 11:28–30 (NASB95)

I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; 17 that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you. 18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 “After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also. 20 “In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. John 14:16–20 (NASB95)

The rest of God’s abiding presence is only found in Christ. Moses was forced to move the tabernacle of God’s presence outside the camp because the nation had grievously sinned. God set up his tabernacle inside us because Christ perfectly satisfied the Law’s demands once for all time.

This is just one example of how we understand the Old Testament and discover Jesus in its words. I hope this encourages you to always be on the look out for Christ as you read the Bible.