Greetings Christian Family,
When we read the Old Testament in the Bible, we have to understand that now that Jesus Christ has been revealed, now we can read the Old Testament with the revelation of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the Word made flesh, so you have to understand that the entire Old Testament is about Jesus. We cannot read the Old Testament like the Pharisees who were able to understand the meaning behind the letter, but were unable to understand the spirit behind the letter.
Let me explain: Jesus told the Pharisees
John 5:46
For if you believed in Moses, you would also believe in Me, because he wrote about Me.
Jesus told the Pharisees that “Moses wrote about Me…” But where? Moses wrote the first 5 books of the Bible, but Jesus is not mentioned in the first 5 books of the Bible. But what if I told you that Moses wrote about Jesus, because every story in the Old Testament is a metaphor about Jesus? When the Pharisees read the Old Testament, they thought they were reading about Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, etc. but they didn’t know that they were actually reading about Jesus. That’s why they couldn’t receive Jesus when He came because they were unable to see Jesus inside the Old Testament the entire time. They didn’t have spiritual eyes or understanding, they only had physical eyes and a fleshly understanding.
Let’s look at an example:
Let me reveal Jesus Christ to you in the story of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve is the story of Jesus Christ and his church. The Bible says the church is the bride of Jesus. With that information let me ask… Who is guilty of sin? Jesus or the Church? And Who committed the first sin, Adam or Eve? It was Adam’s bride (Eve/church) who sinned. And Adam then took responsibility for Eve’s sin by also eating the forbidden fruit. The Bible teaches a man should love his wife as Jesus loved his church.
See below:
1 Timothy 2:13-14 – “For Adam was created first, then Eve. Moreover, it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman who was deceived and fell into sin.”
Adam was created without sin. Adam did not know any sin until his bride sinned and he bore her sin. Does this sound familiar?
Take a look:
2 Corinthians 5:21 – “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
Remember the church is the “bride of Christ” and Jesus took away our sins because we have all sinned and eaten the apple of this world. So Jesus came down and took away our sins so we could be saved. There is much more that needs to be explained, but this story is also a metaphor for Jesus taking on the bride’s sins.
Adam and Eve
Finally:
When Adam and Eve sinned, they hid themselves and covered them with fig leaves (remember Jesus cursed the fig tree), they covered their shame with leaves, and what did God do before He took them out of the Garden? He made clothes for them from animal skins.
Genesis 3:21
And the LORD GOD made clothes of animal skins for the man and for his wife, and put them on them.
The animal skins represented the sacrificial lamb that would be necessary to cover their sins. It is a metaphor for clothing them with Christ.
GOD did not throw them out of the garden to punish them. In the Garden there was a “Tree of Life” therefore if Adam and Eve ate from the tree of life after they sinned, they would be trapped living in their sin forever. Because the tree will give them eternal life in the sins they live in. So they will be separated forever from GOD. GOD took them out of the garden to save them.
So that through the Lamb (Jesus) GOD makes them clothes of skin and the whole world will be saved. This reveals the entire story of Adam and Eve is about Jesus (Adam) and the Bride/Church (Eve) That’s how we read the Old Testament as born-again Christians with the knowledge of Christ’s revelation So we must read the Old Testament through the lens of Jesus’ revelation and do not read it in a worldly way like the Pharisees who did not understand the mysteries of the holy scriptures.
The story of Adam and Eve is about Jesus. The story of Cain and Abel is about Jesus. Job’s story is about Jesus. Joesph’s story is about Jesus. The story of King Solomon is about Jesus. Every story in the Old Testament is a metaphor about Jesus. Most people in the Old Testament did not know this because Jesus had not yet come, but now that He has come, let us also learn to unravel this mystery and reveal Jesus Christ in the Old Testament.
GOD bless you all who are in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Eddie Fews