It is surprising how often Christians feel that the Old Testament has little to say to them. It is by far the majority of the Bible, but many feel it is alien territory. Yet God is the same, and the Gospel is the same. In fact, until you understand what God is doing in the Old Testament, you’ll struggle to grasp what He’s doing in the New!

There are deep things in our fallen world, and in Genesis we are given the chance to learn how the Living God relates to the sin and death that quickly becomes a part of creation’s experience. What does grace and judgement look like? And what will that mean for the ancient Church? And what is God’s plan to restore and renew that creation?

The Book of Exodus teaches us how the Gospel works. It is the book in which The Lord takes us through what it means to be redeemed from slavery to sin and from living under the shadow of death. It is in Exodus that start to learn about the ministry of Christ, and what that means for the people of God as they learn how to live in relationship with their Redeemer.

Leviticus is a multi-sensory immersive experience that catches up the whole of life and that teaches by its very structure what it means to live in the light of Gospel. It shows the absolute centrality of the Cross of Christ, teaches us what happens as Jesus dies, and how that one death changes the structures of reality.

The Church is a foretaste of the New Creation. The problem is we don’t really understand how the New Creation works yet. Numbers begins to show us how to live that life even in this old creation. And it shows us what can go wrong as seek to live our our discipleship in fellowship with other Christians, and what we can do about it when it does.

The idea of the New Creation stretches beyond what our imagination can envisage. In the shift from Deuteronomy to Joshua we glimpse something of what it means to speak of Jesus’ returning in glory to judge the living and the dead, and to usher in the life of the New Creation, in which sin and death, evil and suffering will no longer have any place.

Our heavenly Father wants to train the Church to live the New Creation life now. But the Church’s refusal leads them into a downward spiral of discipline and deliverance. Yet in His grace the Lord raises up time and again Spirit-anointed warriors who will bring rest to the land. Until the Spirit withdraws and horror of the sin the Lord would deliver us from is revealed for all to see.

Samuel opens with the Lord having to grow His own Judge. But the people want a king; a king like the other nations around them. The Lord reveals their folly in such a desire, and raises subsequently raises a shepherd-king who can point beyond himself to the Shepherd-King who alone can protect and provide, and who alone can deliver and defend. And who alone can conquer our enemies: within and without.

The Church rejects God’s vision for their New Creation life in the land, under the reign of a King who could teach them what it would be like to live in the Kingdom of God. In so doing, they being their journey to exile, passing milestone after milestone that should have warned them of the road they were on. What should have been a model of New Creation life becomes instead a living hell.

Even as God goes with His people into exile, He remains sovereign over the history of nations. At His command empires rise and fall until His people return to rebuild their life and worship. But is is clear that in a deep sense the exile is not yet over. There is one last lesson the Old Testament must teach us. And only then will the long-awaited Messiah come, the Reality to the shadows have pointed.