What the Bible Means

Photo by Eliecer Gallegos

“The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight the paths of our God” (Isaiah 40:3 in the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint).

For those of you who have read any of the four Gospels in the New Testament, the biblical quotation above may sound familiar. In each Gospel account, this verse from the book of Isaiah is applied to a character named John the Baptist. John is portrayed in the Gospels as a herald of the coming Jewish Messiah (or Christ) who is Jesus of Nazareth.

The specific claim being made by the Gospel writers is that John the Baptist is “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness,” who is preparing the way of the Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy is to be found in the person of John and his proclamation of Jesus.

But, as anyone who reads the Old Testament carefully can tell you, Isaiah 40—in its original context—concerns God’s promise to return the people of Israel back into the promised land.

If one follows the general narrative of the Old Testament, we learn that God delivered the people of Israel out of Egyptian bondage, led them through the wilderness, and eventually brought them into the land of Canaan, which then became the land of Israel (in fulfillment of God’s promise to Israel’s patriarch Abraham). However, this new life of freedom in the land was contingent on their continued obedience to God.

Over the course of time, Israel’s obedience waned. Hundreds of years after the exodus, in the early sixth-century BCE, they were conquered by the Babylonian empire and many were sent into exile in Babylon. Once in exile, it was Israel’s hope that God would forgive their sins that led them there and finally lead them back into the land of promise—a “new exodus” whereby God would restore their fortunes.

Isaiah 40 addresses this hope. “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for” (verses 1–2 NIV). Isaiah 40 continues by affirming the “good news”—or “gospel”—that the time of Israel’s restoration has arrived (verse 9; see also especially Isaiah 52:1–10).

Israel did indeed return to the land approximately 50 years after the Babylonian conquest. The capital city of Jerusalem was reestablished. Their temple that had been destroyed by the Babylonians was rebuilt.

So what were the Gospel writers doing when they claimed that Isaiah was fulfilled not in Israel’s return some 500 years earlier, but in the events surrounding the coming of the Messiah?

Was this an innocent mistake? Or were they perhaps trying to “pull a fast one” on those who would hear their Gospel accounts and might be impressed that the story of Jesus was foretold long ago by Israel’s prophets?

The Gospel of Matthew, in particular, utilizes the language of “fulfillment” extensively. Illustrative, quoting a passage from the prophet Hosea (11:1), Matthew writes, “This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son’” (2:15).

In its original context, Hosea is reflecting on Israel’s exodus from Egypt. Israel is portrayed as God’s son, whom God had rescued (see Exodus 4:22). But Matthew is telling a story about Joseph, Mary, and the baby Jesus having to temporarily flee to Egypt, because of King Herod’s plot to do away with Jesus by massacring all the children two years old or under in Bethlehem where Jesus was born.

Numerous other examples can be given in which Old Testament passages referring to one thing in Israel’s past are said to fulfill events in Jesus’ life. So, again, what is going on here?

The answer is actually fairly simple: biblical texts can mean more than one thing. Importantly, despite the clear differences between what these texts meant in their original contexts and how they were read by the New Testament writers, there is also a clear line of consistency.

As Israel’s Messiah, Jesus is seen in the New Testament as in some sense embodying the calling, hope, and destiny of God’s people, bringing all of these to their ultimate fulfillment.

It is not really surprising, then, that the remembrance of God’s providential care and deliverance of his people in the event of the exodus, and the promises of restoration for God’s people following the judgment of exile are readily applied to the story of Jesus.

Jesus is God’s Son, whose obedient life, death, and resurrection from the dead are the means through which God will bring about the final redemption of not only Israel but the whole world. Thus, Israel’s story and Jesus’ story shed light on one another (see, for example, Genesis 12:1–3 and especially Isaiah 53:1–12). Reading the Bible in an informed manner requires that we take these multiple layers of meaning seriously.

And this method of interpretation employed by the New Testament writers also provides a pattern for how the church can continue to read the New Testament in light of new circumstances it encounters. That is, the New Testament continues to speak beyond the first hearers of these texts precisely because we can give them new meaning to address our contemporary world.

Of course, doing this sort of interpretive work faithfully will require that the church strives to read Scripture in ways that are ultimately consistent with both the meaning it may have offered to the original audience and the larger redemptive plot of the Bible as a whole that has Jesus Christ at its center.

This is no easy or risk-free task. It is, however, a necessary one. Thankfully, God has not left the church alone in the interpretive enterprise but has provided the Holy Spirit as a guide. “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope” (Romans 15:4).