10.7.2012 LUTHER XII - RELATION OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS

213.1...'the manner in which L conceives the way Christ is concealed in the old testament requires further elaboration. we have already seen that in the preface to the books of moses, he designates the old as a 'law book' and the new, a 'book of grace', although he hastens to add that the former includes a proclamation of grace and the latter, many commandments. the supreme art of the theologian, 'the treasure of the true scribe' consists, in the reformer's opinion, in his ability to distinguish correctly between law and gospel, between God's demand and his promise. he repeats this constantly, so that at the end of his life he could say to his students,
'by this time you should understand this.

this distinction, in his judgment, urns straight through the bible. a very significant passage in this connection is found in his 'advents-postille:
'there is no book in the bible which does not contain both. everywhere God has placed law and promise side by side.
through the law He teaches us what must be done;
through the promise, how we can do it.
that we refer to the new testament as gospel, more than we do the remainder of the bible, is because it was written after Christ's coming and therefore after the divine promise, which before that time had been hidden in scripture, had been fulfilled and publicly proclaimed, through preaching. pay careful attention to this distinction no matter which book you may be reading, whether in the old or in the new testament.
whatever contains promises is a book of the gospel;
where commandments are found, we have a book of law.
since, however, in the new testament promises form the principal content, as commandments do in the old, the one may be designated as gospel and the other as law.

even when the scripture is law, it points to Christ. this is true of the old testament also. the purpose of the law of the old testament-in so far as it is not restricted to the temporary ceremonial and national needs of the jewish people but, radically heightened by Chris, concerns itself with ethical-religious demands that are universal-is precisely to overwhelm us. IT TEACHES US TO KNOW THAT WE CAN NEVER FULFIL ITS DEMANDS IN OUR OWN POWER, AND THUS DRIVES US TO CHRIST AND HIS SALVATION. the bible as a whole, as both gospel and law, witnesses of Him in whose cross is revealed the unity of  God's dual work, the strange work of His judgment  and the true work of  his grace. it proclaims Christ, in whom God both kills and makes alive. for this reason, the gospel, though concealed, is always present when the law is preached. where 'the office of moses, the office of sin and death' is, there the help of God's grace in His Son is near at hand.
'even the law cannot be understood without Christ, because no one knows what it intends and how it can be fulfilled.
therefore the old testament, even as law, already points to Christ.

still more must be said. the old testament does not merely desire to point us to Christ through the harsh medium of the law, but is itself a witness to Christ, since it is already full of divine promises. l finds the proclamation concerning Christ in the prophets and psalms, in the well known messianic references in the historical books, and where not! in His great love, he discovers footprints of His beloved everywhere, some real and some hoped for.

significant and characteristic is, for instance, his exposition of psalm 90, which occupies a prominent place in L's preaching. on the one hand, he sees this song as typically a psalm of moses, the man of the law. moses here shows us a man who does not perceive how profoundly sin and God's wrath are interwoven with death. in this psalm he is 'mosissimus', servant of the law par excellence. on the other hand, there exists no psalm as Christological as this. the manner in which moses here prays in the face of death is a remarkable proclamation of Christ, who delivers us from death. in the personal relationship of God to man, as this is expressed in the introduction to the ten commandments ('I am the Lord YOUR God') and in this prayer of moses, we are already given victory over death-and this is to say, here is Christ with His gospel of resurrection. because of this L can say in his preface to the psalter that we can find in the psalms an image of Christ's death, resurrection, and coming kingdom.

L clearly sees Christ's work in the old covenant proclaimed also in the 'types' of the priesthood and cult, as well as in the experiences of the people of israel. high priest, sacrifices, and tabernacle are all 'figures' which point to Christ.

he criticizes the romanists sharply for applying the 'figure' of aaron to the pope.
'Christ is the man to whom all this must be applied.
here L stands in the direct line of tradition, especially that of the epistle to the hebrews. in some other respects, particularly in regard to its teaching concerning repentance, L had strong objections to this epistle. heb. 6.4-6 as well as 10.26 and 12.17, always remain einen harten knoten, a lump difficult to digest. as a result, he regards this work as nonapostolic and suggests that its author might be apollos. yet so far as its interpretation of the old testament types of Christ's priestly ministry is concerned, L regards this epistle highly. it contains almost enough to clarify all of the figures of moses' books.

the entire history of israel may be applied to the church of Christ. this may not be done in a 'physical', external, and legalistic manner, as the roman theologians do, but in a spiritual way by which the fulfilment is visible only to the eye of faith.
'that which the old testament has in physical and visible matters, is in the new testament a spiritual and inner thing, which one cannot see but can possess only in faith. thus the physical gathering of the people of israel points to the spiritual assembling of the christian people in faith.
because of this the psalter, even including the imprecatory psalms, can serve as the prayer book of the christian church.
'it is clear that everything the people of israel in earlier days suffered physically at the hands of their enemies and neighbors prefigures the suffering that the church of Christ must continually endure from its enemies and neighbors, ie. from false brethren, teachers and heretics. therefore these psalms and prayers continue to be valid for us, under the very same names and titles and we may pry them against our enemies, as they did against theirs.

222.top...'in His preaching, Jesus Himself has taught us how we are to interpret the old testament. to his word,
'as moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up' john 3.14, L adds:
'the Lord teaches us here how to take proper hold on moses and all the prophets, showing that moses in all his actions points to Christ. this means that Christ is the point in the circle fro which the entire circle is drawn. whoever is attached to Him belongs also in the ring. for He is the middle point of the circle and all the events of holy scripture-when they are rightly understood-point to Christ.
therefore,
'i wish to know nothing in scripture but Christ and him crucified.

L sees the revelation of God in Christ not so much as a point of perspective from which everything radiates, but truly as the middle point around which everything turns in concentric circles. the use of such expressions as 'figure' and 'prefiguring' do not mean that he regards the revelation of god in the old and new testament as a lower and higher step in the helsgeschichte (salvation history), so that Christ is present in the first only in anticipation, whereas He is actually present in the second. Christ Himself was already present under the old covenant. the God of israel is the triune God. therefore Christ is not merely prophesied about, but He is truly present as under the covering of the law or in the veiled gospel promises, the voice of god is heard. in the messianic prophecies He is therefore present in a double sense: as the hidden speaker and as the one whose coming in the flesh is foretold. in a very special manner L saw Christ present in a concealed fashion, in such old testament 'sacramental signs' as circumcision, the rainbow and the rock from which the people drank. this was not only the result of His liking for illustrations, but also of the view that was of such great significance for the whole of His theology, that god clothes Himself in representations and signs when He reveals Himself to man.

the concrete manner in which L can speak of the real presence of Christ in both the words and signs of the old covenant is shown in the following quotation:
'from this it follows with powerful and inexpressible force that the god who led the people of israel out of egypt and through the red sea, who guided them in the wilderness by a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire, who fed them with heavenly bread and performed all the other miracles moses describes in his books, who also brought them to the land of canaan, where he gave them kings and priests and all manner of things, is no other God than Jesus of nazareth, son of the virgin mary, whom we christians call our God and Lord...He it is, who on mount sinai gave the ten commandments to moses and said,
'I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of egypt, out of the house of bondage. you shall have no other gods before Me.
yes, Jesus the nazarene who died on the cross for us, is that God who in the first commandment says,
'I  am the Lord your God.
if the jews and mohammedans should hear that, how they would rage! nevertheless it is true and will remain true; those who do not believe it will tremble and burn everlastingly.
he can also reverse this and call the Christ of the new testament by the name of Jahweh as he does in his 'mighty fortress',
dost ask, who is this?
Christ Jesus it is,
of sabaoth Lord,
and there's none other God;
he holds the field forever.
in an altogether original and often crass manner, L has thus sought to make clear both the distinctiveness and the unity of the two testaments. the new testament was already present in the very midst of the old testament age. it is certainly bound to the historical appearing of Jesus Christ, but He was already present, though concealed, in the earlier dispensation. the patriarchs and prophets believed in Him, not merely as the one who was to come, but as the Christ who was already present. for this reason, L could without hesitation call moses, the patriarchs, and the prophets christians.