Christophanies

Genesis 32:22-31

Have you ever wanted to learn a new word from a sermon? I have a new word for you: Christophanies! Christophanies are appearances of Jesus in the Old Testament. You have already heard one example in Genesis, where Jacob is wrestling with a man I believe to be Jesus. Before I explain this, I want to talk about why I preach.

The primary role of clergy is to point people to Jesus. My secondary role is to teach and preach the Bible as the Word of and witness to God, to show you through God’s Word who God is. To show you who God is, is to point you to Jesus.

I bet most of you think the Old Testament doesn’t have that much to do with Jesus. I have heard people say that the God of the Old Testament (OT) is different than the God of the New Testament. Well here’s the truth: He is the same God.

Some Christians think the OT is not about Jesus and therefore they ignore it. However, the Old Testament is approximately ¾ of our Christian Bible. There are 39 books in the OT and 27 in the New Testament (NT). There are 1,189 chapters in the OT and 260 in the NT. There are 31,173 verses in the OT and 7,959 in the NT. As you can see, the OT far outsizes the NT.

Perhaps because of its size and the preaching preference of most clergy for the NT, many do not know what the OT is about. Is it about how we should live? Is it a history book? Is it a compilation of biographies of people like Adam, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Ruth, David, Solomon, and Nehemiah? Is it a book that contrasts positive and negative moral examples? What exactly is the central message of the OT?

From beginning to end, along with the NT, the OT is a book about Jesus. Don’t believe me? Then listen to what Jesus says about the OT. Speaking to the Pharisees in John’s Gospel (5:39-40, Jesus says: You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. In Luke, Jesus says that everything written in the prophetic writings of the OT is going to be accomplished in him. Jesus believed the OT Scriptures were written about him. Imagine that. Before you are born there already exists a biography about you. To which you say, “That is ridiculous.” Well of course it is ridiculous, but not if you are God.

Most of us are familiar with prophecies about the birth of Jesus:

• ·       Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. 
• ·       For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
• ·      But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.

There are also prophecies of Jesus’ death. Psalm 16:10, written 1000 years before Jesus’ birth says, “You will not abandon my soul to Sheol or let your holy one see corruption.” The prophecy is that Jesus, the holy one, will die but he will not remain dead and abandoned to Sheol. And if you read Psalm 22, that Jesus quoted on the cross, saying “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?,” you will see it predicts in detail the crucifixion, down to this specific line: “A company of evildoers has surrounded me; they have pierced my hands and my feet.”

This amazing prophecy foretells the nails that were driven through the most sensitive nerve centers of Jesus’ body: his hands and his feet, causing him to die in unbearable pain. When Psalm 22 was written, crucifixion, the satanic Roman form of torture unto death, did not exist in the Hebrew culture, yet here is a remarkably exact OT prophecy.

But what about Christophanies, this fancy word given to the appearances of Jesus in the OT before he is born of the virgin Mary? Jesus did not begin his existence with life on earth. He existed eternally with God, before he entered into human history. As John writes in his gospel (1:1-3): In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. Jesus entered into human history as a baby, but he existed and ministered as the Son of God before his birth.

What was his ministry? He created all things. Nothing was made that was not made by him. Did Jesus believe this? Listen to this conversation Jesus had with some argumentative Pharisees. They asked Jesus, Are you [really] greater than our father Abraham, who died? . . . Who do you make yourself out to be?" Jesus answered . . . Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad." So the Jews said to him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?" Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am."

Clearly Jesus understood himself to be the preexistent Word of God. By referring to himself as “I am,” Jesus links himself to the conversation Moses had with God—well actually with Jesus—at the burning bush: Then Moses said to God, "If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." And he said, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" . . . This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. God’s name forever is I AM, and Jesus uses this name for himself.

Jesus also makes the claim that Abraham saw him: Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad. What is Jesus talking about? He is referring to an incident from Genesis 18: And the LORD appeared to [Abraham] by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. [Abraham] lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth . . . They said to him, "Where is Sarah your wife?" And he said, "She is in the tent." The LORD said, "I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son."    . . . Then the men set out from there, and . . . Abraham went with them to set them on their way. Is this not curious how we read the Lord appeared and immediately Abraham sees three men—representing the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? So, Abraham saw Jesus.

There is another Christophanic reference in John 12:14. Explaining a prophecy he quotes, John writes: Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him. What John says is that Isaiah saw Jesus and spoke of his glory, when Isaiah wrote: I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim . . . And one called to another and said: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!" . . . And I said: "Woe is me! . . . for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!"

Before Jesus was born, he was reigning in heaven as God and calling Isaiah into ministry. This vision of Jesus is almost identical to the vision in Revelation where Jesus is seated on the heavenly throne, except in the latter vision Jesus looks like a “lamb who was slain.” Amazing, the ruling, reigning God of the universe bears the marks of his earthly crucifixion and death in his heavenly resurrection body.

I have shared three Christophanies so far: Jesus’ appearing to Moses, Abraham, and Isaiah. He also appears in the Book of Daniel when he joined Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace that King Nebuchadnezzar tried to kill them in because they would not worship him. Upon seeing an additional person in the fiery furnace, Nebuchadnezzar says: "But I see four men unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods." Well of course he looks like a son of the gods because he was seeing the Son of God.

Which brings me to the Christophanie in our Genesis reading. There is a man wrestling with Jacob, in the immortal words of Lionel Ritchie, “All night long.” At the end of the match, he says to Jacob, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” Throughout his life Jacob has striven against his father Isaac, his brother Esau, and his uncle Laban. Those are all men, but what about God? The answer is that he has just wrestled all night with Jesus. Jacob explains, “I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.”  Jacob saw Jesus, who renames him “Israel.” Jesus, whose mission is to save the lost sheep of Israel and to create a new Israel though his death and resurrection, names Jacob Israel, giving him the name of his future bride, the people for whom he will die.

As your pastor, I want you to read the Bible, including the OT, and get to Jesus. I want you to see that the people and events of the OT point to what Jesus will ultimately fulfill.

Paraphrasing Mark Driscoll: Unlike the first Adam, Jesus is the last Adam, who passed his test in the garden and imputed his righteousness to us to overcome the sin imputed to us through the first Adam. Jesus is the true and better Able who, although innocent, was slain and whose blood cries out for our acquittal. When Abraham left his father at home, he was doing the same thing that Jesus would do when he left heaven. When Isaac carried his own wood and laid down his life to be sacrificed at the hand of his father, Abraham, he was showing us what Jesus would later do. Jesus is the greater Jacob, who wrestled with God the Father in Gethsemane and, though wounded and limping, walked away from his grave blessed. Jesus is the greater Joseph, who serves at the right hand of God the King and extends forgiveness and provision to those who have betrayed him and uses his power to save us in loving reconciliation. Jesus is the greater Moses who stands as a mediator between God and us, bringing us the new covenant. Jesus is a king greater than David, who has slain our giants of Satan, sin, and death. Jesus is greater than Jonah in that he spent three days in the grave and not just a fish to save a multitude. When Boaz redeemed Ruth and brought her and her despised people into community with God’s people, he was showing what Jesus would do to redeem his bride, the church, from all the nations of the earth. When Nehemiah rebuilt Jerusalem, he was doing something similar to Jesus, who is building for us a new Jerusalem as our eternal home. When Hosea married an unfaithful, whoring wife that he continued to pursue and love, he was showing us the heart of Jesus, who does the same thing for his unfaithful bride, the church. Do you get it? Throughout the Old Testament, significant figures prefigure and do important things that ultimately lead us to Jesus, who is greater and does them better.

Thank you for letting me preach today and listening for so long. My joy is to open up the Bible and talk about Jesus, so you will know him and love him and trust him and serve him and, like Jacob, see him face to face.