By Rollin Grams, Bible and Mission.
Introduction
Seeing Jesus approach him, John the Baptist declared, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world’ (John 1.29). His testimony was of Jesus’ impending crucifixion, His shedding of blood in death as a sacrifice for sin for the whole world. In this essay, I will examine the ways in which the Old Testament’s hope in God as Saviour comes to fulfillment in Jesus Christ.
In his Lectures in Old Testament Theology, Dennis Kinlaw draws attention to similes and metaphors applied to God.[1] The metaphors derive from various social paradigms. One metaphor comes from a political paradigm: God is King and Lord. A second comes from the judicial context: God is Judge. A third derives from the family paradigm: God is Father. Kinlaw’s fourth paradigm is marriage: God is the Groom to His people.
I would point out that these metaphors and paradigms also relate to Jesus in the New Testament. If God is said to be the King over His people and the whole world in the Old Testament, Jesus is said to be the Messiah—the Saviour King for Israel—and Lord of all, reigning now from the throne of God (Ephesians 1.20-23). If God is the Judge of all, Jesus will come again as Judge to administer final judgement (2 Corinthians 5.10). If God is called Father, Jesus is the Son fully representing the Father and doing His will (John 5.17-29). If God is the Groom to His people in the Old Testament, Jesus is also said to be the Groom and Husband of the Church, God’s people in Christ (Ephesians 5.22-33).
Therefore, we have these four paradigms from Kinlaw for our relationship to God and that describe deity in the Old Testament, and we see that they extend to Jesus Himself and our relationship to Him: the political, the judicial, the familial, and the marital.
Yet we should also note that there is a fifth metaphor that comes from the paradigm of the military: God is our Defender and Saviour. This is applied to our personal situation and relationship to God, to Israel’s relationship to God, and, in the New Testament, to the Church’s relationship to God. I would like to explore each of these further as I offer a study of God our Saviour.