Review of Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament

by Christopher J.H. Wright

James Pruch
Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary
May 2012

Introduction
Dr. Christopher J. H. Wright (Ph. D., Cambridge) is an Old Testament scholar, an ordained
Anglican ministry, and is the director of international ministries with the Langham Partnership
International. In Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament, Wright seeks to display the
continuity between the Hebrew Scriptures and Jesus self-understanding. Wright maintains that
Jesus self-understanding rooted in the history of salvation that God planned and worked for
Israel. This review will show that Wrights book provides the reader with a rich understanding
of Jesus unique identity as the Hebrew Messiah and gives helpful insights for understanding
how the OT should be viewed from the Christian perspective.
Brief Summary
Wrights thesis is that one cannot fully know the story of Jesus unless he sees it in the light of a
much longer story which goes back for many centuries.1 He works this out in five chapters,
which he summarizes at the end of the book:
We have seen that the Old Testament tells the story which Jesus completed. It declares
the promise which he fulfilled. It provides the pictures and models which shaped his
identity. It programmes a mission which he accepted and passed on. It teaches a moral
orientation to God and the world which he endorsed, sharpened, and laid as the
foundation for obedient discipleship.2
He argues that the OT does not merely point to Jesus but that from the Hebrew Scriptures Jesus
found his insights into the mind of his Father God...[and] found the shape of his own identity
and the goal of his own mission.3 Nevertheless, the OT also does look forward to Christ as the
fulfillment of the promise which [it] had declared.4 Therefore, unless one understands the
story of the OT, he will not understand Jesus identity and mission.
Wright takes Matthew 1-4 and unfolds its implications throughout the book. He begins with
Matthew 1:1-17 to show the link between Israels story and Jesus life. This genealogy is a
central historical interface binding together the two great acts of Gods drama of the
salvation.5 Matthews genealogy sums up Jesus lineage, setting the stage for Jesus as the
fulfillment of Israels redemption. Of course, Jesus was not only sent for Israel. It was through
Christ that God would fulfill his promise to Abraham that all the families of the world would
be blessed (Gen. 12:1-3). Israel failed to be a blessing to the world, so Jesus, the True Israel, did
what they could never do: He was the climax and fulfillment of the hope of Israel and the
beginning of the hope of the nations.6

Christopher J.H. Wright, Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament (Downers Grove: IVP, 1992), 1.
Ibid., 252.
3
Ibid., ix.
4
Ibid., 103.
5
Ibid., 2.
6
Ibid., 166.
2

One major theme reinforced throughout the book is the Jewishness of Jesus. This takes full
shape in chapter three when Wright analyzes Jesus OT identity as it relates to his selfunderstanding. Wright goes to great lengths to convince the reader of the OT identity of Jesus.
Most significantly, Jesus comes as the true Son of God, which Adam and Israel failed to be.7
Jesus also fulfills the roles of Messiah, the Son of Man, and the Servant of the Lord, all three of
which pointed forward to the eschatological hope of redemption and restoration for Israel.
Critical Interaction with the Book
Wright believes the OT stories and events are more than mere shadows with no significance in
themselves.8 Nevertheless, he does not hold to a strictly literal hermeneutic. Using typology
and promise-fulfillment, Wright sees the OT as historically and theologically significant in its
own right, but incomplete: it is the preamble, so to speak, of the life and mission of Jesus. In
sum, Wrights hermeneutic is Christological: the stories in the OT mean something fuller than
what the original audience supposed.9 This fact alonethat Wright finds Christ as the center
and sum of all Scriptureis his greatest strength.
Wrights section on typology fleshes this out.10 Typology helps readers look for Christ in the OT
by way of analogy or correspondence.11 One reviewer comments that employing typology
encourages us to look for patterns or models of how God works in history, and then to see
how those patterns are fulfilled by Jesus in the New Testament. No hocus-pocus, just close
attention paid to God's pattern of working in history.12
Typology is one way to explain the pictures and patterns of the OT, but not the only way.13
Wright talks about ongoing levels of fulfillment and differentiates between prediction and
promise.14 This second interpretive method of Wright is termed promise-fulfillment. Jesus is
the final destination of an already well recognized pattern of promise-fulfillment that was laid
out in the OT.15
A promise implies that not all fulfillments will be literal. Wright uses the analogy of father
promising a son a horse when he turns 21. By the time the son turns 21, automobiles have been
invented, so the son receives a car instead of a horse. The promise was fulfilled
(transportation), but it was fulfilled in the light of new historical events.16 Such is the case
7

Ibid., 104ff.
Ibid., 30-31.
9
Though Wright does not explicitly state his theological interpretive grid (i.e. dispensational or
covenantal), it is safe to assume leans toward covenant theology. See Ibid., 83-102.
10
Ibid., 110-116.
11
Ibid., 116.
12
Paul Alexander, Book Review: Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament, IX Marks Blog,
http://www.alliancenet.org/CC/article/0,,PTID314526_CHID598026_CIID2438290,00.html (accessed April 17,
2012).
13
Wright, Knowing Jesus, 116.
14
Ibid., 70-77
15
Ibid., 74.
16
Ibid., 71.
8

with the seemingly literal promises in the OT (land, prosperity, nation, etc.). Christ, as the
fulfiller, takes promises to another level, providing the potential for different and progressively
superior levels of fulfillment.17 Both typology and promise-fulfillment should keep Christians
from distancing any OT text from Christ (cf. John 5:39; Luke 24:27, 44).
One reviewer points out that a great weakness is that this method reflects a replacement
theology.18 The reviewer preferred Walter Kaisers similar text The Messiah in the Old
Testament noting that Kaiser sees the promises [of the OT] having present and future
applications to both Israel and the Church. This perspective neglects the fact that Christ, as the
True Israel, fulfills all Gods promises to Israel in himself and thus is the only worthy Israelite
who can extend blessing to the nations. Wrights efforts in chapter 2 on the OT promise prove
that Jesus brings the completion of a story and the fulfillment of a promise. 19 Jesus, as the
true Davidic King, brings a kingdom that is greater in power, influence, and degree than a
physical, geographic, national kingdom for Israel could have ever be because it spiritual,
eternal, and includes all nations, tribes, languages, and peoples (cf. Rev. 5:9).
Wrights overall goal is two-fold. First, he seeks to prove that Jesus follows the path of Israel
and fulfills what Israel was called to be and do. Second, he wants the reader to see that in order
to truly know Jesus he must understand the story of the OT. The former seeks to unveil how
Jesus understood himself; the latter seeks to unveil how Christians understand Jesus today.
In his exegesis of Matthew 1:1-17, Wright proves that the OT is not merely Jewish history:
[Matthew] is pointing out that Old Testament history falls into three approximately equal
spans of time between the critical events...Jesus is thus the end of the line, as far as the Old
Testament story goes...The Messiah has come. In that sense, Jesus is the end (cf. Matt. 4:17).20
Jesus, however, also brings the dawn of a new creation.21 More than teaching doctrine and
dogmatics, the Bible tells the story of the acts of God in human history out of which those
promises arose and in relation to which only they make sense. Wright proves this by showing
how Matthew makes the connection between Israel and Jesus in Gods story. The hope of this
story is bound up in the Jewish expectation of an eschatological restoration of Israel. John the
Baptist was the one who was sent to prepare Israel for this; Jesus was the one who was sent to
accomplish it.22 As mentioned above, Jesus embraces the OT titles of Messiah, the Son of Man,
and the Servant of the Lord.23 Though the Jews did not understand these to be a single, defined
figure, Jesus embodied all of them to declare that he is the hope of Israel.
An important theme that stems from this is the fact that Israels destiny impacts the destiny of
the nations. Alongside this central expectation [of Israels restoration] was the belief that
after, or as part of, the restoration...there would be an ingathering of the nations to become
17

Ibid., 77.
Stanley Horton, Book Reviews, JETS 40, no. 2 (June 1997), 287.
19
Wright, Knowing Jesus, 59.
20
Ibid., 6-7.
21
Ibid., 8.
22
Ibid., 138-142.
23
Ibid., 142ff.
18

part of the people of God with Israel.24 Wright shows that Jesus understood himself not only
as the hope of Israel, but as the bridge between Israel and the rest of the world. All Gods
dealings with Israel in particular are to be seen as the pursuit of his unfinished business with the
nations.25 God chose Israel so he could save the world and as the Messiah of Israel [Jesus]
could be the savior of the world.26 Of course, this connection is not limited to Matthew, the
most Jewish of the New Testament writers. Wright points out that Paul saw that it was
paradoxically through the narrowing down of [Gods] redemptive acts to the unique
particularity of one single manthe Messiah, Jesus, that God had opened the way to the
universal offering of the grace of his Gospel to all nations.27
The content of the book should be digested with great care by every pastor and layperson.
Wright helps the reader understand why the OT belongs to Christians. He articulately shows
how Jesus understood himself and how Christians should understand him, that is, as part of a
particular context. This does not mean the Jewish Messiah Jesus is not relevant for people
today. Exactly the opposite! Jesus is the bridge that leads all nations and peoples to the only
true God who has acted in history for his glory and his peoples joy.
Knowing Jesus will help pastors, in particular, winsomely preach the OT so that the gospel is
made central in every sermon. This will be help pastors disciple Christians to embrace the OT in
personal devotions and cherish it as Gods word to them today. Knowing Jesus challenges
Christians to do the hard work of learning Gods story and standing it awe of it, but it also calls
them to find their place in the story and live in a manner worthy of such an awesome
redemption. Finally, knowing that the OT is a story about Jesus can aid pastors and laypeople in
responding to non-Christians and their often antagonistic view of the Old Testament God.
Conclusion
Wright masterfully answers what every Christian pastor and layperson wants to know: How is
the OT Christian Scripture? While still maintaining careful exegesis as he considers the
literary, grammatical, and historical context, Wright draws out of Scripture the mystery of God
hidden for ages: Christ came as the Messiah for Israel in order to bless the world.
My theological persuasion is in line with Wrights. Nothing he said was revolutionary or
shocking. If nothing else, the book was a glaring reminder to 1) always relate every text to the
person and work of Christ; and 2) be careful in my exegesis, especially with OT texts. In the
former, Wright also pushed me to remember that relating the OT to Christ should not be done
tritely or, if in a sermon, as a tag on in the conclusion, for the OT, and therefore Jesus, has a
rich history with multi-layered meaning. In the latter, Wright challenged me to respect, admire,
and love the OT stories, for they are significant and important in their own right. The proper

24

Ibid., 158.
Ibid., 36.
26
Ibid., 44.
27
Ibid., 52-53.
25

response in light of all this, as Wright concluded, is that we should recognize the widest
significance of Jesus...is to be found by worshipping him in the light of his own scriptures.28

28

Ibid., 252.
5