Shepherd’s Conference 2017 Notes: Seeing Christ in All of Scripture? Abner Chou

Dr. Abner Chou is probably the fasting speaking preacher during this year’s Shepherd’s Conference.

I tried to write as much down for my notes from his session but missed quite a bit.

Here’s my notes.  When the audio MP3 comes out later this one is worth listening to especially in the end when he walks us through how the Old Testament anticipate Christ.

Christ in the Old Testament

We want to honor Christ not only in the end but also in the ends.  We also want to honor Christ with our hermeneutics

Christocentric Approach: A

What? We need to align meaning of everything to Christ.

How?

Problem:

The problem is that meaning is not aligned with its implication.

It also make a canon of the canon

The danger of making Christomonism

You make Scripture say less than what Scripture has to say

Also it ironically it ends up glorifying Him less

Why?

 

Christocentric Approach: A

The problem is that meaning is not aligned with its implication.

For example:

Christocentric-

1. How Jesus read His Bible?

The argument from his use of Scripture is definitive because you can’t be more Christ centered than Christ!

Jesus’ hermeneutics is the hermeneutics of the Prophets

Jesus’ hermeneutics is the hermeneutics of the Apostles

If Jesus’ hermeneutics is the hermeneutics of Scripture then it is the hermeneutics of the Church

Look at Luke 24

Jesus here didn’t give a new hermeneutic per se

Jesus equivocates the meaning of Scripture with the intent of the prophets; He honors the topic that the authors set up in all His use of the passages in the Old Testament.

Leviticus 18:5 “do and live” àNehemiah and Ezekiel shows we need the New Covenant

Jesus had a rigorously literal hermeneutics

The issue is how far does this go?

Jesus demands exhaustive knowledge of Old Testament Scripture

He use the term “Son of Man,’

Jesus affirm the history of Jonah, Genesis 1-2 for marriage, Elijah and Elisha for His outreach to Gentiles.

Jesus is following the mentality the Prophets had

2. What do we learn?

Jesus’ hermeneutics must comfort us if we are doing historical grammatical hermeneutics

We need to find what’s already there

3. How Should we read our Bibles?

Prophecy

The prophets do predict Christ (Genesis 3:15, Isaiah 9:6, Zechariah 6, Zechariah 9, Zechariah 11-12)

Psalm 22:29à Out of the dust, shows resurrection

Psalm 72:9à His enemies lick the dust, echoes Genesis 3:15

Jesus being born in Bethlehem because He is the New David

Psalm 22 shows the cross is the lynchpin of Redemptive History

The Prophets have deep theology

What do we lose if our hermenuetics is flattened?  It removes the fully glory Christ deserve

Participation

Tension: Prophets set things up with multiple Yahweh which implies the second person of the Trinity

Christ’s dominance in God’s plan from beginning to end

What we lose if we flatten or omit OT: Christ centrality

Preparation (at the mircro level)

This comes from Jesus’ grammatical hermeneutics and followed the prophets and we too need to follow their intent

If you know the “theological what” of the Old Testament you would know the “theological so what?”

Jesus’ birth

People often cite Hosea 11:1 as proof for Christo-centric hermeneutics

But Matthew quotes Hosea 11 because he wanted to look at Hosea’s theology because if he just want Exodus account He would have went to Exodus

Within Hosea there is a theme of a New Moses and a New David (3:5) and so there is also a new exodus

Genesis 49à People in Galilee are always hit first during invasion; Isaiah also show this is an invasion in Galilee.  The geography announces the theology of Christ.

First thing Jesus entered Jerusalem because David entered Jebsuite and his healing of lame and the blind was reversal of

Jesus in Mount Olive is like Moses in Mount of Sinai

It is not accident where Jesus goes and you see that from the Old Testament

Parable of Mustard seed; we see the tree not mentioned as ending;

Temptation of Jesus, see the temptation of David with three temptations

 

Death

God’s death is also intentional in timing and place

Theology of the Cross is anchored in the Old Testament.

Resurrection

Hosea 6 talks about resurrection on the 3^rd Day and is Jesus’ solidarity with His people

First day of the week which is the first of New Creation

Paradise in the Old Testament is literally “Eden” when Jesus said

Jesus being mistaken as the Gardener is because He is the new Adam!

 

 

Preparation (at the macro level)

Genesis: Need for Savior

Leviticus: Preist

Joshua: People in the land

Judges: Need for a king

Ruth-Samuel: Genalogoies

Lamentations 2-3 quotes a lot of Messianic Psalms