Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you. 1 Peter 1:10
Isaiah is without doubt one of the greatest of the Old Testament prophets. His service as a prophet began during the reign of King Uzziah (or Amaziah) of Judah, and extended through the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. During his lengthy term, this great man of God was used to advise the kings under whom he served, and to encourage the nation to serve God. The book that bears his name has been called the Gospel of the Old Testament for its many references to the person of Christ. With the possible exception of David, no other Old Testament writer so fully describes the coming Saviour and Messiah. But Isaiah must at times have been very confused at what the Holy Spirit guided him to write. For example, in Chapter 11, he writes of the glory of the coming Messiah, and in Chapter 53, he writes in great detail about the suffering and death of the Messiah, without any indication that he knew how to put those two themes together. What was a mystery to him is a glorious truth to us.
The Lord Jesus made it clear to the Pharisees that He and the salvation that He came to bring is the grand theme of the Old Testament as well as the New: ‘Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of Me’ (John 5:39). This salvation was promised immediately after the fall of our first ancestors (Genesis 3:13). It was illustrated through all of the ordinances delivered to the Israelites – the sacrifices, the tabernacle, the entire legal system that God provided through Moses. It was also illustrated in many of the events through which Old Testament characters passed, including the Noahic flood, the offering of Isaac on the mountain in Moriah, the Passover deliverance from Egypt, and the deliverance of Jonah from the belly of the great fish. If those Old Testament saints were to appear in our midst today, and if they were to be handed a Bible to read the New Testament, how delighted they would have been! As the meaning of their experiences became clear, they would have rejoiced at the great purposes of God. And so should we.
One of the chief occupations of the Christians in the book of Acts was the study of the Old Testament Scriptures. They examined those ancient writings to verify that the life, death, resurrection, and teachings of the Lord Jesus were foretold and described. On the Emmaus road, the Lord Jesus unfolded the things concerning Himself that were contained in all the Scriptures. Today, we tend to spend most of our study time in the New Testament, reading the eye witness accounts of the Gospel writers and examining the teachings of the apostles who saw and were taught by the Lord Jesus Himself. But we ought not to neglect the great treasurehouse of the Old Testament and the prophecies of the grace that should come unto us. -Jim MacIntosh