“Pointing Beyond Itself”

On the books of Luke and Acts:

“…the biblical promises and allusions throughout the first book create a foreshadowing of things to come. Or…the allusions produce a suspension that awaits resolution. As the associations between Jesus and various Old Testament precursors accumulate throughout the Gospel, we find ourselves wondering ever more urgently when and how he (Christ) will assume the role promised in the story’s beginning and whether his finally disclosed identity will integrate and fulfill the wide range of typological roles suggested by the many tantalizing intertextual motifs sounded throughout the Gospel. In short, Luke’s gospel story sets up narrative expectations that are satisfied or brought to closure only in Acts. The Gospel – like Israel’s Scripture – points beyond itself.”

“Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels” by Richard Hays

The Deity of Christ (cursing the fig tree)

Mark 11: 12-14 – Who comes looking for figs on the fig tree?

“In light of the many hints we have seen that Mark’s Jesus somehow mysteriously embodies the presence of the God of Israel, one further detail of Jeremiah’s oracle now claims our attention. Jeremiah speaks prophetically in the persona of God, addressing his unfaithful people: When I wanted to gather them, says the LORD, there are no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree; even the leaves are withered, and what I gave them has passed away from them. (Jer 8: 13) It is God who is represented as seeking unsuccessfully to gather grapes and figs. What, then, are we to think when Mark tells the ominous and obviously symbolic story of Jesus’fruitless search for figs on the fig tree, followed by the withering of the tree (Mark 11: 12-14, 20-21)? What does this suggest about the identity of the one who searches for the fruit? This is yet another case in which Jesus steps, at least functionally, into a role given exclusively to the LORD God in the Old Testament. If this were an isolated instance, one would perhaps not make too much of it, but, in light of its correspondence to the foregoing texts, the conjunction of Mark 11: 12-14 with Jeremiah 8: 13 points subtly but inexorably toward the identity of Jesus with the LORD in whose name Jeremiah spoke. As before, however, this mysterious identity is suggested through narrative figuration rather than asserted by means of direct statement. ”

From “Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels” by Richard Hays

Christ in the Old Testament

“There are some who have little regard for the Old Testament. They think of it as a book that was given to the Jewish people only and is now out of date, containing only stories of past times.  .  .  . But Christ says in John 5, “Search the Scriptures, for it is they that bear witness to me.” .  .  . [T] he Scriptures of the Old Testament are not to be despised but diligently read.  .  .  . Therefore dismiss your own opinions and feelings and think of the Scriptures as the loftiest and noblest of holy things, as the richest of mines which can never be sufficiently explored, in order that you may find that divine wisdom which God here lays before you in such simple guise as to quench all pride. Here you will find the swaddling cloths and the manger in which Christ lies.  .  .  . Simple and lowly are these swaddling cloths, but dear is the treasure, Christ, who lies in them.”  — Martin Luther