Reading God's Revelation

 “Reading God’s Revelation through Both Lenses”

Scrutinizing Scripture with both lenses of 3-D glasses equips readers to fully plumb the depths of the Bible; one lens is the Old Testament and the other, the New Testament. The first dimension of Scripture relates actual occurrences, interpreted by the human author as he understood the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, using contemporary literary conventions; this is the “literal” sense. The second dimension telescopes that same historical event forward to the life of Christ; this is the “allegorical” sense. The third dimension reels that ancient narrative into the personal lives of the modern reader, the “moral” and “anagogical” senses. Spelunking through the Old Testament with these 3-D lenses unearths hidden treasures beneath the Biblical narrative. Exploring the caves of the New Testament equipped with these three-dimensional spectacles reveal the wisdom of God as He fulfills the Old Testament in the life of Jesus (On the Passover 42-45; hereafter, Passover). Once the Scripture reader has mined these hidden veins and reflected upon how they mutually illuminate each other, these gems may also be applied to their spiritual life.  Neither the Old nor the New Testament standing alone sufficiently appreciates God’s self-revelation; only by using one to interpret the other does the Bible reader comprehend to the highest degree possible the truths that God wished to make known for mankind’s salvation.

St. Melito of Sardis declares that “the mystery of the Passover is new and old; eternal and temporal; corruptible and incorruptible; mortal and immortal.” (Passover 2). God dictated the laws concerning the Passover to Moses (Ex Chapter 12).  The law is new and old, for as God gave it to Moses in Egypt, it is ancient, dating from 1280 years before Christ; yet it was perfected in Christ and cannot be properly understood apart from Him (NABRE, Rom 10:4); today, Christians are called to live the ancient Mosaic laws contained in Christ’s Great Commandment: love God above all else, and love your neighbor as yourself (MT 22:37-40). 

Jesus stated clearly in His Sermon on the Mount that He had come to fulfill the law and the prophets, not to abolish them (MT 5:17-19), yet He startled the crowds by using the law as the first rung on a ladder to which all are called to greater heights of holiness. The Mosaic laws were not the ultimate; they were but a beginning. Jesus revealed the deeper meaning of the law when He declared: “You have heard it said…but I say…” (MT 5:21-48).  Jesus pulled back the veil of the Mosaic law, uncovering God’s desire for a deeply personal relationship with every person. This relationship requires more than adherence to commandments; it necessitates a burning love for God which prompts ready obedience to His will. Christians must draw so close to Christ that His image is imprinted upon them, as Jesus imprinted His image on Veronica’s veil and on the Shroud of Turin. Christians take up their cross and follow The Crucified, thereby revealing their likeness to Him. Jesus made a new covenant with His people in His blood; because this new covenant contained the entire meaning of the law and the prophets, the old covenant, incorporated within the new, is surpassed (Heb 8:13; Passover 39, 40). God engraves this new covenant upon the hearts of His people as foreseen by the prophet Jeremiah six hundred years before Christ (Jer 31:31-34). 

The high priesthood of the old covenant existed for a specific time, culminating in Jesus, the eternal High Priest (Heb 7:22-24). Aaron the Levite, elder brother of Moses, acted as the first high priest; for his first priestly function, he gathered a golden vessel full of manna and placed it before the Ark of the Covenant, keeping it for future generations (Ex 16:33-34). Jesus Christ gave Himself as the bread from Heaven (John 6:58) in the New Covenant, of which Catholics today partake in the Eucharist, reserving the Precious Body in a golden ciborium. The meaning of the word “manna” is “what is this?”(Ex 16:15) because the people had never before seen anything like it. Jesus asked His apostles, and through Scripture, He asks everyone: “Who do you say that I am?”(MT 16:15) Jesus is manna personified, as most people did not and do not seem to know what to make of Him.

While of old Israel’s high priests entered the Holy of Holies once a year to atone for their sins and the sins of the people (Leviticus Chapter 16), Jesus, the ultimate High Priest, eternally intercedes for us with the Father in the holiest sanctuary of Heaven (Heb 7:25). His sacrifice, offered once for all humanity, supplants the daily offering of the Levitical priests and the annual Yom Kippur offering. The Sinless One had no sins of His own for which to atone (Heb 7:27). He is the pure and spotless victim foreshadowed in the Passover lamb (Passover 5, 6, 8; Ex 12:5). As the blood of the Passover lamb anointed the Israelite’s lintels (Ex 12:7; Ex 12:22), so the blood of the Lamb of God anoints the doorways to the hearts of Christians. 

The lamb’s blood saved the Israelites from physical death that night (Passover 31); Christ’s blood saves Christians from eternal death of the soul. The death, resurrection, and ascension into Heaven of our incorruptible Lord Jesus Christ (the Paschal Mystery) saves the lives of Christians throughout time. The Angel of Death passed over the homes slathered with the blood of the lamb; St. Melito posits that this angel was prevented from culling God’s people with his scythe because he saw the Paschal Mystery unfolding many centuries before the “type” of the sheep would come to fruition in the Lamb of God (Passover 33). Theologians today are unsure of the extent of angelic knowledge, but hold that the angels actively participating in the events probably possessed more details than angels not involved in the phenomenon.

The Passover commemoration continues today as one of the most important of Jewish festivals. This ritual takes participants back in time: the food served hearkens back to 1280 BC; the story of the first Passover is read and sometimes enacted; the door is left open to facilitate a hasty flight or to invite the poor or the Prophet Elijah to the meal. Similarly yet genuinely, the holy sacrifice of the Mass makes truly present Jesus’ sacrifice which frees all people, throughout all time, from bondage to sin and death. Full, conscious and active participation in the sacred mysteries elevates Catholics to the heavenly liturgy, bestowing a taste of everlasting beatitude. Since Jesus’ sacrifice once for all offers eternal salvation, the ongoing liturgical observance of the Jewish Passover pales in comparison with the Mass (Passover 37, 38, 44, 45). “The mystery of the Passover is completed in the body of the Lord” (Passover 56), and the Mass “completes and surpasses all the sacrifices of the old covenant.”

The Passover festival and the Mass both celebrate liberation from slavery; physical servitude in the original Passover; enthrallment to sin in Jesus’ Paschal Mystery. God created man with free will; man freely chose to shackle himself to sin. Adam traded his close personal relationship with God for bondage to the tyrants, sin and death (Passover 50). Man was not made mortal; he lost his immortality through Original Sin; therefore his “beautiful body was separated from the soul,” (Passover 56), a cause for exultation to the devil (Passover 54) and a cause for desolation for man (Passover 56).  The Lord, therefore, arranged to exchange His immortality for a mortal body; He divinely condescended to live, suffer, die, and rise again in His human nature, losing none of His divinity; and He executed all of these acts out of love for those whom He created in His own image. 

The Holy Spirit inspired men like Moses, David, Daniel, Isaiah, and Jeremiah to prophesy about the Messiah who would save man from Adam’s disastrous choice. God the Father’s salvation plan was not only present immediately upon that first transgression (GN 3:15, the proto-evangelium), but He also promised it through His covenants – with Abraham in GN 12:1-3 and again with Jacob in GN 49:8; He announced it through His prophets; He prefigured it through actual historical events and people.  

Using 3-D glasses to examine both testaments of the Bible, Jesus is seen in Abel, slain by an envious brother (GN 4:8; Mark 15:10); in Isaac, who bore the wood upon his shoulder as he climbed to his own sacrifice (GN 22:6; John 19:17); in Joseph, plotted against (GN 37:18; John 11:49-53) and eventually sold (GN 37:27-28; MT 25:14-15) by his brothers and who saved his family from death during the famine.  Jesus is revealed in Moses, whose life was sought as an infant (Ex 1:15-16; MT 2:13) and as an adult (Ex 2:15; MT 12:14); in David, whose innocence and anointing by God (1 Sam 16:13; MT 3:16-17) ignited hatred in the bosom of the King, and who lived a hunted life with nowhere to rest his head (1 Sam 18:29 – 1 Sam 21; 2 Sam 15-18; Luke 9:58); in the prophets, appointed by the Lord to proclaim His word, yet dishonored among their own people (Mark 6:4). In Jesus’ anguished cry of desolation on the Cross, His ancestor David’s cry is heard, too, as he is hunted by men but beloved by God. 

On the Passover paragraphs 57 through 71 demonstrate the multiplicity of ways in which God communicated His plan of salvation to man, yet always in types, veiled and difficult to discern. Then, seen as in a mirror darkly, but upon the Incarnation and Paschal Mystery, seen more clearly, face to face with Jesus (based upon 1 COR 13:12); when we enter Heaven, then we shall see perfectly, with no veil, shadow, or type. Typology aids Christian imaginations to appreciate fully the truth of salvation: in Abel, Jesus was murdered; He was bound and led to be sacrificed, as was Isaac; Jesus was sold by a brother yet was the means of salvation in Joseph; Jesus was plotted against as was David; Jesus, the Lamb of God, was sacrificed to save His people. Jesus is our Passover (Passover 67-71). Readjusting the 3-D spectacles to the modern day, persecuted Christians led to martyrdom can identify with Jesus, Abel, and Isaac; Christians betrayed by loved ones can identify with Jesus, Joseph, and David. An enormous cloud of witnesses who fixed their eyes on Jesus ran the race with Him (Heb 12:1-2) to a successful end. The living Bible of their lives, knit from both testaments, is inspiring: St. Maximilian Kolbe, trading his life for that of an Auschwitz prisoner, as Jesus traded His life to free His people from prison and as Joseph went innocent of crime into prison (GN 39:20); St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who served the “untouchables” of India, as Jesus touched the outcasts of Israel: the lepers, the hemorrhaging woman, and the dead, and as Tobit buried the dead as an act of mercy, incurring ritual impurity and mockery (TB 2:7). With St. Paul, Christians cry: “Where, oh, Death, is your victory? Where, oh, Death, is your sting?” (1 COR 15:55) Studying Scripture with both lenses of 3-D binoculars reveals that Jesus’ victory over death and sin was announced in Genesis, lived out through Old Testament prophets, incarnated in His Paschal Mystery; the benefits are reaped by Christians for all time.