Full Text for Christ in All the Scriptures: The Biblical Typology of Luther and the Fathers. (Text)

Christ in All the Scriptures: The Biblical Typology of Luther and the Fathers Biblia Pauperum -- The Bible of the Poor 2WORKS CITED x ACCS = T. C. Oden, ed. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998-. x AE = Martin Luther. Luther’s Works. American Edition. 55 vols. Ed. Jarslav Pelikan and Helmut T. Lehman. St. Louis: CPH; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1955-1986. x ANF = A. Roberts and J. Donaldson, eds. Ante-Nicene Fathers. 10 vols. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature, 1885-1896. Reprint, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1951-1956. Reprint, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994. x Bible and Liturgy = Jean Danielou. The Bible and the Liturgy. x CGSL = Cyril of Alexandria. Commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke. Translated by R. Payne Smith. Long Island, NY: Studion Publisher, Inc. 1983. x Commentary on the Psalms = J. M. Neale. Commentary on the Psalms. London: Joseph Masters & Co., 1874. x Comprehensive Explanation = Johann Gerhard. A Comprehensive Explanation of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Malone, TX: Repristination Press, 2000. x De Sacrificiis = David Chytraeus. Chytraeus on Sacrifice: A Reformation Treatise in Biblical Theology. Trans. by John W. Montgomery. St. Louis: CPH, 1962. Reprint, Malone, TX: Repristination Press, 2000. x Eleven Easter and Pentecost Sermons = Johann Gerhard. Malone, TX: Repristination Press, 1996. x Explanation = Johann Gerhard. An Explanation of the History of the Suffering and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ. Malone, TX: Repristination Press, 1999. x FC = R. J. Defarrari, ed. Fathers of the Church: A New Translation. 86 vols. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1947. x Lutheran Worship Agenda = Prepared by The Commission on Worship of The Lutheran Church— Missouri Synod. St. Louis: CPH, 1984. x NPNF = P. Schaff et al., eds. A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church. 2 series (14 vols. each). New York: Christian Literature, 1887-1894. Reprint, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1952-1956. Reprint, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994. x Seven Christmas Sermons = Johann Gerhard. Malone, TX: Repristination Press, 1997. x Shadows to Reality = Jean Danielou. From Shadows to Reality: Studies in the Biblical Typology in the Fathers. Continuum, 1960. Reprint, Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, x The Two Natures of Christ = Martin Chemnitz. Trans. J. A. O. Preus. The Two Natures in Christ. St. Louis: CPH, 1971. INTRODUCTION In Psalm 40:7, the Messiah says to His Church, “Behold, I come; in the scroll of the book it is written of Me,” (cf. Hebrews 10:7). In the “scroll of the book,” that is, in the Scriptures of Israel, the Church reads of the Anointed One. He is the Promised Seed who will crush the head of the serpent (Genesis 3:15); the Ruler from the tribe of Judah (Genesis 49:8-12); the Prophet like – but greater than – Moses (Deuteronomy 18:15); the Son of David who is also the Lord of David (2 Samuel 7:4-17 and Psalm 110:1-2); the Virgin’s Son who is Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14); the crucified and resurrected Servant of whom Isaiah preaches (Isaiah 52:13-53:12). In the “scroll of the book” it is written of Him. “All of Scripture everywhere deals only with Christ,” Luther affirms (WA 46:414). “Amen,” the Church responds, for “in many and various ways God spoke to His people of old by the prophets,” (Hebrews 1:1). These prophets “who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful search and inquiry, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow,” (1 Peter 1:10-11). They searched their own writings, and the writings of other prophets, for they confessed that “in the scroll of the book” the Messiah was written. Indeed, when Jesus came and preached He confirmed this in words that echo Psalm 40: “You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that bear witness of Me,” (John 5:46). 3How do these Scriptures bear witness of Him? “In many and various ways,” as the author of Hebrews says (1:1). Christ and His apostles demonstrate that “in the scroll of the book” the coming of the Messiah is: x prophesied with words: His Incarnation (Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:23); His birthplace (Micah 5:2; Matthew 2:6); His death (Isaiah 53; Acts 8:32ff). x foreshadowed in people: Adam (Genesis 1-3; Romans 5); Melchizedek (Genesis 14; Hebrews 7); David (2 Samuel 7; Luke 1:31-33); Jonah (Jonah 1-2; Matthew 12:39-40). x prefigured in actions: the exodus from Egypt (Exodus 14; Luke 9:31); the lifting up of the serpent (Numbers 21:7-9; John 3:14-15); the sacrifice of animals (Leviticus; John 1:29). x typified by institutions: the priesthood (Exodus 28-20; Hebrews 7-10); the kingship (2 Samuel 7; Luke 1:31-33); the tabernacle and temple (John 1:14; 2:21). Jesus is thus not only the fulfillment of the Scriptures of Israel; He is their fullness. He fills them with words, people, actions, and institutions that testify of Him. Together, this choir of witnesses give univocal expression to what Luther incessantly preached: “All the stories of Holy Writ, if viewed aright, point to Christ,” (AE 22:339). Our Lord Jesus opened the minds of His disciples to understand these Scriptures, that all things which were written about Him “in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled,” (Luke 24:44). He also removes the “veil of Moses” (2 Corinthians 3:12-18) that obscures our vision. He “opens our eyes to behold wonderful things in His Torah,” (Psalm 119:18), for He is the Wonderful One of whom Isaiah spoke (9:6). As He interprets the “scroll of the book” which is written about Him, He “shows us the proper method of interpreting Moses and all the prophets. . . He shows that all the stories and illustrations of Moses point to [Himself],” (Luther, AE 22:339). Thus, from Genesis through Malachi, the Christian asks himself, “How in these words is Christ speaking of Himself to His Church?” This was the question asked by the Fathers of the early Church, the question asked by Luther and the Lutheran Fathers, and the question that must still reign supreme in the exegesis and preaching of the Church today. The following collection of quotes intends to give to the reader a small but delightful drink from the vast stream of exegetical richness that flows from Christ through His apostles through the Fathers to Luther and beyond. It is likewise an invitation to participate in such a profound meditation upon the sacred text, the kind of meditation that produced words such as these. The outline followed is that of the life of our Lord Jesus, as it is prayed in the Litany of the Church: “By the mystery of Thy holy Incarnation; By Thy holy Nativity; By Thy Baptism, fasting, and temptation; By Thine agony and bloody sweat; By Thy cross and Passion; By Thy precious death and burial; By Thy glorious resurrection and ascension; And by the coming of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter,” (TLH #661). TABLE OF CONTENTS: 1. By the mystery of Thy holy Incarnation………………………………………………………………………….4 2. By Thy holy Nativity…………………………………………………………………………………………….11 3. By Thy Baptism…………………………………………………………………………………………………16 4. By Thy fasting and temptation…………………………………………………………………………………..25 5. By Thy Ministry…………………………………………………………………………………………………27 6. By Thine agony and bloody sweat………………………………………………………………………………29 7. By Thy cross and Passion………………………………………………………………………….…………….38 8. By Thy precious death and burial……………………………………………………………………………….47 9. By Thy glorious resurrection…………………………………………………………………………………….54 10. By Thine ascension……………………………………………………………………………………………...60 `^t,r'ATmi tAal'p.nI hj'yBia;w> yn:y[e-lG: (Psalm 119:18) 4BY THE MYSTERY OF THY HOLY INCARNATION CONTENTS: x Adam of Virgin Earth is Made in the Image of God (Genesis 1:26f) – Christ of Virgin Mary is the Image of God x The Woman Eve through whom Came Death (Genesis 3) – The Virgin Mary through whom Came He who Gives Life x Isaac as Promised Seed of Abraham (Genesis 22) – Christ as Promised Seed x Jacob’s Ladder Uniting Heaven and Earth (Genesis 28) – Christ Unites Heaven (Divine Nature) and Earth (Human Nature) x Burning Bush (Exodus 3) – The Divine Fire and Created Bush x Tabernacle & Temple (Exodus 40:34-38; 1 Kings 8) – The Word Tabernacled Among Israel (John 1:14; 2:19-22) x Gideon’s Fleece (Judges 6:36-40) – The Virgin Birth x Aaron’s Staff Budded (Numbers 17:8) – The Virgin Conceives and Bears a Son x Stone Ripped Without Hands from the Mountain (Daniel 2) – Christ Our Rock Born of Virgin Without Man x Adam of Virgin Earth is Made in the Image of God (Genesis 1:26f) – Christ of Virgin Mary is the Image of God ‰ Romans 5:14, “Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.” ‰ 1 Corinthians 15:20-22, “But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. [21] For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. [22] For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive.” ‰ Irenaeus – Against the Heretics III:21 (Shadows to Reality, 40) – “And as the first-formed Adam had his substance of the rude and yet virgin earth [for God had not yet rained and man had not yet tilled] and was molded by the Hand of God, i.e., by His Word, for all things were made by Him; and the Lord took clay from the earth, and molded man: so when the Word Himself, being of Mary who was yet a Virgin, was gathering into Himself what relates to Adam, it was meet that He should receive a birth suitable to this gathering up of Adam.” ‰ Clement of Alexandria – Exhortation to the Greeks (ACCS 1:29) – “For ‘the image of God’ is His Word (and the divine Word, the light who is the archetype of light, is a genuine son of Mind [the Father]); and in image of the Word is the true man, that is, the mind in man, who on this account is said to have been created ‘in the image’ of God and ‘in His likeness,’ because through His understanding heart He is made like the divine Word or Reason [Logos], and so rational [logikos].’” ‰ Luther – Lectures on Genesis (AE 1:87) – In making Adam in His own image, God provided a “very beautiful allegory, or rather by an anagoge,” that God wanted to become incarnate. “Because he was created in the image of the invisible God, this statement is a dim intimation, as we shall hear, that God was to reveal Himself to the world in the man Christ.” ‰ Gerhard – Seven Christmas Sermons (11) – “And, just as the first Adam was created from a clod of earth when the earth had not yet been cursed, so also Christ wanted to assume a human nature from such flesh and blood which—through the power of the Holy Spirit—the poison of sin had been extracted and which was no longer subject to the curse.” 5x The Woman Eve through whom Came Death (Genesis 3) – The Virgin Mary through whom Came He who Gives Life ‰ Irenaeus – Against the Heretics (Adv. Haer. 5:19) – “For just as [Eve] was led astray by the word of an angel, so that she fled from God when she had transgressed His word; so did [Mary], by an angelic communication, receive with glad tidings that she should sustain God, being obedient to His Word. And if the former did disobey God, yet the latter was persuaded to be obedient to God, in order that the Virgin Mary might become the patroness of the virgin Eve. And thus, as the human race fell into bondage to death by means of a virgin, so it is rescued by a virgin; virginal disobedience having been balanced in the opposite scale by virginal obedience.” ‰ Justin Martyr – Dialoge with Trypho 50:45 (Shadows to Reality, 43) – “We understand that He is born of the Virgin, in order that the disobedience caused by the serpent might be destroyed in the same manner in which it had originated. For Eve, the undefiled virgin, conceived the word of the serpent and brought forth disobedience. But the Virgin Mary was filled with faith and joy, when the Angel Gabriel announced to her the good tidings.” ‰ Tertullian – De Carne Christi (Shadows to Reality, 46) – Why had Christ to be born of a virgin? Since He came to give us new life it was fitting that He Himelf should be born in a new manner. But this newness, as always, is prefigured in the Old Testament, the Lord’s birth of a Virgin being of a fore-ordained plan. The soil was still virgin, neither yet harrowed by the labourer, nor sown by the sower when the Lord formed from it a living soul. Therefore since tradition teaches that the first Adam is of the earth, then the last Adam must, as the Apostle says, be formed from the earth, to be a life-giving spirit. And further (for we must not let the allusion to Adam slip by), why is Christ called Adam by the Apostle if His human nature has not earthly origin? But the divine plan shows that God has restored His image and likeness, held captive by the devil, by an inverse operation. The death-bringing word was heard by Eve when she was still a virgin: the Word of God when He came to revive man must be born of a virgin, so that the same sex which brought in death may now introduce life. Eve believed the word of the serpent, Mary the word of Gabriel.” ‰ Augustine – Sermon 232.2 (ACCS NT III:376) – “So in this fact [i.e., that women first witnessed and reported the resurrection] we have to reflect on the goodness of the Lord’s arrangements, because this, of course, was the doing of the Lord Jesus Christ that it should be the female sex which would be the first to report that He has risen again. Humanity fell through the female sex. A virgin gave birth to Christ; a woman proclaimed that He had risen again. Through a woman death, through a woman life.” ‰ Gerhard – Seven Christmas Sermons (36) – “Finally, the Wisdom of God also shines forth in the fact that the Lord of righteousness was born from a woman, just as sin through which we fell into damnation had its beginning from a woman.” x Isaac as Promised Seed of Abraham (Genesis 22) – Christ as Promised Seed ‰ Moses: “[God said to Moses,] ‘And in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice,’” (Genesis 22:18; cf. Genesis 13:15; 17:8; 24:7). ‰ St. Paul: “Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, ‘And to seeds,’ as referring to many, but rather to one, ‘And to your seed,’ that is, Christ,” (Galatians 3:16). ‰ St. Paul: “[22] For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman and one by the free woman. [23] But the son by the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and the son by the free woman through the promise. [24] This is allegorically speaking: for these women are two covenants, one proceeding from Mount Sinai bearing children who are to be slaves; she is Hagar. . . . [28] And you brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise,” (Galatians 4:22-28). In Galatians 3:16-19 St. Paul says that Christ is the Son or Seed of promise; likewise, in Galatians 64:22-28 he identified Isaac as the son of promise (and all who, like Isaac, are “son of the freewoman”). ‰ Origen – Homilies on Genesis 9:2 (ACCS 2:113) – “Nevertheless the apostle interprets this passage also, saying, ‘To Abraham God promised and to his seed. He did not say, “And to seeds” as of man; but as of one, “And to your seed,” which is Christ.’ It is said therefore of Christ: ‘I shall certainly multiply your seed, and they shall be as the stars of heaven in multitude and as the sand which is by the seashore.’ What person now needs an explanation to know how the seed of Christ is multiplied, who sees the preaching of the Gospel extended from the ends of the earth ‘to the ends of the earth’ and who sees that there is now almost no place which has not received the seed of the word? For indeed this also was prefigured in the beginnings of the world when God said to Adam, ‘Increase and multiply.’ This same thing also the apostle says ‘is said in Christ and in the church.’” ‰ Clement of Alexandria – Pedag. I:5 ( Shadows to Reality, 137) -- “Isaac is a type of the Lord, as child and son; for he was son of Abraham, as Christ is the Son of God, and a sacrifice as was the Lord. But Isaac was not immolated as was the Lord; he only bore the wood of the sacrifice as the Lord the wood of the cross.” ‰ Augustine – Sermon 113A.10 (ACCS 2:115) – “And to Abraham’s seed He promised—what? In your seed shall all the nations be blessed. His seed is Christ; because from Abraham came Isaac, from Isaac Jacob, from Jacob twelve sons, from these twelve the people of the Jews, from the people of the Jews the Virgin Mary, from the Virgin Mary our Lord Jesus Christ. And what was promised to Abraham we find fulfilled among ourselves. In your seed, it says, shall all nations of the earth be blessed. He believed this before he had seen anything; he believed, and he never saw what was promised.” x Jacob’s Ladder Uniting Heaven and Earth (Genesis 28) – Christ Unites Heaven (Divine Nature) and Earth (Human Nature) ‰ Aphrahat – On Prayer 5 (ACCS 2:188) – “Our father Jacob too prayed at Bethel and saw the gate of heaven opened, with a ladder going up on high. This is a symbol of our Savior that Jacob saw; the gate of heaven is Christ, in accordance with what He said, ‘I am the gate of life; every one who enters by Me shall live forever.’ David too said, ‘This is the gate of the Lord, by which the righteous enter.’ Again, the ladder that Jacob saw is a symbol of our Savior in that by means of Him the just ascend from the lower to the upper realm. The ladder is also a symbol of our Savior’s cross, which was raised up like a ladder, with the Lord standing above it.” ‰ Caesarius of Arles – Sermon 87.4 (ACCS 2:189-190) – “Listen and see the sublimity of the fact that Jacob asleep and the Lord leaning on the ladder prefigured Christ . . . If the angels of God were descending to the Son because He was on earth, how it is that those same angels were ascending to the Son of Man except because He is in heaven? Therefore He Himself was sleeping in Jacob, and from heaven He likewise called to Jacob.” ‰ Luther – Lectures on Genesis (AE 5:217) – “We should believe and be content with this explanation [John 1:51] of our Savior; for He has a better understanding than all other interpreters, even though they agree properly in this point, that this dream signified that infinite, inexpressible, and wondrous mystery of the incarnation of Christ, who was to descend from the patriarch Jacob, as God says, ‘In your seed, etc.’ Therefore He revealed to Jacob himself that he would be the father of Christ and that the Son of Man would be born from his seed.” ‰ Gerhard – Seven Christmas Sermons (70) – “[T]he Patriarch Jacob saw in a dream a ladder, standing on earth, with the top of it originating from heaven, on which the angels of God stepped up and down. At the top stood the Lord [who] repeated the promise about Christ, the Messiah, through whom all generations were to be blessed (Gen. 28:14). Christ applies to Himself the revelation from Joh. 1:14, for there it is shown that the high Majesty would descend from heaven to earth and assume a human nature. Again, the fact that the human nature would be assimilated 7into the unified personhood of the Son of God is [signified in] the very same ladder which originates in heaven and extends down to earth. On it the angels climb up and down; that is, they ponder how really high the divine nature and majesty of Christ are, and how deep it lowers itself in the incarnation and in the uniting of itself in personal union with the human nature.” x Burning Bush (Exodus 3) – The Divine Fire and Created Bush ‰ Clement of Alexandria – Christ the Educator 2.8.75 (ACCS III:12) – “When the almighty Lord of the universe began to legislate through the Word and decided to make His power visible to Moses, He sent Moses a divine vision with the appearance of light, in the burning bush. Now a bramble is full of thorns. So too when the Word was concluding His legislation and His stay among men as their Lord, again He permitted Himself to be crowned with thorns as a mystic symbol. Returning to the place from which He had descended, the Word renewed that which He had first come, appearing first in the bush of thorns and later being surrounded with thorns that He might show that all was the work of the same one power. He is one, and His Father is one, the eternal beginning and end.” ‰ Luther –Lectures on Exodus (St.L. Ed. III) – Summary: The church fathers said that the burning bush represented the virginity of Mary. Just as the bush burned and was not consumed [verzehrt], so Mary gave birth to her son without affecting her virginity [ohne Versehrung]. 3. Although this is certainly a true doctrine (that her virginity was not affected), nevertheless this interpretation is too weak, and does not stand the test here, because God means to embody [“model”] a more significant truth. We see this in the words “I am the God of your father, of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob”—these words cannot be connected to Mary, since she is not God. For this reason she can’t be the bush, but instead God himself is the bush. 4. We can best justify this interpretation by appealing to Christ’s words, i.e. that Moses wrote about him (John 5:46). It is Christ alone to whom Moses and all the prophets point (Mt 11:13; Rev 10:43). Thus the burning bush is a figure of Christ, what kind of a person he would be, and how he would suffer, die, and come to life again. 5. Then what kind of person is Christ, and what are the two natures like that he has as one person? We hear in the text “I am the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob”, and that’s one of the natures: he is the eternal almighty God, equal to the Father and the Holy Spirit, the same nature, substance, and being, but a different person to both of these. [Quotes Micah 5:1 here, develops this reference further in 6.] 7. The other nature is his human nature: he is a green living bush, just as Is 11:1 says. Christ refers to himself this way in Lk 23:31—he is the green wood or the green bush, a righteous, clean, holy man. 8. But Christ’s conception is clean and holy…therefore his birth is clean and holy. Because of this he alone is the green bush. 9. Christ’s two natures are together in one person, not separable. And now it is being said about the person and two natures of Christ that he is the righteous, true, eternal, almighty God and man, just as the bush or sprout is clean, beautiful, without any blemish or sin. 10. Now we would like to hear how the bush resembles Christ. The fact that the bush burns and is not consumed refers to Christ’s suffering and resurrection, given that “burn” in the Scriptures refers to suffering. [11, 12, 13, 14, 15 repeat of Christology course: very nice elaboration of relation of Christ’s suffering to his one person and two natures.] 16. So what is this, that the bush burns, and is not consumed or burned up, but instead stays green and whole in the middle of the flames? This is what it means: although Christ will suffer and die, nevertheless he does not stay dead, but instead comes to life again—he will again be “green”, alive. [Also 17. 18 reiterates why Christ died and rose again.] ‰ Chemnitz – The Two Natures of Christ (291) – “All antiquity has used the simile of hot iron to explain and illustrate this mystery, and the Scripture itself points us to it when the Son of God shows Hiself to Moses in the burning bush in Ex. 3:2 and to John in glowing brass in Rev. 1:5,” (cf. p. 91). ‰ Gerhard – Seven Christmas Sermons (2-3) – “We read in Ex. 3:2-3, as Moses was being sent to rescue the Israelite nation from her slavery, that the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a fiery 8flame from a bush and Moses saw that the bush burned with fire and yet was not consumed. This Angel of the Lord was the Son of God, inasmuch as He immediately is called the Lord, and Paul testifies concerning Him in 1 Cor. 10:4 that He was the leader of the Israelite nation. Thus the very same Son of God appeared to Moses through the external fire of a fiery flame which burned in a thornbush and yet did not damage it. By this He wanted to indicate that in the fulness of time He was to rescue mankind from spiritual slavery ty taking to Himself a human nature, fill it with the light of His divine nature and with the fullness of the Godhead, which nevertheless would not be hurt by such a heavenly fire . . . . By this fiery bush is also indicated that the Son of God wanted to assume His human nature from a pure virgin, without violating her virginity. For, even though the virgin body of Mary became pregnant by being filled with the Holy Spirit and by the overshadowing of the Highest, yet her virginal chastity was not damaged,” (cf. 73). x Tabernacle & Temple (Exodus 40:34-38; 1 Kings 8) – The Word Tabernacled Among Israel (John 1:14; 2:19-22) ‰ John of Damascus – On Divine Images 14 (ACCS III:126) – “Behold, the glorification of matter, which you despise! What is more insignificant than colored goatskins? Are not blue and purple and scarlet merely colors? Behold the handiwork of men becoming the likeness of the cherubim! Was not the meeting tent an image in every way? ‘And see that you make them after the pattern for them, which is being shown you on the mountain.’ Yet all the people stood around it and worshiped! Were not the cherubim kept were all the people could see them? Did not people gaze upon the ark, and the lampstand, and the table, the golden urn and Aaron’s rod, and fall down in worship? I do not worship matter. I worship the Creator of matter, who became matter for me, taking up His abode in matter and accomplishing my salvation through matter.” ‰ Luther – Sermons on the Gospel of St. John (AE 22:248-249) – “The evangelist himself interprets the words of the Lord and adds that Jesus was speaking of His body. For His body was the true temple where God would henceforth be and reside; all other temples belonged to this temple, that is, to the humanity of Christ, assumed from the Virgin Mary. This same body was God’s temple, His castle and palace, His royal hall. This must be carefully noted. Until now God had restricted His presence to the temple in Jerusalem; that was to terminate now. God had done this, not for His own but for His people’s sake, in order that they might have a definite place where they could find Him. For this reason He was not found elsewhere. Whoever wished to call upon God or come before Him, had to come to the temple in Jerusalem or turn his face toward it, regardless of where he might be at the time; for in Jerusalem was the temple and the abode of God. But today, in the New Testament, God has established another temple for His residence: the precious humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ. There, and nowhere else, God wants to be found. Christ’s body is called the temple of God, in which He dwells. Thus all our hearts and eyes should be directed toward Christ, whom alone we adore, who sits at the right hand of God in heaven, as we confess in our Christian Creed. We no longer hasten to the hills or the green valleys, to seek and pray to God there as the idolatrous Jews and pagans did. No, we would not find Him there. But whoever wants to call upon God, regardless of where he may be in the world, must turn his face heavenward to Christ and thus come to God through Christ, the real and true temple. For Christ is the proper mercy seat (Rom. 3:25), with whom sheer mercy, love, and kindness are found. But whoever seeks God apart from Christ will find the God described by Moses as ‘a devouring fire,’ (Deut. 4:24).” ‰ Gerhard – Seven Christmas Sermons (19) – “We read in 1 Kgs. 8, as Solomon was finishing the Temple of God and the Levitical priests began to carry out their official duties of office in it, that a cloud filled the very same Temple to such an extent that they could not fulfill their duties of office and, says the text, that the glory of the Lord filled the House of the Lord. Thus also here God the Son assumed human nature in which the entire fullness of the Godhead lives bodily (Col. 2:9), just as Christ also later calls His body a temple in John 2:19. Accordingly, since the Godhead 9took unto itself and filled this its eternal Temple, the brightness and glory of the Lord let itself be seen.” x Gideon’s Fleece (Judges 6:36-40) – The Virgin Birth As is evident from the first two quotations (Augustine and Ambrose), not all the Fathers compared Gideon’s fleece to the Virgin Birth (cf. Luther and Gerhard). Their comments are included as representative of another adaptation and homiletical application of the text. ‰ Augustine – Reply to Faustus, 194 – “What is the fleece wet while the ground was dry, and again the fleece dry while the ground was wet, but the Hebrew nation at first possessing alone in its typical institution Christ the mystery of God, whole the whole world was in ignorance? And now the whole world has this mystery revealed, while the Jews are destitute of it.” ‰ Ambrose – Concerning Widows (NPNF Second Series 10:394) – “But what does this mean: “Until the day on which the Lord shall send rain on the earth”? except that He, too, “shall come down like rain upon a fleece, and like the drops that water the earth.” In which passage is disclosed the mystery of the old history where Gideon, the warrior of the mystic conflict, receiving the pledge of future victory, recognized the spiritual sacrament in the vision of his mind, that that rain was the dew of the Divine Word, which first came down on the fleece, when all the earth was parched with continual drought, and by a second true sign, moistened the floor of all the earth with a shower, whilst dryness was upon the fleece. For the prescient man observed the sign of the future growth of the Church. For first in Judaea the dew of the divine utterance began to give moisture (for “in Jewry is God known”),30 whilst the whole earth remained without the dew of faith. But when Joseph’s flock began to deny God, and by venturing on various enormous offences to incur guilt before God, then when the dew of the heavenly shower was poured on the whole earth, the people of the Jews began to grow dry and parched in their own unbelief, when the clouds of prophecy and the healthful shower of the Apostles watered the holy Church gathered together from all parts of the world. This is that rain, now condensed from earthly moisture, now from mountain mists, but diffused throughout the whole world in the salutary shower of the heavenly Scriptures. By this example, then, it is shown that not all can merit the miracles of divine power, but they who are aided by the pursuits of religious devotion, and that they lose the fruits of divine working who are devoid of reverence for heaven. It is also shown in a mystery that the Son of God, in order to restore the Church, took upon Himself the mystery of a human body, casting off the Jewish people, from whom the counsellor and the prophet and the miracles of the divine benefits were taken away, because that as it were by a kind of national blemish they were not willing to believe in the Son of God.” ‰ Luther – The Gospel for Christmas Eve (AE 52:31) – “Again, the birth is prefigured in the fleece of Gideon, Judges 7 [6:37–38] which became moist from the dew of heaven while the ground remained dry. There are many more. It is, however, not necessary to enumerate them at this time. These prefigurations are not contrary to faith, rather they adorn faith. For something must, first of all, be believed and established before I can believe that a prefiguration is of service.” ‰ Gerhard – Seven Christmas Sermons – “Thus, in Judges 6:38-40 God performs a sign before Gideon so that the dew fell on the spread-out fleece, but the entire ground remained dry; the next morning the fleece remained dry and the ground was wet. Thus the pure virgin Mary alone among all the women, through the working of the Holy Spirit, received this heavenly Christ-dew, about which Isaiah 45:8 states: Drip down you heavens from above. Later this dew came upon the entire earth, that is, the fruits of this birth pertain to all mankind; however, Mary once more became a dry pelt, that is, she remained a pure virgin after the birth, just as [she was] before the birth,” (10). x Aaron’s Staff Budded (Numbers 17:8) – The Virgin Conceives and Bears a Son ‰ Adam Victorinus – Hymn “Splendor Patris” in Commentary on the Psalms (II:448) – 10“Leaf, bloom, nuts, the dried-up rod Bears, and so the Son of God Is brought forth by purest Maid; Bears the fleece the heavenly dew, Creatures her Creature too, Ransomed for His creatures paid. ‰ Luther – Lectures on Hebrews (AE 29:202) – “‘The rod of Aaron’ (v. 4) is also Christ Himself, who blossomed forth from a barren and untouched virgin, as we read in Is. 11:1: ‘There shall come forth a rod from the root of Jesse.’” ‰ Luther – The Gospel for Christmas Eve (AE 52:31) – “Then, again, his birth also is signified [or: is anticipated] in many figures, as in the rod of Aaron which blossomed in a supernatural manner, even though it was only a dry stick of wood (Numbers 17[:8]). Similarly Mary, without natural and physical blood, semen, power, and works, nevertheless gave birth in a supernatural manner to a true, natural son, and was a natural mother, just as the rod, also bore natural almonds and yet remained an ordinary rod.” ‰ Gerhard – Seven Christmas Sermons – “The mother of this Lord was a virgin, for thus it was proclaimed in advance in Isa. 7:14 . . . God also witnessed to this through many a type. In Numbers 17:8 it is announced that Aaron’s stick greened up and bore almonds; by this is shown that Mary, foreign to every natural and fleshly bloodline, force, or power, as a natural mother yet bore a true Son in a supernatural manner—just as the stick also bore natural almonds and yet remained a true stick,” (10). x Stone Ripped Without Hands from the Mountain (Daniel 2) – Christ Our Rock Born of Virgin Without Man ‰ Luther – Lectures on Hebrews (AE 29:190) – “The prophetic vision pictures the same thing, where ‘a stone was cut out of a mountain without hands’ (Dan 2:34), that is, Christ from the Virgin without the work of a man.” ‰ Gerhard – Seven Christmas Sermons (4) – “Augustus was the Roman Caesar, from which it is to be concluded that Christ was born during the time of the fourth monarchy, as previously proclaimed by Daniel, ch. 2, where King Nebuchadnezzar saw a huge image, whose head was of gold, the breast and arms of silver, the belly and lumbar region of bronze, the thighs of iron, the feet partly iron and partly clay; ultimately, however, without hands a stone is ripped from the mountain which crushes this huge image totally and completely. This image symbolized the four great kingdoms or monarchies of the Assyrians, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans. In the fourth monarchy, a stone is ripped without hands, that is, Christ the true rock and cornerstone of our salvation is born from the virgin Mary without any contribution of any male; [furthermore], He began a kingdom which brings all others into subjugation and abides eternally.” 11BY THY HOLY NATIVITY – The Name Jesus, Birth in Bethlehem, Shepherds, Slaughter of the Holy Innocents, Flight into Egypt and Return CONTENTS: x Hoshea’s Name is Changed to Joshua (Numbers 13:16) – Angel Gives Savior the Name Jesus (=Joshua) x David the Shepherd (1 Samuel 16:1-3) – David Is Called and Anointed in Bethlehem as Jesse’s Eighth Son x Boaz and Ruth (Ruth) – Redemption in Bethlehem for Jew and Gentile x Leaving Egypt (Exodus 14) – “Out of Egypt I Have Called My Son” (Hosea 11) x Nativity of Moses (Exodus 2) – Tyrant Seeks Death of Future Redeemer x Nativity of Noah (Genesis 5:29) – One is Born to Give Rest x Nativity of Samuel (1 Sam 1-2) x David’s Escape from Saul (1 Sam 19:11-17) – New David Escaped x David Returns after Saul’s Death (2 Kings 2:1-2) – New David Returns after Death of Herod x Jacob’s Flight and Return (Genesis 28-33) – New Israel Flees and Returns x Hoshea’s Name is Changed to Joshua (Numbers 13:16) – Angel Gives Savior the Name Jesus (=Joshua) ‰ Hebrews 4:8,14, “For if Joshua (VIhsou/j) had given them rest, He would not have spoken of another day after that . . . Since then we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus (VIhsou/n) the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.” ‰ Tertullian – Adv. Marc. III, 16 (Shadows to Reality, 238) – “We say that [the name Jesus given to the son of Nave] was a type in advance of him who should come (figura futuri). As Jesus Christ had to lead a new people, that is to say, we who were born in the desert of this world, into the Promised Land flowing with milk and honey, that it into the possession of eternal life, and as this is achieved not through Moses, that is the works of the Law, but through Jesus, that is through the grave of the Gospel, after we have been circumcised by the knife of stone [Josh. 5:2-9]—that is, Christ’s precepts, for Christ is the Stone—so the man who was prepared to be the image of this mystery, was the first who bore in type the Lord’s name, receiving the surname of Jesus.” ‰ Origen – Homilies on Joshua (Shadows to Reality 241) – “When you see that Christ our Passover has been immolated, and you eat the unleavened bread of sincerity, when you see the good earth of the Church yielding fruit thirty, sixty, and a hundred fold, I mean widows, virgins and martyrs, when you see the people of Israel increased, of those who are born not of blood, nor of the will of man, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God, and when you see the sons of God who were scattered, gathered together in Him; when you see the people keeping the Sabbath not by restraining from toil but from sin—when you see all these things, say that Moses the servant of the Lord is dead and that Jesus[Joshua], the Son of God, has all authority.” ‰ Cyril of Jerusalem – Shadows to Reality (242) – “Moses conferred these two titles (Jesus and Christ) on two most special men: changing the name of his own successor in the government, Auses, to Jesus; and surnaming his brother, Aaron, Christ, that by two special men he might represent at once the High priesthood and the Kingdom of him who was to come, the One Jesus Christ . . . and Jesus the son of Nave was a type of Him in many things. When he began his government of the people he began at Jordan, whence Christ also, after Baptism, began His Gospel. The son of Nave appoints the Twelve, who were to divide the inheritance; and Jesus sends for the Twelve Apostles, the heralds of truth, into the whole world.” ‰ Luther -- Exposition of Deuteronomy (AE 9:43): “Joshua, however, denotes Christ, because of his name and because of what he does. Although he was a servant of Moses, yet after his master’s 12death he leads the people in and parcels out the inheritance of the Lord. Thus Christ, who was first made under the Law (Gal. 4:4), served it for us; then, when it was ended, He established another ministry, that of the Gospel, by which we are led through Him into the spiritual kingdom of a conscience joyful and serene in God, where we reign forever.” x David the Shepherd (1 Samuel 16:1-3) – David Is Called and Anointed in Bethlehem as Jesse’s Eighth Son ‰ Gerhard – Seven Christmas Sermons (9) – “The Evangelist [Luke] says further that Bethlehem was a city of David. Accordingly, Christ also wanted to be born in Bethlehem so that the place of birth be a testimony that Christ was a Son of David . . . . Since David in particular was promised Christ [cf. 2 Sam 7 and Ps. 89] and David was also a type of Christ, so Christ also wanted to be born in David’s city.” x Boaz and Ruth (Ruth) – Redemption in Bethlehem for Jew and Gentile ‰ St. Matthew records the birthplace of the Messiah and the famous Gentile woman associated with that city. He also records the visit of the three Wise Men (Gentiles) to visit the child precisely in Bethlehem. ‰ Ambrose – On the Christian Faith, Book III:69-75 (NPNF Second Series 10:253) – “69. Again, St. John Baptist also taught in less weighty language what ideas they were he had combined, saying: ‘After me cometh a Man, Whose shoes I am not worthy to bear,’ setting forth at least the more excellent dignity [of Christ], though not the eternity of His Divine Generation. Now these words are so fully intended of the Incarnation, that Scripture hath given us, in an earlier book, a human counterpart of the mystic sandal. For, by the Law, when a man died, the marriage bond with his wife was passed on to his brother, or other man next of kin, in order that the seed of the brother or next of kin might renew the life of the house, and thus it was that Ruth, though she was foreign-born, but yet had possessed a husband of the Jewish people, who had left a kinsman of near relation, being seen and loved of Boaz whilst gleaning and maintaining herself and her mother-in-law with that she gleaned, was yet not taken of Boaz to wife, until she had first loosed the shoe from [the foot of] him whose wife she ought, by the Law, to have become. 70. The story is a simple one, but deep are its hidden meanings, for that which was done was the outward betokening of somewhat further. If indeed we should rack the sense so as to fit the letter exactly, we should almost find the words an occasion of a certain shame and horror, that we should regard them as intending and conveying the thought of common bodily intercourse; but it was the foreshadowing of One Who was to arise from Jewry—whence Christ was, after the flesh—Who should, with the seed of heavenly teaching, revive the seed of his dead kinsman, that is to say, the people, and to Whom the precepts of the Law, in their spiritual significance, assigned the sandal of marriage, for the espousals of the Church. 71. Moses was not the Bridegroom, for to him cometh the word, ‘Loose thy shoe from off thy foot,’ that he might give place to his Lord. Nor was Joshua, the son of Nun, the Bridegroom, for to him also it was told, saying, ‘Loose thy shoe from off thy foot,’ lest, by reason of the likeness of his name, he should be thought the spouse of the Church. None other is the Bridegroom but Christ alone, of Whom St. John said: ‘He Who hath the bride is the Bridegroom.’ They, therefore, loose their shoes, but His shoe cannot be loosed, even as St. John said: ‘I am not worthy to loose the latchet of His shoe.’ 72. Christ alone, then, is the Bridegroom to Whom the Church, His bride, comes from the nations, and gives herself in wedlock; aforetime poor and starving, but now rich with Christ’s harvest; gathering in the hidden bosom of her mind handfuls of the rich crop and gleanings of the Word, that so she may nourish with fresh food her who is worn out, bereaved by the death of her son, and starving, even the mother of the dead people,—leaving not the widow and destitute, whilst she seeks new children. 73. Christ, then, alone is the Bridegroom, grudging not even to the synagogue the sheaves of His 13harvest. Would that the synagogue had not of her own will shut herself out! She had sheaves that she might herself have gathered, but, her people being dead, she, like one bereaved by the death of her son, began to gather sheaves, whereby she might live, by the hand of the Church—the which sheaves they who come in joyfulness shall carry, even as it is written: ‘Yet surely shall they come with joy, bringing their sheaves with them.’ 74. Who, indeed, but Christ could dare to claim the Church as His bride, whom He alone, and none other, hath called from Libanus, saying: “Come hither from Libanus, my bride; come hither from Libanus’? Or of Whom else could the Church have said: “His throat is sweetness, and He is altogether desirable’? And seeing that we entered upon this discussion from speaking of the shoes of His feet,—to Whom else but the Word of God incarnate can those words apply? ‘His legs are pillars of marble, set upon bases of gold.’ For Christ alone walks in the souls and makes His path in the minds of His saints, in which, as upon bases of gold and foundations of precious stone the heavenly Word has left His footprints ineffaceably impressed. 75. Clearly we see, then, that both the man and the type point to the mystery of the Incarnation.” ‰ Ephraim Syrus – Hymns on the Nativity VII (NPNF Second Series 13:240-241) – “Ruth lay down by a man in the threshingfloor for Thy sake; her love made her bold for Thy sake, O Thou that teachest all penitents boldness. Her ears refused [to listen to] any voices for the sake of Thy voice The live coal that glowed went up into the bed, of Boaz, lay down there, saw the High Priest, in whose loins was hidden a fire for his incense! She hasted and was a heifer to Boaz, that should bring forth Thee, the fatted Calf. She went gleaning for her love of Thee; she gathered straw. Thou didst quickly pay her the reward of her lowliness; and instead of ears of corn, the Root of Kings, and instead of straws, the Sheaf of Life, didst Thou make to spring from her.” ‰ Chrysostom – Homilies on the Gospel of St. Matthew, Homily III:5 (NPNF First Series 10:17) – “Seest thou that it was not for few nor small causes that he brought to our remembrance the whole history concerning Judah? For this end he hath mentioned Ruth also and Rahab, the one an alien, the other an harlot, that thou mayest learn that He came to do away with all our ills. For He hath come as a Physician, not as a Judge. Therefore in like manner as those of old took harlots for wives, even so God too espoused unto Himself the nature which had played the harlot: and this also prophets from the beginning declare to have taken place with respect to the Synagogue. But that spouse was ungrateful towards Him who had been an husband to her, whereas, the Church, when once delivered from the evils received from our fathers, continued to embrace the Bridegroom. See, for instance, what befell Ruth, how like it is to the things which belong to us. For she was both of a strange race, and reduced to the utmost poverty, yet Boaz when he saw her neither despised her poverty nor abhorred her mean birth, as Christ having received the Church, being both an alien and in much poverty, took her to be partaker of the great blessings. But even as Ruth, if she had not before left her father, and renounced household and race, country and kindred, would not have attained unto this alliance; so the Church too, having forsaken the customs which men had received from their fathers, then, and not before, became lovely to the Bridegroom. Of this therefore the prophet discourses unto her, and saith, ‘Forget thy people, and thy father’s house, so shall the king have pleasure in thy beauty.’ This Ruth did too, and because of this she became a mother of kings, even as the Church did likewise. For of her David himself sprung. So then to shame them by all these things, and to prevail on them not to be high-minded, he hath both composed the genealogy, and brought forward these women. Yes, for this last, through those who intervened, was parent to the great king, and of these David is not ashamed. For it cannot, nay, it cannot be that a man should be good or bad, obscure or glorious, either by the virtue or by the vice of his forefathers; but if one must say somewhat even paradoxical, he shines forth the more, who not being of worthy ancestors, has yet become excellent.” x Leaving Egypt (Exodus 14) – “Out of Egypt I Have Called My Son” (Hosea 11) 14‰ Note recurring Exodus imagery in the OT a) Abraham in Genesis 12 foreshadows Exodus 400 years later b) Out of Egypt God calls His firstborn son Israel c) The prophets promise a second Exodus like the first, only better (Isaiah 9; 10; 43) d) Jesus is called out of Egypt after the threat of death is ended x Nativity of Moses (Exodus 2) – Tyrant Seeks Death of Future Redeemer ‰ Noah’s ark Æ Moses’ ark Æ Jesus’ crib. The same Hebrew word for “ark” is used only for two vessels – that of Noah and that of the infant Moses. Infancy of Moses and Jesus: a) Both born when Israel is under foreign domination b) Both have life threatened first secretly, then publicly by tyrants c) Both grow up after threat in Egypt (Moses in Pharaoh’s own house!) d) Both assisted by Miriam (Hebrew for “Mary”) x Nativity of Noah (Genesis 5:29) – One is Born to Give Rest ‰ Genesis 5:29, “Now [Lamech] called his name Noah saying, ‘This one shall give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the Lord has cursed.’” ‰ Origen – Homilies on Genesis 2.3 (ACCS 1:122-123) – “By ascending through the individual dwellings [in the ark built by Noah during the flood], one arrives at Noah himself, whose name means rest or righteousness, who is Jesus Christ. For what Lamech his father says is not appropriate to the ancient Noah . . . Jesus only has given rest to humanity and has freed the earth from the curse with which the Lord cursed it.” ‰ Luther – Lectures on Genesis (AE 1:352) – “Therefore just as Adam and Eve, after the promise had been given to them, had come to hope—because of their excessive joy over seeing a human being like themselves—that Cain was that Seed, so, in my opinion, Lamech—because of a pious mistake—gave this name to Noah at birth and said: ‘He will bring us comfort and will deliver us from the hardships of this life. Now original sin and the punishment of original sin will come to an end. We shall be restored to the state of perfection; the curse which the earth has borne on Adam’s account will cease; and the other sorrows inflicted upon manking on account of sin will come to an end.’ . . It is his opinion that Noah is the promised Seed and that he will bring about the restoration of the world.” ‰ Gerhard – Seven Christmas Sermons (71) – “In Gen. 5:29, as Noah was born, his father Lamech indicated that he would be the one who should make all things right. He will comfort us, he says, in our struggles and work upon the earth which the Lord has cursed.” x Nativity of Samuel (1 Sam 1-2) ‰ Note connection between Hannah’s Song and Magnificat ‰ Both Hannah and Mary are unable to conceive but by the special grace of God ‰ Parallels between Samuel and John the Baptist are even more striking x David’s Escape from Saul (1 Sam 19:11-17) – New David Escaped ‰ The parallels in the life of David and Christ are manifold. The persecutions under Saul are directed against David. He must flee from the persecutor, even as our David must flee as those of His Body flee: “Saul, Saul, why persecutest Thou Me?” ‰ David is first anointed, then persecuted, then crowned as king, as our Lord. x David Returns after Saul’s Death (2 Kings 2:1-2) – New David Returns after Death of Herod x Jacob’s Flight and Return (Genesis 28-33) – New Israel Flees and Returns 15‰ Hoses 12:12, “Now Jacob fled to the land of Aram, and Israel worked for a wife, and for a wife he kept sheep. But by a prophet the Lord brought Israel from Egypt and by a prophet he was kept.” The point of connection is that both Jacob (as an individual) and Jacob (as a nation) had their exiles and exoduses. If the Exodus of the nation of Jacob/Israel was a foreshadowing of our Lord’s salvific work, then certainly the exodus of Jacob was as well. ‰ Caesarius of Arles – Sermon 87.6 (ACCS 2:185) – “Now when blessed Isaac directed his son to Mesopotamia, dearly beloved, Isaac represented a type of God the Father, while Jacob signified Christ the Lord. Disregarding the women of the region in which he lived, blessed Isaac, sent his son into a distant country to take a wife, because God the Father would reject the synagogue of the Jews and send His only-begotten Son to form a church out of the Gentiles.” 16BY THY BAPTISM Christ and His Baptism in Type CONTENTS:x Water of Creation (Genesis 1) – New Creation in Christ and His Baptism x Flood (Genesis 6-9) – Killing and Vivifying Flood of Baptism x Circumcision (Genesis 17) – The New Circumcision in Christ (Colossians 2) x Israelites Cross the “Font” of the Red Sea (Exodus 14) – x The Bloody Font of Waters at Marah (Exodus 15) – The Sweet Tree of Life in Baptism x Water-Rock (Exodus 17) – The Water-Giving Rock was Christ x Tabernacle Washing (Leviticus 14:6-7) – Bodies Washed with Pure Water x Red Heifer (Numbers 19) – Cleansing from Uncleanness x Crossing Jordan (Joshua 3) – The New Joshua Baptized in Old Jordan x Naaman’s Leprosy (2 Kings 5) – Cured by a Greater Elisha x Elisha Lifts Axe-Head from Water through Wood (2 Kings 6) – Christ Lifts Us from Death through Water and the Wood of His Cross x Water of Creation (Genesis 1) – New Creation in Christ and His Baptism ‰ Tertullian – De Baptismo IV (ANF 3:670) – “[The primary principle of Baptism is that] the Spirit of God, who hovered over (the waters) from the beginning, would continue to linger over the waters of the baptized.” ‰ St. Ambrose – From Shadows to Reality, 74 – “Why are you plunged into the water? We read: ‘May the waters bring forth living creatures (Gen 1:20). And the living creatures were born.’ This happened at the beginning of creation. But for you it was reserved that water should bring you forth to grace, as that other water brought forth creatures to natural life. Imitate this fish, who has received less grace.” ‰ St Ambrose – De Mysteriis III (NPNF Second Edition 10:318) – “Consider, however, how ancient is the mystery [of Baptism] prefigured even in the origin of the world itself. In the very beginning, when God made the heaven and the earth, ‘the Spirit,’ it is said, ‘moved upon the waters.’ He Who was moving upon the waters, was He not working upon the waters? But why should I say, ‘working’? As regards His presence He was moving. Was He not working Who was moving? Recognize that He was working in that making of the world, when the prophet says: ‘By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all their strength by the spirit of His mouth.’ Each statement rests upon the testimony of the prophet, both that He was moving and that He was working. Moses says that He was moving, David testifies that he was working.” ‰ Gerhard – Comprehensive Explanation, 53– “Just as the Holy Spirit hovered over the waters of the first creation and in the same way [thereby] made them fruitful, Gen. 1 and 2, so also God the Lord once more ordained the water for the regeneration [rebirth], which is at the same time the ‘other’ creation [ana,ktisij, ‘new creation’] , and which through the power of the Spirit is made into a saving means of rebirth and renewal.” x Flood (Genesis 6-9) – Killing and Vivifying Flood of Baptism ‰ 1 Peter 3:18-22, “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, in order that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; [19] in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, [20] who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water.[21] And corresponding to that (avnti,tupon), baptism now saves you-- not the removal of dirt from the flesh, 17but an appeal to God for a good conscience-- through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, [22] who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him. ‰ Justin Martyr – Dialogue with Trypho (CXXXVIII 2-3) – “In the Deluge was accomplished the mystery of the salvation of men. Noah the just, with the other men of the Deluge, that is, his wife, his three sons and the wives of his sons, formed the number 8, and so showed the symbol of the eighth day on which our Christ appeared risen from the dead and which is always, as it were implicitly, the first day. For Christ, the first-born of all creation, became in a new sense the head (arche) of another race, of that which was regenerated by Him, by the water and the wood which contained the mystery of the Cross, as Noah was saved by the wood of the ark when he was carried on the waters with his family. When, therefore, the prophet says: ‘In the time of Noah I saved you,’ as I have said already, he spoke also to the faithful people of God, to the people who possess these symbols . . . . As the whole earth, according to Scripture, was flooded, it obviously was not to the earth that God spoke, but to the people who obeyed Him when He had prepared a place of rest in Jerusalem, as He showed beforehand by all these symbols of the time of the Deluge; and I mean those who are prepared by the water, the faith, the wood, and who repented of their sins, they will escape the judgement of God which is to come.” ‰ Tertullian – De Baptismo VIII (ANF 3:672) – For just as, after the waters of the deluge, by which the old iniquity was purged away—after the Baptism, so to say, of the world—a dove was the herald which announced to the earth the assuagement of celestial wrath, when she had been sent her way out of the ark, and had returned with the olive branch, a sign which even among the nations is the fore-token of peace; so by the self-same law of heavenly effect, to earth—that is, to our flesh—as it emerges from the font, after its old sins, flies the dove of the Holy Spirit, bringing us the peace of God, sent out from the heavens, where is the Church, the typified ark.” ‰ Cyril of Jerusalem – Bible and Liturgy (82) – “Some say that, just as salvation came in the time of Noah by the wood and the water, and there was the beginning of a new creation, and as the dove came back to Noah in the evening with an olive branch, so, they say, the Holy Spirit came down on the true Noah, the Author of the new creation, when the spiritual dove came down upon Him in His Baptism to show that He it is Who, by the wood of the cross, confers salvation on believers, and Who, toward the evening, by His death, gave the world the grace of salvation.” ‰ St Ambrose – De Mysteriis III (NPNF Second Edition 10:318) – “Take another testimony. All flesh was corrupt by its iniquities. ‘My Spirit,’ says God, ‘shall not remain among men, because they are flesh.’ Whereby God shows that the grace of the Spirit is turned away by carnal impurity and the pollution of grave sin. Upon which, God, willing to restore what was lacking, sent the flood and bade just Noah go up into the ark. And he, after having, as the flood was passing off, sent forth first a raven which did not return, sent forth a dove which is said to have returned with an olive twig. You see the water, you see the wood [of the ark], you see the dove, and do you hesitate as to the mystery? The water, then, is that in which the flesh is dipped, that all carnal sin may be washed away. All wickedness is there buried. The wood is that on which the Lord Jesus was fastened when He suffered for us. The dove is that in the form of which the Holy Spirit descended, as you have read in the New Testament, Who inspires in you peace of soul and tranquillity of mind. The raven is the figure of sin, which goes forth and does not return, if, in you, too, inwardly and outwardly righteousness be preserved.” ‰ Luther – Flood Prayer in Baptism Liturgy (AE 53:107-108). – “Almighty, eternal God, who according to Thy righteous judgment didst condemn the unbelieving world through the Flood and in Thy mercy didst preserve believing Noah and his family, and who didst drown hard-hearted Pharaoh with all his hosts in the Red Sea and didst lead Thy people Israel through the same on dry ground, thereby prefiguring this bath of Thy Baptism, and who through the Baptism of Thy dear Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, hast consecrated and set apart the Jordan and all water as a salutary flood and a rich and full washing away of sins: We pray through Thy same boundless mercy that 18Thou wilt graciously behold this N. and bless him with true faith in His spirit so that by means of this saving flood all that has been born in him from Adam, and which he himself has added thereto, may be drowned in him and engulfed, and that he may be sundered from the number of the unbelieving, preserved dry and secure in the holy ark of Christendom, serve Thy name at all times, fervent in spirit and joyful in hope, so that with all believers he may be made worthy to attain eternal life, according to Thy promise, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.” ‰ Gerhard – Comprehensive Explanation (17-18) – “Gen. 7 describes the Flood [German: “Sin-Flood”], through which all flesh on earth perished. It is a type of Baptism, as perceived from Psalm 29:10. . . Gen. 8 reveals that Noah, along with a few others, was preserved in the ark during the time of the Flood. Also, [it reveals] how he let a raven fly out, which never returned; contrarily, a little dove returned to the box with an olive branch, v. 8. This is a type of holy Baptism. 1 Ptr. 3:20-21, ‘Through which (Noah’s ark) a few, that is, eight souls, were kept by means of water; so also water now saves us in Baptism, which is signified by the former.’ Just as only those who were kept alive through the Flood, while contrarily all the others perished, so also we may be preserved to eternal life only through the Sacrament of holy Baptism, since we become members of the Church through it. So also the hellish, black raven of the devil must abandon the baptized person; and conversely, the Holy Spirit comes upon him and brings peace and comfort to his conscience—just as he descended upon Jesus in the form of a dove at His Baptism, Mat. 3:16, Mark 1:10, Luke 3:21-22, John 1:32.” Deluge as Prefigurement of All Salvation History: NOAH’S DAY CHRIST BAPTIZED Sinful humanity drowned THE Sinner drowned The Old Adam drowned Preview of Final Judgment Final Judgment Final Judgment Noah (and family) saved Christ (2nd Noah) resurrect. Raised from water alive Eight people saved Christ raised on 8th day Christian raised into new cr. New Creation in Noah New Creation in Christ New Creature (2 Cor 5) x Circumcision (Genesis 17) – The New Circumcision in Christ (Colossians 2) ‰ Cyril of Jerusalem – Bible and the Liturgy (63) – “After faith we, like Abraham, receive the spirirtual seal (sphragis), being circumcised in Baptism by the Holy Spirit.” ‰ Asterius of Amasea – Bible and the Liturgy (65) – “Why did circumcision take place on the eighth day? Because during the first seven, the child was wearing swaddling clothes, but on the eighth, freed from these bonds, he received circumcision, sign of the seal (sphragis) of the faith of Abraham. And this also typified the fact that, when we have carried the seven days of life, that is to say, the bonds of sin, we should, at the end of time, break these bonds and, circumcised by death and resurrection, as if on the eighth day embrace the life of the angels. And it was to teach Christians that, even before they wrap them in swaddling clothes, they should mark their children with the seal (sphragis) by Baptism in the circumcision of Christ, as St. Paul says: ‘In Him you were circumcised with a circumcision not made by the hand of man, buried with Him in Baptism, as in the circumcision of Christ,’ [Colossians 2:11-12].” ‰ Luther – Lectures on Genesis (AE 3:87) – “Christ is baptized, not in order to be made righteous. . . but as an example, so to speak, for us, in order that He may precede us and we may follow His example and also be baptized. In almost the same way circumcision is a sacrament for the descendants of Abraham because, since they have the promise, they are made righteous by believing this promise and making use of the sacrament in faith. . . Thus circumcision was enjoined upon Abraham in order that for his descendants it might be a sacrament through which they would be made righteous if they believed the promise which the Lord had attached to it.” 19‰ Gerhard – Comprehensive Explanation (13-14) – “A circumcision without hands occurs, for the circumcision in the OT was a type for holy Baptism. Just as God the Lord established a covenant with the one who was circumcised, Gen. 17:10, so also Baptism is a covenant of a good conscience with God, 1 Ptr. 3:21. Just as the Lord God in the outward circumcision simultaneously also inwardly cut off the heart’s foreskin, Deu. 30:6, so also is our sinful flesh at the same time inwardly subdued and killed through the outward water of Baptism.” x Israelites Cross the “Font” of the Red Sea (Exodus 14) – The Bloody Font of Christ ‰ 1 Corinthians 10:1-3, “For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; [2] and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; [3] and all ate the same spiritual food; [4] and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ. ‰ Tertullian – De Baptismo IX (ANF 3:673) – “How man, therefore, are the pleas of nature, how many the privileges of grace, how may the solemnitities of discipline, the figures, the preparations, the prayers, which have ordained the sanctity of water? First, indeed, when the people, set unconditionally free, escaped the violence of the Egyptian king by crossing over through water, it was water that extinguished the king himself, with his entire forces. What figure more manifestly fulfilled in the sacrament of Baptism? The nations are set free from the world by menas of water, to wit: and the devil, their old tyrant, they leave quite behind, overwhelmed in the water.” ‰ Didymus the Blind – De Trinitate II:14 (Shadows to Reality, 178) – “The Red Sea receives the Israelites who did not doubt and delivered them from the perils of the Egyptians who pursued them: and so the whole history of the Flight from Egypt is a type of the salvation obtained through Baptism. Egypt represents the world, in which we harm ourselves if we live badly; the people are those who are now enlightened (=baptized): the waters, which are for these people the means of salvation, represent Baptism; Pharaoh and his soldiers are the Devil and his satellites.” ‰ St Ambrose – De Mysteriis III (NPNF Second Edition 10:318) – “There is also a third testimony, as the Apostle teaches us: ‘For all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and were all baptized to Moses in the cloud and in the sea.’ And further, Moses himself says in his song: ‘Thou didst send Thy Spirit, and the sea covered them.’ You observe that even then holy baptism was prefigured in that passage of the Hebrews, wherein the Egyptian perished, the Hebrew escaped. For what else are we daily taught in this sacrament but that guilt is swallowed up and error done away, but that virtue and innocence remain unharmed? You hear that our fathers were under the cloud, and that a kindly cloud, which cooled the heat of carnal passions. That kindly cloud overshadows those whom the Holy Spirit visits. At last it came upon the Virgin Mary, and the Power of the Highest overshadowed her, when she conceived Redemption for the race of men. And that miracle was wrought in a figure through Moses. If, then, the Spirit was in the figure, is He not present in the reality, since Scripture says to us: ‘For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.’” ‰ Luther – Flood Prayer in Baptism Liturgy (AE 53:107-108; for full text see above under “Flood”) – “Almighty, eternal God . . . who didst drown hard-hearted Pharaoh with all his hosts in the Red Sea and didst lead Thy people Israel through the same on dry ground, thereby prefiguring this bath of Thy Baptism . . . .” ‰ Gerhard – Comprehensive Explanation (9-10) – “The word ‘Baptism’ is also used [in relation to] the deliverance of the children of Israel from the Egyptians through the Red Sea, which the Lord God carried out for them through Moses. The action is called a ‘Baptism’ first and foremost because it was a type of our own Baptism. For just as the Israelites were led out of the land of Egypt through the Red Sea, so also we were rescued from spiritual enslavement to the hellish ‘Pharaoh’ through the salvation-giving water of Baptism. Conversely, just as Pharaoh and his whole horde were drowned in the Red Sea, so also the Old Adam with all his lusting and doings is drowned in holy Baptism. Subsequently, this leading out of the Red Sea is called a Baptism 20because the Israelites became bound by faith and obedience through this wondrous action by God and by His servant Moses. So also, in similar fashion, we became obligated to a life of service and obedience to Christ our Savior through holy Baptism.” ‰ Vigil of Easter – Lutheran Worship Agenda (82) – “O God, You once delivered Your people Israel from bondage under Pharaoh and led them in safety through the Red Sea, thereby giving us a picture of our Baptism. Grant that we may ever be faithful to Your baptismal promise, live in its grace, and show forth to all people Your desire that all should be made the children of Abraham; through Jesus Christ, our Lord.” x Waters at Marah (Exodus 15) – The Sweet Tree of Life in Baptism ‰ Tertullian – De Baptismo (ANF 3:9) “Again, water is restored from its defect of ‘bitterness’ to its native grace of ‘sweetness’ by the tree of Moses. That tree was Christ, restoring, to wit, of Himself, the veins of sometime envenomed and bitter nature into the all-salutary waters of Baptism.” ‰ St Ambrose – De Mysteriis III (NPNF Second Edition 10:318) – “Marah was a fountain of most bitter water: Moses cast wood into it and it became sweet. For water without the preaching of the Cross of the Lord is of no avail for future salvation, but, after it has been consecrated by the mystery of the saving cross, it is made suitable for the use of the spiritual layer and of the cup of salvation. As, then, Moses, that is, the prophet, cast wood into that fountain, so, too, the priest utters over this font the proclamation of the Lord’s cross, and the water is made sweet for the purpose of grace. You must not trust, then, wholly to your bodily eyes; that which is not seen is more really seen, for the object of sight is temporal, but that other eternal, which is not apprehended by the eye, but is discerned by the mind and spirit.” ‰ Johann Gerhard -- Comprehensive Explanation (18) – “In Exo. 15:25 Moses sank a [piece of] wood into bitter water. The water turned sweet and refreshed the Israelites in the arid desert. In varying degrees, this could also be likened to Baptism, for Christ, the Tree of Life (Rev. 22:2), similarly sinks Himself with all His merits into the water of Baptism. Thereupon, it becomes a rich-in-grace Water of Life that is able to quench our soul’s thirst.” x Water-Rock (Exodus 17) – The Water-Giving Rock was Christ ‰ Tertullian – De Baptismo (ANF 3:9) – “This is the water which flowed continuously down for the people from the ‘accompanying rock;’ for if Christ is ‘the Rock,’ without doubt we see Baptism blest by the water in Christ. How mighty is the grace of water, in the sight of God and His Christ, for the confirmation of Baptism! Never is Christ without water: if, that is, He is Himself baptized in water; inaugurates in water the first rudimentary displays of His power, when invited to the nuptials; invites the thirsty, when He makes a discourse, to His own sempiternal water; approves, when teaching concerning love, among works of charity, the cup of water offered to a poor (child); recruits His strength at a well; walks over the water; willingly crosses the sea; ministers water to His disciples. Onward even to the Passion does the witness of Baptism last: while He is being surrendered to the cross, water intervenes; witness Pilate’s hands: when He is wounded, forth from His side bursts water; witness the soldier’s lance.” ‰ St. Gregory of Elvira – Tract. XV, pp. 165f – “When the Israelites were thirsty in the desert, Moses struck the rock with his wooden staff and water gushed forth; and this foretold the sacrament of Baptism. The Apostle teaches that the rock is a type of Christ, when he says: They drank of the rock which followed them and that rock was Christ. This water which gushed forth from the rock was a type of the water which was to issue from the side of Christ (John 7:37) in the sacrament of Baptism to be a saving refreshment to those who were thirsty. We know that Our Lord, the fountain of living water, springing up to eternal life, when he hung upon the cross, not 21only shed his blood from his pierced side but also a torrent of water: he indicated in this way that his Bride the Church was formed from his side, as Eve was formed from the side of Adam . . . .” ‰ Johann Gerhard – Comprehensive Explanation (18-19) – “In Exo. 17:6 the water springs out of the rock so that the Israelites could be quenched of thirst and be vitally sustained. To some extent, this can also be [a type of] Baptism since the Rock was Christ, 1 Cor. 10:9. Out of Christ’s side flowed blood and water, John 19:34, thereby signifying both Sacraments. Since all of Baptism’s power originates from Christ’s merit, we are shielded from eternal thirst through the water of Baptism.” ‰ Luther – Sermons on Exodus (St. L. Ed. III) – Luther links the Rock with Christ (quoting 1 Cor 10), and says that when Christ was pierced, out flowed grace and the Holy Spirit. He also notes that the rod is preaching, which must be active to release the benefits of Christ for the life of the world. x Tabernacle Washing (Leviticus 14:6-7) – Bodies Washed with Pure Water ‰ Hebrews 10:19-22, “Since therefore, brethren, we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, [20] by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, [21] and since we have a great priest over the house of God, [22] let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” ‰ John of Damascus – Orthodox Faith 4.9 (FC 37:346) – “A first baptism was that of the flood [of Noah] that cut away sin. A second was that by the [Red] Sea and the cloud, for the cloud is a symbol of the Spirit, while the sea is a symbol of the water. A third is that of the [Levitical] law, for every unclean person washed himself with water and also washed his garments and thus entered into the camp. A fourth is that of John, which was an introductory baptism leading those thus baptized to penance, so that they might believe in Christ.” ‰ Johann Gerhard -- Comprehensive Explanation (19) -- “In Exo. 30:18; 38:8; 40:7 God directs Moses to craft a brass hand pan with brass feet, set it between the tabernacle and the altar, and place water in it so that Aaron and his sons might wash in it whenever they wanted to enter the tabernacle so that they might not die. To some degree this can also be [a type of] Baptism. For just as none of the priests was to enter the tabernacle back then unless he had first washed with this water, so also anyone who wants to enter the eternal tabernacle must first be washed from sin through holy Baptism.” ‰ Johann Gerhard – Comprehensive Explanation (20) – “In 1 Kings 7:23 Solomon made a huge cast sea in his temple since Moses in his day let a brass hand basin be made. It was for the specific purpose that the priests wash themselves in it whenever they wanted to go into the temple to perform offerings. The sea, or huge water tub (for the Hebrews call any large accumulation of water ‘a sea’), is also a type of holy Baptism. In Rev. 4:6 a glassy sea like unto crystal was before the throne of the lamb.” x Red Heifer (Numbers 19) – Cleansing from Uncleanness ‰ Elements of Similarity: ¾ Red – symbol of blood ¾ Unblemished – without sin ¾ Sacrificed and Burned outside camp – Crucified outside camp (Hebrews) ¾ Ashes mixed with water – Word of His cross mixed with water of Baptism ¾ Cleansing from contact with death – Baptism enlivens ‰ Bede – On the Tabernacle 2.11 (ACCS III:237) – “Now [Moses] declares that the ashes of the victims (which ought to be taken as a great mystery) are ‘the sprinkled ashes of a red heifer,’ which (as the apostle also bears witness) sanctified ‘those who have been defiled, so that [their] 22flesh is made clean.’ He also understands that the sacrament of the Lord’s passion, which saves us by purifying us forever, is prefigured in these ashes. Thus the burning of a red heifer designates the actual time and event of Christ’s passion, and the burnt ashes which were kept for the cleansing of those who were unclean suggest the mystery of that same passion which has already been completed, by which we are daily purged from our sins.” ‰ Cyprian – Letter 69.12 (FC 51:254) – “‘The water of sprinkling is a purification.’ From this it appears that the sprinkling with water is also equal to the life-giving bath.” ‰ Johann Gerhard – Comprehensive Explanation (19-20) – “In Num. 19:2 God commands that a red cow be slaughtered and totally burned. This burned cow’s ashes were then mixed with flowing water to make a sprinkling-water which would purify the unclean. This sprinkling-water is also a model of holy Baptism, for the blood of Christ, which was roasted on the stem of the cross in hot love, is sunk with all its power into Baptism’s water. Thus it becomes a wholesome sprinkling water through which we are washed from all uncleanness.” x Crossing Jordan (Joshua 3) – The New Joshua Baptized in Old Jordan ‰ Origen – Homilies on Joshua IV:1 (Shadows to Reality, 269) – “And you who have just abandoned the darkness of idolatry, and wish to give yourself to the hearing of the Divine Law, then it is that you begin first to leave Egypt. When you have been included in the number of the catechumens and begin to obey the precepts of the Church, you have passed over the Red Sea. And if you come to the sacred font of Baptism and if in the presence of the Priests and Levites you are initiated into those venerable and noble mysteries which are known only by those permitted to know them, then, having passed over the Jordan while the priests are ministering, you shall enter the land of promise.” ‰ Cyril of Jerusalem – Bible and Liturgy (101)– “Jesus [=Joshua] son of Nave, in many ways offers us a figure (typos) of Christ. It was from the time of the crossing of the Jordan that he began to exercise his command of the people: this is why Christ also, having first been baptized, began His public life. The son of Nave established twelve (men) to divide the inheritance: Jesus sent twelve apostles into the whole world as heralds of the truth. He who is the figure saved Rahab the courtesan because she believed; He who is the reality said: ‘The publicans and courtesans will go before you in the kingdom of God.’ The walls of Jericho fell at the mere sound of the trumpets at the time of the type; and because of the word of Jesus: ‘there shall not remain one stone upon a stone,’ – the temple of Jerusalem is fallen before our eyes.” ‰ Gregory of Nyssa – De Baptismo (Shadows to Reality, 271-272) – “Too long have you rolled in the mire: hasten—not at the voice of John, but of Christ—to my Jerusalem. For indeed the river of grace flows everywhere. It does not rise in Palestine to disappear in some nearby sea: it spreads over the whole earth and flows into Paradise, flowing in the opposite direction to those four rivers which come from Paradise, and bringing in things far more precious than those which come forth. Those rivers carry perfumes, the fruit of the culture and the germination of the earth: this river brings in men, begotten of the Holy Spirit. . . . Imitate Jesus, the son of Nave. Bear the Gospel, as he bore the ark. Leave behind the desert, that is, sin: cross the Jordan, and hasten to the life according to the commands of Christ; hasten to the land which brings forth the fruits of joy, where flow, as was promised, milk and honey. Overturn Jericho, your former way of life, and do not let it be built up again. All these things are types for us, all prefigures truths which are now revealed.” ‰ Luther -- Exposition of Deuteronomy (AE 9:42-43) – “The fact that Moses does not cross over the Jordan to the land of promise but is commanded to turn it over to another leader is an outstanding hidden lesson to the effect that the law leads nothing to perfection, as it is said to the Hebrews (7:19). For the law does not give the spirit of grace, and therefore it does not lead into the kingdom of God, where the true inheritance of the Lord is. Moses kills two kings on this side of Jordan; that is, the law humbles sinners, shows them that they are slain, and leaves nothing alive, 23that is, no trust in anything, since it leads to hell and is the ministry of death. Cattle and goods, however, are safe; they come in as booty. For the law does not kill the man bodily, but it kills the trust of his heart; when that is dead, then a man surrenders whatever he is and has into the service of the law as booty, and the miserable wretch lives with all his powers as a captive of the law. But since the Law does not preach forgiveness of that sin which it had provoked through its ministry, therefore it is forced to die in the land of Moab outside the kingdom of God. Since it is not right to teach the demand of the killing Law among the people of freedom, but the gift of the life-giving Spirit, therefore the whole Law collapses here, so that nothing is left of it, and man does not even know where it is buried. Joshua, however, denotes Christ, because of his name and because of what he does. Although he was a servant of Moses, yet after his master’s death he leads the people in and parcels out the inheritance of the Lord. Thus Christ, who was first made under the Law (Gal. 4:4), served it for us; then, when it was ended, He established another ministry, that of the Gospel, by which we are led through Him into the spiritual kingdom of a conscience joyful and serene in God, where we reign forever.” x Naaman’s Leprosy (2 Kings 5) – Cured by a Greater Elisha ‰ Origen – Homilies on Luke 33 (Bible and Liturgy, 111) – “No one was purified except Naaman the Syrian, who was not of Israel. See that those who are washed by the spiritual Elisha, Who is our Lord and Savior, are purified in the sacrament of Baptism and cleansed of the stain of the letter (of the law). It is you to whom it was said: ‘Arise, go to the Jordan and wash, and your flesh will be renewed.’ Naaman arose, departed, and, when he had washed, carried out the figure (mysterium) of Baptism. And his flesh became like that of a child. Who is this child? He who is born in the bath of regeneration.” ‰ St Gregory of Nyssa – Bible and Liturgy (112) – “When Elisha sent Naaman the leper to wash himself in the Jordan, and when he cleansed him from his sickness, he suggested what was to come, both by the general use of water and by the special baptism in the river. In fact, alone among rivers, the Jordan received the first-fruits of sanctification and blessing, and poured out, like a spring, the grace of Baptism on the whole world.” ‰ St Ambrose – De Mysteriis III (NPNF Second Edition 10:318) – “Lastly, let the lessons lately gone through from the Kings teach you. Naaman was a Syrian, and suffered from leprosy, nor could he be cleansed by any. Then a maiden from among the captives said that there was a prophet in Israel, who could cleanse him from the defilement of the leprosy. And it is said that, having taken silver and gold, he went to the king of Israel. And he, when he heard the cause of his coming, rent his clothes, saying, that occasion was rather being sought against him, since things were asked of him which pertained not to the power of kings. Elisha, however, sent word to the king, that he should send the Syrian to him, that he might know there was a God in Israel. And when he had come, he bade him dip himself seven times in the river Jordan. Then he began to reason with himself that he had better waters in his own country, in which he had often bathed and never been cleansed of his leprosy; and so remembering this, he did not obey the command of the prophet, yet on the advice and persuasion of his servants he yielded and dipped himself. And being forthwith cleansed, he understood that it is not of the waters but of grace that a man is cleansed. Understand now who is that young maid among the captives. She is the congregation gathered out of the Gentiles, that is, the Church of God held down of old by the captivity of sin, when as yet it possessed not the liberty of grace, by whose counsel that foolish people of the Gentiles heard the word of prophecy as to which it had before been in doubt. Afterwards, however, when they believed that it ought to be obeyed, they were washed from every defilement of sin. And he indeed doubted before he was healed; you are already healed, and therefore ought not to doubt.” ‰ Gerhard – Comprehensive Explanation (20) – “In 2 Kings 5:14 Naaman, upon the bidding of the prophet Elisha, washed himself in the Jordan, and was cleansed of his leprosy because of that. 24This is a type of holy Baptism for Christ, the Head of the Church, let Himself be baptized in the Jordan . . . and thereby sanctified the Jordan and all other water so that it washes us from sin in holy Baptism.” x Elisha Lifts Axe-Head from Water through Wood (2 Kings 6) – Christ Lifts Us from Death through Water and the Wood of His Cross ‰ Justin Martyr – Dialogue with Trypho LXXXVI 6 (Bible and Liturgy, 109) – “Elisha threw a piece of wood into the stream of the Jordan. By this means, he retrieved from the water the iron of the axe with which the sons of the prophets wished to cut the wood to build their house. So our Christ has ransomed us at Baptism from our heaviest sins by His crucifixion on the wood and Baptism in the water.” ‰ Irenaeus – Against the Heretics V 17:3 (ANF 1:545)– “By means of a tree we were made debtors to God, [so also] by means of a tree we may obtain the remission of our debt. This fact has been strikingly set forth by many others, and especially through means of Elisha the prophet. For when his fellow-prophets were hewing wood for the construction of a tabernacle, and when the iron [head], shaken loose from the axe, had fallen into the Jordan and could not be found by them, upon Elisha’s coming to the place, and learning what had happened, he threw some wood into the water. Then, when he had done this, the iron part of the axe floated up, and they took up from the surface of the water what they had previously lost. By this action the prophet pointed out that the sure word of God, which we had negligently lost by means of a tree, we should receive anew by the dispensation of a tree.” ‰ Tertullian – Adv. Jud. 13 (ANF 3:170) – “Again, the mystery of this ‘tree’ we read as being celebrated even in the Books of the Reigns. For when the sons of the prophets were cutting ‘wood’ with axes on the bank of the Jordan River, the iron flew off and sank into the stream; and so, on Elisha the prophets’s coming up, the sons of the prophets beg of him to extract from the stream the iron which had sunk. And accordingly Elisha, having taken ‘wood,’ and having cast it into the place where the iron had been submerged, forthwith it rose and swam on the surface, and the ‘wood’ sank, which are the sons of the prophets recovered. Whence they understood that Elijah’s spirit was presently conferred upon him. What is more manifest that the mystery of this ‘wood,’ –the obduracy of this world had been sunk in the profundity of error, and is freed in baptism by the ‘wood’ of Christ, that is, of His passion; in order that what had formerly perished through the ‘tree’ in Adam, should be restored through the ‘tree’ in Christ?” ‰ Didymus the Blind – Bible and Liturgy (109) – “By Elisha, the man of God, who asked: ‘Where did the axe fall in?’ is prefigured the God coming among men Who asked of Adam: ‘Where are you?’ By the iron fallen into the dark abyss is prefigured the power of the human nature, deprived of light. By the wood taken and thrown into the place where lay the object of the search is symbolized the glorious Cross. The Jordan is immortal Baptism. Indeed, it is in the Jordan that He Who made the Jordan deigned to be baptized for us. Finally, the iron which floated on the waters and came back to him who lost it, signifies that we mount by Baptism to a heavenly height and find again the grace of our old and true home country. If anyone argues that this passage is not prophecy of Baptism, what purpose, then, did the sacred writer have in writing down the passage?” ‰ Gerhard –Explanation (239) – “As the children of the prophets wanted to fell some trees, the iron [head of the ax] fell into the water; thereupon, the iron floated to the top. The entire human race had fallen into deep, eternal damnation and was unable to rescue itself. Christ, the heavenly Elisha, came with the wood of His cross and lifted us up again.” 25 BY THY FASTING AND TEMPTATION CONTENTS:x Adam, Eve, Serpent (Genesis 3) – New Adam Overcomes x Esau Sells Birthright (Gen 25:29-34) – Temptation of Food Resisted x Israel’s Failure in Wilderness x Fasting of Moses (Ex 24:18) x Fasting of Elijah (1 Kings 19:8) x Thirst of David (Psalms 42 & 63) x Joshua’s Conquest Begins after Jordan Crossing – Christ’s Conquest of Satan Begin after Baptism x Adam, Eve, Serpent (Genesis 3) – New Adam Overcomes ‰ Ireneaus – Adv. Haer. 5:21 – “For as at the beginning it was by means of food that the enemy persuaded man , although not suffering hunger, to transgress God’s commandments, so in the end he did not succeed in persuading Him that was an hungered to take that food which proceeded from God . . . . The corruption of man, therefore, which occurred in paradise by both of our first parents eating, was done away with by the Lord’s want of food in this world.” ‰ Ireneaus – Adv. Haer. 5:21 – In connection with the 2nd temptation – to cast himself down from the pinnacle of the temple – “The pride of reason, therefore, which was in the serpent was put to nought by the humility found in the man Christ, and now twice was the devil conquered from Scripture, when he was detected as advising things contrary to God’s commandment, and was shown to be the enemy of God by the expression of his thoughts.” ‰ Irenaeus – Adv. Haer. 5:21 – After Christ overcame Satan the 3rd time, “there was done away with that infringement of God’s commandment which had occurred in Adam, by means of the precept of the law, which the Son of man observed, who did not transgress the commandment of God.” ‰ Origen – Fragments on Luke 96 (ACCS NT III:74) – “[Satan] was eager to cast this man [Jesus] down, just as he had cast Adam down. So he approaches Jesus and introduces the first temptation, that of gluttony, through which he had also captured the first Adam.” ‰ Ambrose – Exposition of the Gospel of Luke (ACCS NT III:73) – “It is fitting that it be recorded that the first Adam was cast out of Paradise into the desert, that you may observe how the second Adam returned from the desert to Paradise…Adam brought death through the tree. Christ brought life through the cross. Adam, naked of spiritual things, covered himself with the foliage of a tree. Christ, naked of worldly things, did not desire the trappings of the body. Adam lived in the desert. Christ lived in the desert, for He knew where He could find the lost. With their error canceled, He could recall them to Paradise…So Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, is led into the desert for a purpose, in order to challenge the devil. If He had not fought, He would not have conquered him for me.” x Esau Sells Birthright (Gen 25:29-34) – Temptation of Food Resisted x Israel’s Failure in Wilderness ‰ Failure with Food (Exodus 16; Dt. 8:3) – New Israel Fasts Forty Days ‰ Failure at the Rock (Ex 17:1-7; Dt 6:16) – the Christ-Rock Remains Faithful ‰ Failure with Idols (Exodus 32; Dt 6:13) – Christ Keeps First Commandment x Fasting of Moses (Ex 24:18) 26x Fasting of Elijah (1 Kings 19:8) x Thirst of David (Psalms 42 & 63) x Joshua’s Conquest Begins after Jordan Crossing – Christ’s Conquest of Satan Begin after Baptism ‰ After Joshua/Jesus leads Israel across the Promised Land, He begins to do battle with the Canaanites. After Jesus crosses Jordan, He enters the wilderness to do battle with the Devil. 27 BY THY MINISTRY – Words and Deeds CONTENTS:x Words ‰ Sermon on Mt. Sinai (Exodus 20-23; 25-31) – Sermon on the Mt. (Mt 5-7) ‰ Use of Parables (Ps. 78:2) – Teaching in Parables (Mt. 13:35) x Deeds ‰ Cleansing of Naaman the Leper (2 Kings 5) – Cleansing of Lepers (Mt 8:1-4; Lk. 17:11-19) ‰ Raising of Widow’s Son (1 Kgs 17:17-24) – Raising of Widow’s Son at Nain (Lk 7:11-16) ‰ Raising of Widow’s Son (2 Kgs 4:8-37) – Raising of Lazarus (John 11) ‰ Sending of Twelve Tribes (Joshua) – Sending of Twelve Apostles (Mt 10) ‰ David Eating Bread of Presence (1 Sam. 21) – Jesus as Lord of Sabbath (Mt 12:1-8) ‰ Moses Feeding Israel (Exodus 16) – Jesus Feeds 5000 & 4000 (Mt 14:13ff) ‰ Elisha Feeds 100 Men (2 Kgs 4:42-44) – cf. Above ‰ Moses, Elijah, Tabernacle, Mountain – Jesus’ Transfiguration (Matthew 17 and Luke 9) ‰ Elijah, Famine, and Gentile Widow (1 Kgs 17-18) – Jesus’ Ministry (Lk 4:25f) x Words ‰ Sermon on Mt. Sinai (Exodus 20-23; 25-31) – Sermon on the Mt. (Mt 5-7) ‰ Use of Parables (Ps. 78:2) – Teaching in Parables (Mt. 13:35) x Deeds ‰ Cleansing of Naaman the Leper (2 Kings 5) – Cleansing of Lepers (Mt 8:1-4; Lk. 17:11-19) ¾ Gerhard – Comprehensive Explanation (20) – In 2 Kings 5:14 Naaman, upon the bidding of the prophet Elisha, washed himself in the Jordan, and was cleansed of his leprosy because of that. This is a type of holy Baptism, for Christ, the Head of the Church, let Himself be baptized in the Jordan, Mat. 3, Mark 1, Luke 3, John 1, and thereby He sanctified the Jordan and all other water so that it washed us from sin in holy Baptism.” ‰ Raising of Widow’s Son (1 Kgs 17:17-24) – Raising of Widow’s Son at Nain (Lk 7:11-16) ¾ LXX, “kai. e;dwken auvto.n th/| mhtri. auvtou/.” ¾ NT: “kai. e;dwken auvto.n th/| mhtri. auvtou/.” ‰ Raising of Widow’s Son (2 Kgs 4:8-37) – Raising of Lazarus (John 11) ‰ Sending of Twelve Tribes (Joshua) – Sending of Twelve Apostles (Mt 10) ‰ David Eating Bread of Presence (1 Sam. 21) – Jesus as Lord of Sabbath (Mt 12:1-8) ¾ Augustine – Contra Faustus XII:33 (NPNF First Series 4:194) – “Did not David, when he ate the shew-bread, which it was not lawful for any but the priests to eat, prefigure the union of the kingdom and the priesthood in one person, Jesus Christ.” ‰ Moses Feeding Israel (Exodus 16) – Jesus Feeds 5000 & 4000 (Mt 14:13ff) ‰ Elisha Feeds 100 Men (2 Kgs 4:42-44) – cf. Above 28 ‰ Moses, Elijah, Tabernacle, Mountain – Jesus’ Transfiguration (Matthew 17 and Luke 9) ‰ Elijah, Famine, and Gentile Widow (1 Kgs 17-18) – Jesus’ Ministry (Lk 4:25f) ¾ Chrysostom – The Gospel of Matthew, Homily 49.3 (ACCS NT Ib:9) – “For this purpose He also caused just twelve baskets to remain over [in the feeding of the 5000]: That Judas, too, might bear one. He wanted all the disciples to know His power. He fed their hunger. In Elijah’s case something similar took place.” ¾ Theodore of Heraclea – Fragment 98 (ACCS NT Ib:37) – “And Jesus not only fed them [the 4000] with a few loaves of bread, but He even produced a surplus of seven baskets, so that He might be shown as incomparably surpassing Elijah, who himself also caused a multiplication of the widow’s small quantity of oil and flour.” 29 BY THINE AGONY AND BLOODY SWEAT – Palm Sunday to Maundy Thursday CONTENTS: x Palm Sunday ‰ Ark is Borne into Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6) – New Ark is Borne into Jerusalem ‰ Solomon enters Jerusalem as King (1 Kings 1:38ff) – One Greater than Solomon x Cleansing of Temple ‰ Hezekiah Cleanses Temple (2 Chronicles 29) ‰ Nehemiah Cleanses Temple (Nehemiah 13:4-9) ‰ Judas Maccabeus Cleanses Temple (1 Macc 4:36) x Betrayal by Judas Iscariot ‰ Joseph Sold by Brothers (Genesis 37) ‰ David Betrayed by Absalom and Ahithophel (2 Samuel 15) x Institution of the Supper ‰ Tree of Life (Genesis 2-3) ‰ Melchizedek’s Gift of Bread and Wine to Abraham (Genesis 14) ‰ Flesh and Blood of Passover Lamb (Exodus 12) ‰ Manna as Bread from Heaven (Exodus 16) ‰ Meal with God of Israel upon Mt. Sinai (Exodus 24:1-11) ‰ Bread of Divine Presence (Ex 25:30) ‰ Peace Offerings (Leviticus 3) x Garden of Gethsemane ‰ Adam in Paradise – Contrast ‰ Moses Alone on the Mountain (Exodus 19) x Arrest and Binding ‰ Samson is Bound by Israelites (Judges 15) and Gentiles (Judges 16) – Christ is Bound by Israelites & Gentiles ‰ Jeremiah is Plotted Against and Arrested by Priests (Jeremiah 20) – Priests Plot Against Jesus and Arrest Him x Palm Sunday ‰ Ark is Borne into Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6) – New Ark is Borne into Jerusalem ‰ Solomon enters Jerusalem as King (1 Kings 1:38ff) – One Greater than Solomon ¾ Origen – Fragment 277 (ACCS NT Ia:258) – “The church of the Gentiles, which in truth is gathered ‘from the ends of the earth,’ fulfills the place of the queen of the south, not providing gifts in ‘perishable things, silver’ and spices, but faith, the incense of knowledge, the outpouring of an offering, the sweat of the virtues and the blood of martyrdom. For with such gifts the true Solomon is pleased, who is Christ, ‘our peace.’ For ‘Solomon’ is interpreted as ‘peaceful.’ ¾ Luther – Temporal Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed (AE 45:93) – “Hence, David of old was not permitted to build the temple [II Sam. 7:4-13], because he had wielded the sword and had shed much blood. Not that he had done wrong 30thereby, but because he could not be a type of Christ, who without the sword was to have a kingdom of peace. It had to be built instead by Solomon, whose name in German means ‘Friedrich’ or ‘peaceful’; he had a peaceful kingdom, by which the truly peaceful kingdom of Christ, the read Friedrich or Solomon, could be represented.” ¾ Luther – Against Latomus (AE 32:200) – Luther does not directly relate Solomon’s entrance into Jerusalem to Christ’s entrance, but he does speak of Solomon (and others) as types of Christ. “Therefore, in I Cor. 10[:4] Christ is rightly called ‘the Rock’ by the Apostle; just as ‘the Rock was Christ,’ so Christ truly is sin. Similarly, Christ is the bronze serpent, the paschal lamb, and all the other things which are said of him. Yet this is no reason for us to say that ‘bronze serpent,’ or ‘rock,’ has two separate meanings. No one ever says that ‘paschal lamb’ sometimes means a sheep, and at other times Christ; nor does anyone say that ‘Aaron’ is sometimes a name for Christ, and at other times for Amram’s son [Exod. 6:20]; or that ‘David’ is in one sense the son of Jesse, and in another sense Christ; or that ‘Solomon’ is in one sense the son of David, and in another sense Christ. Yet we truly say that Christ is David, Solomon, Aaron, and all the other Old Testament types.” ¾ Gerhard – Seven Christmas Sermons (40) – “Therefore Christ is also a King of peace, of which King Solomon was a portrait. King Solomon not only had the name Peace, but his kingdom truly was a peaceful kingdom, so that everyone lived securely under His vine and under his fig tree (1 Kgs. 4:25). So also the kingdom of Christ is a kingdom of peace.” ¾ Gerhard – Seven Christmas Sermons (80) – “King Solomon, who ruled the nation of Israel in fine tranquility and peace, was a type of this Prince of Peace. However, that was all an earthly transitory peace; Christ is more than Solomon (Mt. 12:42).” x Cleansing of Temple ‰ Hezekiah Cleanses Temple (2 Chronicles 29) ‰ Nehemiah Cleanses Temple (Nehemiah 13:4-9) ‰ Judas Maccabeus Cleanses Temple (1 Macc 4:36) x Betrayal by Judas Iscariot ‰ Joseph Sold by Brothers (Genesis 37) ¾ Chrysostom – Homilies on Genesis 61.10 (ACCS 2:236) – “Now all this happened so that Joseph’s regard for his brothers might be demonstrated and their murderous intent might come to light. On the other hand it happened also as a type of things to come, the outlines of truth being sketched out ahead of time in shadow. As Joseph went off to his brothers to visit them, to those who had no respect for brotherhood or for reason of his coming and who first intended to do away with him and then sold him to foreigners, so too our Lord in fidelity to His characteristic love came to visit the human race. Taking flesh of the same source as ours and deigning to become our brother, He thus arrived among us.” ¾ Augustine – Contra Faustus XII:192 (NPNF First Series 4:192) – “Christ appears to me in Joseph, who was persecuted and sold by his brethren, and after his troubles obtained honor in Egypt. We have seen the troubles of Christ in the world, of which Egypt was a figure, in the suffering of the martyrs. And now we see the honor of Christ in the same world which He subdues to Himself, in exchange for the food which He bestows.” ¾ Caesarius of Arles – Sermon 89.2 (ACCS 2:240) – “Upon seeing Joseph, his brothers discussed his death; just as when the Jews saw the true Joseph, Christ the Lord, they all 31resolved with one plan to crucify Him. His brothers robbed Joseph of his outside coat that was of divers colors; the Jews stripped Christ of His bodily tunic at His death on the cross. When Joseph was deprived of his tunic he was thrown into a cistern, that is, into a pit; after Christ was despoiled of human flesh, He descended into hell. Afterward Joseph is lifted up out of the cistern and is sold to the Ishmaelites, that is, to the Gentiles; when Christ returns from hell, He is bought by all nations at the price of faith. Upon the advice of Judah, Joseph is sold for thirty pieces of silver; Christ is sold for the same amount upon the counsel of Judas Iscariot.” ¾ Luther – Lectures on Genesis (AE 6:379ff) – Luther draws many parallels between the suffering of Joseph and Christ, some of which are the following: i “For Joseph is a figure of Christ, and His descent into hell is indicated in this passage [Gen 37:24],” (379). i “My reply is that God wants us to consider and learn how great the love of parents towards children is, that we estimate from this the magnitude of God’s love by which He embraced us when He was willing to let His only-begotten Son suffer and be crucified for us. For Joseph is the image of God’s Son,” (385). i “Joseph was sold for a smaller price than Christ was, and I think that the price was about 20 thalers. . . But from this passage [Gen 37:28] Zechariah undoubtedly derived his prophecy concerning Christ (Zech. 11:12): ‘They weighed out as my wages thirty shekels of silver.’ For facts and circumstances agree excellently, and there cannot be a greater similarity than that between Christ crucified and Joseph; the selling and death of both are in agreement. For as Isaiah (53:8) says of Christ, ‘He was cut off out of the land of the living,’ so also Joseph is removed from the land and sight of his father, just as if he would never return to his father or see him again,” (392). ¾ Luther – The Gospel for the Sunday after Christmas (AE 52:126) – “Joseph was sold into Egypt and became a ruler over the country after his imprisonment. This happened and was written that he might prefigure Christ, who became through His passion Lord of all the world.” ¾ Gerhard – Explanation (30) – “You have an excellent type in Joseph, who was sold by his own brothers, Gen. 31, even as Christ the Lord was sold by His own disciple.” ‰ David Betrayed by Absalom and Ahithophel (2 Samuel 15) ¾ Gerhard – An Explanation (45-46) – “In 2 Samuel 15, it is recorded that David, as he was fleeing from his son Absalom, left Jerusalem, crossed over the brook of Kidron and went up the Mount of Olives with weeping and sadness. This sad departure by David was a type of the departure which the Son of David, Jesus Christ, with similar sadness and trembling, would one day take across the brook Kidron [and] up the Mount of Olives as the time of His suffering finally arrived, His spoiled children running from Him for their lives.” Note also that Ahithophel committed suicide by hanging even as did Judas. x Institution of the Supper ‰ Tree of Life (Genesis 2-3) ¾ Gerhard – Comprehensive Explanation ( 214) – “In Gen. 2:9-10 God the Lord placed the Tree of Life in the middle of Paradise. And there went out from Eden a stream to water the garden. Through the fruits of this tree the first people could have been sustained in the imperishable and continuing bloom of youth. However, through the Fall into sin they and their offspring were trapped in death, so that from now on the 32way to this Tree of Life is closed off, Gen. 3:24. So you see, God the Lord established for the Church a different Tree of Life in the garden of Paradise: Christ is the true Timber of Life, whose leaves serve for healing, Rev. 22:2. The very same gives us His flesh to eat and His blood to drink in the holy Supper; otherwise, we would have no life in us, John 6:53-55: His flesh is the true food and His blood is the true drink. Whoever eats His flesh and drinks His blood has eternal life.” ‰ Melchizedek’s Gift of Bread and Wine to Abraham (Genesis 14) ¾ Clement of Alexandria – Stromata IV:25 (Bible and Liturgy, 143) – “Melchizedek, who offered bread and wine, the consecrated food as a figure (typos) of the Eucharist.” ¾ Cyprian – Letters 63.4 (ACCS 2:26) – “Likewise, in the priest Melchizedek, we see the sacrament of the sacrifice of the Lord prefigured according to what the divine Scripture testifies . . . For who is more a priest of the most high God than our Lord Jesus Christ, who offered sacrifice to God the Father and offered the very same thing that Melchizedek had offered, bread and wine, that is, actually His body and blood?” ¾ St. Ambrose – On the Sacraments V:1 (Bible and Liturgy, 144) – “We remember that the figure of these sacraments came before the time of Abraham, when holy Melchizedek, who has neither beginning nor end of days, offered the sacrifice.” ¾ Eusebius of Caesarea – Dem. Ev. XXII:365 (Bible and Liturgy, 146) – “As he who was the priest of the nations does not appear at all as having used a corporal sacrifice, but as having blessed Abraham in the bread and the wine, so in the same way, Our Lord first of all, and after Him those who hold from Him their priesthood in all the nations, accomplish the spiritual sacrifice according to the rules of the Church, signifying by bread and wine the mysteries of the saving Body and Blood, Melchizedek having contemplated these things in advance in the Holy Spirit, and having used the figures of the realities to come.” ¾ Hymn “Hoste dum victo triumphans” – Commentary on the Psalms (III:451) – “When the Patriarch was returning Crowned with triumph from the fray, Him the peaceful King of Salem, Came to meet upon his way; Meekly bearing Bread and Wine, Holy Priesthood’s awful sign. On the truth thus dimly shadowed, Later days a lustre shed; When the Great High Priest eternal, Under forms of Wine and Bread, For the world’s immortal Food, Gave His Flesh, and gave His Blood.” ¾ Luther – Commentary on Psalm 110 (AE 13:313) – “Clearly, the text [of Genesis] does not say that Melchizedek made a sacrifice . . . but that he brought food and drink to those people. In the same manner Christ also ordained the holy Sacrament of His body and blood in the bread and wine for Christians, in order that they should come together to eat and drink – not to sacrifice it.” ¾ Gerhard – Comprehensive Explanation (214-215) – “Gen. 14:18-19 But Melchizedek, the King of Salem, brougth forth bread and wine, and he was priest of the Most High God. And he blessed him (Abraham) and said: Blessed be you, Abram, by the Highest God, who owns heaven and earth. (This Melchizedek is a 33type of the eternal High Priest, Christ, Heb. 7:1-3ff. Just as Melchizedek once brought forth bread and wine to refresh Abraham and his soldiers, so also Christ gives us His true body and blood with the bread and wine to eat and drink so that we are thereby refreshed in our spiritual hunger and thirst.)” ‰ Flesh and Blood of Passover Lamb (Exodus 12) ¾ Origen – Homilies on Genesis 10.3 (FC 71:163) – “Christians eat the flesh of the lamb every day, that is, they consume daily the flesh of the Word. ‘For Christ our pasch is sacrificed.’” ¾ Chrysostom – Homilies on the Gospel of John 46 (FC 33:469-470) – “Now if its type had so much power, both in the temple of the Hebrews and in the midst of the Egyptians, when sprinkled on the doorposts, how much more power does the reality have. In its types this blood sanctified the golden altar. Without it, the High Priest did not dare to enter the sanctuary. This blood has ordained priests. In its types it has washed away sins. And if it had such great power in its types, if death shuddered so much at the figure, how would it not even more so be in terror of the reality itself, pray tell?” ¾ Cyril of Alexandria – Commentary on Luke, Homily 141 (CGSL 566-567) – “[Christ] says, ‘I will no longer come near to such a Pascha as this,’ one that consisted in the typical eating. A lamb of the flock was killed to be the type of the true Lamb until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God, that is, until the time has appeared in which the kingdom of heaven is preached. This is fulfilled in us, who honor the worship that is superior to the law, even the true Pascha. A lamb of the flock does not sanctify those who are in Christ. Christ sanctifies us. He was made a holy sacrifice for us, by the offerings of bloodless offerings and the mystical giving of thanks, in which we are blessed and enlivened. He became for us the living bread that came down from heaven, and He gives life to the world.” ¾ Gerhard – Comprehensive Explanation (215) – “Exo. 12 describes the institution of the other Sacrament of the Old Testament, namely the Easter Lamb [Passover], which may rightly be applied to the Sacrament of the holy Supper. First of all, just as the Israelites in their Sacrament ate the Passover Lamb and smeared its blood on both posts and the top beam of the doorway, v. 4, 7, So also we have an Easter Lamb [Paschal Lamb], that is Christ, offered for us, 1 Cor. 5:7, whose true body we eat and blood we drink in the holy Supper. Secondly, just as this Sacrament of the little Passover lamb was a constant sign of remembrance before the eyes of the Israelites that God the Lord spared their first-born in the Exodus from Egypt, v. 27, so also we should proclaim the death of Chrsit we have been rescued from the slavery of the Pharaoh from hell; and from the heart we are to thank the Lord Christ for this. Thirdly, just as an uncircumcised person was not to eat of the Passover lamb, v. 48, so also no unbaptized heathen should be admitted to the holy Lord’s Supper. Finally, just as the Israelites had to eat the Passover lamb with special ceremonies, so also the person who eats of this bread and drinks of this cup should first examine himself, 1 Cor. 11:28. Just as they had to eat the little Passover lamb with bitter spices [herbs] and with unleavened bread, v. 8, so should our old Adam be salted away through genuine repentance, Mark 9:49. Also, the old yeast of evil must be swept away, 1 Cor. 5:7-8, if we are to participate worthily in the holy Supper.” ‰ Manna as Bread from Heaven (Exodus 16) ¾ St. John Chrysostom – Bible and Liturgy (147-148) – “You have seen in connection with Baptism what is the figure and what is the reality. Look, I will show you the table 34and also the communion of the sacraments outlined therein, if as before, you do not ask to find it whole and entire, but rather that you examine the events as it is natural they should happen in the figure. Indeed, after his passage on the cloud and the sea, St. Paul says: ‘And they all drink of the same spiritual drink.’ In the same way, he says that you come out of the pool of water and go in haste to the Table, as they came out of the sea and went toward a new and marvelous table, that is, the manna. And as you have a mysterious drink, the saving Blood, so they had a marvelous kind of drink, finding water in abundance flowing out of a dry rock there where there was no spring nor running water.” ¾ Theodore of Mopsuestia – Bible and Liturgy (148) – “The events of the old were the figures of the new: the Law of Moses is the shadow, grace the body. When the Egyptians pursued the Hebrews, they, having crossed the Red Sea, escaped from their tyranny. The sea is the figure of the baptismal pool; the cloud, of the Spirit; Moses, of Christ the Savior; his staff, of the Cross; Pharaoh, of the devil; the Egyptians, of the demons; the manna, of the divine Food; the water from the rock, the blood of the Savior. Indeed, as those men, having first crossed the Red Sea, then tasted a divine nourishment and a miraculous spring, so we, after the Baptism of salvation, participate in the divine Mysteries.” ¾ Gerhard – Comprehensive Explanation (215-216) – “In Exo. 16:15 God allows manna to fall from heaven so that the Israelites were fed. God the Lord also let water flow out of the rock so that the children of Israel were given drink in the desert. Christ relates this event to Himself in John 6:49-51. Your fathers ate manna in the wilderness and died. This is the bread that comes from heaven, so that whoever eats of it does not die. I am the living Bread come from heaven; whoever will eat of this bread, he will live in eternity; and the bread I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. In a similar vein, St. Paul clarifies this type in 1 Cor. 10:3,4, Our fathers did all eat the same spiritual food and did all drink the same spiritual drink; but they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed along, which was Christ. Just as the children of Israel in the desert were fed with this heavenly bread and miraculously given to drink with the water out of the rock, so also are we fed in the holy Supper with the living Bread that came from heaven, that is with Christ’s flesh, and given drink with His holy blood, which flows from His wounds, so that our souls do not languish or die from spiritual hunger and thirst in the desert wasteland of this world. Just as the manna and the water out of the rock were clear testimony to divine grace, so also Christ has demonstrated His marvelous blessings to us in the institution of the holy Lord’s Supper. Just as the manna had a lovely taste, Exo. 16:31, so also the spiritual nourishment of Christ in the holy Supper is especially sweet-tasting to a soul hungry for grace. In the same way that all the Israelites publicly ate of the manna, 1 Cor. 10:3, so all believing Christians have a holy Lord’s Supper in which they together all receive Christ’s body and blood. In the same way that the manna became stinky [spoiled] for those who, in opposition to God’s command, saved it for the next day, Exo. 16:20, so—though of itself Christ’s body is imperishable, immortal, and filled with life-giving Spirit—indeed for those who unworthily eat Christ’s body and drink His blood, it redounds to them for judgement, 1 Cor. 11:29. In the same way that the people ceased to gather manna on the seventh day, Exo. 16:23, even so—after the completion of the days of labor in this life when begins the eternal Sabbath, Isa. 66:23—Christ will from then on no longer deal with us through Word and Sacrament. Rather, we will see Him face to face, 2 Cor. 13:12.” 35‰ Meal with God of Israel upon Mt. Sinai (Exodus 24:1-11) ¾ Gerhard – Comprehensive Explanation (217) – “In Exo. 24:8 Moses takes the blood of the slaughtered offering and sprinkles the people with it and says: See, this is the blood of the covenant which the Lord makes with you, etc. Just as the Israelites at that time were, on the basis of these words, taken up into the covenant of God through the sprinkling of the offering blood, which was a type of Christ, so also Christ says in the institution of the holy Lord’s Supper: Take, drink, this is My blood of the New Testament, Mat. 26:28, Mark 14:24, as if He wants to say: I establish a new covenant with you which is verified and sealed with My own blood. As often as you then drink this My blood of the New Testament in the holy Lord’s Supper, you can absolutely reassure yourselves that you are in the new grace-covenant of God.” ‰ Bread of Divine Presence (Ex 25:30) ¾ Luther – Lectures on Hebrews (AE 29:200-201) – “’The table and the bread of the Presence’ is either the same Holy Scripture that the believers receive from the mouth as from a table …or it is Christ Himself, who is our Altar, Sacrifice, and Bread, as John 6:35 states: ‘I am the Bread of Life.’ For we receive from Him in the sacrament and feast ourselves on Him in this life…This, too, should be noted, that the Hebrew text is said to have ‘bread of the countenances’ where we have ‘bread of the Presence.’ Yet in reality this amounts to the same thing. For that bread was designated in this way because Christ should always be kept in sight and before our faces, and should be remembered by us.” ¾ Gerhard – Comprehensive Explanation (217) – “In Exo. 25:30 God commands that in the tabernacle the exhibition [show] bread be placed before Him on the table at all times. These exhibitions breads are a type of the holy Supper, in which the Bread of life (Christ) is presented to us, nor for the purpose of viewing it but rather for the purpose of eating it, so that thereby we may see and taste just how amiable and gracious the Lord really is, Psa. 24:9. In the Old Testament only the priests were allowed to eat of this exhibition bread, Mat. 12:4, Mark 2:26. However, in the New Testament Christ has made us all kings and priests before God, Rev. 1:6, so that we all may eat of the Bread of life. Just as the priest Abimelech did not want to give the servants of David to eat of the exhibition bread until he was informed that they were sanctified, 1 Sam. 21:5, so also the unholy and godless should not be permitted to attend the holy Supper; rather, it should be called sancta sanctis [L.=holy of holies].” ‰ Peace Offerings (Leviticus 3) x Garden of Gethsemane ‰ Adam in Paradise – Contrast ¾ Cyril of Jerusalem – From Shadows to Reality (42) – “Adam received his doom: ‘Cursed is the earth in thy work: thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.’ For this cause Jesus assumes the thorns, that He might cancel the doom; for this cause also was He buried in the earth, that the cursed earth might receive, instead of the curse, the blessing. At the time of the sin, they clothed themselves with fig leaves: for this cause also Jesus made the fig-tree the last of His signs. . . . And having touched on things connected with Paradise I am indeed astonished at the truth of the types. In Paradise was the fall, and in a Garden was our salvation. From the Tree came sin, and until the Tree sin lasted; in the evening they sought to hide themselves from the eyes of the Lord and in the evening the robber is brought by the Lord into Paradise. . . . the woman who was formed from the side, led the way to sin; but Jesus who came to bestow the grace 36of pardon on men and women alike, was pierced in the side for woman, the He might undo the sin.” ¾ Luther – Lectures on Genesis (AE 1:310) – “Thus the center of Paradise was where Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Jericho were located later on, the places where Christ and John spent the greater part of their life. . . It is possible that later on Calvary, where Christ offered Himself for the sins of the world, was located where the tree of the knowledge of good and evil had been while Paradise was still standing. Thus so far as the place is concerned, death and destruction through Satan would be matched by life and salvation won through Christ.” ¾ Gerhard – Explanation (9) – “First, St. Paul writes in Rom. 5, how through the disobedience of the one many became sinners; also how through the obedience of the One many become righteous. Here we have a proper key to understanding the divine. With this key we can fathom many mysteries in the passion history; namely, if we view the profound obedience of Christ—the second heavenly Adam—as in His suffering He became obedient to his heaveny Father unto death (Phi. 2) as a payment and satisfaction for the disobedience and the sin of the first Adam. With this key, journey through the entire history [of the passion]. Adam had sinned in a garden. To atone for it, Christ began His suffering in a garden.…” Gerhard proceeds to relate several incidents in the Passion to the disobedience of Adam. ‰ Moses Alone on the Mountain (Exodus 19) ¾ Gerhard – Explanation (58-59) – “[That Christ alone suffers the greatest anguish for our sins] is well pre-figured in Exo. 19, where it is recorded that Moses led the elders of the people to the foot of the mountain and took his brother Aaron a bit farther; nevertheless, He went alone to the top of the mountain in the dark cloud and there spoke with God. Thus Christ here takes His disciples with Him into the garden, three of whom He takes a little farther onto the mountain. However, He alone goes to a particular place where He speaks with God and carries out the office of reconcilation.” x Arrest and Binding ‰ Samson is Bound by Israelites (Judges 15) and Gentiles (Judges 16) – Christ is Bound by Israelites & Gentiles ¾ Origen – Commentary on Matthew 115 (ACCS NT Ib:272) – “Our inquirer will be satisfied still more with scriptural demonstration that Jesus broke the chains of those who ‘took counsel’ against Him and led Him away, bound, if he understands the meaning of what is written concerning Samson, who also broke the fetters of those foreigners who bound him, for he was a Nazarite of God and had power in his uncut head of hair. If therefore he whose power came from the hair on his head was able to break the chains of the oppressors who bound him, how much more will Christ decisively break those chains binding Him, who, after performing great signs and miracles, freely delivered Himself to be bound…Samson’s bounds were but a type of Christ’s.” ¾ Gerhard – Explanation (30) – “You have a type of how Christ was to be bound in Samson, who was bound by the Philistines, Judges 16.” ¾ Gerhard – Explanation (98) – “We read in Judges 15 that the strong hero, Samson, willingly allowed himself to be bound by the three thousand men of the tribe of Judah, who were besieged by the Philistines and who would not free him until Samson delivered these their enemies into their hands. It is also there recorded that when the Philistines exulted with loud shouts over the enemy, the Spirit of the Lord happened upon Samson so that the cords on His arms became like threads which have been 37singed by fire, so that the bands on His hand melted. Thereupon, he took a jawbone of an mule and with it struck down his enemies in a heap. He also picked up the gate of the city in which he had been confined and took it with him up on a high mountain. In this passage Samson is a type of our Lord Christ, the true Nazarene, Mat. 2, and the strong Lion from the stem of Judah, Acts 5. He, too, willingly allowed Himself to be bound by the Jews and turned over to the heathen judge. Yes, indeed, he allowed the cords of death to fall upon Him. However, He also finally ripped apart all these bands. He was once again not only personally liberated from all external and internal cords of death; rather, He also conquered all of His and our enemies. He stormed (assaulted) hell and returned from that slaughter as a victorious Conqueror.” ‰ Jeremiah is Plotted Against and Arrested by Priests (Jeremiah 20) – Priests Plot Against Jesus and Arrest Him ¾ Gerhard – Explanation (125) – “In Jer. 20 it is recorded that the High Priest Pashur, who had been appointed the overseer in the House of the Lord, allowed the prophet Jeremiah to be struck and thrown into captivity until the morning. Previously in chapter 18 it is noted how this Pashur, along with other of his colleagues in the priesthood, had plotted against Jeremiah and laid the groundwork for keeping the orderly succession from him; about that [matter] their decision (sentence) was certain and infallible . . . What the prophet Jeremiah experienced at that time was precisly what was later encountered by the great Prophet Christ—to whom all the other prophets and their teachings pointed.” 38BY THY CROSS AND PASSION CONTENTS: x Adam and Eve’s Garments of Skin (Genesis 3:21) – Clothed by Sacrifice x Devil Overcomes Man by a Tree – Devil Is Overcome by Man on a Tree x Cain Kills Abel (Genesis 4; Hebrews 11:4; 12:24) – Christ Killed by Israelite Brothers x Isaac Bears the Wood to His Sacrifice (Genesis 22) – Jesus Bears the Cross to His Sacrifice x Joseph Dies and Israelites Increase (Exodus 1) – Christ Dies and Church Spreads x Plagues upon Egypt; of Passover Lamb (Exodus 7-13) – Three Hours Darkness and Death of Agnus Dei x Job’s Sufferings and Rejection by Friends – Christ Suffers and Is Despised x Staff of Moses is Blessing/Curse (Exodus 4:20; 7:12; 17:9; Is 10:24) – Cross is Blessing and Sweetening Tree at Marah (Exodus 15:25) – Cross of Christ as Tree of Life Sweetens Bitterness x Moses’ Uplifted Hands in Battle (Exodus 17:8-16) – Our Lord Crucified in Last Battle x Sacrificial Liturgy (Leviticus 1-16) – Christ is the Sacrifice to End All Sacrifices x Bronze Serpent Uplifted on Pole (Numbers 21:4-9) – Christ Uplifted as Cursed One on Tree (John 3:15) x Scarlet Cord in Rahab’s Window (Joshua 2:17-21; cf. Passover Ritual) – Saved by Scarlet Blood of Jesus x Samson Thirsts after His Battle (Judges 15:18) – Christ our Samson says, “I Thirst.” x David Fights Goliath (1 Samuel 17) – Our David Fights the Goliath of Hell x Noah Naked and Mocked (Genesis 9) – Christ Stripped and Mocked x Wood of the Cross Prefigured in Tree of Life, Noah’s Ark, Tree at Marah, Elisha’s Wood to Raise Axe, and Moses’ Staff x Adam and Eve’s Garments of Skin (Genesis 3:21) – Clothed by Sacrifice ‰ Luther – Lectures on Genesis (AE 2:144; cf. 146) – “Moreover, this passage [about the rainbow, Gen 9:16] also teaches us how God is wont always to link his promise with a sign, just as previously, in the third chapter, we called attention to the garments of skin with which He clothed the naked human beings as a sign that He wanted to protect, defend, and preserve them. The allegory proposed by some is not inappropriate, namely, that just as the skin of a dead sheep warms the body, so Christ, afer He has died, warms us with His Spirit and on the Last Day will raise and revive us. Others suggest that the skins were added as a sign of mortality; but of this there was hardly any need, since our entire life reminds us of our mortality. There was need for them to have a sign of life, from which they could learn God’s blessing and good will. For this is the particular nature of sins, that they dispense comfort, not terror. . . .” x Devil Overcomes Man by a Tree – Devil Is Overcome by Man on a Tree ‰ Cyril of Jerusalem – Catechetical Lectures 13.31 (ACCS 1:62) – Although to Adam it was said, ‘For the day you eat of it, you must die,’ today you have been faithful. Today will bring you salvation. The tree brought ruin to Adam; the tree [of life] shall bring you into paradise. Fear not the serpent; he shall not cast you out, for he has fallen from heaven. I say not to you, ‘This day you shall depart,’ but ‘This day you shall be with Me.’” ‰ Ephrem the Syrian – Hymn on Paradise 12.10 (ACCS Luke, 365) – “Because Adam touched the tree // he had to run to the fig // he became like the fig tree // being clothed in its vesture // Adam, like some tree // blossomed with leaves // Then he came to that glorious // tree of the cross // put 39on glory from it // acquired radiance from it // heard from it the truth // that he would return to Eden once more.” ‰ Gerhard – Seven Christmas Sermons (36) – “And just as the Devil duped man with the fruit of the forbidden tree, so also Christ conquered the Devil again on the tree of the cross.” ‰ Proper Preface for Lent – The Lutheran Hymnal (25) – “…Who on the tree of the cross didst give salvation unto mankind that, when death arose, thence life also might rise again, and that he who by a tree once overcame might likewise by a tree might be overcome, through Christ, our Lord….” x Cain Kills Abel (Genesis 4; Hebrews 11:4; 12:24) – Christ Killed by Israelite Brothers ‰ Augustine – Contra Fautus XII:186 (NPNF First Series 4:186) – “Abel, the younger brother, is killed by the elder brother; Christ, the head of the younger people, is killed by the elder people of the Jews. Abel dies in the field; Christ dies on Calvary.” ‰ Bede – Homilies on the Gospels 1.14 (ACCS 1:107) – “Some understand the murderer Cain as the Jews’ lack of faith, the killing of Abel as the passion of the Lord and Savior, and the earth that opened its mouth and received Abel’s blood from Cain’s hand as the church (which received, in the mystery of its renewal, the blood of Christ poured out by the Jews). Undoubtedly those who have this understanding find water turned into wine, for they have a more sacred understanding of the saying of the sacred law.” ‰ Luther – Lectures on Genesis (AE 1:252) – “Even then the divine promise began to work itself out, in that the serpent’s seed bit the heel of the blessed Seed (Gen. 3:15), just as we experience today. Therefore this lot should not frighten us. It should rather be a source of comfort for us to learn from experience that we are being dealt with by our adversaries in the way bloodthirsty Cain dealt with righteous Abel. We today are not the first to whom it happens that we are deprived of the name ‘church,’ that we are called heretics, and that those who pride themselves on being the true and only church and maintain their claim to this name with the sword and with every sort of cruelty. The same thing happened to righteous Abel and also to our Lord Christ, who was not a priest or a king in Jerusalem but was driven to the cross by the priests and rulers.” ‰ Gerhard – Explanation (30) – “A type of how Christ was to be killed you have in Abel, who was murdered by Cain, his own brother, Gen. 4, just as Christ was murdered by His own people.” ‰ Gerhard – Explanation (294) – “When the blood of innocent Abel was shed, God the Lord cursed the earth for opening its mouth and receiving that blood, Gen. 4. Accordingly, since now the blood of the Son of God was poured out upon the earth, it therefore quaked for fear that it would be cursed anew.” x Isaac Bears the Wood to His Sacrifice (Genesis 22) – Jesus Bears the Cross to His Sacrifice ‰ The divine irony that unites both these men is that they, the promised sons, whose births have been foretold by God, are then led to sacrifice contrary to all rational expectations and emerge alive after the sacrifice. ‰ Tertullian – Adv. Jud. 13 (Shadows to Reality, 124) – “Isaac, when commanded by God to offer himself, himself carried the wood for the sacrifice. But as these things were types (sacramenta) the fulfillment of which was reserved for the time of Christ, Isaac was also preserved with the wood, the ram which was caught by its horns (cornibus haerens) in a bush being offered instead; so in due time Christ bore the wood on His shoulders, being hung from the ends (cornibus) of the cross, with a crown of thorns on His head.” ‰ Origen – Homilies on Genesis VIII:9 (Shadows to Reality, 142) – “We said earlier that Isaac represents Christ, but the ram also seems to represent Christ. How can they both be like Christ? It is not easy to see how this applies to Isaac who was not sacrificed and the ram who was. Christ is the Word of God, but the Word made flesh. There is in Christ something which comes from 40above and something which He took from human nature and His Mother’s virginal womb. Christ did indeed suffer, but in the flesh; He endured death, but the ram is the type of His flesh, according to the words of John: ‘Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world’. Isaac is the type of the Word, who dwells in immortality, Christ according to the Spirit. He is both the victim and the one who offers. In the spirit it is He who offers the victim to the Father; in the flesh He is Himself offered on the altar of the Cross.” ‰ Chrysostom – Homilies on Genesis XLVII, 3 (Shadows to Reality, 129) – “All these things were types of the cross. That is why Christ said: Abraham rejoiced that he might see My day: he saw it, and was glad. How did he see it, considering that he was born so many years before? In type (tupoj) and in shadow (skia). A lamb was offered for Isaac, and a spiritual lamb was offered for the world. The reality had to be depicted beforehand in type. Consider, I beg you, to what extent everything had been told in advance. In both instances we have an only son; in both instances one who is greatly loved. The first was offered as a victim by his father, and so was the latter offered by the Father (Rom. 8:32). The type carries us a long way, but how much further does the reality go.” ‰ Gregory of Nyssa – Homilies on the Resurrection (Shadows to Reality, 129) – “The whole mystery of faith can be seen in the story of Isaac. The lamb is fixed to the tree, suspended by its horns: the first-born carried upon him the wood for the sacrifice. He, then, who upholds the universe by the word of his power, is the same who bears the burden of our wood, and is hung up on the wood, upholding as God, and carried as the lamb, the Holy Spirit having in figure divided the mystery between the two, the only son and the lamb who appears at his side. In the lamb is revealed the mystery of death and in the only son the life which will never be cut short.” ‰ Gerhard – Explanation (30; cf. 32, 103) – “You have a type of how Christ was to carry His cross in Isaac, who on his back carried the wood upon which he was to be slaughtered as a burnt-offering, Genesis 22.” ‰ Gerhard – Explanation (222) – “We read in Genesis 22, that when God the Lord commanded Abraham to sacrifice his only beloved son, Isaac, as a burnt-offering on Mt. Moriah that Abraham arose and laid the wood for a burnt-offering upon his son Isaac. And thus both of them journeyed to Mt. Moriah so that God’s command might be satisfied [obeyed]. This [act] is a type of how the heavenly Isaac born from Abraham’s seed, [that is] Jesus Christ, would personally carry the wood of the cross on which He would allow Himself to be slaughtered. The circumstances indicate that it even occurred at the very same place. For Moriah is indeed the mountain upon which the temple at Jerusalem was later built. Just as Isaac, as he came near to Mt. Moriah, carried the wood upon which he was to be sacrificed, so also Christ carried upon His back the wood of the cross as He came down from Mt. Moriah, upon which the city and temple of Jerusalem had been built.” ‰ Luther – The Gospel for the Sunday after Christmas (AE 52:126) – “For this reason, too, all the narratives of the Old Testament point so nicely and beautifully to Christ and confess Him; all of them, indeed, stand around him, just as Anna physically stood in His presence. It affords great pleasure to read and hear how they all look and point to Christ. Let us note just one example: Isaac was sacrificed by his father and yet remained alive, being replaced by a ram, which Abraham saw behind him entangled in the thicket by his horns. This signifies Christ, the Son of God. He is in all respects like a mortal human being who died on the cross; yet the divine nature remained alive, and the human nature was sacrificed in place of it; like the ram with its horns (that is, the preaching of the Gospel which rebukes and castigates the perversity and obstinancy of the scribes and priests) which was caught in this same thicket behind Abraham, so Christ’s human nature came after Him in time. Many additional great lessons are hidden in this story.” ‰ David Chytraeus – De Sacrificiis (86) – “Under this topic of the cognates or analogs of Christ’s propitiatory sacrifice can also be discussed all its types and representations which God set forth in such a manifold way in the Old Testament. He did this in order that there might continually be signs, reminders, and occasions for teaching the people about the future sacrifice of God’s Son, 41which alone expiates and takes away the sin of the world. Such shadows and representations were Abel’s lamb, the sacrifice of Isaac, the Passover lamb, the brass serpent lifted up in the wilderness, and, finally, all the burnt offerings and sacrifices—the sin offering, the trespass offering, and others—which the Levitical priests daily offered to God.” x Joseph Dies and Israelites Increase (Exodus 1) – Christ Dies and Church Spreads ‰ Caesarius of Arles – Sermon 94:1 (ACCS III:1) – “We have heard in the lesson which was read, dearly beloved, that ‘when Joseph was dead, the Isrealites were exceedingly fruitful and prolific, and they sprange up like grass.’ What does this mean, brethren? As long as Joseph lived the children of Israel are not recorded to have increased or multiplied very much, but after he died they are said to have sprung up like grass. Surely they should have increased and multiplied more when they were under the patronage and protection of Joseph. These words were prefigured in that Joseph, dearly beloved; but in our Joseph, that is, in Christ the Lord, they were fulfilled in truth. Before our Joseph died, that is, before He was crucified, few people believed in Him, but after He died and rose again throughout the world the Israelites, that is, the Christian people, increased and multiplied [cf. John 12:24].” x Plagues upon Egypt; of Passover Lamb (Exodus 7-13) – Three Hours Darkness and Death of Agnus Dei ‰ Origen – Commentary on Matthew 134 (ACCS NT Ib:292) – “It is my opinion that just as the other signs which accompanied Christ’s Passion were performed only in Jerusalem, so also the darkness which covered the land until the ninth hour occurred only in Judea. For in Jerusalem alone was the veil of the temple rent asunder and the earth shook and rocks split apart and graves opened…By the power of Christ, however, darkness fell upon all the land of Judea for three hours, but the light which illumines every church of God in Christ alone shone upon the rest of the land [as in Egypt the light still shone in the homes of the Israelites]. Although darkness fell upon Judea until the ninth hour, it is clear that the light shone again, ‘until the full number of Gentiles come in, and so all Israel will be saved.’” ‰ Gerhard – Explanation (273) – “Also relevant here is the type found in Exo. 10: three entire days of thick darkness throughout all Egypt when God wanted to rescue His people from their slavery. Even so, because God the Lord now intended to rescue His people from their hellish slavery by the death of Christ, there was a darkness throughout the entire land for three solid hours.” x Job’s Sufferings and Rejection by Friends – Christ Suffers and Is Despised ‰ Gerhard – Explanation (30) – “In Job, you have a type of how Christ would be despised, who also complained, Chapter 16, My friends are my mockers.” x Staff of Moses is Blessing/Curse (Exodus 4:20; 7:12; 17:9; Is 10:24) – Cross is Blessing and Curse ‰ Caesarius of Arles – Sermon 95:5 (ACCS III:25) – “That staff, dearly beloved, prefigured the mystery of the cross. Just as through the staff Egypt was struck by ten plagues, so also the whole world was humiliated and conquered by the cross. Just as Pharaoh and his people were afflicted by the power of the staff, with the result that he released the Jewish people to serve God, so the devil and his angels are wearied and oppressed by the mystery of the cross to such an extent that they cannot recall the Christian people from God’s service.” ‰ The staff of Moses is also called the staff of God. This piece of wood is the means by which God turns the Nile River into blood, thus rendering it undrinkable, and turns the rock into a fountain of water, thus giving drink to His Church. As Wisdom 11:4-8 says: “4 When they thirsted they 42called upon thee, and water was given them out of flinty rock, and slaking of thirst from hard stone. 5 For through the very things by which their enemies were punished, they themselves received benefit in their need. 6 Instead of the fountain of an ever-flowing river, stirred up and defiled with blood 7 in rebuke for the decree to slay the infants, thou gavest them abundant water unexpectedly, 8 showing by their thirst at that time how thou didst punish their enemies.” x Sweetening Tree at Marah (Exodus 15:25) – Cross of Christ as Tree of Life Sweetens Bitterness ‰ Didymus – De Trini. II, 14 (Shadows to Reality, 172) – “When Moses sweetened the waters with his staff, he proclaimed beforehand the salvation of all mankind. For he was a type of Christ; his staff was a type of the Cross; the bitter waters were a type of the water of the Pool of Bethsaida, of no avail to those without faith, but in which those who had faith found their healing.” See also BY THY BAPTISM (above). ‰ Gerhard – Explanation (34) – “We read in Exo. 15 that the children of Israel came to Mara, and because they had been in the wilderness for three days without water, they were thirsty. But, they were unable to drink of the waters of Mara, in as much as they were completely bitter. However, God direced Moses to a tree, which was placed into the water, which then became sweet. That is a picture of how the cross and suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ, which He endured for us on the tree, take away all the bitterness of the water of our tribuation and even make it sweet and lovely for us.” x Moses’ Uplifted Hands in Battle (Exodus 17:8-16) – Our Lord Crucified in Last Battle ‰ Letter of Barnabas (12:2), “God spoke again to Moses, telling him to make a type of the Cross, and of him who would die on it, for unless they hoped in Him they would be subjedct to war for ever. Moses kept his arms outstretched and thus the Israelites regained the advantage. Why was this? So that they should realize there was no salvation for them apart from their hope in Him.” ‰ Tertullian – Adv. Marc. III, 18; 347 (Shadows to Reality, 168) – “While Joshua [=Jesus] was fighting against Amalek, Moses was praying with hands outstretched, because when the Lord wrestled with the devil the Cross was necessary, the Cross through which Jesus [=Joshua] gained the victory.” ‰ Cyprian – Testimonia II, 21 (Shadows to Reality, 169) – “Through this sign of the Amalek was overcome by Jesus through Moses.” ‰ Justin Martyr – Dialogue with Trypho XC, 4 (Shadows to Reality, 169) – “It was not through the prayer of Moses that the people gained the victory, but because he himself was a type of the shape of the cross.” x Sacrificial Liturgy (Leviticus 1-16) – Christ is the Sacrifice to End All Sacrifices ‰ Gerhard – Explanation (30) – “In all the Levitical sacrifices, you have a type of how [Christ] would be beaten and tortured.” ‰ Gerhard – Explanation (236) – “This place of the crucifixion is the exact location where Isaac was to have been offered in Gen. 22, and also the site where David later built an altar at the time of the pestilence and there made an offering to God so that His wrath might be turned away, 2 Sam. 24. It is herewith announced that Christ has fulfilled all these types of the Old Testament and that this His Sacrifice was the only, true atoning sacrifice by which the wrath of God is appeased.” ‰ Luther – Prefaces to the OT (1545; AE 35:247) – “If you would interpret [Leviticus] well and confidently, set Christ before you, for He is the man to whom it all applies, every bit of it. Make the High Priest Aaron, therefore, to be nobody but Christ alone.” 43x Bronze Serpent Uplifted on Pole (Numbers 21:4-9) – Christ Uplifted as Cursed One on Tree (John 3:15) ‰ Justin Martyr – Dialogue with Trypho 94 (FC 6:297) – “Tell me, did not God through Moses, forbid the making of an image or likeness of anything in the heavens or on earth? Yet didn’t he himself have Moses construct the brazen serpent in the desert? Moses set it up as a sign by which those who had been bitten by the serpents were healed. In doing so, was Moses not free of any sin? By this, as I stated above, God through Moses announced a mystery by which he proclaimed that he would break the power of the serpent, who prompted the sin of Adam. He promises that he would deliver from the bites of the serpent (that is, evil actions, idolatries and other sins) all those who believe in him who was to be put to death by this sign, namely, the cross.” ‰ Tertullian – Adv. Marc. III, 18 – “Why was it that when all images had been forbidden Moses should provide as an object of salvation this brazen serpent lifted up like a man on a cross. Surely it was because he saw in it the power of the Lord’s cross, which revealed the Devil as a mere serpent to all those who had been bitten by spiritual serpents, and at the very same time proclaimed the cure of these wounds of sin and salvation to all those who looked upon it.” ‰ Luther – Sermons on the Gospel of St. John (AE 22:339-340) – “In this story many were undoubtedly offended because it was all so unpretentious. None but the believers understood Moses’ words and recovered through their faith in the Word. But who would have had the boldness to refer this story to Christ? I would never have ventured to interpret this story as Christ Himself did when He plainly related it to Himself, saying: ‘This is the bronze serpent; I, however, am the Son of man. Those people were asked to look at the serpent physically, but you must look at Me spiritually and in faith. Those people were cured of bodily poisoning; but you, through Me, will be delivered from eternal poison. They recovered from a physical ailment, but I bestow eternal life on those who believe in Me.’ These are very strange statements and sayings. In this way the Lord shows us the proper method of interpreting Moses and all the prophets. He teaches us that Moses points and refers to Christ in all his stories and illustrations. His purpose is to show that Christ is the point at the center of a circle, with all eyes inside the circle focused on Him. Whoever turns his eyes on Him finds his proper place in the circle of which Christ is the center. All the stories of Holy Writ, if viewed aright, point to Christ. During the forty days between Christ’s resurrection and His ascension He expounded many similar texts and related many such stories to His disciples in His conversations with them (Luke 24:27). He did the same thing when He appeared on Mt. Tabor with Moses and Elijah (Matt. 17:3). Thus He also relates the figure of the serpent to Himself here. Thereby He opens the treasure chest of Moses and shows them the nugget concealed there. He shows that all the stories and illustrations of Moses point to Christ. The precious treasure of looking solely at Christ was so near and dear to Moses that he wore it, so to speak, between his skin and his flesh. Christ is also our Serpent of salvation, symbolized for us by that earlier bronze serpent. For after the disobedience of Adam and Eve we, too, were bitten by the venomous serpent in Paradise. They murmured against God when He forbade them to eat of the one tree. They wanted to know why He had forbidden it. And the devil said to Adam (Gen. 3:1): ‘Do you suppose that God really did forbid this?’ He cursed the Lord our God and taught Adam to do likewise and to obey this venomous worm. Then the devil stung Adam and injected his poison, for which there is no cure; this resulted in Adam’s death. By nature we all are still subject to death and have to die. There is no help and no remedy for this. No one has ever been able to escape sin and death; for we have all drunk the serpents fatal venom, which was transmitted to all of us by Adam and for which there is no antidote. As experience teaches, death is now inevitable… Christ says: ‘No one has ascended into heaven’ and: ‘As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness.’ That is, God lifted up a bronze serpent like the other serpents that all who looked at it might recover. This symbolized the fact that God would let His Son descend from heaven and be nailed to the cross, where He, too, hangs like a serpent or a worm, the object of scorn and contempt, as Christ Himself laments in Ps. 22:6. But whoever believes in this crucified 44Christ will not be lost and perish but will have everlasting life, just as those who looked at the bronze serpent in the wilderness did not die but were saved.” ‰ Gerhard – Explanation (30) – “In the brass snake which Moses raised up in the wilderness at the command of God, Num. 21, you have a type of how Christ was to be hammered onto the cross.” x Scarlet Cord in Rahab’s Window (Joshua 2:17-21; cf. Passover Ritual) – Saved by Scarlet Blood of Jesus ‰ Justin Martyr – Shadows to Reality (247) – “And the blood of the Passover, sprinkled on each man’s doorposts and lintel, delivered those who were saved in Egypt, when the first-born of the Egyptians were destroyed. . . . And as the blood of the Passover saved those who were in Egypt, so also the blood of Christ will deliver from death those who have believed. . . . For the sign of the scarlet thread, which the spies sent to Jericho by Joshua, son of Nave, gave to Rahab the harlot, telling her to bind it to the window through which she let them down to escape from their enemies, also manifested the symbol of the blood of Christ, by which those who were at one time harlots and evil persons out of all nations are saved, receiving remission of sin, and continuing to sin no longer.” ‰ Irenaeus – Against the Heretics IV:20:12 (Shadows to Reality, 248) – “So also did Rahab the harlot, while condemning herself, because she was a gentile, receive the three speculatores who were spying out the land; which three were doubtless the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and hid them in her home. And when the entire city in which she lived fell to the ruins at the sounding of the seven trumpets, Rahab and all her house were preserved, through faith in the scarlet sign; as the Lord declared to those who did not receive Him—the Pharisees, that is—and to those who despised the scarlet thread, which signified the Passover and the redemption and the exodus from Egypt, that the publicans and the harlots go into the Kingdom of heaven before you.” ‰ St. Gregory of Elvira – Tractatus 139 (Shadows to Reality, 259) – “Rahab, who is a type of the Church, suspended the scarlet thread from her window as a sign of salvation, to show that the nations would be saved through the Lord’s Passion. Just as the house of Rahab and all those with her were saved through the scarlet sign when Jericho was destroyed and burnt and its king, a type of the devil, slain, so when this world is destroyed by fire and the devil who now has dominion over the world is overthrown, no one will be preserved for eternal savlation if he is not found inside the house of the Church which is marked with the scarlet sign, that is, with the blood of Christ; or again as in the Flood, no one escaped the drowning of the world save those who were preserved in the Ark of Noah, which is a type of the Church.” ‰ Luther – First Psalm Lectures, Psalm 78 (AE 11:46) – “Is not this today the complaint of all the devout, that the incarnation and suffering of Christ have been forgotten to such an extent that Christianity is hardly in evidence? This wretchedness is greater than all tears. Christ Himself commanded that we should put Him as a seal upon our heart (Song of Sol. 8:6), so that our hair might be like the purple of the king (Song of Sol. 7:5), our lips like a scarlet lace (Song of Sol. 4:3), and our hands might drip the choicest myrrh (Song of Sol. 5:5, 13). And we should sprinkle both doorposts with the lamb’s blood (Ex. 12:22). And with Rahab we should attach the scarlet cord in the window (Joshua 2:18). What all this aims at is that with heart, mouth, hand, and every feeling we might hold the memory of His suffering. Therefore, not to give thanks for His redemption, His death, and His cross and not to be touched by them, not to taste them, this is what we mean by forgetting the works of the Lord. x Samson Thirsts after His Battle (Judges 15:18) – Christ our Samson says, “I Thirst.” ‰ Gerhard – Explanation (278) – “The type [of Christ’s thirst] was Samson, that precious hero about whom it is recorded in Jdg. 15 that when he had slain the throng of Philistines was afterwards very thirsty. As Christ, the true Nazarene and doubly stalwart Hero, overcame the 45Devil and all his might on the cross, He experiences such a thirst that it made Him call out in a clear voice: ‘I thirst.’” x David Fights Goliath (1 Samuel 17) – Our David Fights the Goliath of Hell ‰ Luther – Prefaces to the Old Testament (AE 35:245) – “The third kind of pupils [of the Law] are those who see Moses clearly, without a veil. These are they who understand the intention of the law and how it demands impossible things. There sin comes to power, there death is mighty, there Goliath’s spear is like a weaver’s beam and its point weights six hundred shekels of brass, so that all the children of Israel flee before him unless the one and only David—Christ our Lord—saves us from all this.” ‰ Luther – Prefaces to the New Testament (AE 35:358) – “Thus this gospel of God or New Testament is a good story and report, sounded forth into all the world by the apostles, telling of a true David who strove with sin, death, and the devil, and overcame them, and thereby rescued all those who were captive in sin, afflicted with death, and overpowered by the devil.” x Noah Naked and Mocked (Genesis 9) – Christ Stripped and Mocked ‰ Jerome – Homilies on Genesis 13 (ACCS 1:158) – “After the deluge Noah drank and became drunk in his own house, and his thighs were uncovered and he was exposed in his nakedness. The elder brother came along and laughed; the younger, however, covered him up. All this is said in type of the Savior, for on the cross He had drunk of the passion: ‘Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass away from me.’ He drank and was inebriated, and his thighs were laid bare—the dishonor of the cross. The older brothers, the Jews, came along and laughed; the younger, the Gentiles, covered up His ignominy.” ‰ Gerhard – Explanation (30) – “In Noah, who was mocked by his own son, Gen. 9, you have an excellent type of how Christ would be stripped of His clothes and mocked by His own people.” x Wood of the Cross Prefigured in Tree of Life, Noah’s Ark, Tree at Marah, Elisha’s Wood to Raise Axe, and Moses’ Staff ‰ Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho LXXXVI (ANF 1:242) – “Hear, then, how this Man, of whom the Scriptures declare that He will come again in glory after His crucifixion, was symbolized both by the tree of life, which was said to have been planted in paradise, and by those events which should happen to all the just. Moses was sent with a rod to effect the redemption of the people; and with this in his hands at the head of the people, he divided the sea. By this he saw the water gushing out of the rock; and when he cast a tree into the waters of Marah, which were bitter, he made them sweet. Jacob, by putting rods into the water-troughs, caused the sheep of his uncle to conceive, so that he should obtain their young. With this rod the same Jacob boasts that he had crossed the river. He said he had seen a ladder, and the Scripture has declared that God stood above it. But that this was not the Father, we have proved from the Scriptures. . . Aaron’s rod, which blossomed, declared him to be high priest. Isaiah prophesied that a rod would come forth from the root of Jesse, [and this was] Christ. . . David affirms that God comforted him with a rod and staff. Elisha, by casting a stick into the river Jordan, recovered the iron part of the axe with which the sons of the prophets has gone to cut down trees to build the house in which they wished to read and study the law and commandments of God; even as our Christ, by being crucified on the tree, and by purifying [us] with water, has redeemed us, though plunged in the direst offences which we have committed, and has made [us] a house of prayer and adoration. Moreover, it was a rod that pointed out Judah to be the father of Tamar’s sons by a great mystery.” ‰ Gerhard – Explanation (239-240) – “We should interpret that fact that Christ was willing to give up His spirit on the wood of the cross as an announcement of His intention to restore what Adam had broken on the wood of the forbidden tree. For the first Adam has stretched out his arm to the 46forbidden tree-trunk, thereby bringing death upon all his descendants. Here the second Adam stretches out His arms on the timber-trunk of the cross and brings to us life and salvation. Here the fathers draw upon the fact that Noah, along with his [family], was sustained in the ark during the time of the flood, Gen. 7, and the Wisdom of God had thus helped him by means of an ordinary wood timber, Wisdom of Solomon 10. Thus this wood of the cross given to us as a secure little ship in which we can be preserved from the flood of divine wrath. The Lord God directed Moses, Exo. 15, to take a tree or timber and place it in the bitter water so that it might become sweet. Thereby it is signified that Christ’s cross is able to take away the bitterness of death and every misfortune. 2 Kings 6: As the children of prophets wanted to fell some trees, the iron [head of the ax] fell into the water. Then Elisha cut off a piece of wood and plunged it into the water; thereupon, the iron floated to the top. The entire human race had fallen into deep, eternal damnation and was unable to rescue itself. Christ, the heavenly Elisha, came with the wood of His cross and lifted us up again. In Exo. 14 Moses struck the Red Sea with his staff so that it would divide and the Israelites could escape from Pharaoh. With the wood of His cross, Christ made it possible for the spiritual Israelites to travel through the Sea of Tribulation and to be rescued from the hand of the hellish Pharaoh.” 47BY THY PRECIOUS DEATH AND BURIAL CONTENTS:x Adam Created and Lives on 6th Day (Genesis 1) – New Adam Dies and Recreates on 6th Day x Eve Created from Adam’s Side (Genesis 2:21ff; John 19:34) – New Eve from Pierced Side of New Adam x Entrance to Ark in on the Side (Genesis 6) – Entrance into the Ark of Christ’s Flesh is on the Side x Joseph, Stripped of Tunic, is Cast into the Pit by Brothers (Genesis 37) – Jesus, Stripped and Covered in Blood, is Placed in Tomb by Brothers x Life-Giving Waters Flow from Stricken Rock (Exodus 16; 1 Cor 10:4) – Sacramental Water Flows from Christ’s Pierced Side x Gideon’s Pitchers Broken in Battle with Midian (Judges 7:15-23; Ps. 22:15; Isaiah 9:1-6; 10:26) – Christ’s Tongue Is Dried up like a Potsherd, like a Broken Vessel, & Overcomes Enemies as in the Day of Midian x Samson Overcomes Lion (Judges 14:5-6) – Christ Overcomes Lion of Hell x Samson Kills More in His Death than in His Life (Judges 17:23-31) – Christ Kills Death, Sin, and Hell by Death x Jonah Buried Three Days/Nights in Belly of Fish (Jonah 1-2) – Christ Buried Three Days\Night in Belly of Earth x Temple is Destroyed because Profaned (2 Kings 25:9; John 2:19) – Temple of Christ’s Body Destroyed because of Sin x River of Life Flows from Side of Temple (Ezekiel 47:1-12; John 19:34) – River of Life from Side of Christ our Temple x Adam Created and Lives on 6th Day (Genesis 1) – New Adam Dies and Recreates on 6th Day ‰ Irenaeus – Against the Heretics V:23 (Shadows to Reality, 41) – “It is plain then that the Lord, in obedience to the Father, endured death on the same day in which Adam died, disobeying God. This day accordingly our Lord would go over again with the rest in His own person, and so came to His Passion on the day before the Sabbath, which is the sixth day of creation, on which man was formed: by His Passion conferring on man a second formation, that which is out of death.” ‰ Cyril of Jerusalem – Shadows to Reality (42) – “Adam received the doom: ‘Cursed is the earth in thy work: thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.’ For this cause Jesus assumed the thorns, that He might cancel the doom; for this cause also was He buried in the earth, that the cursed earth might receive, instead of the curse, the blessing. At the time of the sin, they clothed themselves with fig leaves: for this cause also Jesus made the fig-tree the last of His signs. . . . And having touched on things connected with Paradise I am astonished at the truth of these types. In paradise was the fall, and in the Garden was our salvation. From the Tree came sin, and until the Tree sin lasted; in the evening they sought to hide themselves from the eyes of the Lord and in the evening the robber is brought by the Lord into Paradise. . . . The woman who was formed from the side, led the way to sin; but Jesus who came to bestow the grace of pardon on men and women alike, was pierced in the side for woman, that He might undo the sin.” ‰ Chromatius – Tractate on Matthew 19.7 (ACCS NT Ib:287-288) – “When they had come to Golgotha, the Gospel says, ‘They gave Him vinegar mixed with gall, but when He tasted it, He refused to drink.’ This even was foretold by David when he wrote, ‘They gave Me gall for food, and they gave Me vinegar to slake My thirst.’ Take note of this mystery revealed here. Long ago, 48Adam tasted the sweetness of the apple and obtained the bitterness of death for the whole human race. In contrast to this, the Lord tasted the bitterness of gall and obtained our restoration from death’s sting to the sweetness of life. He took on Himself the bitterness of gall in order to extinguish in us the bitterness of death. He received acrid vinegar into Himself but poured out for us the precious wine of His blood. He suffered evil and returned good. He accepted death and gave life. The location of His death is also not without significance, for it is reported that the body of Adam is buried in that very ground. Christ was crucified there where Adam was buried, that life might arise where death once entered. Death comes through Adam, but life comes through Christ, who deigned to be crucified and to die so that by the wood of the cross He might erase the sin of the tree and by the mystery of His own death He might cancel the punishment of our death.” x Eve Created from Adam’s Side (Genesis 2:21ff; John 19:34) – New Eve from Pierced Side of New Adam ‰ Tertullian – De Anima 43 (Shadows to Reality, 49) – If Adam was a type of Christ, Adam’s sleep was [a type] of the death of Christ who had slept in death. Eve coming from Adam’s side is a type of the Church, the true mother of all living.” ‰ Methodius of Philippi -- Banquet of the XII Virgins III:8:35-36 (Shadows to Reality, 50) – “The true Church could not conceive and give birth to believers by the regenerating waters of Baptism if Christ had not emptied Himself of them, so that He might be received by them through the recapitulation of His Passion, should die again, and, coming down from heaven and being joined to His Wife, the Church, should provide of a certain power being taken from His own side by which all those who have been built up into Him, and have been reborn in the waters of Baptism, may draw their increase from His bones and His flesh.” ‰ St. Gregory of Elvira – Shadows to Reality (55-56) – “Who does not know that our Lord when He hung on the wood of the cross, did not only shed blood from the wound in His side, but also a stream of living water, showing that His Bride, that is, the Church, like our first parents, is formed from His side, as Eve as formed from the side of Adam.” ‰ St. Augustine – Contra Faust. XII, 8 (Shadows to Reality 56) – “Eve was born from the side of her sleeping spouse, and the Church was born from the dead Christ by the mystery of blood which gushed forth from His side.” ‰ Luther – Sermon at the Baptism of Bernhard von Anhalt (AE 51:325-326) – “Therefore I say that we should both speak and think highly of holy baptism, in order that it may be completely distinguished from all other washing and bathing; for here it is God Himself, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who is baptizing and bathing . . . This is why St. John the evangelist is fond of speaking of this dear baptism as water mingled with the blood of Christ . . . Thus he is always wanting to mingle the blood in the baptism in order that we may see in it the innocent, rosy-red blood of Christ.” ‰ Gerhard – Explanation (30) – “You have a type of how the Lord Christ was to have His side opened up by a spear in Adam, who had his side opened by God, and from the rib which was taken from him was crafted a woman. Thus, as Christ fell into death’s sleep on the cross, from His opened side flowed blood and water—the two Holy Sacraments—from which the Church, Christ’s Bride, was built up.” ‰ Gerhard – Explanation (287) – “In Gen. 2 it is written that a deep sleep fell upon Adam, as God intended to craft a wife from his ribs. Thus Christ, the Heavenly Adam, fell asleep into death on the cross, as He wished to acquire for Himself a spiritual Bride and Church.” 49x Entrance to Ark in on the Side (Genesis 6) – Entrance into the Ark of Christ’s Flesh is on the Side ‰ Augustine – City of God 15.26 (ACCS 1:131) – “As for the door in the side [of the ark], that surely, symbolizes the open wound made by the lance in the side of the Crucified—the door by which those who come to Him enter in, in the sense that believers enter the church by means of the sacraments that issued from the wound.” ‰ Luther – Lectures on Genesis (AE 2:68) – “These facts [about the ark] are later applied to the body of Christ, that is, to the church, which has an entrance, namely Baptism, through which the clean and the unclean enter without distinction. Even though the church is small, it is nevertheless the ruler of the world; and the world is preserved on its account, in the same way as the unclean animals were preserved in the ark. Others have applied them also the body of Christ, which had a wound in its side, just as the ark had a window. These allegories, in not actually scholarly, are nevertheless harmless, inasmuch as they contain no error; and one may use them—except in debates—for the sake of embellishment.” ‰ Gerhard – Explanation (302) – “Augustine, Treatise 120 on John, here invokes the type of Gen. 6, where it is reported that the Ark of Noah had a door in the middle, through which Noah and his family entered and were kept safe during the Flood. Christ’s split side is the true Way, the Door, through which we can enter into secure rest, John 10, and be preserved from the great flood of divine wrath.” x Joseph, Stripped of Tunic, is Cast into the Pit by Brothers (Genesis 37) – Jesus, Stripped and Covered in Blood, is Placed in Tomb by Brothers ‰ Ambrose – On Joseph 3.15 (FC 65:198) – “Accordingly, even at that time, the cross that was to come was prefigured in sign; and at the same time that he was stripped of his tunic, that is, of the flesh He took on, He was stripped of the handsome diversity of colors that represented the virtues. Therefore His tunic, that is, His flesh, was stained with blood, but not His divinity; and His enemies were able to take from Him His covering of flesh but not His immortal life.” ‰ Gerhard – Explanation (102) – “Remember my bonds, says St. Paul, Col. 4. Even more so should we be reminded of the bonds of Christ, who was put into chains in accordance with the type of Joseph in Gen. 40 and the example of the prophet Ezekiel, Eze. 4, who were also bound.” ‰ Gerhard – Explanation (223) – “We must, however, remember what the hand and counsel of God actually had accomplished by all this, Acts 4; for herewith was fulfilled the type of the patriarch Joseph in Gen. 37. When his wicked, spoiled brothers tossed him into a pit, intending to kill him, they took off his colored coat and dipped it into the blood of a kid and sent it back to his father, Jacob. Thus Christ, the heavenly Joseph, who was to fall into the deep pit in which there was no water, Zec. 9, had to suffer having His purple mantle stripped from Him – [a mantle] which He had colored with His own blood as the innocent Lamb of God.” x Life-Giving Waters Flow from Stricken Rock (Exodus 16; 1 Cor 10:4) – Sacramental Water Flows from Christ’s Pierced Side ‰ Gerhard – Explanation (303) – “One can also include the account here in Exo. 17. When the children of Israel themselves were in the barren desert, Moses—at God’s command—struck the rock, which gave them water to drink. By this rock is signified the spiritual Rock, Christ, 1 Cor. 10, who was opened up on the cross so that blood and water flowed forth from Him. Whoever will drink of this water which the Lord Christ gives, such a person will eternally never thirst, John 4. For this water and this blood which flowed out of Christ’s side does not only quench the thirst of the soul, but it also washes us clean from sin and quences the fire of God’s wrath.” 50x Gideon’s Pitchers Broken in Battle with Midian (Judges 7:15-23; Ps. 22:15; Isaiah 9:1-6; 10:26) – Christ’s Tongue Is Dried up like a Potsherd, like a Broken Vessel, & Overcomes Enemies as in the Day of Midian ‰ Ambrose – On the Holy Spirit (NPNF Second Series 10:112) – “ In the Acts of the Apostles, also, when the Holy Spirit had descended upon the faithful, the appearance of fire was seen, for you read thus: “And suddenly there was a sound from heaven, as though the Spirit were borne with great vehemence, and it filled all the house where they were sitting, and there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire.” For the same reason was it that when Gideon was about to overcome the Midianites, he commanded three hundred men to take pitchers, and to hold lighted torches inside the pitchers, and trumpets in their right hands. Our predecessors have preserved the explanation received from the apostles, that the pitchers are our bodies, fashioned of clay, which know not fear if they burn with the fervour of the grace of the Spirit, and bear witness to the passion of the Lord Jesus with a loud confession of the Voice. Who, then, can doubt of the Godhead of the Holy Spirit, since where the grace of the Spirit is, there the manifestation of the Godhead appears. By which evidence we infer not a diversity but the unity of the divine power. For how can there be a severance of power, where the effect of the working in all is one?” ‰ Ephraim Syrus – Hymns for the Feast of the Epiphany (NPNF Second Series 13:275) – “From the water Gideon chose for himself—the men who were victorious in the battle.—Ye have gone down to the victorious waters:—come ye up and triumph in the fight!—receive from the water atonement,—and from the fight the crowning! Ye baptized, receive your lamps,—like the lamps of the house of Gideon;—conquer the darkness by your lamps,—and the silence by your hosannas!—Gideon likewise in the battle—triumphed by the shout and the flame.” ‰ John Lorinus (1569-1634) – Commentary on the Psalms (I:482) – “With pitcher and with burning lamp He marched to storm th’ invader’s camp, Our own, our Royal Gideon. The mortal pitcher shattered sore, The Godhead’s lamp to ruin bore The vanguish’d host of Midian.” ‰ Luther – Bethlehem and Calvary: The Christmas and Easter Book of Dr. Martin Luther, 1540 (trans. Kenneth Miller, 49-50) – “I do not care much for allegories, except where necessity compels us to such. In this passage truly an allegory is very necessary. For here spiritual war is signified, because the Prophet speaks of the killing and annihilation of death, sin, and the Law. Hence the entire war must be applied to the spiritual Amalekites and other enemies and to a spiritual Gideon. Gideon put these three enemies of God’s people to flight and subdued them with just trumpet and flame. Yet the flame did not burn them, nor did the sound of the trumpet kill them or strike them down, but they were afraid, as I have said. They were laid low by terror at hearing the trumpets and seeing the flames. They did not feel the flame or fire, nor was even a hair of their heads injured by the fire, but it was just by seeing the fire and hearing the sound that they were so confused and terrified, that in fleeing they stabbed each other. The faith of those who went with Gideon against so great a multitude was indeed admirable. But let us look at the allegory. The trumpet is really the voice of the Gospel. The leader is that Son that was given and Child born to us, that ‘Gideon,’ to put it more briefly and precisely. He leads the army. What and what kind of army? The apostles and ministers of the Word throughout the world. Equipped with what weapons? Not with a sword, nor iron, nor fire, nor other bodily weapons, so that they might attack the world with these weapons and overthrow and devastate it….We are indeed born in sin, but when we are called into the army of this leader, we have and use nothing else than trumpets and lights that are in pitchers, and we smash the pitchers, that is, we take up our cross and become subject to afflictions, in which all the godly are experienced.” 51‰ Gerhard – Seven Christmas Sermons (52-53) – “This rescue from the Law, says Isaiah, is prototyped through the very slaughter which Prince Gideon executed over the Midianites, mightily defeating them in Judges 7; for there it is recorded that Gideon did not achieve victory over the Midianites by the power of a mighty army, but through a marvelous and (to reason) a ridiculous manner. He took three hundred men, divided them into three groups, and gave into the hand of each one a trumpet and an empty jug and a torch. As they arrived at the place of the army, he commanded them that they should blow the trumpet and break to pieces the jugs in their hand. In this manner the Midianite army was chased into flight, and the Lord created a situation such that each sword in the entire army was in opposition to the other. Now just as Gideon at that time overcame his enemies not with great outward might, but rather through a common invisible manner, so also this Child and this Son, born for us, as Isaiah says, did not utilize outward pomp and power to rescue His people from their enemies. Rather, He began it foolishly, allowing Himself to be nailed to the cross, to the point where His vigor and strength were dried up like a shattered potsherd (Psalm 22:16). Thereafter, He let His divine brightness [glory] and might shine forth with His resurrection and commanded that the trumpet of His Word be [sounded] in all the world. By means of His cross and by means of His Word, He obtains the victory against the enemies. Just as also God once marvelously brought it about that each sword of the army of the Midianites was in conflict against the other, so also in the victory obtained by Christ it developed that they [the enemies] destroyed themselves. For since sin, death, and the Law attached [themselves] to Christ and sought to vent [their] power on Him, behold, God then so arranged it that they, in putting Christ to death, destroyed themselves and put themselves to death. They are shattered by the body of Christ; and in that they put Christ to death, says Luther, so that they no longer can harm those who believe in Christ.” x Samson Overcomes Lion (Judges 14:5-6) – Christ Overcomes Lion of Hell ‰ Ambrose – Of the Holy Spirit, Book II, Introduction (NPNF Second Series 10:116) – “7. Nor is the riddle without mystery, which he set forth to his companions: ‘Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness.’ And there was a mystery up to the point of the three days in which its answer was sought in vain, which could not be made known except by the faith of the Church, on the seventh day, the time of the Law being completed, after the Passion of the Lord. For thus you find that the apostles did not understand, ‘because Jesus was not yet glorified.’ 8. ‘What,’ answer they, ‘is sweeter than honey, and what is stronger than a lion?’ To which he replied: ‘If ye had not farmed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle.’ O divine mystery! O manifest sacrament! we have escaped from the slayer, we have overcome the strong one. The food of life is now there, where before was the hunger of a miserable death. Dangers are changed into safety, bitterness into sweetness. Grace came forth from the offence, power from weakness, and life from death. 9. There are, however, who think on the other hand that the wedlock could not have been established unless the lion of the tribe of Judah had been slain; and so in His body, that is, the Church, bees were found who store up the honey of wisdom, because after the Passion of the Lord the apostles believed more fully. This lion, then, Samson as a Jew slew, but in it he found honey, as in the figure of the heritage which was to be redeemed, that the remnant might be saved according to the election of grace.” ‰ Luther – The Gospel for the Sunday after Christmas (AE 52:126-127) – “For this reason, too, all the narratives of the Old Testament point so nicely and beautifully to Christ and confess him; all of them, indeed, stand around him, just as Anna physically stood in his presence. It affords great pleasure to read and hear how they all look and point toward Christ. Let us note just one example: Isaac was sacrificed by his father and yet remained alive, being replaced by a ram, which Abraham saw behind him entangled in the thicket by his horns. This signifies Christ, the Son of God. He is in all respects like a mortal human being who died on the cross; yet the divine nature remained alive, and the human nature was sacrificed in place of it; like the ram with his horns (that is, the 52preaching of the gospel which rebukes and castigates the perversity and obstinacy of the scribes and priests) which was caught in this same thicket behind Abraham, so Christ’s human nature came after him in time. Many additional great lessons are hidden in this story. Another example: Joseph was sold into Egypt and became a ruler over the country after his imprisonment. This happened and was written that he might prefigure Christ, who became through his passion Lord of all the world. Who has time enough to explain all these stories and to see how Samson, David, Solomon, Aaron, and others literally and accurately signify Christ? St. Luke used the word epistasa, here, that is, Anna ‘stood over,’ or ‘next to,’ or ‘at,’ such happenings as took place with Christ in the temple. In the Latin version we read superveniens, meaning that she happened to come along, although that would be true, too. But the Greek term is better. She ‘stood over’ what happened; this means the same as that she placed herself at the spot; with great effort she pressed herself to the spot, in order to see him, exactly as we say: Look, how the people press toward this or that. In this manner all narratives of Holy Scripture act with reference to Christ, indicating that they are prefigurations of him. But in this the saints would not have been saved, and probably they themselves did not know at the time that their actions prefigured Christ’s. Prefigurations and interpretations are not enough on which to lay the foundation of the faith; the foundation must be laid by means of clear Scripture, understood according to the sound and meaning of the words. Then, after such words and foundation of faith, such interpretations of the narratives must be built upon the faith, which is nourished and strengthened in this manner. Therefore, as I have said before, they were types of Christ only externally in their works, through which nobody would have become holy, but they heartily believed in the Christ who was to come because of clear statements from God’s word, understood without recourse to allegory.” ‰ Gerhard – Seven Christmas Sermons (78) – “All the heroes of the Old Testament who are thought of as God doing wonderful deeds through them – such as Gideon, Samson, and others – were types of this Hero [Jesus]. For just as they rescued the nation of Israel from the power of physical enemies, so also his Hero rescued us from our spiritual enemies.” x Samson Kills More in His Death than in His Life (Judges 17:23-31) – Christ Kills Death, Sin, and Hell by Death ‰ Luther – Concerning the Answer of the Goat (AE 39:135) – “I hope that it also happens to me that I, like Samson, bring them more misfortune with my death than with my life [Judg. 16:30). For Christ’s death, too, did more than his life, as he says in John 12[:24], ‘Unless a grain of corn falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” x Jonah Buried Three Days/Nights in Belly of Fish (Jonah 1-2) – Christ Buried Three Days\Night in Belly of Earth ‰ Matthew 12:39-41, “ [39] But he answered them, "An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign; but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. [40] For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. [41] The men of Nineveh will arise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.” ‰ Gerhard – Explanation (30) – “You have a type of how Jesus was to buried in [the experience of] Jonah, who was in the belly of the fish for three days, even as Christ rested in the earth for three days, Mat. 12.” ‰ Gerhard – Explanation (63) – “One has various types from the saints of the Old Testament on practically every aspect of Christ’s suffering. But, regarding this inner (spiritual) agony and pain, one actually has no type. One would like to point to the fact that Jonah says while in the belly of the ‘whale-fish’ [Wallfisch] he cried out from the belly of hell, thinking that he was forsaken 53before the eyes of God, [and] that his sould despaired within him, Jonah 2. David, also, sometimes complained about the anguish in his heart; however, it is all to be regarded as nothing compared to the spiritual suffering of Christ; as insignificant as a tiny drop compared to a huge ocean.” x Temple is Destroyed because Profaned (2 Kings 25:9; John 2:19) – Temple of Christ’s Body Destroyed because of Sin x River of Life Flows from Side of Temple (Ezekiel 47:1-12; John 19:34) – River of Life from Side of Christ our Temple ‰ Gerhard – Comprehensive Explanation (75) – “Pertinent here [in a discussion of the regenerative power of Holy Baptism] is that, according to Eze. 47:9, water that was flowing out from the threshold of the Temple made alive and healthy everything that it touched, which is a type of holy Baptism.” 54BY THY GLORIOUS RESURRECTION CONTENTS:x Noah Emerges from Ark into a “New” Creation (Genesis 8) – Christ Emerges from Sepulchre as the New Creation x Circumcision on Eighth Day (Genesis 17) – Eighth Day Resurrection Perfectly Circumcises Us x Isaac “Sacrificed” Yet Lives (Genesis 22) – Christ Sacrificed Yet Lives x Israel Leaves Captivity at the Passover (Exodus 12-15) – New Israel Leaves Captivity of Death at the Passover of our Lord x Honey from the Mouth of the Slain Lion (Judges 14) – Sweetness of Life from Slain Lion of the Tribe of Judah x Samson Destroys the Gates of the Enemy and Escapes from Death (Judges 16) – Christ Destroys the Gates of Hell and Escapes from Death in His Resurrection x Jonah Resurrected after Three Days from the Belly of the Fish (Jonah 2) – Jesus Resurrected after Three Days in Belly of Earth x Presentation of First-Fruits (Levitucus 23:10-11) – Christ as First-Fruits from the Dead x Life-Giving Bones of Elisha (2 Kings 13:21) – Life-Giving Flesh and Blood of Christ x In the Garden Came Death (Genesis 3) – In the Garden Came Life by Resurrection x Daniel Lifted from Lions’ Den (Daniel 6) – Christ Lifted from Grave x Noah Emerges from Ark into a “New” Creation (Genesis 8) – Christ Emerges from Sepulchre as the New Creation ‰ Asterius – Bible and Liturgy (81) – “Just as the first resurrection of the race after the Deluge took place by means of eight persons, so the Lord also inaugurated the resurrection of the dead on the eighth day, when, having dwelt in His sepulchre as Noah in the Ark, He put an end to the deluge of impurity and instituted the Baptism of regeneration, so that, having been buried with Him in Baptism, we may become participants of His resurrection.” ‰ Augustine – Contra Faustum XII:15,19 (NPNF First Series 4:189)– “That the entrance [to the ark] is on the side; as no man enters the Church except by the sacrament of the remission of sins which flowed from Christ’s opened side.” x Circumcision on Eighth Day (Genesis 17) – Eighth Day Resurrection Perfectly Circumcises Us ‰ Luther – “The mystic reason [for cicumcision on the 8th day of the baby’s life] which the Master of the Sentences [Peter Lombard] and other teachers adduce is passable. They maintain that circumcision was deferred to the eighth day because in the resurrection, which is signified by the eighth day, we shall be perfectly circumcised, in order that we may be free from every sin of the world. We not only do not reject this thought, but we confirm it as godly and learned; for Christ rested in the seplucher on the Sabbath, that is, during the entire seventh day, but rose agin on the day which follows the Sabbath, which is the eighth day and the beginning of a new week, and after it no other day is counted. For through His death Christ brought to a close the weeks of time and on the eighth day entered into a different kind of life, in which days are no longer counted but there is one eternal day without the alternations of night. This has been thought out wisely, learnedly, and piously, namely, that the eighth day is the eternal day. For the rising Christ is no longer subject to days, months, weeks, or any number of days; He is in a new and eternal life. The beginning of this life is perceived and reckoned, but there is no end. In that life the true 55circumcision will be carried out. At that time not only the foreskin of the heart—which happens in this life through faith—but the entire flesh and all its essence will be cleansed of all depravity, ignorance, lust, sin, and filth. Consequently, the flesh is then immortal. This allegory is a prophecy that when Christ rises again there will be a spiritual, true, and perfect circumcision outside time in eternal life.” x Isaac “Sacrificed” Yet Lives (Genesis 22) – Christ Sacrificed Yet Lives ‰ Hebrews 11:17-19, “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac; and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; [18] it was he to whom it was said, "In Isaac your descendants shall be called." [19] He considered that God is able to raise men even from the dead; from which he also received him back as a type (evn parabolh/|).” ‰ Clement of Alexandria – Pedag. I:5 (Shadows to Reality, 137) – “Isaac did everything but suffer, as was right, yielding the precedence in suffering to the Logos. Furthermore, there is an intimation of the divinity of the Lord in his not being slain. For Jesus rose again after his burial, having suffered no harm, like Isaac released from sacrifice.” ‰ Gregory of Nyssa – Homilies on the Resurrection (Shadows to Reality, 129) – “The whole mystery of faith can be seen in the story of Isaac. The lamb is fixed to the tree, suspended by its horns: the first-born carried upon him the wood for the sacrifice. He, then, who upholds the universe by the word of his power, is the same who bears the burden of our wood, and is hung up on the wood, upholding as God, and carried as the lamb, the Holy Spirit having in figure divided the mystery between the two, the only son and the lamb who appears at his side. In the lamb is revealed the mystery of death and in the only son the life which will never be cut short.” ‰ Luther – The Gospel for the Sunday after Christmas (AE 52:126) – “For this reason, too, all the narratives of the Old Testament point so nicely and beautifully to Christ and confess Him; all of them, indeed, stand around him, just as Anna physically stood in His presence. It affords great pleasure to read and hear how they all look and point to Christ. Let us note just one example: Isaac was sacrificed by his father and yet remained alive, being replaced by a ram, which Abraham saw behind him entangled in the thicket by his horns. This signifies Christ, the Son of God. He is in all respects like a mortal human being who died on the cross; yet the divine nature remained alive, and the human nature was sacrificed in place of it; like the ram with its horns (that is, the preaching of the Gospel which rebukes and castigates the perversity and obstinancy of the scribes and priests) which was caught in this same thicket behind Abraham, so Christ’s human nature came after Him in time. Many additional great lessons are hidden in this story.” ‰ Luther – Lectures on Genesis (AE 4:96) – “Thus Abraham relies on the promise and attributes to the Divine Majesty this power, that He will restore his dead son to life; for just as he saw that Isaac was born of a worn-out womb and of a sterile mother, so he also believed that he was to be raised after being buried and reduced to ashes, in order that he might have descendants, as the Epistle to the Hebrews (11:19) states: ‘God is able to give life even to the dead.’ Accordingly, Abraham understood the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead….” x Israel Leaves Captivity at the Passover (Exodus 12-15) – New Israel Leaves Captivity of Death at the Passover of our Lord ‰ Gregory of Nazainzen – On the Holy Pasch and His Own Reluctance (SSGF 2:220; cf. ACCS II:237) – “Yesterday the lamb was slain, and the door posts sprinkled with His blood, while Egypt mourned for her firstborn. But the destroying angel and his sacrificial knife, fearful and terrifying, passed over us, for we were protected by the precious blood. This day we have wholly departed from Egypt, and from Pharaoh its cruel tyrant, and his oppressive overseers. We are freed from laboring with bricks and straw, and no one forbids us celebrate the festival of our passing over, our pasch, and to celebrate not with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened 56bread of sincerity and truth…. Yesterday I was crucified with Christ, today I am glorified with Him. Yesterday I died with Him; today I am given life with Him. Yesterday I was buried with Him; today I rise again with Him.” ‰ Liturgy of Easter Vigil (LW Agenda, 79-80) – “It is truly good, right, and salutary that we should at all time and in all places, with all our heart and mind and voice, praise you, O Lord, Holy Father, almighty everlasting God, and Your only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ. For He is the very Paschal Lamb who offered Himself for the sin of the world, who has cleansed us by the shedding of His precious blood. This is the night when You brought our fathers, the children of Israel, out of bondage in Egypt and led them through the Red Sea on dry ground. This is the night when all who believe in Christ are delivered from the bondage to sin and are restored to life and immortality. This is the night when Christ, the Life, arose from the dead. The seal of the grave is broken and the morning of the new creation breaks forth out of night. Oh, how wonderful and beyond all telling is Your mercy toward us, O God, that to redeem a slave You gave Your son. How holy is this night when all wickedness is put to flight and sin is washed away. How holy is this night when innocence is restored to the fallen and joy is given to those downcast. How blessed is this night when man is reconciled to God in Christ. Holy Father, accept now the evening sacrifices of our thanksgiving and praise. Let Christ, the true light and morning star, shine in our hearts, He who gives light to all creation, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.” x Honey from the Mouth of the Slain Lion (Judges 14) – Sweetness of Life from Slain Lion of the Tribe of Judah ‰ Augustine – Sermon 364 (The Works of St. Augustine) – “The very riddle, after all, which runs, ‘From the eater there issued food, and from the strong there came forth sweetness’ (Jdg 14:14), what else does it signify but Christ rising from the dead? From the eater, of course, that is from death which devours and consumes all things, there issued the food which said, ‘I am the living bread, who have come down from heaven’ (Jn 6:41) The one whom human iniquity had made sour, and to whom it had given the bitterness of vinegar and gall to drink, is the one from whom the people of the Gentiles, on being converted, received the sweetness of life; and thus from the mouth of the dead lion, that is from the death of Christ who ‘lay down and slept like a lion’ (Gn 49:9), there came forth a swarm of bees, that is of Christians.” ‰ Gerhard – Eleven Easter and Pentecost Sermons (71) – “We read in Judges 14 that as Samson was traveling with his parents to Timnah, he finds a swarm of bees and honey in the carcass of a lion, which he, through the power of the Spirit, had dismembered several days previously. He also took this opportunity to make up a riddle and presented it to the Philistines. ‘Food,’ he says, ‘came out of the gluttonous consumer and sweetness from the potent powerful one.’ Among other things, this is a picture of how the slain but risen Christ, who is the true ‘Lion from the descendants of Judah,’ Rev. 5:5, [is the One] through whom our soul can find sweet food and refreshment. For Christ is the true rest for our soul.” x Samson Destroys the Gates of the Enemy and Escapes from Death (Judges 16) – Christ Destroys the Gates of Hell and Escapes from Death in His Resurrection ‰ Augustine -- Sermon 364 (The Works of St. Augustine) – “[Samson] took away the gates of the city, through which he had gone in to the harlot, and carried them up a mountain. What does this mean? Hell and the love of a woman, scripture join the two together; the harlot’s house was a representation of hell. It is rightly put for hell, because it turns nobody away, draws to itself everyone who enters. In this place we can recognize the works of our redeemer; after the synagogue, to which he had come, was separated from him by the devil, after it had shaved his 57head, that is after it had crucified him in the place called Calvary, or baldness, he descended into hell; and the enemies were guarding the place where he was sleeping, that is the tomb and they wanted to seize one they had not been able to see . . . . Its saying ‘He rose in the middle of the night,’ signified that He rose secretly. He suffered openly, you see, but when He had risen He only showed Himself to His disciples and a select few. So then, that He went in, they all saw; that He rose again only a few knew about, held Him and fondled Him. All the same, He removes the gates of the city, that is, He takes away the gates of hell. What’s the taking away the gates of hell, if not depriving death of its dominion? It used to receive the dead, you see, and never release them. But what did the Lord Jesus Christ do after taking away the gates of death? He went up to the top of the mountain; we know, after all, that He both rose again and ascended into heaven.” ‰ Gerhard – Eleven Easter and Pentecost Sermons (27) – “Thus also Christ, on our behalf, battled against the Devil and his grip, sin, death, and Hell; and in this cause Christ gave up His spirit and laid Himself into the grave. Had He then remained in the grave and not risen again from the dead, we would always have to wonder whether He had been laid low and overcome by our enemies. But now, since He ripped Himself loose from their bonds, and, just like the strong hero Samson, has broken through the gates of death, Judg. 16:3, it thus is clearly proven that He has retained the field and the victory.” x Jonah Resurrected after Three Days from the Belly of the Fish (Jonah 2) – Jesus Resurrected after Three Days in Belly of Earth ‰ Matthew 12:38-40, “Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered Him, saying, "Teacher, we want to see a sign from You." [39] But He answered and said to them, "An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign shall be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; [40] for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” ‰ Constitutions of the Holy Apostles 5:1 (ACCS NT II:244) – “The resurrection in which we believe is that which has already been demonstrated in the resurrection of our Lord. For it is He that raised Lazarus after he had been in the grave four days, and Jairus’ daughter, and the widow’s son. It is He that raised Himself by the command of the Father in the space of three days, who is the pledge of our resurrection. For He says: ‘I am the resurrection and the life.’ Now the very One who brought Jonah alive and unhurt out of the belly of the whale in the space of three days, and who brought the three children out of the furnace of Babylon and Daniel out of the mouth of lions, does not lack power to raise us up also.” ‰ Augustine – Sermon 72.A.1 (ACCS NT I:256-257) – “The Savior pointed out that Jonah the prophet, who having been tossed into the sea was caught in the belly of the whale and emerged on the third day, prefigured the Son of Man who would suffer and rise on the third day. The Jewish people were censured in comparison with the Ninevites, for the Ninevites, to whom Jonah the prophet had been sent by way of reproof, placated God’s wrath by repenting and gained His mercy. ‘And behold,’ He said, ‘something greater than Jonah is here,’ the Lord Jesus implying Himself. The Ninevites heard the servant and amended their ways; the Jews heard the Lord and not only did they not amend their ways, but moreover they killed Him.” ‰ Luther – Lectures on Jonah – 1525 (AE 19:31) – “I commend the following as an allegory for your meditation and careful attention. For Christ Himself in the gospel applies this example of Jonah to Himself. He indicates that Jonah pointed to Him when He says, Matt. 12:39-40: ‘An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign; but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was, etc.’ This is an exceptionally wonderful story. Even Christ seems to have been delighted with it, and this is evident in that very same chapter of Matthew. When He mentions the people of Nineveh, Christ is surely speaking in a wonderful way about this story. And so this story is well known in both Testaments. Christ came into ‘the sea,’ that is, into the world. And when He had come into the world, ‘the sea’ was disturbed because of Him, since 58the Son of God was received by some but not by others. He was devoured by ‘a large fish,’ that is, by Satan, the ruler of this world. For Satan and hell and death ‘swallowed’ Christ when He was hanging on the cross, as if they would destroy Him, but He could not be held by them, for that was impossible, as Peter says, Acts 2:24. And so it was necessary for Him ‘to be vomited up.’ He came back to life, and this became an opportunity for life, which before had been an opportunity for death. In this way death has become the door of life to us; disgrace has become the elevation to glory; comdemnation and hell, the door to salvation. And this has happened through Christ, who was sinless, etc. To Christ be praise and glory!” ‰ Gerhard – Eleven Easter and Pentecost Sermons (9) – “Jonah was a prophet of the Lord; thus Christ is the true great Prophet who was to come into the world, Deut. 18:18, Lk. 7:16. While Jonah was on a ship, in disobedience fleeing from God the Lord, the Lord let a big wind come upon the sea and a big thunderstorm developed on the sea so that one thought that the ship was going to break into pieces, Jonah 1:4. Christ, by virtue of His person, is indeed the holy, righteous and obedient Servant of God. However, because He stepped before God’s judgment in our place, and because our disobedience and sin was laid upon Him, Isa. 53:4,5, and because He willingly volunteered to pay for that which He neither plundered nor was indebted for, Ps. 69:6, the swells and waves of the wrath of God consequently arose against Him, as He laments in Ps. 42:8—Your inundating deluge rushes with a roar so that, with a deep surge here and a deep surge there, all Your waves and water and swells wash over Me, so that it appears as if He has been shoved away from God’s countenance, Isa. 53:4. He Himself cries out: My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me, Matt. 24:46. Just as Jonah advised that one should toss him overboard into the sea in midst of such violent tumult [so that] the sea would become calm, (as then also happened, for Jonah was thereupon tossed into the sea and was swallowed by a big fish and the sea became calm), so also Christ Himself suggested in the counsel of the Holy Trinity that He wanted to assume human nature to stand in place of the human race and become a curse and cleansing sacrifice on its behalf. He Himself wanted to slash death’s throat so that the huge thunderstorm and huge swells of God’s wrath might be stilled, which then actually did occur. For the divine wrath which washed over all of us was stilled by the death of Christ. And thus, one Man died for all the people so that the entire world did not perish, John 11:50. Furthermore, as Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights, so also Christ was stuck for three days and three nights in the mouth of death. For on Good Friday, even before the sun had set, He died and was buried; He rested in the grave the entire Sabbath; on the third day He arose early in the morning. But as Jonah did not remain in the belly of the fish, so also Christ did not remain in the grave. Rather, he ripped Himself loose from the power of death on the third day, after it became impossible that He could be held captive by him (death), as Peter says in Acts 2:24. Just as Jonah preached repentance to the people of Nineveh after he had been rescued from the belly of the fish, so also Christ let repentance and forgiveness of sins be preached by His Apostles to the entire world after His resurrection….” x Presentation of First-Fruits (Levitucus 23:10-11) – Christ as First-Fruits from the Dead ‰ 1 Corinthians 15:21-22, “But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first-fruits of those who are asleep.” ‰ Gerhard – Eleven Easter and Pentecost Sermons (13) – “In Levitucs 23:10,11, the Lord commands His people, the Jews, that they—if they wanted harvests—were to first bring a bundle of the first-fruits to the priest, which sheaf had to be waved before the Lord on the next day after the Sabbath; thereupon the full harvest took place. Christ is the same One who also in His resurrection, as the true First-Fruit, represented His heavenly Father and brought Himself forth out of the grave on the next day after the High Sabbath. With that [act] he accomplished the acquisition of the full harvest which would follow such an offering of the First-fruit. The harvest is the end of the world. On that day the angels of God will be sent out to gather together all the 59resurrected [and] to cast all the weeds, that is, the chilren of evil, into the hellish fiery furnace and to gather the wheat, that is, the righteous, into the heavenly barns, Matt. 13:30,39.” x Life-Giving Bones of Elisha (2 Kings 13:21) – Life-Giving Flesh and Blood of Christ ‰ 2 Kings 13:20-21, “And Elisha died, and they buried him. Now the bands of the Moabites would invade the land in the spring of the year. [21] And as they were burying a man, behold, they saw a marauding band; and they cast the man into the grave of Elisha. And when the man touched the bones of Elisha he revived and stood up on his feet.” ‰ Gerhard – Eleven Easter and Pentecost Sermons (15) – “In 2 Kings 13:21 we read that on one occasion a man became alive when he touched up against the bones of the deceased Elisha. This awakening of the dead man did not somehow take place through some secret, hidden power in those bones; rather, through the power of the Son of God, of whom Elisha was a type. By this is shown that all Christians, who are much more closely related to Christ—especially since Christ is flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone, Eph. 5:30—shall become recipients of resurrection and life from Him.” x In the Garden Came Death (Genesis 3) – In the Garden Came Life by Resurrection ‰ Gerhard – Eleven Easter and Pentecost Sermons (24) – “With this pattern or analogy, then, Christ’s resurrection is adequately demonstrated as a sure and certain testimony that everything we had lost through Adam has once more been restored through [Jesus]…This pattern is again specially demonstrated by the fact that Christ arose in a garden and appeared to Mary Magdalene after His resurrection in the form of a gardener. He began His suffering in a garden. Therefore, He also wanted to demonstrate its end in a garden, [i.e.], that He had brought back through His suffering and resurrection everything that the first gardener, Adam, who has been placed in the Garden of Eden by God in Gen. 2:15 to build and maintain it, had lost.” x Daniel Lifted from Lions’ Den (Daniel 6) – Christ Lifted from Grave ‰ Constitutions of the Holy Apostles 5:1 (ACCS NT II:244) – “The resurrection in which we believe is that which has already been demonstrated in the resurrection of our Lord. For it is He that raised Lazarus after he had been in the grave four days, and Jairus’ daughter, and the widow’s son. It is He that raised Himself by the command of the Father in the space of three days, who is the pledge of our resurrection. For He says: ‘I am the resurrection and the life.’ Now the very One who brought Jonah alive and unhurt out of the belly of the whale in the space of three days, and who brought the three children out of the furnace of Babylon and Daniel out of the mouth of lions, does not lack power to raise us up also.” ‰ Gerhard – Explanation (317) – “We may also compare this [Passion] account to the story written in Dan. 6. For there it is recorded that King Darius went to great lenghths to keep the prophet Daniel alive; however, upon the persistent urging of his council members, he finally was forced to let Daniel be thrown into the lion pit. Then they brought a stone and laid it in from of the door of grave [i.e., the lion pit, where Daniel was expected to perish]. The king sealed it with his own ring and the rings of his authorities, but God saw to it that Daniel came out of the lion pit again, healthy and alive. This type may be applied to Christ. Pilate, the Gentile judge, at first made a great effort to keep Christ alive; but finally at the persistent urging of the high priests and elders, he allowed Chrsit to be ripped apart by those who opened their jaws wide against Him like raging lions, Psa. 22. Yes, indeed, the Lord Christ was finally laid into the pit of the earth, into a grave. Before its doors was laid a huge stone. Pilate sealed it with his own ring, and with the rings of the high priests, the scribes, and the Pharisees. Then God saw to it that Christ came forth again from the grave alive and put to shame all His enemies.” 60BY THINE ASCENSION CONTENTS: x Enoch Is Translated into Heaven (Genesis 5) – Christ Our Enoch Ascends into Heaven x High Priest Aaron Enters Holy of Holies (Leviticus 16) – Christ Our Great High Priest Enters Heavenly Holy of Holies x Elijah Is Received into Heaven (2 Kings 1) – Christ Our Elijah Ascends to Father’s Right Hand x Enoch Is Translated into Heaven (Genesis 5) – Christ Our Enoch Ascends into Heaven ‰ Luther – Lectures on Genesis (AE 2:350) – “Through [this story of Enoch] God desired to impart to the first and primeval world the hope of a better life after this life. Later on in the second world, which had the Law, God gave the example of Elijah, who was taken away by the Lord even as his servant Elisha was looking on. We in the New Testament are in the third world, as it were; and we have a more outstanding example—Christ Himself, our Deliverer, ascending to heaven with many other saints. In every age God wanted to have at hand proofs of the resurrection of the dead in order to draw our hearts away from this detestable and troubled life, in which, as long as it seems good to God, we nevertheless serve Him by performing our governmental and civic duties and also, above all else, by leading others to godliness and the knowledge of God.” x High Priest Aaron Enters Holy of Holies (Leviticus 16) – Christ Our Great High Priest Enters Heavenly Holy of Holies ‰ Luther – Prefaces to the Old Testament (AE 35:247) – “If you would interpret [Leviticus] well and confidently, set Christ before you, for He is the man to whom all of it applied, every bit of it. Make the High Priest Aaron, then to be nobody but Christ alone, as does the Epistle to the Hebrews [5:4-5], which is sufficient, all by itself, to interpret all the figures of Moses.” ‰ Luther – Lectures on Hebrews (AE 29:168) – “If we have a High Priest, He is certainly for us and not against us, since ‘every high priest,’ even ‘one appointed and chosen from among men is appointed for men,’ as Ex. 28:38 states: ‘And Aaron shall take upon himself any guilt incurred in the holy offering which the people of Israel hallow.’ This definitely prefigured that Christ, the High Priest, would bear the sins of all who bring offerings, that is, who believe.” x Elijah Is Received into Heaven (2 Kings 1) – Christ Our Elijah Ascends to Father’s Right Hand ‰ Luther – Lectures on Genesis (AE 2:350) – “Through [this story of Enoch] God desired to impart to the first and primeval world the hope of a better life after this life. Later on in the second world, which had the Law, God gave the example of Elijah, who was taken away by the Lord even as his servant Elisha was looking on. We in the New Testament are in the third world, as it were; and we have a more outstanding example—Christ Himself, our Deliverer, ascending to heaven with many other saints. In every age God wanted to have at hand proofs of the resurrection of the dead in order to draw our hearts away from this detestable and troubled life, in which, as long as it seems good to God, we nevertheless serve Him by performing our governmental and civic duties and also, above all else, by leading others to godliness and the knowledge of God.” 61Quotable Quotes: x Hilary – Tractatus Mysteriorum I:1 (Shadows to Reality, 11) – “Christ begets the Church, cleanses it, sanctifies it, calls it, chooses it, redeems it by true authentic prefigurations through the whole course of this world’s history: in the sleep of Adam, in the flood of Noah, in the blessing of Melchisedech and the justification of Abraham. Everything which Christ would fulfill had then been prefigured since the beginning of the world.” x Augustine – Contra Faustum (NPNF First Series 4) ‰ “The whole narrative of Genesis, in the most minute details, is a prophecy of Christ and of the Church with reference to the good Christians or to the bad,” (Book XII:8) ‰ “In every page of these Scriptures, while I pursue my search as a son of Adam in the sweat of my brow, Christ either openly or covertly meets and refreshes me,” (Book XII:27) The Rev. Prof. Chad L. Bird Concordia Theological Seminary June 2003