Reading the Old Testament Through the Lens of Christ

A young university student in Lagos sits in a fellowship Bible study, clutching her King James Bible with a troubled expression. The group has stumbled upon Deuteronomy 21:18-21, which commands that a stubborn and rebellious son be stoned to death by the elders of his city. She whispers to the person beside her: ‘Is this still what God wants? Should we be doing this today?’ Her confusion is not ignorance — it is the honest wrestling of a sincere believer trying to reconcile a God who seems fierce in one Testament and gracious in another. If you have ever felt that same tension, this article is for you.

The Old and New Testaments are not two different books written by two different gods. They are one unfolding story — a single divine narrative moving from promise to fulfilment, from shadow to substance, from law to grace. The Apostle Paul made this plain when he wrote in Galatians 3:24, ‘Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.’ The Greek word translated ‘schoolmaster’ — paidagogos — referred to a servant who escorted children to school and kept them in order until they arrived. The Old Testament law was never the final destination. It was the escort. It was pointing forward to Jesus Christ, in whom all the promises and demands of God are perfectly resolved.

This does not mean the Old Testament is irrelevant. Romans 15:4 declares plainly, ‘For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.’ Every passage — even the difficult ones — contains wisdom, instruction, and revelation about God’s character. The issue is not whether to read the Old Testament but how to read it correctly. And the key to reading it correctly is always Christ.

Consider the passage that troubled our student. The command regarding the rebellious son in Deuteronomy 21 was given to ancient Israel as a theocratic nation — a people governed directly by God through His law, where civil, moral, and ceremonial codes were all fused together. The severity of that law served a divine purpose: to impress upon Israel the seriousness of rebellion against both parents and God, and to protect the community from corruption. But Hebrews 8:6 tells us that Christ ‘is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.’ The theocratic codes of Israel were types and shadows of a greater reality. Under the New Covenant, the rebellious heart is not stoned — it is transformed. The Holy Spirit does what the law could only demand. The punishment for sin was not abolished; it was absorbed by Christ on the cross. That is not a weakening of justice — it is the perfection of it.

Another frequently misunderstood area involves the Old Testament commands for total warfare — the utter destruction of the Canaanites in passages like Joshua 6:21. Many Nigerians, shaped by a culture that values mercy and family, find this deeply unsettling. Yet Hebrews 11:31 reminds us that even within those campaigns, God’s mercy was at work — Rahab the harlot was saved by faith. The broader truth is that God’s judgement on Canaan was the culmination of four hundred years of divine patience (see Genesis 15:16, where God tells Abraham the iniquity of the Amorites was ‘not yet full’). God is not quick-tempered. When judgement finally came, it came after centuries of restraint. And in the New Testament, that same patient God ‘so loved the world’ that He sent His Son, not to destroy the world, but to save it (John 3:16-17). The God of Jericho and the God of Calvary are the same God — one moment executing justice long deferred, the next absorbing that same justice in His own Son.

For the Nigerian Christian, this interpretive principle has deeply practical consequences. First, when you encounter a difficult Old Testament passage, resist two equally dangerous reactions: dismissing it as outdated, or applying it woodenly without understanding its covenant context. Ask yourself: What does this reveal about God’s character? What problem is this law addressing? And how does Christ fulfil or transform this in the New Testament? These three questions will carry you a long way.

Second, understand that many Old Testament commands — tithing, Sabbath principles, the call to holiness — retain spiritual and moral force even if their ceremonial form has changed. When Jesus said in Matthew 5:17, ‘Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil,’ He was announcing that He had come to bring the law to its intended completion. The moral weight of the law — love God, love your neighbour, live justly — is not abolished. It is deepened and internalised through the Holy Spirit.

Third, read the Old Testament for what it truly is: a sustained prophecy and preparation for the Messiah. Luke 24:27 tells us that after His resurrection, Jesus, ‘beginning at Moses and all the prophets, expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.’ Christ is hidden on every page of the Old Testament, waiting to be discovered. The sacrificial system points to His atonement. The Passover Lamb points to Him. The temple points to His body. The manna in the wilderness points to Him as the Bread of Life. Once you begin reading the Old Testament with these eyes, it stops being a collection of ancient difficulties and becomes a breathtaking mosaic of the person of Jesus.

The Bible is not a book in contradiction with itself — it is a book building toward a crescendo. That crescendo is Jesus Christ. The next time you open your Bible and encounter a passage that confuses or disturbs you, do not close the book. Open it wider. Ask the Holy Spirit to illumine the passage. Trace the thread from the Old Covenant to the New. What God began in Genesis, He completed at Calvary, and what He completed at Calvary, He is applying in your life today. The Word of God is not broken — it is deeper than you have yet gone. Go deeper.