The OT text for the day was Isaiah 6:1-8 but I lengthened it to Isaiah 6:1-13. Anything less felt like taking stuff out of context.
When you read the rest of that passage the first reaction is, “How did that get in there?” But without the rest you don’t get the gospel. Without the failure of the law, without the reduction of Israel to one, the seed in the stump, Jesus Christ, you don’t get the gospel. Sitting on the other side of Jesus we have something similar. Our call by Jesus is to pick up the cross and follow him. The call is not to victory and glory in this world. Salvation is free and clear – by grace through faith. What God is asking is for those who will jump up and down saying Here I am, send me! because they trust the one who saved them. Trust Him freely, even though crosses come first. Trust him knowing that placing your life into those nail marked hands is the only sure thing in this world.
>>Without the failure of the law, without the reduction of Israel to one, the seed in the stump, Jesus Christ, you don’t get the gospel.<< I never heard this concept before. I always understood Christ’s church to be foreshadowed by Israel of the OT, but never heard taught or preached the idea that the failure of the law reduced Israel to one, Jesus Christ, from whom the church grew.
A couple of thoughts.
1) Take a look at Paul’s preaching in Galatians 3:16-18. There the seed is emphasized as singular and Jesus Christ.
2) One of the themes of the Gospel of Matthew is fulfillment, that where Isreal (the people) failed, Israel (Jesus) succeeds. The baptism of Jesus Matt 3:13-17 is the start of the ministry. That baptism is Jesus standing in for/as the true Israel. The Father says – “This is my son…” where the nation Israel was talked about as the sons before.
3) Last thought is a link to a book by David Holwerda – Jesus & Israel. Who is Israel, is the central question. The answer is primarily Jesus and then his brothers and sister in faith through adoption. The book is dense and only one part bears on this question, but I think this is a key part of the testimony of Scripture – it isn’t about us, but it is all about Jesus and what He has done for us.
None of that denies looking at Israel as foreshadowing the church or that typeology is not an appropriate way to read the OT. What it speaks to is God’s work in salvation history.