Written by Ian J. Vaillancourt |
Tuesday, February 28, 2023
As we grow in understanding the Pentateuch as the essential first act in the Bible’s grand story, our experience of Christ will never be the same. Let’s work to be whole-Bible Christians who together grow in our vision of the gospel in resplendent color.

A Vision of the Gospel in Resplendent Color (from the Pentateuch!)
The theater lights are dim and everyone’s attention is fixed on the screen. Those watching are comfortable in their seats and so wrapped up in the story that popcorn sits uneaten on every lap. This is why no one really notices when, fifteen minutes into the action, we tiptoe in. We find a few seats in the back corner and begin to piece the story together. Twenty minutes pass, then thirty, then a full hour, and by the time the theater lights come back on, we have a nagging feeling that we are missing something. Sure, we sort of figured out the story’s high points, but without its essential first part, we could not enjoy the movie the same way as everyone else.
The Pentateuch is a cluster of five books that make up the essential first act in the Bible’s grand story. This means that if we are Christians who want to understand the gospel better, the Pentateuch is a great place to start. Although this might sound counterintuitive, it’s true. As we go deeper in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, a black-and-white grasp of the Bible’s message will increasingly give way to a vision of the gospel in resplendent color. These foundational books are the entry point into the biblical story that continues through the Old and New Testaments and gloriously concludes in the book of Revelation. Without the Pentateuch, there would be no first act in the grand drama.
The First Christians
For the first Christians, these claims would not have been counterintuitive. The apostle Paul—who began his ministry career as Saul of Tarsus, the Pharisee—was steeped in the Old Testament (and especially the Pentateuch). After Paul encountered the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus, he spent his first years as a Christian rethinking the entire (Old Testament) Scriptures that he already knew so well, in light of Jesus as their fulfillment. This was also true for the first Jewish Christians, who were raised on the (Old Testament) Scriptures. And although the first non-Jewish Christians had not been raised with a biblical worldview, their first encounter with the gospel, and then their learning at church gatherings, would have been focused on the (Old Testament) Scriptures.
Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck put it well:
The Gospel is the fulfillment of the promises of the Old Testament. Without it, the Gospel hangs suspended in the air. The Old Testament is the pedestal on which the Gospel rests, and the root out of which it came forth.1
If these things are true for the first three quarters of the Christian Bible—the entire Old Testament—how much more so for the Pentateuch. The Pentateuch is the first act in the Old Testament story, and it is the foundation on which everything in the Old Testament rests. As we better understand the first act, we will discover a new depth in our understanding of themes as they develop through the rest of the Old Testament, and then as they are revealed with Christ as their fulfillment in the New Testament.
A Wonderful Description of Jesus
Although entire libraries of books have been written on this topic, let’s catch more of the vision by turning to a wonderful passage in Hebrews:

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From the human perspective, however, God is doing all of these amazing things through the message of the gospel. The Church, motivated by God’s glory and empowered by God’s grace, reaches out and impacts the lives of those around them by heralding the good news of what Jesus has done. According to his grace, God saves sinners and is glorified. This is why we exist as the church. This is our eternal purpose. May we come to realize the divine mystery of the gospel, be driven by the divine motivation of our calling, and more consistently and effectively carry out our mission, by God’s grace, and for God’s glory.

Several years ago, I read a story that has stayed with me. The author described an event in his family’s life, writing the following:
A few years ago Lisa and I took our four children on a day trip to Cunningham Falls State Park in Western Maryland. As we were leaving, a kind, elderly gentleman urged us not to head back toward Baltimore until we got a good look at the sky on what promised to be a crystal clear evening. “You’ll never be able to see such a pretty sight back in the city with all that haze and light pollution blocking your view,” he warned us. We gladly took his advice, stopping at a Dairy Queen drive-through and finding the nearest overlook off Route 70. We sat there in the fading light, finishing our cones, talking and anticipating the natural beauty we were about to behold. As dusk settled in, however, so did our grip on reality: we realized we wouldn’t have been able to see a meteor shooting ten feet away because we were looking through the smudged windshield of a well-used minivan belonging to a family with four small children.
Fortunately, with a little glass cleaner from the glove compartment and the roll of paper towels no family minivan should ever be without, Lisa was able to remove years of nasty film formed by the mysterious substances of childhood. In minutes, the glass was so clean that it blended imperceptibly with the world just outside. As the darkness of a summer evening fell, our family was mesmerized by the stunning splendor of a full moon, vivid in the western Maryland sky and set among what seemed like twice as many stars as there ought to be. We sat in speechless awe as the heavens declared God’s glory. And not once did anyone say, “What a beautifully clear windshield!”1
That story is such a great illustration of God’s purpose for the Church. Although we, as sinful human beings, are prone to smudge up the proverbial windshield, causing our focus to be hindered by many distractions, the Word of God provides us with a glorious picture of the grand, redemptive purpose God has given the Church. If we can simply catch a glimpse of that purpose, then it will radically transform and motivate us to effectively carry out our God ordained mission. There is arguably no better place to see that mission more clearly than in the book of Ephesians.
The Mystery has been Revealed for the Church
Beginning in chapter 3 of Paul’s letter, the Apostle writes:
For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles— assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel (Eph 3:1-6).
For the sake of context, a great deal of enmity and hostility existed between the Jews and Gentiles in Paul’s day. The Jews saw themselves as God’s chosen people. They viewed their standing as righteous before God and directly in the center of all his plans and purposes. Their view of the Gentiles, however, was just the opposite. Although they knew the promises God made to bless the Gentiles (Is 49:6), their predominate attitude was one of arrogance. Many saw their Gentile neighbors as nothing more than second-class citizens, at best. Against that backdrop, Paul wanted the church to understand that God has revealed a great mystery.
So, what is the mystery? It is that through the gospel, God has provided a way of reconciliation to all humanity, not just for the Jews but also for the Gentiles. In other words, Jews and Gentiles who savingly trust in Jesus are on equal footing before God. Now, for many Jews, this was entirely inconceivable. They couldn’t imagine a scenario in which they would be spiritually equal with the Gentiles. Yet, just as God revealed to Abraham, this was his plan all along (Gen 17:5-7, Gal 3:8). So, throughout redemptive history, God was revealing more and more about this mystery until it was fully unveiled in Christ. As Paul quoted from the prophet Hosea in the ninth chapter of Romans:
Those who were not my people I will call “my people,” and her who was not beloved I will call “beloved.” And in the very place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” there they will be called “sons of the living God” (Rom 9:25-26).
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We know and trust that our faithful God will give us life after death, a glorious life if we trust in Jesus as our Lord and Saviour. Even on the really bad days, we can hold onto this hope. And on the days when things are going really well, we know that what is coming will be so much better still.

Many novels and movies these days are set in the near future, and they generally have something in common. The future most of us expect is a disaster. Whether that means living through world wars, nuclear disasters, environmental catastrophes, or cruel dictatorial governments, most visions of the future are bad. There are many who have no hope when they look to what is coming.
The Sadduccees in Matthew 22 might not have expected killer robots or global warming, but they also didn’t have much hope for the future. They had a privileged life now, running the priesthood and having the support of the Romans. Yet they did not believe in the resurrection of the dead (v23). They thought that death was the ultimate end. All they had to look forward to was growing old and then being no more.
Yet when they bring a rather unusual question to Jesus that deals with the resurrection, they don’t get the answer they expect.
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