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Jerusalem. While these two were recounting the events and their meeting with Jesus, he suddenly appeared in the room. Jesus, then explained to them all, “‘These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.’ Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and He said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and rise again from the dead the third day’” (Luke 24:44–46).29 Consequently, on both occasions Jesus appears to assert that the entire OT is fulfilled in himself.30

      Now, at this juncture some may suggest that Jesus was merely identifying isolated prophesies that he had fulfilled. However, in Luke 24:25 Jesus states directly, “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken.” Jesus’ words strongly suggest that he was referencing “all” the Scriptures and not merely “all that refer to me.” The best reading of this text is that Jesus viewed the entirety of the OT witness as fulfilled in himself.

      General Statements That Show That Jesus Is the Fulfillment of All the Scriptures

      Secondly, that the NT views Jesus as the fulfillment of the entirety of the OT story is seen in that the person and work of Jesus is presented in terms of the overall story of the Bible and not just in light of the fulfillment of isolated verses. This concept is a bit more difficult to grasp. But, the fact is that there are instances in the NT in which Jesus claims to be fulfilling the Scriptures and yet we have no corresponding prophecy in the OT. That is, we cannot find any passage in the OT that corresponds to Jesus’ claim.

      For example, Luke records:

And He took the twelve aside and said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things which are written through the prophets about the Son of Man will be accomplished. For He will be delivered to the Gentiles, and will be mocked and mistreated and spit upon, and after they have scourged Him, they will kill Him; and the third day He will rise again. Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day.” (Luke 18:31–33)31

      The difficulty here is that we do not know of any verse that “prophesies” that the Christ (Hebrew: “Messiah”) would rise again on the third day.

That Jesus, in Luke 18, is not referencing a particular prophecy is evident first from the fact that he references “the prophets.” That is, Jesus refers to the prophets in general, which may well be understood to refer more generically to the Scriptures, and not to a particular prophet or any particular saying of the prophets.32

Secondly, though specific passages can be found in the OT that suggest that the people of God will suffer,33 there are no corresponding references that indicate in the least that the Christ would rise on the third day.34 That is, there are no verses in the OT to which we can turn to and say, “Jesus was referring to this passage.” The best we can come up with is the reference in Hosea 6:2: “He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day that we may live before Him.” This passage, however, contains no direct messianic overtones, but instead references the promised restoration of Israel (note “us”).

      If, however, we are to understand that the overarching narrative theme of the Bible is God’s redemptive and restorative work, and that this work reaches its fulfillment in Jesus, then the promise of the restoration of God’s people, announced in Hosea 6:2, indeed finds its fulfillment in Jesus. That is, if we understand that Jesus is the fulfillment of the entirety of the OT, then we have no real difficulty with Jesus saying that the Christ must “rise again from the dead the third day” (Luke 18:31–33).

      Jesus’ claim in Luke 18:31–33 is problematic, however, if we assume that Jesus fulfills only isolated verses. For there are no verses in the OT that could be cited as referencing the Christ dying and rising again on the third day. There is no problem, however, if we assume that Jesus has in view the entirety of the story of the OT. One could simply reference Hosea 6:2 and see Jesus as the embodiment of the people of God and, thus, the fulfillment of this passage.

      Jesus’ claim that he will rise on the third day may also be understood in light of the story of Jonah. This finds support in that Luke has already associated Jesus’ death and resurrection with account of Jonah: “For just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so shall the Son of Man be to this generation” (Luke 11:30). A direct link between Jesus’ death and resurrection and the account of Jonah is also supported by the parallel in Matthew: “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” (12:40).

      But again it must be noted that there are no explicit prophesies in Jonah regarding the Messiah rising on the third day. There is no problem, however, if we view Jesus as the fulfillment of the story of Jonah. This is how Matthew can draw the parallel between Jonah’s being three days and nights in the belly of the fish and Jesus’ death and resurrection.

      Therefore, when the NT refers to Jesus as the fulfillment of the OT, it is not merely referring to him as the fulfillment of specific OT passages, but to the overall story of Scripture. Jesus is the hermeneutical key to understanding the Bible. The entire narrative of the Bible is about Jesus!

      The Gospel of John and Jesus as the Fulfillment of All the Scriptures

Another example that all of the Scriptures are about Jesus, and not just certain isolated prophecies, is evident from even a cursory look at the Gospel of John. For example, in John 5:39, 45–47 Jesus asserts, “You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that bear witness of Me. . . . The one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote of Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?” When these verses are read in light of the whole of the Gospel of John it becomes clear that Jesus is not simply referring to isolated prophecies within the Torah/Pentateuch,35 but to the entirety of it.

      First, that Jesus was referring to the whole of the Torah/Pentateuch and not just select messianic verses, it is important to note that Jesus claims that they do not believe “My words” (John 5:47). That is, it is the teachings of Jesus that the Jewish leaders at the time missed. They failed to see that what Jesus was saying was fully in accord with the words of Moses. But, that Jesus was referring to the whole tenor of the Torah of Moses, and not to any particular teaching, is evident in that Jesus does not appeal to a particular chapter and verse to support his argument. That is, if Jesus had in mind a particular verse, or set of verses, in the writings of Moses that he was fulfilling, then why did he not reference them? It would certainly have been compelling for Jesus to point out a specific reference in the writing of Moses and show them that he was indeed fulfilling it. We can imagine that John’s readers would certainly like to have known to which verses Jesus might have been referring. That Jesus does not appeal to any passage suggests that it is the whole of his teachings that fulfills the whole of the Torah.

Secondly, one of the major thrusts of John’s portrait of Jesus is in regards to Jesus as the fulfillment of the OT—not just as the Messiah but also in terms of the institutions, symbols, and festivals of Judaism.36 Jesus in the Gospel of John conforms to Paul’s affirmation that “the old has gone, the new has come” (2 Cor 5:17). Thus, in the Gospel of John, the waters of purification are fulfilled with the new wine,37 the temple finds its fulfillment in Jesus,38 the old birth looks to the new birth

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