Secret References to Christ In the Old testament Scriptures - Kenneth B. Alexander

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of prolonged life.

      “You shall not murder.

      “You shall not commit adultery.

       “You shall not steal.

       “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

       “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor” (Ex 20:1-17).

      These are the first Laws given by God to the people. In all there would be 624 laws given. They would cover everything from criminal law, health laws, food, social laws, laws concerning the poor, laws concerning wealth and equality, ownership of land, worship and sacrifice, forgiveness of sins, obedience, fairness and more. God was creating a family and these laws were to govern interactions among the family of God and individual families. One cannot argue that if these spiritual laws were followed today, they would eliminate nearly every problem that faces humanity today. More than Laws these were promises of God that would be fulfilled spiritually under the New Covenant of Christ. Under the new Covenant Christ said: For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel After those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their minds, And I will write them on their hearts. And I will be their God, And they shall be My people” (Hebrews 8:10). Christ Himself would fulfill these laws because man was unable. Jesus promised: “For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled” (Mt 5:18).

      Under this New Covenant the Laws would be imparted to the human heart until that heart had become the Law. They would no longer sin because it would no longer be in man’s nature to do so. Paul said: “But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law,  being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. Therefore the Law has become our  TUTOR to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. For you are all  sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to  promise” (Galatians 3:23-29). Therefore the Law was expanded to include not only Jews but all other peoples also. It was always God’s intention to include peoples of all races in His Kingdom so long as they walked by faith. Our failure to do the Law led us to Christ who fulfilled the Law for us and will assure that we too become enabled to fulfill the Law as He did. As he said: “For God so loved the world, [not Jews only] that He gave His only begotten [unique, one of a kind] Son, that WHOEVER  believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (Jn 3:16).

      Exodus 20-31 covered some of the Laws that would govern the new nation, the family of God, which we will cover later. In Exodus 32 the fickleness of the people, who had received so much from God, was revealed in dramatic fashion. “Now when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, [he was there 40 days] the people assembled about Aaron and said to him, “Come, make us a god who will go before us; as for  this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him”. It is difficult to comprehend why the people made this decision and Aaron went along with it. Probably Aaron was pressured by the insecurity, distrust and unbelief of the people to do what he did. It is the nature of humans to have something, a concrete form, to allay their fears. So Aaron took gold from the people and fashioned a molten calf to satisfy the people. The people said: “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” Perhaps the people considered the calf-idol an image of God. Since only one idol was made, the word gods (32:1, 4, 8, 23, 31) may refer both to the idol and to God whom it supposedly represented.

      So Aaron proclaimed a feast for this new god which probably turned into a feast of debauchery. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, “Go down at once, for your people, whom  you brought up from the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. “They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them. They have made for themselves a molten calf, and have worshiped it and  have sacrificed to it and said, ‘This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!’ ” The Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people. “Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you a great nation.” (Ex 32:1-10). Some commentators have suggested that this calf represented the Egyptian bull-god Apis, but this seems unlikely because Apis was not worshiped as an image. Even so, the bull symbolized fertility and sexual strength. This explicitly violated the second commandment (20:4-6; cf. 20:23), which the people had already received from God verbally through Moses. Nonetheless God was ready to destroy the people over this great sin.

      Moses took up the cause of the people arguing they not be destroyed. “Moses entreated the Lord his God, and said, “O Lord, why does Your anger burn against Your people whom You have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?”. On the mountain He had called the people “Moses’ people”. But Moses turned the table and rightfully so when he said to God they were His (God’s) people. He went on: “Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, ‘With evil intent He brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your burning anger and change Your mind about doing harm to Your people. “Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants to whom You swore by Yourself, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heavens, and all this land of which I have spoken I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ” So the Lord changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people” (Ex 32:11-14). One of the few places in Biblical history when a man argued with god and got Him to change His mind.

      “Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets which were written on both sides; they were written on one side and the other. The tablets were God’s work, and the writing was God’s writing engraved on the tablets” (Ex 32:15-16). “As soon as Moses came near the camp, he saw the calf and the dancing; and Moses’ anger burned, and he threw the tablets from his hands and shattered them at the foot of the mountain. He took the calf which they had made and burned it with fire, and ground it to powder, and scattered it over the surface of the water and made the sons of Israel drink it” (Ex 32:19-20). Aaron tried to make an excuse for what he had done. “The people made me do it” he said (reminiscent of Hitler’s henchman—“I was just following orders”). Moses response was: “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Every man of you put his sword upon his thigh, and go back and forth from gate to gate in the camp, and kill every man his brother, and every man his friend, and every man his neighbor.’ ” So  the sons of Levi did as Moses instructed, and about three thousand men of the people fell that day” (Ex 32:27-28).

      If there ever was a type of Christ in the Old Testament it was Moses in this situation. Moses atoned for the people and stopped God from destroying them. He atoned to God for their sin, putting his own life on the line to compel God to forgive them. He helped God save face because destroying the people would make Him look bad to the nations. Christ is our intermediator continually before the face of the Father on our behalf. Hebrews says: “Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He ever lives to  make intercession for them” (Heb 7:25). He also drew on the compassion of the Father who would “that none perish” (Proverbs 29:27)

      Moses made his plans very clear to the

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