O. S. Hawkins - The Bible Code: Finding Jesus in Every Book in the Bible

T he cross is the hinge upon which the door of all human history turns. Its immediate impact on Jesus followers was total despair, defeat, even doubt. The Scriptures pointedly proclaim that all the disciples forsook Him and fled (Matthew 26:56). Two of those dejected disciples on the way home to Emmaus lamented, We had hoped that he was the one (Luke 24:21 ESV ). But they left that hope buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea outside the city walls of Jerusalem. While they were in the depths of discouragement, those words had just escaped their lips when they noticed someone walking alongside them on the road. It was the Lord! He was alive. And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself (v. 27).

Yes, Jesus declared from the very beginning of the Bible with the first five books of Moses and continuing in all the Scriptures that He was there on every page. He was that ram on Abrahams altar in Genesis. He was the Passover lamb in Exodus. He was the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night that led the Israelites in the book of Numbers. He was the fourth man in the midst of the burning fiery furnace in the book of Daniel. He was there in every book of the Bible, sometimes in type, sometimes in shadow, sometimes in prophecy. Jesusthis scarlet thread of redemptioncan be found woven through every book in sacred Scripture. Near the beginning of His public ministry, Jesus challenged His followers to search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me (John 5:39). He continued, If you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me (v. 46).

Jesus can be found woven through every book in sacred Scripture.

Perhaps you have never thought about the fact that Jesus can be found in every book of the Bible. He is not simply to be found in the four Gospels of the New Testament. He is there from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21. The Bible is the Jesus Book. The Old Testament conceals Him in type and shadow. The New Testament reveals Him in all His manifest glory. The Bible is like a flower. The Old Testament is the bud. The New Testament is the bloom.

The Old Testament is a book of shadows depicting progressive images of our coming Redeemer. The apostle Paul spoke of this as being a shadow of things to come (Colossians 2:17). There must be two elements in producing a shadow. To produce a shadow there needs to be a light and an image. Behind the words of Scripture is a great Light shining on the image of Christ casting His shadow across its pages. The clarity of any shadow depends on the angle with which the light strikes the body. I can stand in the sunlight in the early morning hours when it is rising and my shadow is completely out of proportion. It stretches all the way across the street and onto the building behind me. However, as the sun continues to rise, the shorter and more revealing my shadow becomes. At midmorning, when it is at a forty-five-degree angle, my shadow is the perfect shape of my body. As I continue to stand in place and when the sun reaches its zenith at high noon, the shadow disappears and only my body is seen.

And so it is with the revelation of Christ in the Bible. When the sun of revelation begins to shine way back in the early chapters of Genesis, the shadow is dim and a bit faint. As the chapters unfold and more light appears, Christ comes into sharper focus. By the time we reach Isaiah, chapter 53, there appears the perfect shadow of the One who would be smitten by God, and afflicted.... wounded for our transgressions,... bruised for our iniquities;... [and] led as a lamb to the slaughter (vv. 47). When we turn the page from Malachi 4:6 to Matthew 1:1, it is high noon on Gods clock, the shadows disappear, and we see Jesus! No more shadows of Him. No more types. No more prophecies. Just Jesus.

The Bible Code is designed to take us on a journey to find Jesus in every book of the Bible. And, in finding Him, we find life... not just eternal in the then and there, but abundant in the here and now. And the bottom line? All the Bible, and all of life for that matter, is about Jesus, the very author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2). Lets turn the page and begin the great adventure of finding Jesus in Genesis, the first book of the Bible.