#DailyDevotion Jesus Is Witnessed To In The Old Testament

Monday Easter 5

Acts 8:34 And the eunuch said to Philip, “About whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” 35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus.

 

The eunuch was reading a passage from Isaiah 53. He wasn’t quite sure whom the prophet was talking about. Philip knew his Old Testament. He knew Jesus. He was instructed by the apostles and was full of the Holy Spirit. With all those things combined he began to explain from this passage of scripture the good news of Jesus. So this is a good reason to know and study the Old Testament. For in the Old Testament you will find the witness from God concerning his son Jesus Christ.

 

What sort of good news can we find in the Old Testament can we find about Jesus there? Well in this passage from Isaiah we find the salvation story of Jesus’ innocent, suffering and death. We learn how Jesus did not fight back or insult those who were persecuting him falsely. We learn how Jesus willingly went to the cross to suffer for us.

 

Philip would have told how Jesus was stricken as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of his people. It was the will of the Father to crush Jesus and make him an offering for guilt. Yet Jesus did not stay dead but rose again to gather a people unto himself. He would have told the eunuch how from his anguish and sufferings he bore their iniquities. He probably told him how Jesus was numbered with transgressors in his crucifixion, and bore their sins, yet in all that Jesus interceded for them and for all transgressors.

 

We don’t know all that Philip told him about Jesus’ fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies. I bet he went back to Genesis 3:15 and then followed the salvation story through Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He might have shown how Jesus fulfilled the Passover and all the sacrifices of the Mosaic Law. He probably showed how in Jesus’ life he manifested himself as the promised prophet and the promised king, the son of David. We don’t know how long Philip instructed the eunuch, who obviously either very conversant with Judaism or was a Jew living in Ethiopia but what we do know is that Philip instructed him to the point where he eunuch desired to be baptized into Jesus, a baptism of repentance and forgiveness of sins.

 

All these things Philip told the eunuch apply to you too. Jesus bore your sins. The Father offered Jesus up as a sin offering for your guilt; he bore your iniquities. Jesus offers you freely the life he won on the cross to you. He promises to give it through the waters of baptism in his name as we confess our sins and believe in him. He offers the benefits of his innocent, suffering and death to you daily as you confess and repent of your sins. So what are you going to do?

 

Heavenly Father, always place in our path those who can teach us your will in Christ Jesus and those whom we can witness to the mercies of Jesus ourselves so they can rejoice in your manifold grace, mercy and goodness. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.