4 Ways Yahushua Fulfills Every Old Testament Promise

Four Ways Yahushua Makes Every Promise “Yes”

When Yahushua fulfills the Old Testament Law and Prophets, he is actualizing what Scripture anticipated and achieving what Yahuwah promised and predicted (Matt. 5:17; 11:13; Luke 16:16; 24:44). Truly every promise in Scripture is “Yes” in Christ (2 Cor. 1:20), and in him Yahuwah secures every blessing for believers (Gal. 3:14; Eph. 1:3).

Yet Yahushua fulfills the Old Testament’s promises in more than one way, and this means Christians cannot approach Old Testament promises all in the same manner. Believers must claim Scripture’s promises using a salvation-historical framework that has Yahushua at the center. Christ is the lens that clarifies and focuses the lasting significance of all Yahuwah’s promises for us.

1. Christ maintains some Old Testament promises with no extension.

Christ maintains certain promises without extending them to further beneficiaries. Many of these are explicit restoration promises that include a vision of a [worldwide] salvation after Israel’s exile. Consider, for example, Daniel’s prediction: “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Dan. 12:2). Alluding to this passage, Yahushua associated this same resurrection with his second coming: “An hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear [the Son of Man’s] voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment” (John 5:28–29; cf. John 11:11, 25; 1 Cor. 15:51–52).

Yahushua noted that the Old Testament indicates that the Messiah’s resurrection would precede and generate our own: “Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (Luke 24:46–47; cf. 1 Cor 15:3–5).

The resurrection from the dead and eternal judgment are two of “the elementary doctrine[s] of Christ” (Heb. 6:1–2). Christians should claim the promise of resurrection in Daniel 12:2 as our own. We do so, however, recognizing that we will only rise because Christ was first raised. “Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. . . . Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ” (1 Cor. 15:20, 23). As Yahushua said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live” (John 11:25; cf. Rom. 6:5). This resurrection has an already-but-not-yet dimension, as the redeemed saints from both the Old and New Testament epochs benefit from it. Yahushua maintains the Old Testament promise without altering those profiting from it.

2. Christ maintains some Old Testament promises with extension.

When Christ fulfilled some Old Testament promises, he extended the promise to all parties related to him. For example, consider how the Messiah’s promised mission gets extended to the church. Isaiah portrayed the coming royal deliverer as speaking in first person and declaring that Yahuwah called him from the womb, named him “Israel,” and told him that his mission as Yahuwah’s servant was to save some from the people of Israel and the rest of the nations:

It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth. (Isa. 49:6 cf. Isa. 49:1, 3)

By this act, Yahuwah would fulfill his earlier promises to Abraham (Gen. 12:3; 22:18; cf. Isa. 51:1–4; 54:1–3).

Paul saw Yahushua as the most immediate referent to Isaiah’s servant-person, for he said he was “saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would come to pass: that the Christ must suffer and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles” (Acts 26:22–23). Yet Paul also saw the Old Testament promises reaching further to the mission of all who are in Christ:

We are turning to the Gentiles. For so the Lord has commanded us, saying, “I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 13:46–47)

A promise related to the messianic servant’s work has now become a commission for all the servants identified with him.

Truly every promise in Scripture is “Yes” in Christ.

3. Christ himself completes or uniquely realizes some Old Testament promises.

Some Old Testament promises Christ has already completed or uniquely realized. Such fulfillments prove that Yahuwah will certainly keep the rest of his promises (Deut. 18:22; Ezek. 33:33; cf. Rom. 8:32). For example, the prophet Micah predicted that a long-prophesied ruler in Israel would rise from Bethlehem (Mic. 5:2), and Christ exclusively fulfilled that promise at his birth (Matt. 2:6). There is only one Christ, and he was born only once. Nevertheless, his birth was to spark a [worldwide] return of “his brothers,” and as King he would “shepherd his flock in the strength of Yahuwah,” thus establishing lasting security and peace and enjoying a great name (Mic. 5:3–5). All these added promises continue to give Christians comfort and hope, and Christ’s birth in Bethlehem validates for us the certainty of his permanent and [worldwide] exaltation.

Another example is Yahuwah’s promise to Solomon that, because he asked for wisdom rather than long life, riches, or punishment on his enemies, Yahuwah would give him wisdom, as well as riches and honor (1 Kings 3:11–13). This promise was “yes” in Christ in that on the cross Yahushua purchased every divine bestowal of kindness, forbearance, and patience experienced in the realm of common grace (Gen. 8:20–21; Rom. 2:4; 3:25–26).

Nevertheless, because the promise was contingent on one man’s request and included blessing related to one man’s specific reign, the promise’s specificity indicates that this is not a promise that every believer always enjoys. Unlike Yahuwah’s promise to never leave nor forsake Joshua (Deut. 31:8; Josh. 1:5), which was true for all who followed him (Deut. 31:6), this promise was unique to Solomon himself, with others benefiting only from the wisdom, riches, and honor he himself enjoyed.

4. Christ transforms some Old Testament promises.

At times, Yahushua transforms or develops the makeup and audience of an Old Testament promise. These promises relate most directly to shadows that clarify and point to a greater substance in Christ—that is, to Old Testament patterns or types that find their climax or antitype in Yahushua.³ The land that Yahuwah promised to Abraham and his offspring as a lasting possession is of this kind (cf. Gen. 13:15; 17:8; 48:4; Ex. 32:13). The patriarch would serve as a father of a single nation who would dwell in the land of Canaan (Gen. 17:8) and oversee an even broader geopolitical sphere (Gen. 15:18). These realities are initially fulfilled in the Mosaic covenant (Ex. 2:24; 6:8; Deut. 1:8; 6:10; 9:5; 30:20; 34:4) and realized in the days of Joshua (Josh. 11:23; 21:43) and Solomon (1 Kings 4:20–21). Nevertheless, Genesis already foresees Abraham becoming the father of not just one nation but nations (Gen. 17:4–6) and anticipates his influence reaching beyond the land (singular) to lands (plural) (Gen. 26:3–4; cf. Gen. 15:18; Gen. 17:8). This would happen when the singular, royal offspring rose to possess the gate of his enemies and when, in him, all the earth’s nations counted themselves blessed (Gen. 22:17–18; 24:60; cf. Ps. 2:7). Paul cites the Genesis lands promise (Gen. 26:3) and its allusion (Gen. 22:17–18; cf. Gen. 13:15; Gen. 17:8; Gen. 24:7; Gen. 28:4) when he identifies Christ as the offspring to whom the promises were made (Gal. 3:16). The apostle then declares that all in Christ, whether Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female, “are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:28–29). Paul also stresses that the Christian’s inheritance (Gal. 3:18) was not the present Jerusalem associated with the Mosaic covenant but was instead the heavenly Jerusalem (Gal. 4:24–26), which both Isaiah and John associate with the new earth (Isa. 65:17–25; Rev. 21:1–22:5; cf. Heb. 12:22).

In the new covenant, Christ transforms the type into the antitype by fulfilling the original land promise in himself and by extending it to the whole world through his people. In Paul’s words, Yahuwah promised “Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world” (Rom. 4:13); at the consummation the new earth will fully realize the antitype. By extending the promised land to lands, Yahushua transforms Israel’s “everlasting possession” (Gen. 17:8; 48:4), realizing what Yahuwah had already foretold to the patriarchs.

Conclusion

Yahuwah’s promises are often associated with life or death and conditioned on whether his covenant partner obeys. Whereas the old Mosaic covenant was conditional and revocable (and thus temporarily considered Israel’s disobedience), the Abrahamic covenant was conditional and irrevocable. This means that Yahuwah would indeed realize all the promises but would do so only through an obedient Son (cf. Gen. 12:3; 18:18–19; 22:17–18). Representing Abraham and Israel, Yahushua actively obeyed and secured Old Testament promises for all who are in him. Christ maintains some promises without extension, maintains others with extension, completes some, and transforms others.

Isaiah declares that throughout the ages no ear has heard nor eye has seen a God like ours “who acts for those who wait for him” (Isa. 64:4). The call of the biblical text, therefore, is that we would trust in the promises of Yahuwah. Just before Paul asserts that “all the promises of Yahuwah find their Yes in [Christ]” (2 Cor. 1:20), he declares, “Yahuwah is faithful” (2 Cor. 1:18). As the psalmist declares,

Yahuwah is faithful in all his words and kind in all his works. (Ps. 145:13; cf. 2 Thess. 3:3; 2 Tim. 2:11–13; 1 Pet. 4:19; 1 John 1:9)

One day, Yahuwah will complete all his promises to us in Christ. And we will say in that day,

Behold, this is our God; we have waited for Him, that He might save us. This is Yahuwah; we have waited for Him; let us be glad and rejoice in His salvation. (Isa. 25:9)

This is a non-WLC article, adapted from Delighting in the Old Testament: Through Christ and for Christ by Jason S. DeRouchie.

We have taken out from the original article all pagan names and titles of the Father and Son, and have replaced them with the original given names. Furthermore, we have restored in the Scriptures quoted the names of the Father and Son, as they were originally written by the inspired authors of the Bible. -WLC Team