varies among commentators because there are some psalms that the NT quotes, but that do not make the messianic list: Pss 31, 35, 41, 78, 102.35 My concern in this book is with psalms that the NT does not quote (but may nonetheless allude to), and my thesis is that we should read these messianically. Some might object that it is inconsistent to speak of christological interpretation of psalms that are not mentioned in the NT (the explicit examples argument earlier), but not if Jesus has anything to say about it; he declared that all the Scriptures witness to him (Luke 24:25–27, 44–47; John 5:39). I will interact in more detail with specific passages later, but suffice it to say here that at a minimum, they reveal that the OT is ultimately about Christ and cannot be reduced to a select number of messianic proof texts explicitly evidenced in the NT.
The NT basis for christological interpretation of the OT comes from the mouth of Jesus himself:
And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. (Luke 24:25–27)
Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything 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 said to them, “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 24:44–47)
You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. (John 5:39–40)
The first two passages are the most relevant to this study because they specifically mention the prophets and/or Psalms.36 The first is in the context of Jesus talking with two disciples—one named Cleopas and the other anonymous—on the road to Emmaus after the resurrection. Their faces are downcast; their dreams dashed because they were hoping that Jesus was the liberator of Israel. In their way of thinking, the crucifixion of Jesus proves otherwise. Yet they do not realize with whom they are talking as they travel on the road—none other than the resurrected Christ. We know better as later readers of Luke’s Gospel. We know it is Jesus himself because Luke tells us so (Luke 24:15).
I sometimes think that as Christians, who have nearly 2,000 years of Christian reflection on the story of Jesus, expect everyone to understand the story as clearly as we do today. We have the benefit of a completed NT canon that provides supporting evidence to substantiate Jesus’s claims about his divinity and mission. We also have the benefit of knowing that the fruit of Jesus’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension is a worldwide church committed to the proclamation of the gospel story. But the disciples on the road to Emmaus have none of these retrospective insights. As a matter of fact, because they do not realize that Jesus has been raised from the dead, their perspective is vastly different from ours today, as we stake our very faith on that claim as a historic reality. We read the story with post-resurrection lenses. The Emmaus disciples still had hazy crucifixion lenses on their eyes, thinking the cross was the end of the Jesus story. They understand the story only in terms of what happened on Friday, but Jesus wants them to understand it also in connection with what happened on Sunday. Again, we suppose that they should have been able to “figure it out”; that the OT testifies to the suffering, death, and resurrection of Israel’s Messiah. Jesus even says as much by noting their slowness of heart to believe the Scriptures (24:25). However, they did not understand from the Scriptures the narrative of the gospel of a crucified and risen Savior. To be sure, it is not a matter of knowing more biblical content, but of having the proper interpretive framework. For Richard Hays, “The puzzled Emmaus disciples have all the facts but lack the pattern that makes them meaningful.”37 Their knowledge of the OT was deficient regarding its relationship to the person and work of Christ.
Therefore, the resurrected Lord gives them a crash course in hermeneutics. Israel’s Scriptures testify to his mission of redemption—Moses, all the Prophets, all the Scriptures coalesce around his identity. Luke’s use of the word “all” in 24:27 emphasizes the comprehensive nature of the OT witness to Christ. It is worth noting that Luke does not identify any specific passages as messianic per se. While it is safe to assume that his second volume, the book of Acts, records several of these on the lips of the apostles and their associates (e.g., Acts 2:25 [Ps 16:8–11]; 2:34–35 [Ps 110:1]; 3:22–23 [Deut 18:15, 18, 19]; 3:25–26 [Gen 22:18; 26:4]; 4:11 [Ps 118:22]; 4:25–26 [Ps 2:1–2]; 8:32–33 [Isa 53:7–8]; 13:33 [Ps 2:7]; 13:34 [Isa 55:3]; 13:35 [Ps 16:10]), the emphasis here is on the totality of the Scriptures as a witness to Christ’s sufferings and glorification. Granted, the texts in Acts do in fact span from the books of Moses38 to the prophetic corpus, but not all the Prophets are represented, nor obviously are all the Scriptures. Therefore, it is better to understand Luke’s comment as suggesting “the whole narrative of God’s dealings with Israel unlocks God’s purposes that culminate in Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection.”39 Lest we reduce the OT to a handful of messianic passages, we should recognize in it a larger, unified story of God’s redemption of humanity. Tremper Longman III and Al Groves comprehend the OT story as a grand story pointing to Christ:
Jesus did not arrive unannounced; his coming was declared in advance in the Old Testament, not just in explicit prophecies of the Messiah but by means of the stories of all of the events, characters, and circumstances on the Old Testament. God was telling a larger, overarching, unified story. From the account of creation in Genesis to the final stories of the return from exile, God progressively unfolded his plan of salvation. And the Old Testament account of that plan always pointed in some way to Christ.40
The second passage, Luke 24:44–47, is most relevant to this study. Iain Duguid calls it a “summary of Jesus’s master class in Old Testament interpretation.”41 In the context of Luke 24, the scene shifts from Emmaus to Jerusalem, from two disciples to the eleven apostles (minus Judas). They are not a little confused about the events of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. Although Jesus has repeatedly taught them the necessity of his passion and his subsequent resurrection in Luke’s Gospel (9:22, 44; 13:33; 17:25; 18:31–33), they still do not understand. One might think that seeing the resurrected Lord would be enough to give them unobstructed clarity on the teaching of Scripture regarding his person and mission, but this is apparently not the case. Luke reports that while in the very presence of Jesus they were “troubled,” and “doubt” had arisen in their hearts (24:38). Jesus once again gives a lesson in biblical hermeneutics. Seeming surprised at their lack of understanding of the Scriptures and their testimony to the Messiah’s mission, Jesus reminds them that he has already taught them previously during his earthly ministry about his relationship to the Scriptures: “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you . . .” (24:44). In other words, this is not the first time they have heard from Jesus a scriptural description of his mission. Being Jesus’s inner circle as his chosen apostles, Luke may be implying that they are (or should be) more informed than the two disciples in Emmaus. Therefore, Luke’s description of their unbelief is thick with irony. He gives essentially the same hermeneutical lesson as earlier in the chapter on christological interpretation: the entirety of the OT is a witness to Christ, especially his sufferings and resurrection (v. 46). Steve Moyise notes, “It is clear Luke believes that all of the Scriptures point to Jesus, and that during his final days on earth he explained this to his disciples. More specifically, he believes that Jesus explained how the Scriptures speak of a messiah who must first suffer
