“Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.”
(Psalm 119:18)
I am amazed at some of the videos I see online these days. Some youtube channels are dedicated to exploring and discussing the minutest details of various movies and video games. One content creator posts videos featuring the interesting things he discovered in the Marvel movies when he slowed their playback speed. Another features strange but almost undetectable glitches in popular video games. Still others analyze various movie franchises and speculate about plot and character developments in future installments based upon minute details discovered in previous films. There is nothing inherently sinful about doing this kind of thing of course. Everyone needs some “downtime;” we all need to give our minds a rest from the constant barrage of serious stuff we need to think about. I do wonder, however, what these video makers would discover if they focused their attention on the Bible. With their care and concern for detail, what amazing themes and connections would they see running through the sacred text? Would they perceive that Adam and Jesus are actually type and anti-type respectively? Would they see that, as Adam estranged humanity from God by his disobedience in a garden at a tree, Jesus reconciled humanity to God by His obedience in a garden at a tree? (Genesis 2:16-16; 3; John 19:41; Romans 5:12-21; Philippians 2:5-10). I wonder if they would catch the amazing similarities between God’s great deliverer, Moses, and the One Whose coming he predicted (Deuteronomy 18:18-19; Acts 3:22). Would they note that just as Moses was rescued as a child from the hands of Pharaoh, Jesus was rescued as a child from Herod? (Exodus 2; Matthew 2) I wonder if they would they see parallels between Moses, who fled Egypt but returned to save his people from slavery, with Jesus Who fled Israel but returned to save His people from their sins (Exodus 3-4; Matthew 1:21; 2:21-23). I wonder how many shadows and types of the Lord they would see in the Tabernacle and Temple, along with their furniture, their attending priests and their sacrifices. Would they see Jesus prefigured in the burnt offering, His words as cleansing water and the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit in the Laver? Would they see Jesus in the candlestick as the Light of the World, or as the Bread of Life in the Showbread? I wonder if they would see the Lord’s intercessory ministry for us in the Altar of Incense, or the body of Jesus, which, like the veil separating the Holy Place from the Most Holy, was torn and broken (Hebrews 9-10; Matthew 27:51). Inside the Ark of the Covenant was the Law, a pot of manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded. I wonder if our probing researchers would have seen in these things Jesus the living Word, the true Bread from heaven, and the Lord’s resurrection from the dead. Whatever the case, let us search the scriptures with renewed interest, trusting in God to reveal marvelous and wondrous things as yet unseen.
God bless you,
Pastor John
English