3 March

The idea of fulfillment in the scripture is described as anything that gets us closer to God or a step forth in the path of Israel in God’s ultimate divine plan. Hosea said “Out of Egypt” to mean that the Israelis were growing further and further from him (thus going in the opposite direction of fulfillment. This happened when Israel was corrupt way before the story of Jesus. Yet, in Mathew’s introduction to Jesus’s narrative, we can see that he uses the same exact phrases when he describes the fleeing of the Holy family from the pharoah who wanted to kill the baby. This can be interepreted not as to the character of Jesus in the narrative but to the act of him getting away from Israel because of threats to his life. In that sense, we can see a perfect parellel if we consider Jesus the son of God. His physical movement away from the Israelis is similar to Israel’s past sinning since in both cases the two actions are leading to a furthering from God himself. In that sense we can see that mathew through the idea of fulfillment is making a case Jesus being the son of God.

In both Mathew 1 and Luke 1, there are many hints to the Old testament. In Luke, there is a major focus on the idea of salvation. He puts forth the idea that the time has come where Israel will be removed from the many falls and eternally be risen through the narrative of Jesus Christ. This is shown through Zechariah’s chant and Elisabat’s rejoicement when she encounters Mary. In Mathew, he presents an account for the connection between the Old testament and the character of Jesus by linking Abraham to his disciples leading to Jesus himself. He emphasized David since the covenant that we talked about in the last class specifically said that the new King will be of David’s heritage.