If God Wrote a Book, What Would It Be Like?

Read Matthew 2:13-23

      On the simplest level, Old Testament prophecies can appear as straightforward predictions of future events.  Micah’s prediction of Bethlehem as Messiah birthplace is a case in point (2:5-6).  But in today’s passage, Hosea 11:1 is said to be fulfilled by Joseph’s and Mary’s flight to and return from Egypt with their infant son.

      But read Hosea 11:1 – it does not appear to be a prophecy at all!  Rather, as it will unfold in Matthew’s gospel, Israel’s entire history and religious practice (including their being called out of Egyptian slavery) has prophetic significance for events in the life of Christ.  The history of the chosen nation foreshadowed the life of Christ in ways unknown to even the prophets themselves, and unrevealed until the time of fulfillment.  Amazing.

      If the omniscient, omnipotent, sovereign God were to write a book, we would expect it to be a book that exceeded the limits of human knowledge.  We might expect to be astonished at how often we discovered new layers of meaning in passages we have read a hundred times, and we might find that we can study it our whole lives and never exhaust its lessons.  Since God controls the events of human history, we might learn to be watchful for events in our own lifetimes to cast new light on old prophetic utterances. 

      Such is the Bible we have.  It is too wonderful for us, too high, and we cannot attain to it (Psalm 139:6).  Yet it is God’s gift to us.