Does the Old Testament Really Point to Jesus? - Paperback

Does the Old Testament Really Point to Jesus? — A Concise Guide to Finding Jesus in All of Scripture

He is never mentioned by name.

Not once in the first thirty-nine books of the Bible does the name Jesus appear. No gospel accounts. No letters from Paul. No book of Revelation. Just the long, rich, sometimes bewildering narrative of creation, covenant, law, prophecy, poetry, and history that makes up the Old Testament — and the question that every honest reader eventually asks:

Is Jesus really in here? And if so — where?

This is not a question only sceptics ask. It is the question that many sincere, Bible-reading Christians quietly wrestle with — people who believe that the whole Bible points to Jesus but who find it genuinely difficult to see how. Who read the laws of Leviticus or the battles of Joshua or the visions of Ezekiel and struggle to find the connection to the Jesus of the Gospels that they have been told is there.

Does the Old Testament Really Point to Jesus? by David King is a concise, accessible, and genuinely illuminating guide that answers that question — not with vague assurances but with clear, specific, biblically grounded explanation of exactly how the first thirty-nine books of Scripture witness to Jesus as the Messiah and the fulfilment of God’s entire redemptive purpose.

Starting Where Jesus Himself Started

One of the most important and most often overlooked starting points for understanding the Old Testament’s witness to Jesus is what Jesus himself said about it.

He told the disciples on the road to Emmaus — beginning with Moses and all the prophets — that all of Scripture was about him. He told the Pharisees that the Scriptures they searched so diligently testified on his behalf. He told his disciples that everything written about him in the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms had to be fulfilled.

Jesus did not approach the Old Testament as a collection of ancient religious literature that happened to contain some prophecies about him. He approached it as a book that was, from first to last, about him — a book whose entire narrative was building toward the moment of his coming, his death, his resurrection, and the kingdom he would establish.

Does the Old Testament Really Point to Jesus? begins exactly where Jesus began — with his own understanding of how the Old Testament witnesses to him — and builds from that foundation a clear, accessible, and genuinely enriching account of what that witness looks like in practice.

Six Ways the Old Testament Points to Jesus

At the heart of this booklet are six specific, biblically grounded ways that the Old Testament points to Jesus — each one opening up a different dimension of the rich, multifaceted connection between the two Testaments:

Promises of Redemption From the first promise in Genesis 3 — that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent’s head — to the great prophetic announcements of Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the Old Testament is full of promises. Promises of a coming deliverer, a coming king, a coming kingdom, a coming age of restoration and renewal. David King shows how Jesus is the specific, personal, historical fulfilment of every one of those promises — not a vague fulfilment of general religious hopes but the precise answer to the specific promises God made.

Jesus and Old Testament Law The law of Moses is one of the parts of the Old Testament that Christians often find most difficult to connect to Jesus. What does the sacrificial system have to do with the cross? What do the food laws have to do with the kingdom of God? King shows how Jesus relates to the Old Testament law not as its abolisher but as its fulfiller — the one who embodied its deepest intention, bore its curse on behalf of his people, and brought about the reality to which every regulation and sacrifice and ceremony was always pointing.

Jesus and Old Testament Wisdom The wisdom literature of the Old Testament — Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job, the Psalms — reflects deeply on what it means to live well in God’s world, to fear the Lord, and to find the wisdom that the world cannot provide. King shows how Jesus is the wisdom of God incarnate — the one in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden, and who fulfils and embodies everything that the wisdom literature was pointing toward.

Old Testament Types of Jesus Perhaps the most fascinating of the six ways is the concept of typology — the way that certain Old Testament persons, events, and institutions function as patterns or prefigurations of Jesus and his work. Adam as the first man whose failure Jesus reverses. Moses as the deliverer and lawgiver whose ministry Jesus surpasses. David as the king whose throne Jesus inherits and whose kingdom Jesus establishes forever. The Passover lamb whose blood protected Israel pointing to the Lamb of God whose blood saves the world. King opens up these connections with the clarity and the sense of discovery that makes typology one of the most rewarding ways of reading Scripture.

Old Testament Prophecy Fulfilled in Jesus The specific, detailed, historically verifiable prophecies of the Old Testament that find their fulfilment in Jesus — his birth in Bethlehem, his entry into Jerusalem on a donkey, the betrayal for thirty pieces of silver, the details of his crucifixion, his resurrection — constitute one of the most powerful evidences of the divine unity of Scripture and of the identity of Jesus as the Messiah it announces.

Old Testament Themes Completed in Jesus Beyond specific prophecies and types, the Old Testament is structured around great themes — exile and return, creation and new creation, covenant and kingdom, sacrifice and atonement, priesthood and temple — that find their ultimate completion and their deepest meaning in Jesus. King shows how these themes converge on Christ in ways that illuminate both the Old Testament and the Gospels.

Why It Matters

The final section of the booklet addresses a question that is just as important as the how: why does it matter?

Why should believers care whether Jesus is understood as the fulfilment of the Old Testament? What difference does it make to the ordinary Christian whether they can see Jesus in Leviticus or the Psalms or Isaiah?

King’s answer is both theologically serious and personally compelling:

It matters for reading Scripture well — because the Old Testament cannot be properly understood without seeing how it points to Jesus, and the New Testament cannot be properly understood without seeing how it fulfils the Old.

It matters for knowing Jesus more deeply — because every Old Testament type and prophecy and promise that finds its fulfilment in him adds another dimension to our understanding of who he is and what he has done.

It matters for the church’s witness — because a church that understands the whole Bible as one unified, Christ-centred story is a church that can proclaim that story with the confidence, the coherence, and the depth that the gospel deserves.

What This Booklet Will Help You Do

• Understand clearly how and why the Old Testament points to Jesus — through six specific, biblically grounded ways that open up the connection between the Testaments
• Learn from Jesus’s own understanding of how the Old Testament witnesses to him — the most authoritative starting point for reading Scripture Christologically
• Discover the concept of Old Testament typology — how persons, events, and institutions in the Old Testament prefigure and point forward to Jesus
• Understand how Jesus fulfils Old Testament law, wisdom, prophecy, and the great themes of Scripture in ways that illuminate both Testaments
• Develop the habit of reading the Old Testament with eyes that look for Jesus — and find every part of Scripture richer and more personally meaningful as a result
• Answer the questions of curious friends, family members, or new believers who wonder whether and how Jesus is present in the first thirty-nine books of the Bible
• Understand why it matters — for personal faith, for biblical literacy, and for the church’s mission — that Jesus is seen as the fulfilment of the whole Old Testament

Who Should Read This Book?

Does the Old Testament Really Point to Jesus? is ideal for:

• New believers who are beginning to read the Old Testament and want to understand how it connects to the Jesus they have come to know
• Long-standing Christians who have always found the Old Testament difficult or confusing and want a clear, accessible guide to reading it through a Christ-centred lens
• Curious seekers and thoughtful sceptics who want to understand why Christians claim that a book that never mentions Jesus by name is fundamentally about him
• Pastors and church leaders wanting a reliable, accessible, 9Marks-quality resource to give to new members, curious enquirers, or anyone wanting to understand biblical theology better
• Small groups wanting a short, discussion-rich, personally enriching study on one of the most foundational questions in biblical interpretation
• Sunday school teachers and children’s workers wanting to understand how to teach the Old Testament in a way that consistently points to Jesus
• Christians in India wanting to understand more deeply the unity of Scripture and the way the whole Bible — Old Testament and New — tells one coherent, Christ-centred story

About the Church Questions Series

Does the Old Testament Really Point to Jesus? is part of the 9Marks Church Questions series — a collection of short, accessible booklets that answer the questions that curious Christians and thoughtful seekers most commonly ask about the faith, the church, and the Christian life. Each booklet in the series is:

• Biblically grounded — rooted in careful attention to what Scripture actually teaches
• Accessible — written for ordinary readers without requiring prior theological training
• Concise — short enough to read in a single sitting, substantive enough to genuinely inform and challenge

Other titles in the Church Questions series include:

• What Should I Look For in a Church?
• How Can I Be Sure I’m Saved?
• Is God Really Sovereign?

The Book That Was Always About Him

Jesus told his disciples on the road to Emmaus that everything written about him in Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms had to be fulfilled. And as he opened the Scriptures to them and showed them what they had always contained, something extraordinary happened: their hearts burned within them.

That is the experience that awaits every reader who genuinely encounters the Old Testament as the book it actually is — not a collection of ancient religious texts with some predictive prophecies scattered through it, but a single, unified, magnificent narrative that has been pointing, from its very first page, to the one who stands at the centre of all history.

Does the Old Testament Really Point to Jesus? is an invitation to that encounter — and to the heart-burning discovery that the book you thought you knew was always, from the very beginning, about him.