Discovering Jesus in the Old Testament | Rev. Malcolm G. Smith

After His resurrection, on the road to Emmaus, the Lord showed two of His disciples that the entire Old Testament was about Him. “And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself” (Luke 24:27). This Sunday we begin a new sermon series that attempts to replicate those disciples’ experience. With the help of the teachings for the New Church, we will discover Jesus (God in His Divine Human) throughout the Old Testament, and we will discover more about our God’s experience during His life in this world, by means of the inner meaning of stories from the Old Testament.

Readings: Numbers 24:15-17, Luke 24:13-32, Arcana Coelestia 5620:14, True Christian Religion 231

Minister: Rev. Malcolm G. Smith

Delivered June 28th, 2026 at the Bryn Athyn Cathedral in Bryn Athyn, PA.

The Bryn Athyn Church is a congregation of the General Church of the New Jerusalem, located in Bryn Athyn, PA. We are committed to helping each other draw closer to the Lord God Jesus Christ through lives of love and useful service, guided by the Old and New Testaments and the Heavenly Doctrine for the New Church (contained in the theological works of Emanuel Swedenborg). Please join us for worship on Sunday mornings; services and times can be found at brynathynchurch.org.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Good morning and welcome to the adult service. Our first reading is taken from the book of Numbers, a piece of the prophecy of Balaam. And Balaam lifted up his annunciation and said, Balaam, the son of Beor, has said, and the man whose eyes are opened has said. He has said, who heard the sayings of God, and knew the knowledge of the Most High, who beheld the vision of Shaddai, falling forward but having his eyes wide open. I shall see him, but not now. I shall observe him, but not near. There shall come a star out of Jacob, and a scepter shall arise out of Israel, and shall strike the corners of Moab, and topple all the sons of Sheff. Amen. Reading further from the Gospel of Luke, chapter twenty-four, this is after the Lord had died and then risen again, and his disciples were beginning to see him in various ways. And behold, two of them were travelling that same day to a village which is named Emmaus, which was sixty stadia or seven miles from Jerusalem. And they conversed with one another about all these things which had happened. And it came to pass as they conversed and were disputing, Jesus himself, drawing near, went with them. But their eyes were held back, so they did not know him. And he said to them, What words are these which you exchange with one another while you walk and are sad? And one of them, whose name was Cleopus, answered, answering, said to him, Are you only a sojourner in Jerusalem, and have not known the things which have come to pass there in these days? And he said to them, What things? And they said to him, The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a man, a prophet, powerful in work and word before God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him up to the judgment of death, and have crucified him. And we hoped that it was he who was going to redeem Israel. But yet with all this, today brings the third day since these things were done. And he said to them, O thoughtless and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to have entered into his glory? And beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. And they drew near to the village where they were going, and he indicated that he would go farther, and they pressed him, saying, Stay with us, for it is toward evening, and the day has declined, and he came in to stay with them. And it came to pass, as he reclined with them, taking bread, he blessed it, and breaking, gave it to them, and their eyes were opened, and they knew him, and he became invisible to them. And they said to one another, Did not our heart burn within us while he spoke to us in the way, and while he opened the scriptures to us? Amen. Reading further from the Lord's word in the teachings for the new church, first from our Canus Celestia, and then from true Christian religion. The things which have been written in the Old Testament word regarding the Lord are but few in the sense of the letter, whereas everything contained in the internal sense has to do with him, and it is from this that the word gets its holiness. Everything contained in the internal sense is what is meant in the statement that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms concerning him. Enlightenment comes only from the Lord, and to those who love truths because they are true, and make them their guide to a useful life. No others find enlightenment in the word. Enlightenment comes only from the Lord, because the word is from him, and so he is in it. The Lord is loved when one lives in accordance with his divine truths, and so useful deeds are done by their guidance, as stated in this passage of John. On that day you will know that you are in me, and I and in you. He who has my commandments and keeps them loves me, and I shall love him, and I shall show myself to him, and come to him and make my dwelling with him. Amen. Here end our lessons from the Lord's Word. Blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it. Amen. This is the first of a series of sermons titled Discovering Jesus in the Old Testament. And even if you only know a little bit about the Bible, you probably know that the stories about Jesus are in the New Testament, not in the Old Testament. So what are we talking about? Well, in the story we read from Luke, Jesus in the New Testament explained to some of his disciples how the Old Testament scriptures are about him and what he went through. It says, beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. It would have been so interesting and fascinating to have been part of that conversation on the road that day. You would never have looked at the Old Testament in the same way after that talk. Now, through what the Lord has revealed in the teachings for the new church, we are given a similar opportunity. We are taught that there is an internal sense to the Old and New Testaments, and that in that internal sense, quote, everything down to each jot or the smallest tip of any letter has to do with the Lord. And we are invited to see the Lord in his word, including in the Old Testament. So that's what we're going to attempt to do in this series of sermons. For today, we're going to use the story of the disciples on the road with Jesus to understand two major parts of what's necessary for us to see the Lord in the Old Testament. And then we'll go through two examples from the Old Testament to get a little taste of what it's like to try to find the Lord in the Old Testament. But before we do that, we have to talk first about what changed when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. To understand this, we're going to work our way through a fascinating passage from a book called Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture, Teachings About the Old New Testaments. Passage number 98. And the heading for this passage says, The Lord came into the world to fulfill everything in the Word, and to become, as a consequence, the Word in outmost expressions. Other translations say, to become the Word even on the outermost level, or even as to ultimates. The point is that something changed on the lowest level when the Lord came into the world and fulfilled everything in the Word. The passage explains, The Lord indeed had been the Word before, but in its first origins, or first principles, or inmost level. For we read, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. It was in the beginning with God. But when the Word became flesh, then the Lord became also the Word in outmost expressions. It is because of this that the Lord is called the first and the last. The Lord was the first before, but he wasn't the last in the same way until he came and fulfilled the word, which is why you get so much of that language in Revelation. I'm the first and the last, the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega. So, yes, there were prophecies of the Messiah in the Old Testament before. That didn't change, but understanding how a prophecy has been fulfilled is very different from just having a prophecy and wondering how it might be fulfilled one day. Take Balaam's prophecy that we read in our lessons. I shall see him, but not now. I shall observe him, but not near. There shall come a star out of Jacob, and a scepter shall arise out of Israel, and shall strike the corners of Moab and topple all the sons of Sheff. And it's a fuzzy, incomplete picture. Compare that with the crystal clear picture of Jesus riding into Jerusalem as a king on Palmer Sunday, and also a few days later saying to Pilate, My kingdom is not of this world. There's some hint of that in a scepter shall arise out of Israel, but it's so different to know who that prophesied ruler is and what he's actually like and what he says. The relationship between the Old Testament prophecies and Jesus fulfilling them is also expressed in John chapter 1. And of his fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. The law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. So when the Lord opened the scriptures to those disciples on the road that day, he was showing them something new, something that hadn't been there with the same fullness before. He could show them the Old Testament prophecies filled full with grace and truth, grace and truth that can only come from Jesus Christ. That's what we want to see too. So the first thing we need to be able to discover the Lord in the Old Testament is for the Lord to open the scriptures for us. At the end of the story, when the disciples were talking with each other about what had just happened, they said, Did not our hearts burn within us while he opened the scriptures to us? Without the Lord to open the scriptures, they would have just kept on discussing and arguing and being confused about what had happened and why. They needed the Lord to point out how passages from the Old Testament showed why the Christ needed to go through all that he did. There are lots of things that can be right in front of us, but we won't notice them until someone points it out to us and says, it's right there. We need the teachings for the new church to point to the Old Testament and say over and over again, the Lord's right there. And he's also right there. And, yep, he's there too. They do that for us. And they don't just make general statements saying, it's all about the Lord. They also go into wonderful detail, explaining in so many examples of what some part of the story shows us in the internal sense about the Lord our God. So we need that instruction to know what to look for and to know how to go about interpreting the literal sense of the word. Let's talk about a few techniques for doing that. The most basic and best approach is to read the teachings for the new church, particularly the work Arcana Celestia. The more we read those teachings, the more we'll have a good knowledge base for knowing what to look for and how the teachings for the new church explain where the Lord is in the Old Testament. However, there's also a simpler approach that might get you started, might help you have a rough sketch of the Lord in a particular story. You can say to yourself this phrase something like this happened to Jesus, or something like this happened inside of Jesus. Because part of what we'll see as we go through this series is that the stories in the Old Testament give us unique insights into what Jesus was experiencing on the inside at various points during his life on earth. So, for example, you might say to yourself, Joseph getting taken into slavery in Egypt, something like this must have happened to Jesus. And then you can think for a little bit about what might that have been. It's a fun process. Or you might say, the children of Israel wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, something like that happened to Jesus. Or you could say to yourself, the people getting taken away captive to Babylon, something like that must have happened inside of Jesus, and so on. In each of these cases, you can also try to think of stories or teachings from the Gospels that seem to match up with that story from the Old Testament. And in many cases, it provides additional insight. And to be clear, these will just be guesses that you're making. But guesses can be useful as long as you hold your conclusions gently, and as long as your guesses are helping you to see and love the Lord your God and to love your neighbor more. So this leads us towards the second part of what's necessary to discover Jesus in the Old Testament. Because just having knowledge and techniques is not enough. The disciples on the road had that long conversation with the Lord in which he opened the scriptures to them, but they still didn't recognize him until later on when something else happened. And we get a hint as to what might be missing in what Jesus says to the disciples when they first explain to him what's happened and why they're confused. He says to them, Oh thoughtless and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. To be thoughtless would seem to be talking about that lack of knowledge. They didn't have the right thoughts to be able to even begin the process. That's, they weren't seeing what was right in front of them. The other part, being slow of heart to believe, that sounds like something that has to do with what's going on in our heart or our will. So the second part that's necessary for us to discover Jesus in the Old Testament is that we need to be trying to do good. This is what our last lesson from the teachings for the New Church was explaining. Enlightenment comes only from the Lord and to those who love truths because they are true, and make them their guide to a useful life. No others find enlightenment in the Word. As the Lord said in John, He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me, and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and show myself to him. This reality is depicted in the story by the fact that the disciples finally recognized Jesus for who he was when he broke some bread and gave it to them. Then it says their eyes were opened and they knew him. And the teachings for the new church explain to us what this means. The meaning of this event was that the Lord comes into sight through good, but not through truth devoid of good. For bread means good that is done out of love. Actively choosing to receive goodness and love from the Lord, like the disciples received the bread that was broken by the Lord, that's what makes us able to really see our God. So if we want to see Jesus in the Old Testament, each of us individually will need to do our own work to love the Lord's truths and try to live according to them. But we'll keep this in mind as we go through some examples now about how might we take the truths that we're maybe seeing and live according to them and use them to be useful, and that will help us to have a sense of how we might see the Lord in those places. On the road to Emmaus, it says that Jesus interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself, beginning from Moses and from all the prophets. And because it mentions Moses and the prophets, we're going to take one example from each of those sections of the Old Testament. Moses can mean a number of different things, one of which is the five books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. And in future sermons, we'll look at plenty of stories from those books, and we'll look for Jesus in them. For today, we're going to look just at the first chapter of the first book of Moses, Genesis chapter 1, verse 1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God brooded over the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. Something like this happened to Jesus, or something like this happened inside of Jesus. Well, it sounds a lot like the beginning of the Gospel of John. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. The work that the Lord was doing externally was also the work that he was doing internally. He had a divine soul, and he also had taken on a lower mind from Mary that was just as dark and inclined toward evil as any of our lower minds. So as Jesus was working to create light in a spiritually dark world, he was also working to bring the divine light from within his soul into those darker parts of his lower mind. And perhaps what we can get a glimpse of in the language and imagery of the creation story is the sheer scale of the work the Lord came to do. A whole recreation needed to happen. He came into a world that was without form and void and darkness was on the face of the deep. And it was his role to say, Let there be light. How might we love these truths and use them as a guide to leading a useful life? Part of it might just be an increased sense of gratitude for the Lord coming and bringing light into this dark world, even though it was very dark. We can love him for doing that. And maybe more importantly, we can have a little bit more motivation to invite the Lord to let there be light in areas of darkness and void in our lives. Moving on to the prophets, there are a couple of different groupings of Old Testament books that are called the prophets, but for today we're going to go with the first of what are sometimes called the major prophets, Isaiah chapter 1, verse 1. And Isaiah begins with this the vision of Isaiah, the son of Amaz, which he beheld concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. Something like this happened to Jesus, or something like this happened inside of Jesus. And it's doing that Old Testament thing of listing a bunch of names, which we might not know who they are, and it can seem a little bit irrelevant. But we can know from a little bit of research that those are a bunch of kings of Judah, and most of them are bad. And we don't know what all of them mean in the internal sense, but we do know that they mean something that the Lord had to deal with. And maybe it's like Jesus being born in the days of Herod the king, born into a time when something not so good is ruling. A couple of verses further on in Isaiah, it says this an ox knows his owner, and a donkey the crib of his master. Israel does not know, my people do not understand. That again sounds like John chapter one. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own did not receive him. A few verses later, Jehovah tells the people through Isaiah that he is done with their empty animal sacrifices. He says, To what purpose has the multitude of your sacrifices to me, says Jehovah? I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the feed of fat of fed cattle. I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or goats. And this sounds very much like what Jesus was often saying to the scribes and Pharisees and other religious leaders, trying to help them see that religion was not about just doing these external rituals. It's interesting to imagine Jesus reading the book of Isaiah at some point in his childhood, and maybe it was by means of reading chapters like Isaiah 1 that he came to understand the problems with what the religious leaders of his time were doing. Maybe it was also from chapters like this that Jesus and John the Baptist before him learned about the importance of calling people to repent and be baptized. Because a few verses further on, Jehovah says this to the people Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes, cease to do evil, learn to do good. So, how might we love these truths and use them as a guide to leading a useful life? There is something useful about seeing that the message of Jesus to his people is one and the same with the message of Jehovah to His people, which is because Jesus was Jehovah come into the world to save people. And we can love our God for continuing to reach out to us flawed human beings over thousands of years, continuing to call us to a better way of being, even as we continue to get off track in exactly the same way that human beings have been doing for forever. But maybe when we see the same goodness being offered to us in the Old and in the New Testaments, we can be more willing to take it into us and make it part of us. Maybe we can be willing to cease to do evil and learn to do good. The Old Testament can be quite hard to understand, and it might seem largely irrelevant in today's world. And what's going on in today's world can also be quite hard to understand. But there's hope for us to have a different experience using the approach that we talked about today. Before the Lord opened those scriptures to his disciples, they were confused. They didn't understand what had happened or why it had happened, and they were discussing and disputing and getting nowhere. Have you been in those conversations? They were, as the Lord said, thoughtless and slow of heart to believe, and aren't we all? They would never have thought that the Old Testament would help them understand what was going on, but the Lord helped them to discover something different, and he can help us too. Like the disciples, our hearts can burn within us as he opens the scriptures to us, and like the disciples, we can ultimately come to recognize our God, the Lord Jesus Christ, in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, and in our lives. Amen.