The Unfolding

Mystery

DISCOVERING CHRIST

IN THE

OLD TESTAMENT

Second Edition

WITH STUDY AND APPLICATION QUESTIONS

Edmund P. Clowney

P.O. BOX 817 · PHILLIPSBURG · NEW JERSEY 08865-0817

First Edition © 1988 by Edmund P. Clowney

Second edition © 2013 by The Edmund P. Clowney Legacy Corp

Phillipsburg, NJ

Unless otherwise identified, Scripture quotations in this publication are from the Holy Bible: New International Version (niv). © 1973, 1978, 1984, International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.

Other versions used: the Revised Standard Version (rsv), © 1946, 1952, 1971, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, used by permission, all rights reserved; the New King James Version (nkjv), © 1979, 1980, 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers; and the King James Version (kjv).

ISBN: 978-1-59638-892-5 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-59638-893-2 (ePub)

ISBN: 978-1-59638-894-9 (Mobi)

Cover images: The disciples encounter Jesus on the road to Emmaus, engraving by Gustave Doré © istockphoto.com / ivan-96; paper © istockphoto.com / Ursula Alter

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Clowney, Edmund P.

The unfolding mystery : discovering Christ in the Old Testament : with study and application questions / Edmund P. Clowney. -- Second Edition.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-59638-892-5 (pbk.)

1. Typology (Theology) 2. Bible. New Testament--Relation to the Old Testament. I. Title.

BT225.C57 2013

232’.12--dc23

2013019239

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter One: The New Man

Chapter Two: The Son of the Woman

Chapter Three: The Son of Abraham

Chapter Four: The Heir of the Promise

Chapter Five: The Lord and His Servant

Chapter Six: The Rock of Moses: Is the Lord among Us?

Chapter Seven: The Lord’s Anointed

Chapter Eight: The Prince of Peace

Chapter Nine: The Lord to Come

Index of Scripture

Foreword

The Bible is a unity. That is, perhaps, the most amazing of all the amazing things that are true of it. It consists of sixty-six separate units, written over more than a thousand years against a wide variety of cultural backgrounds, by people who for the most part worked independently of each other and show no awareness that their books would become canonical Scripture. The books themselves are of all kinds: prose jostling poetry, hymns rubbing shoulders with history, sermons with statistics, letters with liturgies, lurid visions with a love song.

Why do we bind up this collection between the same two covers, call it The Holy Bible, and treat it as one book? One justification for doing this—one of many—is that the collection as a whole, once we start to explore it, proves to have an organic coherence that is simply stunning. Books written centuries apart seem to have been designed for the express purpose of supplementing and illuminating each other. There is throughout one leading character (God the Creator), one historical perspective (world redemption), ...