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Looking to Jesus

This post may bore some of you. Sorry if it does, but I don’t think it should! In some ways, this is an answer to a question that a member raised with me the other day, but I thought that it would be beneficial to share more broadly. Here’s the heart of the matter I want to address – why do we have a different ending to the Old Testament than Jesus had, and does it matter? Let me explain.

As you may know the Old Testament ends with these words from Malachi 4:5-6,

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.

Malachi’s words certainly anticipate the arrival of John the Baptist who will, once he steps on to the scene, announce the coming of the Lord.

What you may not know is that in the first century, the Old Testament likely concluded with these words from 2 Chronicles 36:22-23,

Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing: ‘Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, 'The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may the LORD his God be with him. Let him go up.

The Chronicler’s words end with the hope of a “house.” A “house” in which the LORD, the God of heaven, reigns. We know from the Prophet Isaiah that this end-time house of the Lord “shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it” (Isaiah 2:2).

This may be concerning to some (that there have been potentially two different endings to the Old Testament), but really it shouldn’t be. It is not that the Jewish people of Jesus’ day had different books in the Old Testament; rather, we simply have a different arrangement of the books than Jesus had. But why? No one is entirely certain, but it is possible that early Christians moved toward a different arrangement of the Old Testament given the natural flow of Malachi into Matthew’s Gospel and the arrival of John the Baptist. Arrangement doesn’t effect, inspiration, inerrancy, or authority.

Still, isn’t it wonderful that both arrangements end with the hope of the coming of Christ? We could say that the whole orientation of the Old Testament (revealed in part through these two legitimate “conclusions”) is one of expectation and anticipation. Or as Stephen Dempster in his book Dominion and Dynasty puts it while reflecting on the 2 Chronicles 36 conclusion, “As such the Story is unfinished. The long, dark night of exile awaits a sequel – the dawning of a new light that will radiate to the ends of the earth. (Dominion and Dynasty, p.227). Look, it doesn’t substantially matter which end you take, because both ends were looking to Jesus…the One who we look to in faith.