Mar. 3 Daily Question

What does Scripture mean by “fulfillment”? (Use the citation from Hosea as an example in your answer.) Second, identify anything you can see in these opening chapters of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke that addresses the elements of the Old Testament narrative that we discussed last class.

In terms of scripture, it is easy to think of fulfillment as the meeting or satisfying of something foretold to come in future tense, but it is rather the case that fulfillment is the re-occurrence and discernment of a pattern, namely that of God’s actions, throughout history. It is not to be mistaken, however, as history repeating itself, rather as God persisting in his will to deliver in a form whose shape we are able to recognize. An example of this is found in Hosea, fulfilled by Matthew, in which during the exodus, where “out of Egypt,” God’s son was called, God’s son was called out of Egypt once more (Hos 11:1-2). It was not necessarily the case that the Exodus hinted that God’s deliverance would occur via Egypt, rather that God saving Mary, Joseph, and Jesus from Herod orchestrated in a fashion that followed the shape of what had already happened. With this in mind, it is important to say that the New Testament is a fulfillment of the old. As it is even said in Matthew, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill” (Mt 5:17). Looking at the old testament with the new, and many of the promises we can start to see many things becoming parallels. Jesus, legal son of Joseph, a descendant of David, is a fulfillment of the promise that God made to David of building him a house with an heir on the throne. Jesus is the “king of the Jews” (Mt 27:37), a blessing to the nations, and the fulfillment of the promise made to not only David, but to Abraham. The same is seen for the exile of the Israelites on their way to Babylon where it is said that a highway would be made straight for God in the wilderness (Is 40:3) where that passage comes to fulfillment through the parallel of paths being made straight on the way to John the Baptist, where many people of Israel were brought back to the Lord their God in both instances. What can be taken from this is not only that God’s providence is something that can be look to, but also that things in the biblical past can be looked as things open to becoming fulfilled.