Основное содержание Библии

The basic, central idea of ​​all the inspired biblical Scriptures, the idea around which all the others are concentrated, which gives them meaning and power, and without which the unity and beauty of the Bible would be unthinkable, is the doctrine of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As the subject of the aspirations of the Old Testament, as the alpha and omega of the entire New Testament, Jesus Christ, according to the word of the Apostle, appeared as the cornerstone on the basis of which, through the apostles and prophets, the building of our salvation was laid and completed (Eph 2.20). Jesus Christ is the subject of both Testaments: the Old - as His expectation, the New - as the fulfillment of this expectation, and both together - as a single, internal connection. This can be revealed and confirmed through a range of external and internal evidence. The evidence of the first type, that is, external, includes the testimony of our Lord about Himself, the testimony of His disciples, the Jewish tradition and the Christian tradition. Denouncing the unbelief and hard-heartedness of the Jewish scribes and Pharisees, our Lord Jesus Christ himself repeatedly referred to the testimony of the “law and the prophets” about him, that is, the Old Testament scriptures in general. Search the Scriptures, for through them you think you have eternal life, and they testify of Me (John 5.39); for if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, because he wrote about Me (John 5.46), - said, for example, the Lord to the blinded Jewish lawyers after the famous miracle of healing the paralytic at the sheep's font. The Lord revealed this truth even more clearly and in more detail to His disciples, appearing to them after the resurrection, as the Evangelist Luke testifies to this: and beginning from Moses, from all the prophets he explained to them what was said about Him in all the Scriptures... And he said to them: this is what I spoke about while I was still with you, that everything must be fulfilled that was written about Me in the law of Moses and in the prophets and psalms (Lk 24.27, 44). In addition to such a general statement, the Lord often points out specific cases of Old Testament images and prophecies related to His life, teaching, suffering on the cross and death. Thus, for example, He notes the educational significance of the bronze serpent hanged by Moses in the wilderness (John 3.14), points to the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy about the “acceptable year of the Lord” (Luke 4.17–21; cf. Is 61.1–2), speaks of the fulfillment of all the ancient prophecies concerning His atoning sacrifice (Matt 26.54 and Lk 22.37) and even on the cross, at the moment of suffering, he pronounces His deeply touching and calmly majestic: it is finished (John 19.30), thereby letting us know that all that, being ordained from the ages, was spoken through the prophets for many hours and in various ways (Heb. 1.1). Like their Divine Teacher, the evangelists and apostles constantly refer to the Bible, drawing full hand from the wealth of its messianic treasures and thereby establishing complete harmony of both Testaments, united around the Person of the Messiah - Christ. So, all the evangelists - these four independent life writers of Jesus Christ - so often refer to the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies that they even developed special formulas for this: and all this happened, that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet would be fulfilled, or simply: then what was spoken through the prophet would be fulfilled, that what was spoken through the prophets would be fulfilled, or else: and the word of Scripture and a whole series of other similar expressions would be fulfilled. All other New Testament writers, starting with the book, no less often refer to the Old Testament Scripture and thereby establish its closest internal connection with the New Testament. Acts and ending with the Apocalypse. Not being able to exhaust here the entire abundance of such specific and clear references, we will indicate for example only some of them, the most characteristic: such, for example, are two speeches of the Apostle Peter: one after the descent of the Holy Spirit, the other after the healing of the lame, which are narrated in Acts 2-3 and which are full of Old Testament quotations (Joel - Acts 2.16-21; David - Acts 2.25–28, 34–35; Moses – Acts 3.22–23); The conclusion of the last speech is especially remarkable: and all the prophets, from Samuel and after him, no matter how many of them spoke, also foretold these days (Acts 3.24). No less important in this regard is the speech of Archdeacon Stephen, which gives in a condensed outline the entire Old Testament history of the preparation of the Jews to accept the Messiah Christ (Acts 7.2–56). The same book of Acts contains a great many other similar testimonies: and we preach to you that God fulfilled the promise given to the fathers to us their children by raising Jesus (Acts 13.32). We preach to you, said the apostles, testifying to small and great things, saying nothing except what the prophets and Moses said would happen (Acts 26.22). In a word, the entire teaching of the apostles about the New Testament Kingdom of God boiled down mainly to what they assured about Jesus from the law of Moses and the prophets (Acts 28.23). Of the many New Testament references establishing a connection with Old Testament events and prophecies contained in the epistles of the holy apostles, we will cite a few examples only from the epistles of the Apostle Paul, the same Paul who, as Saul, was himself formerly a Pharisee, a zealot of paternal traditions and a deep expert in the Old Testament. And so, this holy Apostle says that the end of the law is Christ (Rom. 10.4), that the law was for us a teacher (παιδάγογος) to Christ (Gal. 3.24), that believers are built on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, having Jesus Christ Himself as the chief cornerstone (Eph. 2.20), that all the Old Testament types are described for our instruction (1 Cor. 10.11), that the entire Old Testament with all its religious ceremonies and cult was only a shadow of the future, and the body is in Christ (Col. 2.17), a shadow of future blessings, and not the very image of things (Heb. 10.1) and that, finally, at the basis of the entire history of the economy of our salvation lies Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and forever (Heb. 13.8). If we move from the sacred books of the New Testament to the ancient Jewish interpretations of Scripture, to the Targums, Talmud, Midrash and the writings of the first rabbis until the 12th century. inclusive, we will see that the constant and unchangeable common Jewish tradition of interpreting the Bible was the desire to look everywhere and find indications of the Messiah and His time. Such passion sometimes even reached the extreme, as can be seen from the following rabbinical saying: “the prophets exclusively preached about the joy of the days of the Messiah” (the idea of ​​a suffering Messiah-Redeemer was forgotten); but it deeply correctly understood the truth that, indeed, at the basis of all Scripture lies the idea of ​​the Messiah Christ. “One cannot wish to apply everything directly to the Messiah,” says St. Augustine, “but passages that do not directly refer to Him serve as the basis for those who proclaim Him. Just as in a lyre all the strings sound in accordance with their nature, and the tree on which they are stretched gives them its own special coloring of sound, so does the Old Testament: it sounds like a harmonious lyre about the name and the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.” 4 The above subtle comparison of Blessed Augustine perfectly characterizes the patristic view of the relationship between the Old and New Testaments. Evidence of their close, inextricable connection, based on the Person of the Messiah Christ, has been continuous since the very first centuries of Christianity: the Apostle Barnabas wrote about this in his “Epistle”, Saint Justin the Philosopher in his “Conversation with Tryphon the Jew”, Tertullian in his essay “Against the Jews”, Saint Irenaeus of Lyons in his essay “Against Heresies”, apologists Aristides, Athenagoras, etc. The writers of the Alexandrian school especially thoroughly and deeply revealed this connection, and Origen stood out among them, who, for example, said that “the sayings of Scripture are the clothing of the Word... that in the Scriptures the Word (Λόγος - Son of God) was always flesh to live among us.” Of the subsequent holy Fathers, these thoughts were developed in detail in their remarkable commentaries by Saints John Chrysostom, Basil the Great, Ephraim the Syrian, Blessed Jerome, Blessed Augustine and Saint Ambrose of Milan. The latter, for example, wrote: “The cup of wisdom is in your hands. This cup is double - the Old and New Testaments. Drink them, because in both you drink Christ. Drink Christ, for He is the fountain of life." 5 Moving now to internal evidence, that is, to the very content of the holy books, we are finally convinced that our Lord Jesus Christ constitutes the main point and central idea of ​​the entire Bible. This great book, compiled by so many and varied authors, separated from each other by very significant periods of time, under the influence of very different civilizations, represents at the same time a remarkable unity and amazing integrity. Thanks mainly to the gradual development in it of the same messianic idea. “The New Testament is hidden in the Old, the Old is revealed in the New,” said medieval theologians, based on the words of St. Augustine 6 That Jesus Christ and His work constitute the sole theme of all the New Testament Scriptures is self-evident and requires no proof. But that all New Testament history is based on Old Testament history is perhaps not so obvious. And, however, this is just as certain, to prove which it is enough to refer only to two Gospel genealogies of Christ, in which an abbreviation of the entire Old Testament history is given in its relation to the personality of the promised Messiah Christ (Matt 1.1-16 and Lk 3.23-38). But we can consistently trace the development of the messianic idea in the books of the Old Testament. The promise of the Deliverer, given to the fallen ancestors back in paradise, is the first link in that continuous chain of Old Testament messianic prophecies that began with Adam and ended with Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist. That is why it is called the first gospel (Gen. 3.15). Since the era of Noah, this promise has been defined somewhat closer and more precisely: only the children of Shem are called the seed of the woman, to whom the story of redemption is dated (Gen. 9.26). This circle narrows even more from the era of Abraham, the father of God’s chosen Jewish people, in whose seed (i.e. in Jesus Christ, according to the interpretation of the Apostle Paul - Gal 3.16) the salvation of all other nations is proclaimed (Gen. 12.3; Gen. 18.18). Subsequently, the race of Jacob was separated from the descendants of Abraham (Gen. 27.27); later Jacob himself, in the spirit of prophetic insight, gives a special blessing to his son Judah (Gen. 49.8 et seq.). And the further time went, the closer and more honestly the various features of the Messianic ministry were defined: thus, the prophet Balaam speaks about His royal power (Numbers 24.17), Moses speaks about His threefold ministry: royal, high priestly and prophetic (Deut. 18.18–19), about the origin of the Messiah from the royal family of David (2 Sam. 7.12–14), about His birth in Bethlehem (Mic. 5.2) and from the Virgin Mother (Is. 7.14), about His solemn entry into the temple of Jerusalem (Mal. 3.1), about the various, even small circumstances of His suffering and death on the cross (Is. 53; Ps. 21.17–19, 39:7–9, 40:9–10, 68:22; Zech 11.12, etc.), about His glorious resurrection (Isa. 53.9–21; Ps 15:10, 19:6–7, 40:11, 67:2, etc.), about the coming of His blessed kingdom (Ps 21:28–32, 44:7, 14–17, 71.7–19; Joel 2.28; Is.2, Is.35:1–2, 10, 61:1–2) and His terrible second coming (Dan 7:25, 12:7; Zech 14:2–3, 9, etc.). It can be positively said that there is not a single important feature of the era and life of the Messiah that was not foreshadowed in one way or another in the Old Testament, either in the form of a clear prophecy, or under the veil of symbols and types; and the prophet Isaiah even received the title of “Old Testament evangelist” for the amazing accuracy and completeness of his prophetic prototypes of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. This unity of the messianic idea is no less clear in the general plan of the Bible. By their nature and content, all Old Testament books can be divided into three main groups: legal-historical books, prophetic books and poetic-edifying books. The first class sets out the history of theocracy, that is, the rights of the Most High to rule over Israel. But for what purpose does the Lord use such different methods of educating His people? The covenant at Sinai, the Mosaic legislation, the disasters of the desert, the conquest of the promised land, victories and defeats, alienation from other nations, finally, the burden of the Babylonian captivity and the joy of returning from it - all this had the obvious purpose of forming the Jewish nation in a certain spirit, in the spirit of preserving and spreading the messianic idea. This motive is even more obvious in the prophetic books, where, either through threats or through promises of rewards, the Jewish people were constantly maintained at a certain moral height and prepared in the spirit of pure faith and right life, in view of the coming Messiah. As for, finally, the books of the last group - poetic and edifying ones, some of them, such as the Psalms, were directly messianic prayers of the Jewish nation; others, like the Song of Songs, depicted, under the form of allegory, the union of Israel with Christ; still others, like the books of Wisdom, Ecclesiastes and others, revealed various features of Divine Wisdom, the rays of that Divine Word (Λόγος) that shone among the darkness of paganism and in the pre-Christian world. Thus, we can say with full conviction that the main and main subject of the Bible, starting from the first chapters of the book of Genesis (Gen. 3.15) and ending with the last chapters of the Apocalypse (Rev. 21:6–21, 22:20), is the God-man, our Lord Jesus Christ. Le Hir. "Les trois grands Prophèts, Isaie, Iérémie, Ezéchiel." – Paris, 1877, p.4. Ambrosius, In Psalm. 1, 33. "Novum Testamentum in Vetere latet, Vetus Testamentum in Novo patet." Wed. bliss Augustine, Question 73 on Exodus. 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