– Hello everyone, and welcome to this special PJTV interview. I'm Stephen Kruiser. Today's guest is our old friend David Limbaugh, bestselling author, lawyer, and emerging voice in Christian apologetics. In his new book, The Emmaus Code: Finding Jesus in the Old Testament, David explores the world of the Old Testament as it relates to prophecy about Jesus in the New Testament. It's a daunting subject matter. A lot of people were afraid of it and he walks you through the whole thing. David, welcome, and thank you for joining us today. – Hey Stephen, how are you? And thanks for having me.

– In the intro of the book, you explain how you had the idea for this years ago, found it a little overwhelming at the time, put it aside, then came back to it. Can you tell our viewers how you got from there to here?

– Yes. Twenty to 25 years ago, when I first became a Christian, I was on fire for theology and reading the Bible and learning as much as I could. I actually came to Christ kicking and screaming and one of the ways that I finally was convinced, the tipping point, was through the Messianic prophecy. So, I guess you could say I came to Christ through the Old Testament. And so, I wanted to write a book sharing what I'd learned and sharing my enthusiasm for the Old Testament and for the Bible and for the Christ-centeredness of the Old Testament. So, I began writing a book called Road Map to the Cross,

meaning the Old Testament is the road map to the cross, and I got about two-and-a-half chapters in and submitted it to a Christian agent who said that I had no credentials to be writing this book, so bag it. And so, I kind of put it aside. And then, after 1,700 or so columns and six books later, I've got a little bit of a platform and I've also established myself a little bit in the genre. With Jesus on Trial, I thought I would try this subject again, starting anew. I don't mean I resumed the old project and picked up where I left off. No, totally different, started a project. But the project then was about the Christ-centeredness of the Old Testament and that's what this book is about. So, it's a culmination of an idea that was in my head and that I even started and falsely started 25 years ago or so.

– Now, even for the most devout Christians and avid studiers of scripture, the Old Testament can be rather overwhelming, really daunting just to even start to tackle. I mean, a lot of people want to and then are just put off by it, by the sheer scope, the length of it. What would be your best piece of advice for someone just to center themselves a little to get going on it? What should they focus on in the beginning to start the journey in the Old Testament?

– This will sound self-serving, and keep in mind that God needs no one's help in His inspired word, although we're created as relational beings in His image. And I think he does want us to help each other. That's why we have pastors, Sunday school teachers and theologians, to help each other along. This book is an effort to help just the person you're describing, a person who finds the Old Testament daunting. So, this book is really kind of an Old Testament primer. I go through every book of the Bible and explain it and summarize it before I go into the specifics about how each book individually points to Jesus Christ. I also have two chapters on outlining Old Testament history and giving you a grand sweep of that flow. I think some people don't realize how you can manage these facts if you study 'em, put 'em all together, and that's what I've tried to do is summarize the Old Testament history so that people will not be then so intimidated by the names and the kings and the arcane genealogies and all that. So, I really, not intending to boast about the book at all, but this is the book that I wish I had had, or a book like this, when I first got on fire for the Bible and needed some study aides. This is the book that I wish I had had to get me into it. And so, that's what I've tried to do here is to help people who are in exactly the position you are, giving them an overview and an appreciation for how Christ-centered the book is. – Since you mentioned the genealogy– – The books are. – Since you mentioned the genealogies, I should tell everyone that your last book, Jesus on Trial, rekindled me interest in apologetics and I've started some baby steps again on scripture study and apologetics again, and I was reading one book on scripture study that said when you're reading the Old Testament, people have a tendency to try to gloss over and just run past all the lengthy genealogical lists and the things like that, and that's a huge mistake when studying the Old Testament. They said you have to commit to that as being divinely inspired and stick and pay attention and be centered to that, too. I'm gonna guess you agree. If you don't, can you explain why that's important?

– I agree, with qualifications. I gloss over those sometimes too when I'm trying to read through the Bible in chronological order or in canonical order because, after a while, these names don't mean anything to you when they're all strung together. But, they're in the Bible for a reason. As you said, every bit, every syllable of the Bible is divinely inspired. And I think one of the reasons they are in there is to show that God is faithful to His promises. And when He promised that Jesus would be a descendant of Abraham, a descendant of Isaac, in the tribe of Judah, in the line of Davidic kings, those genealogies allow us to confirm that that's all true. And then we pick up with the Gospel of Matthew, where we have confirmation instantly that Jesus is the son of David, figuratively, the son of David, in the genetic line, the blood line.

– Before we get into anything else, go ahead and explain to the viewers what, I believe it's from Luke, the Emmaus incident is about, the thing you predicated the book upon. – Right. Chapter 24 of the Gospel of Luke tells a fascinating story, one of my favorites in the Bible and a lot of people's favorites in the Bible, where Jesus, in one of his resurrection appearances, three days after he died and was put in the tomb, sees these two of his disciples walking along the road to Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. And they are downcast, despondent, dejected, their whole world has crumbled about them because their promised Messiah had died without delivering Israel from its Roman oppressors. They anticipated their Messiah would deliver them militarily or politically, and he died without so much as a whimper. He didn't do anything to the Romans and they were beside themselves. Everything they had been taught to believe had turned out to be untrue. And so, Christ appears to them and the scripture says they were made not to recognize Him. So, He asked them what they're talking about, and they say, "Are you the only ones in the area, in this entire area, "who hasn't heard about these catastrophic events?" And then, He says to 'em, and this is critical, He says, "Are you all of little faith," these are my terms, he uses the actual "little faith" in a different verse, but, "you people don't realize "that these things had to happen to Christ? "Are you not aware that these events "had to occur to Christ?" And then he opened up the scriptures to them, and by scriptures, we mean the Old Testament, and showed how every bit of those scriptures pointed to Him, Jesus Christ. Now, He came up with this idea. This isn't the Catholic Church, this isn't the Lutheran Church, this isn't the Methodist Church, which I belong to, or any other church. This is Jesus Christ himself who said it. The Old Testament points to Him in every particular. But what he said before that was, "Do you not have any faith? "Don't you understand that you're misapprehending "the purpose of the Old Testament, the whole scope of it?" "I was the only person ever born into human existence "for the express purpose of dying. "I didn't come to conquer the Roman Empire. "I came to die for your sins so that you could live." And so, that's what I find so amazing. And then, after they were made to recognize him and they broke bread together and Jesus left as quickly as he had come, they said to each other, "Did our hearts not burn within us "as Jesus revealed himself to us." So, what they were describing was that the God of the universe had just given them the best Bible lesson ever delivered in history, before or after, and he had told them how he was central to the entirety of the Bible. And I just, I think it's a poignant story that's full of awe and amazement to me. – You bring up something really interesting that I'd like to get your opinion on here. You know, in the New Testament, as you said, Jesus himself says everything in the Old Testament points to this, and I've known a lot of people who were devout studiers of scripture over the years who really were into Bible study who still didn't give that much time to the Old Testament, stuck mostly with the New Testament. How do you think that, along the way somewhere, just got left to theologians and people in divinity colleges? How did that happen? – I would imagine, because of the inroads that secularism has made into our culture, this idea that the God of the Old Testament is a different god than the God of the New Testament, which, of course, is nonsensical when you think of our concept of God, which we derive, by the way, from God's holy word. He is an unchanging God. And so, the God of the Old Testament is the same as the God of the New Testament. He isn't some angry, mean-spirited, wrath-filled God

that has no love. He is long-suffering, gracious, loving. His first promise of the gospel came in Genesis 3:15, the very time that he instituted judgment against Adam and Eve. There wasn't a second of time that elapsed between God's institution of His plan of redemption for mankind than from the judgment that he rendered on 'em. So, it was always about love. He created us knowing we would sin, that he would have to send His son to die in our place and he created us anyway. It's all about love. Similarly, the God of the New Testament, the triune god who is now revealed to us in the New Testament through progressive revelation, Jesus Christ is who the secularists say is some kind of a secularist hippie, tiptoeing through the garden that is completely indifferent to sin. In fact, Jesus Christ articulated the most exacting moral message ever delivered in the Sermon on the Mount. He said, "Be perfect like my father is perfect." No human being can live up to that, obviously, which is why we need to rely on the finished work of Christ on the cross. But the point is that Christ was not indifferent to sin. He is the agent of judgment, by the way. It's not just a matter of salvation in the Bible, it's also a matter of judging sinners. And so, Jesus is anything but indifferent to sin. The God of the Old Testament equals the God of the New Testament. There is no difference. The only difference is in the distinctiveness and the clarity with which he is revealed through progressive revelation. We have hints at the Trinity in the Old Testament, but we have a full-blown, full-focus view of the Trinity in the New Testament. – Now, you mentioned the book being a primer for study of the Old Testament, and it's an excellent one at that. Beyond that, beyond piquing some interest or maybe helping a little, what do you hope that readers can take away from The Emmaus Code?

– What I really want them to see is what I'm so excited about, and I talked about it in Jesus on Trial, is the unity of the Bible, how it is all tied together, how God's character is consistent throughout, how his plan of redemption, as I mentioned a minute ago, begins at the very beginning and it courses through the entirety of scripture, from the Old Testament to the New Testament. The Biblical covenants are all Messianic in nature, they all point to Jesus Christ in the Old Testament, they are cumulative, they amplify and expand on each other and they find their ultimate fulfillment and perfection in Jesus Christ in the New Testament. I want them to understand that the Old Testament is part one of a two-act play. It is incomplete, it's a deliberately incomplete book without the New Testament. Someone said a minute ago to me in one of the interviews, "Well, so you're really saying "that the people don't need," it's the reverse of what you asked. People are saying, "You don't need the New Testament then, "if Christ is all the way through the Old Testament." Exactly wrong, you need both. The New Testament allows us to adjust our focus, just as you would with binoculars, and you now see clearly through New Testament lenses all these foreshadowings and types and Messianic prophecies that were in the Old Testament that were pointing to Christ in shadowy form. Now, you can see them through the writings of the New Testament clearly what they are, in a clear progressive revelation. Now, the prophecies are explained. Ten percent of the New Testament consists of illusions or direct references to the Old Testament. These books are tied together. And if you understand how the whole Bible is tied together, you understand that there is a history of the Jewish people in the Old Testament, which God set aside as a nation of priests to mediate the gospel to mankind, to the entirety of mankind. You will see that there's a purpose in this history. It's not just a secular history, there's all kinds of gaps in the secular record, but it is actual history. It's a specific history called salvation or redemption history. God included in the Bible those matters of history that he deemed relevant to His salvation plan and purpose. So, you see that all the way through. As one writer said, "The scarlet line of redemption "runs from the very beginning to the very end." I want my readers to see the unified integrity of the entire Bible, to appreciate the Old Testament as pointing to Christ and as foundational to Christ. It shows us how we are sinners, how we can't save ourselves, that we have to rely on Christ. As Paul said, "The law is our guardian "that leads us to Christ." People need to see the Old Testament and understand it to understand the depravity of the human condition and, thus, their need for a savior. So, I wanna energize people about the entire Bible and the Christ-centeredness of it, and so, in turn, help energize their faith.

– Excellently put. David, thank you for another gem and thank you for joining us today. – Thank you so much, Stephen. – You can find David Limbaugh's new book, The Emmaus Code: Finding Jesus in the Old Testament on Amazon.com and in your local bookstore. For everyone here at PJTV, I'm Stephen Kruiser and thank you for watching today.