Dr. Grant Osborne made an interesting observation in class last week. He was lecturing on the temptation of Jesus and how Jesus responded to Satan. He said that the lesson was not “memorize Scripture so that you too can defeat Satan” and I agree. That doesn’t seem to be what we’re supposed to take away from the story. What he said was that you need to go back and read the passages Jesus quoted in their context. All of them were of Israel failing and yet the story is of Jesus succeeding. The point is that the New Israel, that is Christ, succeeds when Old Israel didn’t. Jesus is the Messiah and he redeems failure.

Now, I haven’t gone and looked them up yet and I don’t necessarily follow the “Jesus as the New Israel” line, though I have heard it before. But it is still an interesting observation.