The Gospel in Full Color: Why We Need the Pentateuch

The table was set, Bibles ready, for our first small group meeting. Since most of us had been Christians for almost our entire lives, I chose to start with the Gospel of Luke, my hope was to see the Holy Spirit in action from the very first page. But one woman in the group, a Christian since childhood, got stuck almost immediately. She understood that Jesus died for her sins, but the long process of redemption that culminated in his birth left her lost. The genealogies, the prophecies, the waiting, all of it looked like a puzzle she’d never been given the box for.

That moment changed my plan. Instead of pressing forward into Luke, I turned us back all the way to Genesis, and through the four books that follow it: the Pentateuch, also called the Torah. As Ian Vaillancourt puts it, without the Pentateuch there would be no first act in the grand drama.[1] It’s the foundation for understanding how the world came to be, our place within it, why we’re bent toward sin, the ache in our hearts for something more, and God’s promise to intervene on our behalf.[2] For someone like my friend, the Pentateuch helps people to go from black-and-white grasp of the Bible’s message to a vision of the gospel in resplendent color.[3]

Composed by five-volumes, many themes can be identified within them, but one runs through all of them: Redemption is one of the most prominent themes in the Pentateuch, it ties directly into the Gospel and the rest of the Bible. As Vaillancourt writes, from Genesis to Revelation the Bible tells the story of a God who created the world with humanity as its crowning climax, a people who chose to rebel against their Creator, and a God who responded with a promise to rescue his creation.[4]

A Word We’ve Lost the Weight Of

For most of us, redemption doesn’t carry its full biblical weight anymore, partly because of the distance between us and the biblical authors. But when Old Testament writers wanted to describe the relationship between Yahweh and his people, redemption was the word they reached for.[5] It was never only about being rescued from slavery to sin. It was about relationship. Sandra Richter explains it this way: redemption was the means by which a lost family member was restored to a place of security within the kinship circle.  It was a patriarch’s responsibility, the safety net of Israel’s society, and the backdrop for the story we New Testament believers now find ourselves inside.[6] The Pentateuch is, in many ways, the book of redemption, the introduction to what God has in mind for all of creation.[7]

You can trace that thread through nearly every major feature of these five books. Here are some of them:

1.      The covenant - Four of the six Old Testament covenants appear in the Pentateuch, and each one reinforces God’s commitment to his people, pushing the redemptive story forward.[8] God chose covenant as the vehicle for communicating his plan of redemption.[9]

2.      Genealogies - the parts we’re most tempted to skim. They’re there for a reason: they trace a lineage of redemption, assuring us that God’s promises pass faithfully from one generation to the next. That “genealogy of redemption” points toward God’s ultimate fulfillment of redemption in Christ. As Vaillancourt notes, the links to Jesus as the offspring of the woman are unmistakable — he is the one in whom the promise of Genesis 3:15 finds its ultimate fulfillment.[10]

3.        Exodus - the greatest redemption story of the Old Testament. Vaillancourt argues that the exodus is to the Old Testament what the cross and resurrection are to the New.[11] I’d go further and call it a foreshadow of the gospel itself. Real restoration began in the Old Testament, yes, but it wasn’t until the cross and resurrection that the true second exodus — bigger, better, and final — actually happened.[12]

4.        The land - God’s promise of the land is part of his redemptive plan too, and it’s more than agricultural: it points toward a restored intimacy between God and his people.[13] T. Desmond Alexander notes that Canaan echoes the Garden of Eden — a place where people are meant to enjoy God’s presence and communion.[14]

5.        The law - The Ten Commandments and the book of the covenant both point in one direction: how to live as someone already redeemed by Yahweh. The demands of the law arrive inside a context of grace, not before it.[15] That order matters — the law comes after redemption, as a kind of instruction manual for living inside this new reality. God tells Moses: “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” [16]

6.        The tabernacle - Scholars have pointed out that even its east-facing entrance isn’t accidental — it signals a return to Eden, a return to the presence of Yahweh. The tabernacle was a first step toward the ultimate goal of redemption: God’s people dwelling, unhindered, in his presence forever.[17]

An Unfinished Book

There’s more that could be said, every story in the Pentateuch offers another glimpse of God’s redemptive plan. But even this overview shows something important: as Alexander points out, the Pentateuch ends unfinished,[18] because the redemptive plan keeps unfolding throughout the whole canon.

Like my friend in that small group, so many of us miss the depth of the gospel because we’ve never been aware of the larger story the Pentateuch introduces. It’s a bit like walking into a movie twenty minutes before it ends, you can still appreciate the scenes in front of you, but something in the resolution won’t quite land, because you missed the setup.

So I’ll borrow Vaillancourt’s words as my own closing invitation: read deeply in this portion of the Bible, make your own connections to Christ and the Christian life, and soak in this glorious, life-transforming, foundational portion of God’s precious word.[19]

References

1.              Ian J. Vaillancourt, The Dawning of Redemption: The Story of the Pentateuch and the Hope of the Gospel(Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2022), 18.

2.              Vaillancourt, The Dawning of Redemption, 18.

3.              Vaillancourt, The Dawning of Redemption, 17.

4.              Vaillancourt, The Dawning of Redemption, 19.

5.              Sandra L. Richter, The Epic of Eden: A Christian Entry into the Old Testament (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008), 45.

6.              Richter, The Epic of Eden, 45.

7.              Ian J. Vaillancourt, “10 Things You Should Know about the Pentateuch,” Crossway, November 6, 2022.

8.              Vaillancourt, “10 Things You Should Know about the Pentateuch.”

9.              Richter, The Epic of Eden, 82.

10.        Vaillancourt, The Dawning of Redemption, 86.

11.        Vaillancourt, The Dawning of Redemption, 112.

12.        Vaillancourt, The Dawning of Redemption, 128.

13.        J.G. Millar, “Land,” in New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, ed. T. Desmond Alexander and Brian S. Rosner (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 623.

14.        T. Desmond Alexander, From Paradise to the Promised Land: An Introduction to the Pentateuch (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2022), 65.

15.        Vaillancourt, The Dawning of Redemption, 131.

16.        Exodus 19:4-6, The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016).

17.        Vaillancourt, The Dawning of Redemption, 154.

18.        Alexander, From Paradise to the Promised Land, 5.

19.        Vaillancourt, The Dawning of Redemption, 207.