How Israel’s Scriptures Shaped Every Page of the New Testament
By Jill Szoo Wilson
The New Testament presents Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of David, the Son of Man, the mediator of a New Covenant, and the inaugurator of God’s kingdom. None of these titles or concepts receive extensive explanation from the biblical authors themselves. Matthew does not pause to explain why readers should care about the Son of David. Jesus does not stop to define the kingdom of God every time he mentions it. Paul assumes his audiences understand covenant, resurrection, temple, sacrifice, and redemption. The New Testament writers proceed as though they are entering a conversation that has already been underway for centuries.
They are.
Understanding that conversation requires understanding what historians call Second Temple Judaism.
Historians use the phrase Second Temple Judaism to describe the period between two defining events in Israel’s history: the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple after the Babylonian exile and the destruction of that same temple by Rome in AD 70. The era begins when Jewish exiles return from Babylon under Persian rule and rebuild the temple described in Ezra and Nehemiah. It ends nearly six centuries later when Roman armies level Jerusalem during the Jewish revolt. These centuries form the world of the New Testament. Jesus taught within this world. Paul wrote within this world. The earliest churches emerged within this world.
Understanding Second Temple Judaism therefore provides more than historical background. It introduces the theological environment that shaped the questions, expectations, and assumptions carried by the first followers of Christ.
To understand why questions of Messiah, kingdom, restoration, and covenant renewal dominated Jewish thought during the Second Temple period, we must begin with the Babylonian exile. When Babylon conquered Judah in the sixth century BC, the devastation reached every visible sign of Israel’s national and religious life. Jerusalem fell, the temple was destroyed, and the Davidic monarchy collapsed. Israel’s prophets interpreted these events as covenant judgment for the nation’s persistent rebellion against the God who had delivered Israel from Egypt and entered into covenant with his people at Sinai. Yet the prophets who announced judgment also proclaimed restoration.
Isaiah prophesied renewal for Zion and the nations (Isaiah 2:1-4; 11:1-10; 60:1-22). Jeremiah promised a New Covenant in which God would write his law upon the hearts of his people (Jeremiah 31:31-34). Ezekiel described the return of God’s presence, the gathering of scattered Israel, and the restoration of life where death had seemed final (Ezekiel 36:22-28; 37:1-14; 43:1-5).
“I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
Jeremiah 31:33
When Jewish exiles eventually returned to the land and rebuilt the temple, many of the prophets’ promises appeared to be moving toward fulfillment. Jerusalem once again became the center of Jewish worship, and life resumed in the land God had promised to Israel. Yet the restoration foretold by Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel extended far beyond a return from Babylon. The prophets spoke of renewed kingship, covenant renewal, the gathering of God’s people, the defeat of Israel’s enemies, and the visible reign of God. The temple stood once again, but the larger story remained unfinished in several obvious ways. Foreign powers continued to rule the land. The promised son of David had not appeared. The nations had not streamed to Zion, and the universal peace prophesied by the prophets remained unrealized. The centuries that followed were therefore shaped by a single urgent question: when would God complete the restoration he had promised?
When would God complete the restoration he had promised?
The centuries following the exile produced an extraordinary engagement with Israel’s Scriptures because Jewish communities believed the prophets themselves contained the answer. The Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings became the lens through which Israel interpreted its past, understood its present condition, and anticipated its future restoration. As Jewish communities wrestled with these questions, themes such as Messiah, kingdom, resurrection, judgment, covenant renewal, and restoration moved to the center of Jewish thought. These ideas did not arise during the Second Temple period. Rather, centuries of study, worship, and reflection brought renewed attention to themes already woven throughout the Scriptures of Israel.
The expectation of a coming Messiah provides a clear example of how Second Temple Jews searched Israel’s Scriptures for answers to the unresolved promises of restoration. The Hebrew word mashiach means “anointed one,” a title originally associated with individuals whom God had set apart for a particular role, including kings, priests, and occasionally prophets. Over time, however, the term became increasingly connected to Israel’s royal hopes because of God’s covenant with David. In 2 Samuel 7, God established a covenant with David, promising that his royal line would continue and that his throne would remain central to Israel’s future hope. As later generations reflected upon that promise in the aftermath of exile, the prophets began to describe a future ruler who would restore justice, gather God’s people, and extend God’s reign beyond Israel to the nations. By the first century, hopes for restoration and hopes for a Davidic king had become inseparable. When the New Testament identifies Jesus as the Son of David, it places him within those expectations and presents him as the promised heir to God’s covenant with David, the ruler through whom Israel’s story would reach its fulfillment.
The same pattern appears in Jewish expectations concerning resurrection. The New Testament proclamation of Jesus’ resurrection rests upon a hope already present in Israel’s Scriptures and developed through centuries of reflection upon God’s promises. Daniel 12 gives this hope one of its clearest expressions, describing a future resurrection in which God would vindicate the righteous and judge evil. For many Jews living during the Second Temple period, resurrection expressed confidence that God’s covenant promises would ultimately prevail over suffering, injustice, and death itself. Martha’s response to the death of Lazarus reveals how deeply this expectation had taken root. When she tells Jesus that Lazarus “will rise again in the resurrection on the last day,” she speaks from a hope already rooted in Israel’s Scriptures. The apostles later proclaimed that Jesus had been raised from the dead, interpreting that event through a category that already occupied a central place within Jewish thought.
The title “Son of Man” demonstrates the same pattern. Daniel 7 portrays a figure “like a son of man” receiving authority, dominion, and an everlasting kingdom from the Ancient of Days. The vision became deeply influential during the Second Temple period because it addressed questions of kingship, judgment, and God’s rule over the nations. When Jesus repeatedly identifies himself as the Son of Man, he draws upon a category already embedded within Israel’s Scriptures and familiar to the theological world of first-century Judaism. The expression appears throughout the Tanakh, particularly in Ezekiel, and reaches a climactic expression in Daniel 7 before becoming one of Jesus’ most frequent self-designations (Ezekiel 2:1; Daniel 7:13-14; Matthew 8:20; Mark 2:10; Luke 19:10; John 5:27).
The kingdom of God likewise stands at the center of Jesus’ preaching because it already stood at the center of Israel’s prophetic hope. Isaiah envisioned a day when the nations would stream to Zion. Daniel described God’s everlasting kingdom overcoming every earthly empire. Zechariah declared that the Lord would become king over all the earth. Consequently, when John the Baptist announced that the kingdom of heaven was near and Jesus proclaimed the arrival of God’s kingdom, they were speaking into a conversation that had been underway long before either of them appeared on the banks of the Jordan River.
Christians therefore believe that Jesus is the promised Messiah anticipated by Israel’s Scriptures. He was crucified, buried, and raised from the dead in fulfillment of God’s promises. Following his resurrection, he appeared to his disciples and to hundreds of eyewitnesses, including more than five hundred people at one time according to the testimony preserved in 1 Corinthians 15. He ascended to the right hand of God, where he now reigns as King and High Priest. Yet the biblical story has not reached its final chapter. The prophets spoke not only of the coming Messiah, but also of the restoration of all things, the renewal of creation, the judgment of evil, and the visible reign of God upon the earth. Christians therefore continue to await the fulfillment of those promises. Christ’s work on the cross secured victory over sin and death, but it also points forward to the day when he will return, establish his kingdom in its fullness, and bring the story of redemption to its appointed conclusion.
Recognizing this reality changes the way the New Testament is read. Many Christians approach the New Testament as though it introduces an entirely new theological world. The first followers of Jesus understood themselves very differently. They believed they were living within the fulfillment of a story that had already been unfolding for centuries. The categories through which they understood Jesus did not originate in the first century. Messiah, Son of Man, kingdom, resurrection, covenant, temple, and restoration were already deeply rooted in Israel’s Scriptures and had become central themes within Second Temple Judaism.
This continuity extends beyond individual doctrines and into the structure of the New Testament itself. Jesus, Paul, Peter, John, Matthew, and the earliest followers of Christ did not treat Israel’s Scriptures as historical background material. They treated them as the authoritative framework through which God’s purposes were being revealed. Matthew repeatedly presents Jesus as the fulfillment of Israel’s story. Peter explains Pentecost through the prophet Joel. Paul grounds his arguments in Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Habakkuk, and the Psalms. The Epistle to the Hebrews assumes familiarity with temple worship, sacrifice, priesthood, covenant mediation, and ritual holiness. The Book of Revelation draws heavily upon Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Zechariah, and Exodus. The New Testament writers do not merely quote the Tanakh. They think through it, argue from it, and interpret the life of Jesus through its categories.
The significance of the New Testament, therefore, lies not in the introduction of new theological categories but in the claim that those categories find their fulfillment in Jesus of Nazareth. The apostles present Jesus as the promised Son of David, the Son of Man envisioned by Daniel, the mediator of Jeremiah’s New Covenant, and the king anticipated by the prophets. Their message rests upon the conviction that God’s promises to Israel had been decisively inaugurated in the Messiah and would reach their fullness through his return and reign.
The apostles drew upon the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings because those Scriptures provided the categories through which they understood Jesus and his mission. Son of David, Son of Man, New Covenant, kingdom, resurrection, and restoration belonged to a story already in motion long before the first century. The New Testament therefore presents itself as the continuation of that story, carrying forward the promises given to Abraham, developed through Moses, entrusted to David, proclaimed by the prophets, and inaugurated in Christ. The same story that begins in Genesis continues through the Gospels, the Epistles, and Revelation, moving toward the day when every promise of God reaches its complete fulfillment under the reign of Israel’s Messiah.
Second Temple Judaism forms the bridge between the world of the Tanakh and the world of the New Testament. The apostles proclaimed that Jesus, Israel’s Messiah, had decisively inaugurated all that the Scriptures had been pointing toward, and they explained that reality through the language, expectations, and theological framework of Israel’s Scriptures. The New Testament therefore stands as the continuation of Israel’s covenant story, revealing promises first given to Abraham, developed through Moses, entrusted to David, and proclaimed by the prophets. The story that begins in Genesis continues through the New Testament and moves toward the day when Christ returns to establish his kingdom in its fullness, and every promise of God reaches its complete fulfillment.
Author’s Note:
I write as a Gentile Christian whose faith is rooted in the conviction that Jesus of Nazareth is Israel’s Messiah and the Savior of the world. The more deeply I study the Scriptures, the more convinced I become that Christianity cannot be understood apart from the story of Israel.
I do not hold to replacement theology, the belief that the Church has replaced Israel in God’s redemptive purposes. Rather, I believe Gentile believers are graciously grafted into Israel’s covenant story through faith in Christ (Romans 11:17-24). The New Testament’s authors were Jews who understood themselves to be proclaiming the fulfillment of God’s promises, not the abandonment of them.
As one who has been grafted into that story by grace, I approach these essays with gratitude for the Jewish foundations of the Christian faith and with confidence that Jesus, Israel’s Messiah, will one day return to rule and reign from Jerusalem as King.
Jill Szoo Wilson 