"the Gospel is God acting in history"

Is the Old Testament for Christians?

"It was the Protestant Reformers who helped the Christian church see again the importance of the historical and natural meaning of Scripture, so that the Old Testament could be regarded as having value in itself. When the Reformers recovered the authority of the Bible, they not only reaffirmed a biblical doctrine of the church and salvation, but also a biblical doctrine of Scripture. Protestant interpretation was based upon the concept of the perspicuous (clear and self-interpreting) nature of the Bible. By removing an authority for interpretation from outside the Bible, the infallible church, the Reformers were free to accept and see the principles of interpretation that are contained within the Bible itself.

"So the self-interpreting Scriptures became the sole rule of faith-Sola Scriptura was a rallying cry of the Reformation. The right of interpretation was restored to every believer, but this did not mean that the principles of interpretation found within the Bible could be overlooked and every Christian follow his own whim. The allegorical method became far less popular, because the historical meaning of the Old Testament was found to be significant on its own, within the unity of the Bible.

"...What did this have to do with the Old Testament? It meant that the Reformers were establishing a method of biblical interpretation in which the natural historical sense of the Old Testament has significance for Christians because of its organic relationship to Christ. God’s grace, seen in his dealings with Israel, is part of a living process which comes to its climax in his work of grace, the gospel, that is in the historical events of the Christ who is Jesus of Nazareth. Just as it is important to assert that this Old Testament salvation history must be interpreted by the Word, Jesus Christ, it is also important to recognize that the gospel is God acting in history-more specifically, through the history of Jesus." -- Graeme Goldsworthy

"That great victory and redemption of the Messiah" typified

"...many lesser redemptions, deliverances, and victories of God’s people, which it is plain even from the Old Testament, were as nothing in comparison with the salvation and victory of the Messiah, were by God’s ordering represented by types; as the redemption out of Egypt. This was much typified afterwards in institutions that God appointed in commemoration of it. And the reason given by God for his thus typifying of it, was that it was so worthy to have signs and representations to fix it in the mind.

Thus concerning the representations of their coming out of Egypt, in the passover, by eating it with unleavened bread, with their staff in their hand, etc. this reason is given why they should have such representations and memorials of it. Exodus 13:42. It is a night much to be remembered.

This redemption out of Egypt was also much typified beforehand. It was typified in the smoking furnace and the burning lamp following it which Abraham saw. Genesis 15:17. It was typified in Moses’s being drawn out of the water, and in the burning bush that survived the flames, and by Moses’s rod’s swallowing up the magicians’ rods. David’s victory over the enemies of God’s people, and his saving them out of their hands, was typified by his conquering the lion and the bear, and rescuing the lamb. God’s giving victory to Israel over the Syrians, and delivering them from them, was typified by the prophet’s helping the king of Israel to shoot an arrow towards them. 2 Kings 13:15, etc. The salvation of Jerusalem from Sennacherib’s army was typified by the springing of the corn afresh from the roots of the stubble. Hezekiah’s being saved from death was typified by bringing back the sun, when it was going down.

Since, therefore, God did so much to typify those lesser victories and salvations, is it not exceedingly likely that great victory and redemption of the Messiah, which appears by the Old Testament to be infinitely greater, and that was all along so much more insisted on, in the word of the Lord to the people, should be much more typified?" - Jonathan Edwards "Types of the Messiah, Etc.", The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 6