How Confident Are You in Applying Old Testament Scripture to New Covenant Saints? 

Jason S. DeRouchie, Delighting in the Old Testament: Through Christ and for Christ. Crossway, 2024. 368 pages. 

The struggle is real. The journey to discover the Bible’s unity at first excites but soon exhausts the serious Bible student. The questions that drove me to seminary were unrelenting. What is the relationship of Israel to the church? What is the newness of the new covenant? What role do old covenant laws play for the Christian? What exactly were the New Testament authors doing with the Old Testament text? Some of the answers I had found up to that point undermined my confidence in the Bible, which explained my timid preaching. 

The struggle is also biblical. Much of our New Testament (NT) Scriptures deal with the transition from the old covenant to the new. From the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 to Paul’s letter to the Galatian church to his instruction to the church at Rome in Romans 14, the transition of the covenants presented NT believers with challenges in real time. 

I’ve had friends, pastors, and professors walk alongside me on my road to Emmaus. Jason DeRouchie joins this group with his book Delighting in the Old Testament: Through Christ and for Christ. That’s his aim in this 368-page volume. Not just understanding or application, but enjoyment. The quest that first excites and then exhausts, finally, delights. Surely this is the only proper end to all our study. 

This is a book I needed when I arrived at seminary in 2005. That’s what I wrote in the margin about three chapters in. Maybe it’s the book you need right now. Let me help you find out. I’ll summarize how DeRouchie goes about his task and share who I’ll be giving this book to. 

A Friend and Guide on the Road to Emmaus

DeRouchie introduces his book with ten reasons why the Old Testament is important for Christians (1). From there, he advances his project in four parts, working from hermeneutical foundations to the ground of life. There’s some biblical storytelling on these pages, but these movements are largely comprised of carefully organized argument and explanation. Here’s what you’ll find between the covers. 

Part 1 helps us read Scripture by arguing for the book’s foundational hermeneutical claim: according to both the Old and New Testaments, the Old Testament was self-consciously written with the new covenant reader in mind (15–17, 69). This means that, for Christian readers, the OT is clearer than it was to the original writers or readers. This is not in contradiction to a literal-grammatical-historical reading of the OT, but a conclusion drawn from the OT Scriptures when read on their own terms—let the reader understand (37). Jesus gives us the spiritual light and the interpretive lens we need to properly read and apply the OT (66). 

Part 2 helps us see Christ in Scripture by showing us how Jesus’s Bible testifies about him. DeRouchie tells the Bible’s story in seven steps with sensitivity to Scripture’s kingdom theme and covenantal structure (80). He offers five interpretive principles, three contexts, and seven ways to see and celebrate Jesus from the OT, wrapping things up with a case study walkthrough of Genesis (93–94, 109). 

Part 3 helps us hope in Christ by considering how every promise of the Old Testament finds its “Yes” in Christ (2 Cor. 1:20). Here DeRouchie’s work gets more practical, opening with reflections on how the OT helps us deal with anxiety, covetousness, lust, bitterness, fear of man, fear of condemnation, and fear of failure (134–136). He offers five principles for how NT authors relate to OT promises and four ways Christ is a lens for NT Christians as we claim OT promises. In the process, he deals surgically with the problem of the prosperity gospel. 

Part 4 helps readers live faithfully by rightly understanding the Mosaic Law for both grace and guidance. He shows how the NT authors replace, repudiate, and reappropriate the Law through Christ (196). DeRouchie critiques the three-fold division of the law, then challenges several “defective and harmful” approaches to the law, including theonomy, legalism, antinomianism, Andy Stanley’s proposal to unhitch the OT from the believer, and the Hebrew Roots movement (213–235, 274–277). These challenges, DeRouchie shows, are not only theological in nature but covenantal. They also threaten our joy. DeRouchie defends the church and her joy by way of a proper reading of the Bible’s story. 

DeRouchie concludes with seven tips for enjoying the OT through Christ and for Christ. 

A Refreshingly Baptist Hermeneutics 101

Here’s something I appreciate immensely about DeRouchie’s book: he writes as a Baptist. Many excellent books on biblical theology and Christ-centered hermeneutics get wonky on the new covenant and the nature of the church. I benefit greatly from the writings of my Presbyterian and Reformed brothers, but as a pastor, I need resources that help my people understand and apply Scripture to the church as a regenerate community. 

DeRouchie is the kind of Baptist who has been developing his scholarship in Baptist circles, bringing together the best of those who have influenced him. He opens his book with an account of being challenged over lunch by John Piper and Justin Taylor, the latter who asked, “I hear a lot about God’s glory and very little about Jesus” (xxii). That observation pushed DeRouchie onto the hard path toward the Bible’s unity, where he found more of Christ and a wellspring of delight. This book is the fruit of that journey. 

DeRouchie writes with an understanding of the church informed by a progressive-covenantal reading of the Bible’s story. In his footnotes, you’ll find the fine work of Stephen Wellum and Peter Gentry with sensitivity to the conditional/unconditional tension in the Bible’s covenant storyline (3). You’ll hear echoes from Baptist preacher John Piper. DeRouchie taught for years at Bethlehem College and Seminary. And you’ll recognize the incisive doctrinal and ethical care of a brother who worked closely with one of his best friends, Andy Naselli, to whom he dedicated his book. 

A Book for Those Struggling on the Road to Emmaus

I’ll be giving this book to seminary students, the kind of members who wish they could have gone to seminary, and those teaching the Bible in our church. DeRouchie’s many outlines and arguments offer ample reference material for getting the Scriptures across. I’ll also give this book to those wrestling with or addressing any of the errors he tackles. So often erroneous theological systems are based on bad readings of a handful of OT verses. The answer is not merely to offer exegesis for those verses, but also to show how errors such as the prosperity gospel or the Hebrew Roots movement cut across the grain of the OT story. Exegesis informing and informed by biblical theology deals a deathblow to such errors. DeRouchie’s work lands that blow.  

Here’s another test to see if you’re the right reader. Does DeRouchie’s central claim—OT Scripture is written with the New Testament Christian in mind—strike you as deeply significant, even as a relief if true? Does it demand an argument and draw you in? Then take up and read. 

For these readers, DeRouchie will play the role that others did in my life, to teach me the whole counsel of God that I might preach it with confidence and authority. Timidity gave way to boldness precisely when I came to grasp the Bible’s overall unity. 

Now, who the book isn’t for: Without some form of struggle with Scripture’s unity, this book may have the opposite effect from the delight promised in the title. 

It’s easy to do, but in my estimation, DeRouchie overpromised in the combination of his title and intended audience, “Christian laypeople and leaders” (xx). He welcomes the lay reader to skip the footnotes. But be warned if you’re considering this book for a church member. This is a book with many footnotes. On several occasions, footnotes exceed half or even 2/3 of the material on a given page (40, 151). There’s a pack-it-all-in feel to the book. The 71-word sentence expressing the “main idea” of Genesis was true, but not so approachable (115, 129). 

Each chapter ends with about a dozen questions for reflection—a good tool, and many are helpful. The book is pitched for use in small groups (xx). However, many of these are not discussion or reflection questions, but classroom test questions. For an example, one question asks the reader to “write down twenty-five random people and events from the OT” and identify where each falls in the Bible’s story according to a seven-stage outline DeRouchie provided (90). The exercise is helpful, but a small group leader will need to improvise.  

DeRouchie’s book is not for everyone. But it is a great book for the right struggling reader. The struggle is real. It’s also biblical. Let the reader understand. With DeRouchie’s help, let the reader delight in the Old Testament Scriptures.