The basic and central idea of all the inspired Scriptures of the Bible, the idea around which all the others are centered, which gives them meaning and power, and without which the unity and beauty of the Bible would be inconceivable, is the doctrine of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As the object of the aspirations of the Old Testament, as the alpha and omega of the entire New Testament, Jesus Christ, in the words of the Apostle, was the cornerstone on the basis of which, through the apostles and prophets, the edifice of our salvation was laid and completed (Ephesians II:20 [35]). Jesus Christ is the subject of both Testaments: the Old as His expectation, the New as the fulfillment of this expectation, and both together as a single, inner connection.

This can be uncovered and confirmed by a range of external and internal evidence.

To the proofs of the first kind, i.e., external, belong the testimonies of our Lord about Himself, the testimonies of His disciples, the Jewish tradition, and the Christian tradition.

Denouncing the unbelief and hardness of heart of the Jewish scribes and Pharisees, our Lord Jesus Christ Himself repeatedly referred to the testimony of the "law and the prophets," i.e., the Old Testament scriptures in general. Search the Scriptures, for you think through them to have eternal life, but they bear witness of me (John V:39); for if you had believed Moses, you would have believed Me also, because he wrote about Me (John V:46 [36]), for example, the Lord said to the blinded Jewish lawyers after the well-known miracle of the healing of the paralytic at the sheep's font. The Lord revealed this truth to His disciples even more clearly and in detail, appearing to them after the resurrection, as the Evangelist Luke testifies: and beginning with Moses, of all the prophets He explained to them what was said about Him in all the Scriptures... And he said to them, "This is what I have spoken about while I was with you, that all things must be fulfilled which are written about me in the law of Moses, and in the prophets and psalms" (Luke XXIV:27 and 44). In addition to such a general statement, the Lord often points out particular cases of Old Testament images and prophecies that had to do with His life, teaching, sufferings and death on the Cross. Thus, for example, he notes the prophetic significance of the brass serpent hanged by Moses in the wilderness (John III:14 [37]), points to the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy of "the acceptable year of the Lord" (Luke IV:17-21 [38]; cf. Isaiah LXI:1-2 [39]), speaks of the fulfillment of all the ancient prophecies concerning His atoning sacrifice (Matthew XXVI:54 [40] and Luke XXII:37 [41]) and even on the cross itself, at the moment of suffering, He pronounces His profoundly touching and calmly majestic words: "It is finished" (John XIX:30 [42]), thus letting it be known that all that was ordained from eternity, was spoken through the prophets for many hours and in many ways (Hebrews I:1 [43]).

Like their Divine Teacher, the Evangelists and Apostles incessantly refer to the Bible, drawing with their full hand from the richness of its messianic treasures and thus establishing the complete harmony of the two Testaments, united around the Person of the Messiah – Christ. Thus, all the Evangelists, these four independent writers of the life of Jesus Christ, refer so often to the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies that they have even worked out special formulas for this: "And all this happened, that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled," or simply, "Then was fulfilled that which was spoken through the prophet," or else, "And the word of the Scriptures was fulfilled, and a whole series of others," similar expressions.

No less often they refer to the Old Testament Scriptures and thus establish its closest inner connection with the New Testament and all the other New Testament writers, beginning with Book II. Acts and ending with the Apocalypse. Not being able to exhaust here all the abundance of such definite and clear references, we will point out as an example only a few of them, the most characteristic: such, for example, are the two speeches of the Apostle Peter: one after the descent of the Holy Spirit, the other after the healing of the lame man, which are narrated in the second and third chapters of the Book of Kings. Acts and which are full of Old Testament quotations (Joel – Acts II:16–21 [44]; David — II:25–28 [45]; 34–35 [46]; Moses — III:22–23 [47]); especially remarkable is the conclusion of the last discourse: and all the prophets, from Samuel and after him, however many they spoke, also foretold these days (Acts III:24 [48]). No less important in this respect is the speech of Archdeacon Stephen, which gives in a concise sketch the entire Old Testament history of the preparation of the Jews for the reception of the Messiah Christ (Acts VII:2-56). In the same book of Acts there is a great multitude of other similar testimonies: "And we preach unto you that the promise which was made to the fathers God hath fulfilled unto us, their children, by raising up Jesus" (Acts XIII:32 [22]). "We preach to you," said the apostles, "bearing witness to the small and the great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said it would be" (Acts XXVI:22 [49]). In short, the entire teaching of the apostles about the New Testament Kingdom of God boiled down mainly to what they assured about Jesus from the law of Moses and the prophets (Acts XXVIII:23 [50]).

Of the many New Testament references that establish a connection with the Old Testament events and prophecies contained in the Epistles of the Holy Apostles, we will cite a few examples only from the Epistles of the Apostle Paul, the same Paul who, as Saul, was himself formerly a Pharisee, a zealot of patristic traditions, and a profound scholar of the Old Testament Testament. And so, this holy Apostle says that the end of the law is Christ (Romans X:4 [51]), that the law was for us a tutor (παιδάγογος) to Christ (Galatians III:24 [52]), that believers are established on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, having Jesus Christ Himself as the cornerstone (Ephesians II:20 [35]), that all the Old Testament types are described for our instruction (1 Corinthians X:11 [53]), that the whole Old Testament, with all its religious ceremonies and worship, was but a shadow of the future, and the body in Christ (Col. ii:17 [54]), a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of things (Hebrews X:1 [55]), and that, finally, at the foundation of the whole history of the economy of our salvation lies Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews XIII:8).

If we pass from the sacred books of the New Testament to the ancient Jewish interpretations of the Scriptures, to the Targums, the Talmud, the Midrash, and the writings of the first rabbis up to and including the twelfth century, we will see that the constant and unchanging Jewish tradition of interpreting the Bible was the desire to seek and find references to the Messiah and His time everywhere. Such infatuation sometimes even went to extremes, as can be seen from the following rabbinical saying: "The prophets preached exclusively about the joy of the days of the Messiah" (the idea of a suffering Messiah-Redeemer was forgotten); but it profoundly understood the truth that, indeed, the idea of the Messiah Christ lies at the basis of all Scripture. "One cannot wish to apply everything directly to the Messiah," says Blessed Augustine, "but passages that do not relate directly to Him serve as the foundation for those who proclaim Him. As in the lyre all the strings sound according to their nature, and the tree on which they are stretched gives them its own special color of sound, so the Old Testament: it sounds like a harmonious lyre about the name and the Kingdom of Jesus Christ." [4]

The above subtle comparison of Blessed Augustine perfectly characterizes the patristic view of the relationship between the Old and New Testaments. Testimonies about their close, indissoluble connection, based on the Person of the Messiah Christ, have been going on uninterruptedly since the very first centuries of Christianity: the Apostle Barnabas wrote about this in his "Epistle", St. Justin the Philosopher in "Conversation with Tryphon the Judean", Tertullian in his work "Against the Jews", St. Irenaeus of Lyons in his work "Against Heresies", the apologists Aristides, Athenagoras, and others. and from among them stood out Origen, who, for example, said that "the utterances of the Scriptures are the garments of the Word... that in the Scriptures the Word (Λόγος – Son of God) was always flesh to live among us."

Of the subsequent Holy Fathers, these thoughts were developed in detail in their remarkable commentaries by St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil the Great, St. Ephraim the Syrian, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and St. Ambrose of Milan. The latter, for example, wrote: "The cup of wisdom is in your hands. This cup is twofold – the Old and New Testaments. Drink them, because in both you drink Christ. Drink of Christ, for He is the source of life." [5]

Turning now to the internal proofs, i.e., to the very content of the sacred books, we are finally convinced that our Lord Jesus Christ constitutes the main point and the central idea of the entire Bible. This great book, composed by so many and varied authors, separated by very considerable periods of time, and influenced by the most diverse civilizations, is at the same time a remarkable unity and a wonderful wholeness. This is mainly due to the gradual development of the same messianic idea in it. "The New Testament is hidden in the Old, the Old in the New is revealed," said medieval theologians, based on the words of Blessed Augustine. [6]

That Jesus Christ and His work constitute the sole theme of all the New Testament Scriptures is self-evident and requires no proof. But that the whole of New Testament history is based on the Old Testament is perhaps not so obvious. And yet this is just as certain, for proof of which it is sufficient to refer only to the two Gospel genealogies of Christ, in which the entire Old Testament history is abbreviated in its relation to the person of the promised Messiah Christ (Matthew I:1-16 and Luke III:23-38).

But we can consistently trace the development of the messianic idea in the books of the Old Testament. The promise of the Deliverer, given to the fallen ancestors in Paradise, is the first link in that unbroken chain of Old Testament messianic prophecies that began with Adam and ended with Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist. That is why it is called the first gospel (Genesis III:15). From the time of Noah, this promise is defined somewhat more closely and precisely: only the children of Shem are called the seed of the woman, to whom the story of redemption is timed (Genesis IX:26). This circle has been further narrowed since the time of Abraham, the father of the God-chosen Jewish people, in whose seed (i.e., in Jesus Christ, according to the interpretation of the Apostle Paul – Galatians III:16 [56]) the salvation of all other nations is proclaimed (Gen. XII:3; XVIII:18). Subsequently, the race of Jacob was separated from the descendants of Abraham (Genesis XXVII:27), and later Jacob himself, in the spirit of prophetic insight, gave a special blessing to his son Judah (Genesis XLIX:8 ff.).

And the further time passed, the closer and more honestly the various features of the Messianic ministry were defined: thus, the prophet Balaam speaks of His royal authority (Num XXIV:17), Moses speaks of His threefold ministry: royal, high priestly and prophetic (Deuteronomy XVIII:18-19), of the descent of the Messiah from the royal line of David (2 Samuel VII:12-14 [57]), of His birth in Bethlehem (Micah V:2 [58]) and of the Virgin Mother (Isaiah VII:14 [59]), of His triumphal entry into the temple of Jerusalem (Mal III:1 [60]), of the various, even petty circumstances of His suffering and death on the Cross (Isaiah LIII ch.; Psalm XXI:17-19 [61]; XL:10 [62]; LXVIII:22 [63]; Zech XI:12 [64] etc.), about His glorious resurrection (Isaiah LIII:9-12 [65]; Psalm XV:10 [66]; XIX:6–7 [67]; XL:11 [68]; XLVII:2 [69] and others), about the coming of His gracious kingdom (Psalm XXI:28-32 [70]; XLIV:7 [71], 14–17 [72]; LXXI:7–19 [73]; Joel II:28 [74]; Isaiah II ch.; Isaiah XXXV:1–2 [75], 10 [76]; LXI:1-2 [39]) and His terrible second coming (Dan VII:25 [77] and XII:7 [78]; Zech XIV:2-3 [79], 9 [80], etc.). It can be positively said that there is not a single important feature of the age and life of the Messiah that was not foreshadowed in the Old Testament in one way or another, either in the form of a clear prophecy, or under the veil of symbols and types; and the prophet Isaiah even received the title of "Old Testament evangelist" for the amazing accuracy and completeness of his prophesied prototypes of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ.