Christmas Gift Guide - For Women
Christmas Gift Guide - For Women
How Amos Prophesied the Coming of Jesus and Salvation for the World
Called by God’s Name (Amos 9:11–12)
The manger in Bethlehem is a marker. It signals a major movement in world history from shadow to substance and from anticipation to realization. Evident in this progression is the salvation of some from “all the nations who are called by [Yahweh’s] name” (Amos 9:12).
Paul stressed, “We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:23–24). For those God calls to salvation, Christmas is a season of hope, displaying how light triumphs over night (Matt. 4:15–16) and recalling that, when God’s Son took on flesh to save a needy world, new creation dawned (2 Cor. 5:17). In a world scathed with bad news, Christ’s appearing was indeed “good news of great joy that will be for all the people” (Luke 2:10).
Prophets (Like Amos) Proclaimed Jesus’s Day
Peter clarifies this shift from promise to fulfillment when he stresses that all the Old Testament prophets foretold that Jesus would suffer, that the church would rise, and that “everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” (Acts 3:18, 24; 10:43). Indeed, the very prophets who spoke of the saving grace that would be ours “searched” their Scriptures, “inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that were serving not themselves but you” (1 Pet. 1:10–12).
Amos was one of these prophets who spoke of David’s royal offspring and promised “the gospel of God . . . concerning his Son” (Rom. 1:1, 3). Scripture anticipated that God would overcome the universal curse with blessing through Judah’s royal offspring (e.g., Gen. 22:18; 49:10), and Yahweh promised this king would be David’s descendant with a throne that would last forever (2 Sam. 7:12–13; cf. Acts 2:30–31). In Jesus, this gospel of international blessing is coming to fruition (Gal. 3:8; cf. Matt. 4:23; 24:14).
Delighting in the Old Testament
Jason S. DeRouchie
With a firm grasp of the progress of salvation history, this accessible guide helps Christians interpret the Old Testament, see how it testifies to Jesus, believe that Jesus secured every divine promise, and understand how Moses’s law still matters.
Amos’s Contemporary, Isaiah, Proclaimed Gospel Hope
Prophets were ambassadors of the heavenly court, serving as God’s mouthpieces. They were also called “seers,” because they could see into the hearts of their generation and see what God would do in the future. The prophet Amos was from Judah around the same time as Isaiah. Both confronted the darkness of their days with gospel hope, envisioning the time when the messianic, Davidic king would overcome God’s enemies and reestablish right order in God’s world.
Isaiah predicted how a child-king would rule in righteousness on David’s throne (Isa. 9:6–7; Isa. 11:4–5; Isa. 32:1), be unflinching before the serpent (Isa. 11:8), and supply shelter to foreign outcasts in “the tent of David” (Isa. 16:4–5). He would bring justice to the weak and proclaim his law to the coastlands (Isa. 42:3–4; cf. Matt 12:18–20)—“everyone who is called by [Yahweh’s] name” (Isa. 43:7). Like Jacob/Israel who brought forth the tribes of Israel, he would be a new “Israel” (Isa. 49:3), and all his offspring “shall be justified and shall glory” (Isa. 45:25; cf. Isa. 53:11). He would operate as a covenant for the people and light for the nations, opening blind eyes and freeing captives from prison, so that Yahweh’s “salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (Isa. 42:6–7; Isa. 49:6–10). The spiritual offspring who are produced and declared righteous through his substitutionary sacrifice (Isa. 53:10–11) would “possess the nations,” as the Davidic “tent” is enlarged (Isa. 54:2–3; cf. Isa. 2:2–4). His faithful acts of loyal love would call foreign nations to himself (Isa. 55:3–5; cf. Isa. 11:10, 12; Rom 15:12), making them priestly ministers in God’s house (Isa. 56:6–8; Isa. 66:20–21). The Spirit and words in him (Isa. 11:2; Isa. 42:1; Isa. 61:1) would be upon his offspring (Isa. 59:21; cf. Isa. 32:15; Isa. 44:3; Acts 2:33; Gal 3:14). What glorious promises become yes in Jesus (2 Cor 1:20)!
Amos Envisioned Israel’s Coming Destruction
Growing amid such hopes, Amos became a foreign missionary, leaving Judah to proclaim God’s word to the northern kingdom of Israel. Most of Amos’s book confronts the wealthy in the northern ten tribes for their immorality, idolatry, oppression of the weak, and failure to learn from God’s discipline. Yahweh promises that he will punish Israel, exiling them from the land (Amos 4:12; 5:27), and that those hoping in the day of the Lord will experience it as “darkness and not light” (Amos 5:20). Yahweh’s eyes would be upon the sinful kingdom, and he would destroy all the rebels (Amos 9:8–10).
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Amos’s Hope for International Salvation
Yet the book does not end here. In God’s timing, dawn always triumphs over the dark, and day ends in the light, not the night (Gen 1:5, 8, 13, etc.). At the culmination of the book, we read:
”In that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen and repair its breaches and raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old, that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations who are called by my name,” declares the LORD who does this. —Amos 9:11–12
Amos here portrays the Davidic kingdom as a “booth” that God will repair after its exilic destruction. “In that day” (Amos 9:11) refers to the day of the Lord when God would send Israel into exile and bring death upon the wicked among them (Amos 9:9–10; cf. Amos 8:9, 13). Yet God will also reclaim an international people for himself. “I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen . . . that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations who are called by my name” (Amos 9:11–12). The language of “possession” is identical to Isaiah’s prediction that the offspring of the suffering servant would “possess” the nations (Isa 54:3).
Amos mentions a “remnant of Edom.” Other prophets foretold that the Edomites, descendants of Esau, would be conquered by the Messiah (Num. 24:17–18) and face total destruction (Obad. 18).Thus, for the Davidic house to possess the “remnant of Edom” requires that this group would enjoy new identities, gaining new birth certificates that declare, “This one was born [in Zion]” (Ps. 87:6; cf. Gal. 4:26).
The Hebrew spelling of “Edom” includes the same consonants as “Adam/humanity,” and the prophet portrays this “remnant of Edom” as representing “all the nations who are called by my name” (Amos 9:12; cf. Isa. 43:5–7). Christ’s bride is the church, the heavenly Jerusalem (Isa. 54:1–3; 66:7–11; Gal. 4:26; Rev. 21:9–10), and together they bear spiritual children from both Jews and non-Jews who enjoy adoption through union with Christ by faith (Gal. 3:28–29; Eph. 1:5).
In Jesus, this gospel of international blessing is coming to fruition.
James Affirms the Fulfillment of Amos’s Hope
In Acts 15:16–18, James cites a form of Amos 9:11–12 to affirm that God in Christ was now fulfilling his promises from the prophets to extend the Davidic monarchy beyond Israel to the nations, yet in a way that the Gentiles did not need to become Jews. Jewish believers claimed the Gentile converts needed to be circumcised (Acts 15:5). Against this, James first recalled Peter’s testimony that, because of God’s work in Jesus, Christians should no longer “call any person common or unclean” (Acts 10:28) and should recognize that “God has granted repentance that leads to life” even to the non-Jewish peoples (Acts 11:18). James speaks of God “visit[ing] the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name” (Acts 15:14). He then adds:
And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written, “After this I will return, and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things known from of old.” —Acts 15:15–18
Blending various Old Testament prophecies but highlighting especially Amos 9, James stressed how the prophets foretold the days of the church, when non-Jews “who are called by my name” would “seek the Lord” and become part of God’s people without having to embrace old covenant customs. In Peter’s words to his fellow Jewish Christian leaders, we do not have to put “God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear” (Acts 15:10).
The Word of God Matters
This Christmas, let us remember that Jesus fulfills what the Scriptures foretold. The early church looked to their Old Testament prophets to clarify what they were to believe and how they were to live after the dawn of the new age. In Jesus, the light of the world has come, triumphing over night and realizing promises that prophets like Amos proclaimed long ago. Thank God who, through Jesus, saves and satisfies all who are called by his name.
Jason S. DeRouchie is the author of Delighting in the Old Testament: Through Christ and for Christ.
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