Jesus in Every Book

There are various lists online which contain one-sentence summaries of where we see the Lord Jesus in every book of the Bible. Such lists run the risk of being written off as simplistic, but if ‘Christ and his redemption are the great subject of the whole Bible’ (Jonathan Edwards), the spirit behind them is surely a good one.[1]

In the words of the Puritan Thomas Adams, ‘The blessed Christ is…the sum of the whole Bible, prophesied, typified, prefigured, exhibited, demonstrated, to be found in every leaf, almost in every line; the Scriptures being but as it were the swaddling bands of the child Jesus’.[2]

Edward Leigh could argue that as Jesus Christ is ‘the end of the law and the substance of the Gospel’, he is ‘the principal subject of the whole Bible’ and ‘the summe of all divine revealed truths’.[3]

As such, lists like the one below may be a means to help us follow Isaac Ambrose’s exhortation: ‘Keep still Jesus Christ in your eye, in the perusal of the Scriptures, as the end, scope and substance thereof’.[4]

The following list was, I believe, originally drawn up by Dr Rich Ganz, founding pastor of Ottawa RPC. It is offered here, not because it is necessarily better than any of the others, but simply because no-one else seems to have shared it online.

Undoubtedly no-one will agree with all of it (to take one example, I would see Job pointing us to Christ particularly in his role as an innocent sufferer), but it may at least prove a helpful starting point.

Genesis                        The seed of the woman who crushes the head of the serpent.

Exodus                         The I AM, who comes in the burning bush - “I am that which I am.”

Leviticus                       The final burnt offering of Leviticus

Numbers                       Pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night

Deuteronomy             The Prophet of Ch. 18

Joshua                          The commander of the Lord’s hosts and the captain of our salvation

Judges                         The Angel of the Lord

Ruth                             The kinsman redeemer

Samuel                          The King whose line will never end

Kings & Chronicles        The power and fire of God in Kings and Chronicles

Ezra                             The final temple of Ezra

Nehemiah                     The wall of safety

Esther                           The deliverer

Job                              The redeemer of Job

Psalms                          The good shepherd

Proverbs & Ecclesiasties   Our wisdom

Song of Songs                The Bridegroom

Isaiah                           The prince of peace

Jeremiah                    The righteous branch

Lamentations           The weeping prophet

Ezekiel                          The spirit of obedience

Daniel                           The Son of God in the fiery furnace

Hosea                           The forsaken husband

Joel                              The Lord dwelling in the midst of His people

Amos                            The roaring lion

Obadiah                       The possessor of the Kingdom

Jonah                           The dead and risen one

Micah                           The preacher of righteousness

Nahum                         The avenger

Habakkuk                    The everlasting and holy one

Zephaniah                   The terrifying one

Haggai                          The Lord of Hosts

Zechariah                    The high priest of Zechariah

Malachi                         The Son of righteousness

Matthew                      The Son of Man

Mark                             The Son of God

Luke                             The Son of the most high

John                             The Word made flesh

Acts                              He is the one who baptises with the Holy Spirit in Acts

Romans                         The sovereign predestining Lord of Romans

Corinthians                   The life giving spirit of Corinthians

Galatians                      The seed of Abraham in Galatians

Ephesians                     The forgiver of our sins

Philippians                     The bond servant

Colossians                      The Image of the invisible God, the fullness of the Godhead

Thessalonians                The destroyer of the antichrist

Timothy                       The mediator between God and man

Titus                             He justifies by grace in Titus

Philemon                      He is the loving friend in Philemon

Hebrews                       The great High Priest

James                            He is the one who will not tempt us

Peter                             The chief shepherd

John                             Our Advocate

Jude                              He is the one who keeps us from stumbling and makes us stand glorious in Jude

Revelation                      The first and the last, the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, King of kings and Lord of lords.


[1] Edwards, ‘A history of the work of Redemption’ in Works (Yale), ix, 289.

[2] Adams, ‘Sermon LXIII: Meditations upon some part of the Creed’ in Works, iii, 224.

[3] Cited in Richard Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, ii, 219.

[4] Cited in J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness, p. 103.