Toward an Apostolic Reading of the God of the Old Testament
One of the most serious problems in contemporary biblical reading lies not in the text itself, but in the way we approach it.
Too often, the books of the Old Testament—and sometimes even those of the New—are read in an isolated, individualistic manner, detached from the Gospel horizon and without the illumination of the Holy Spirit, who reveals the Father to us through the Son.
This fragmented reading easily falls into the trap of what may be called theological Judaization: the worship of God apart from the Son,
the understanding of holiness through the lens of the Law,
and the persistent perception of the human person as fundamentally unclean, standing before a distant God.
Consider, for example, the cry of the prophet Isaiah:

> “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined!
For I am a man of unclean lips,
and I live among a people of unclean lips,
and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.”
(Isaiah 6:5, NIV)
If we stop here and read this text apart from the Gospel,
we risk denying what was later revealed in the incarnation of the Word
and what was effectively accomplished in the sending of the Holy Spirit.
An apostolic reading does not deny Isaiah’s cry,
but places it within the trajectory of salvific revelation.
For the Gospel proclaims that Christ
“has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.”
(1 Corinthians 1:30, NIV)
The Gospel does not return us to a state of perceived impurity;
rather, it reveals that what the prophets confessed as a lack
has been fulfilled by the Father in the Son
and sealed within us by the Holy Spirit.
When the Old Testament is read outside this horizon,
we are not being “faithful to the text.”
Instead, we risk separating God from his trinitarian work,
holiness from gift,
and justification from communion.