Saint Augustine expressed this in another way. He said,“the New Testament lies concealed in the Old, the Old lies revealed in the New.”

Sometimes, we get this when a prophet says something obscure, but it becomes clear when applied to Christ. In the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, for example, the prophet describes a suffering servant who was “pierced for our sins, crushed for our iniquity… It was the Lord’s will to crush him with pain. By making his life as a reparation offering….” Today we know these verses refer to Christ, but for those who were reading them before the time of Christ, it must have been unclear to whom the words of the prophet were referring.

Another example is Psalm 22 that starts with “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” Read in isolation from Christ, it is just a description of someone crying out for help. But when it is put on the lips of Christ during the Crucifixion, every word of the rest of the Psalm fits perfectly with what happened in the context of the Passion. How can we not see it as part of God’s plan of our salvation that he had slowly revealed from the beginning of creation?

Direct references like these are one way that links the Old and New Testaments. Another and subtler way the Old and New Testaments are connected is through typology. The Catechism says, “The Church, as early as apostolic times, and then constantly in her tradition, has illuminated the unity of the divine plan in the two testaments through typology, which discerns in God’s works of the Old Covenant prefigurations of what He accomplished in the fullness of time in the person of His incarnate Son.”

Typology is the study of types and symbols in Scripture. The word type comes from the Greek tupos, which means “imprint.” The print is called the type, while the instrument that made the imprint is called the anti-type. The typewriter is aptly named because when the metal letter keys strike an inked ribbon, it marks the paper behind it. The mark on the paper is a type, and the metal key that made it is the anti-type.

Another clear association is how the king in the Psalm is a king like Melchizedek, who is a “son of God” to Christ, the literal Son of God.

In his letter to the Hebrews, Saint Paul also explains how Christ is “raised up after the likeness of Melchizedek.”

Moses

Foreshadowed in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New:

• How is Moses like Christ in the following verses?
  Exodus 1:8-3:22
  Exodus 7:14-24
  Exodus 17:1-7
  Exodus 17:8-16
  Exodus 20:1-23:33
  Exodus 34:28
  Exodus 34:29-35

In the Old Testament, God dictated the laws to Moses, giving them to the Israelites. Moses was the lawgiver. In the New Testament, the Gospel of Matthew presents Jesus as a new Moses by becoming the new lawgiver.

In Matthew, we read about how the minions of Herod hunted Jesus. This is the start of many parallelisms when we read that the Pharaoh in the time of Moses wanted to massacre all the male children just as Herod wanted to do in Bethlehem.

It was Miriam, the sister of Moses, who ensured he was safe from this massacre. At the same time, it was Mary with her husband, Joseph, who kept Jesus safe by fleeing to Egypt. This connection is appreciated more when we learn Mary’s name in Hebrew is “Miriam.”

Making two into one is what a covenant does, specifically the covenant of matrimony. In this covenant, a man gives himself to a woman, and the woman gives herself to a man. An unbreakable relationship is forged; they are two persons but “one body.”

God made a covenant with Israel that he would be their God, and they would be his people. However, this is always presented as a marriage wherein God is the bridegroom, and Israel is the bride. We can feel the love of God for Israel in the words:

“As for your birth, on the day you were born your navel cord was not cut; you were not washed with water or anointed; you were not rubbed with salt or wrapped in swaddling clothes.

No eye looked on you with pity or compassion to do any of these things for you. Rather, on the day you were born you were left out in the field, rejected.

Then I passed by and saw you struggling in your blood, and I said to you in your blood, “Live!”I helped you grow up like a field plant, so that you grew, maturing into a woman with breasts developed and hair grown; but still you were stark naked.

I passed by you again and saw that you were now old enough for love. So I spread the corner of my cloak over you to cover your nakedness; I swore an oath to you and entered into covenant with you—oracle of the Lord God—and you became mine.

Then I bathed you with water, washed away your blood, and anointed you with oil.

I clothed you with an embroidered gown, put leather sandals on your feet; I gave you a fine linen sash and silk robes to wear.