The Gospel as Eschatological Torah

Luke-Acts records Jesus as teaching that Jerusalem would be the starting point from which the preaching of the gospel would emanate. In Luke 24:46-47 Jesus tells his disciples that “it is written … that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” This idea is also reflected in Acts 1:8 when Jesus says that his disciples will be his witnesses “in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” The starting point for the preaching of the gospel of the risen Christ is Jerusalem. But where in particular is this written in the Old Testament Scriptures?

The answer seems to be … in Isa 2:2-3.

It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of Yahweh shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of Yahweh, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go the law, and the word of Yahweh from Jerusalem.

The intertextuality between Isa 2:2-3 and Luke 24:46-47 shows that the Old Testament concept of eschatological torah finds its fulfillment in the gospel!