Is 20/20, as the saying goes. Which is often true in the Bible as well.
The creative way in which many of the New Testament writers utilize the Old Testament is often not so much a matter of what we would call “good hermeneutics,” at least by 21st century standards, (and depending on which branch of the Church you find yourself in), but I would call it “prophetic hermeneutics.” Not “prophetic” in a flat, telling-the-future way, but more like the past helping to make sense of the present.
And not only to make sense of the present, but to give language that allows one to talk about the present to others in a way that is compelling, eye-opening, and life-giving.
It works like this: Person A experiences life in the present. A certain text of Scripture comes to mind. And as that text is laid over the future like a filter, Person A can talk about the present to Person B in a whole new, amazing way.
The question being answered is not, “What does this text mean?” in some sort of abstract, detached, isolated-in-a-lab kind of way, but rather, “What does this text mean as it intersects with our experience?”
So John can watch two criminals’ legs be broken on their crosses, but not Jesus’ legs. The Scripture comes to mind that says, “Not one of his bones will be broken.” (Psalm 34:20) Now, surely at least one of Jesus’ bones was broken in the course of his torture, but that isn’t the point. The point is that the core themes of Psalm 34 also apply to Jesus—God’s deliverance, salvation, and vindication—not just that single verse.
Or John can watch the soldier pierce Jesus’ side with a spear, (which, in contrast to the leg-breaking did not happen to the other two criminals), and thinks of the line, “They will look on the one they have pierced” (Zechariah 12:10), which is all about God defending his people—the whole nation—from all the enemy nations surrounding, threatening nations, for the whole world to see. So what’s happening to Jesus is not just about him, but it is international in scale.
So it can be in our own lives. A Scripture-soaked imagination can allow us to review the events of the human experience in new, fresh, and hope-filled ways.
