Last month’s newsletter revealed some interesting examples of what would be missing if the church did not have the Old Testament. This month we focus on the role of the Old Testament for the New Testament believer.
The Old Testament is more than just a story of the Israelite people, their birth as a nation and their demise through sin. The Old Testament is theological. We have an easy time saying that the New Testament is theological after reading any one of the Pauline epistles. The Old Testament is theological, but just through a different medium, namely narration, or story-telling.
The great majority of the books of the Old Testament express the great doctrines of God through story-telling, or narration. Our problem in understanding the Old Testament is that we see it on the surface level, as a story. Yet the author of a particular book expressed the story or event in such a way in order to reveal a theological truth about God or being a child of God. Let’s take the Pentateuch as an example.
The Pentateuch was originally considered one book, but we separate it into five: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Taking the collection as one unit one can see a contrast between the two main characters within the Pentateuch, which are Abraham and Moses. It is through Abraham that we first see that salvation is through faith in Genesis 15:6.
Also, God challenges Abraham’s faith by asking for Isaac to be sacrificed in Genesis 22. It was through Isaac that God promised to make a great nation, yet God calls for the sacrifice of Isaac. Abraham responds by faith in taking his son up to the mountain to become a sacrifice. Two main theological ideas are found in this section. First, God requires His people to respond to Him by faith and obedience. Second, this story introduces the concept of sacrificial substitution through the offering of the ram. This is seen by Abraham when he says that God Himself will provide the sacrifice, Genesis 22:8.
Abraham was a man of great faith; so much so that God gives comments about Abraham’s faith in Genesis 26:5 in stating, “Abraham obeyed My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.” What is interesting about this verse is the fact that the laws have not yet been given in the story. We have to wait to Exodus 20 before we get to the laws of God. There we will find the same language of My Commandments, My statutes and My laws but applying to the nation of Israel.
From Exodus to Deuteronomy God is dealing with His people. We have the deliverance from bondage as symbolic of only God bringing true deliverance. The building of the tabernacle and articles reveals that God is holy and can only be approached according to His plan. From Exodus 19 till the end of the book we see how sinful God’s people are and the need of a mediator who can go between God and man as seen through the work of Moses.
The first half of Leviticus, as previously mentioned, deals with how man can approach God. The second half expounds upon how God’s people should live and walk in daily communion with Him. This section is often referred to as the holiness code because God gives specific areas and laws for the people to live by in order to keep them holy. For God is holy and demands that His people also be holy.
In Numbers 20:1–13 we read about the sin of Moses which leads to his forbiddance to enter into the Promise Land. Moses picks this up again in Deuteronomy 31:1–8 of his failure of entering the Land. The way in which Moses’ writes the Pentateuch reveals the struggles between faith and law.
Abraham who was before the law, fulfilled it through faith, but Moses who was after the law could not fulfill it because of faithlessness. Even the Hall of Faith in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews recognizes this by recounting only the events in Moses’ life that lead up to the giving of the law.
What is the theological importance that the author is expressing? First of all, salvation is through faith and not of works. Sound familiar? Works fail. Man cannot keep the law. If Moses, a giant of faith, failed to keep the law then what does that say about us?
This failure to keep the law as seen in the lives of Moses and the nation as a whole reveals a need for a new covenant that is not based on the external working of the law, but rather on an internal change of the heart. This covenant was predicted in Jeremiah 31:31, and other places, is realized through the life and death of our Lord and Savior.
The Old Testament is more than just a good bedtime story. Rather, it reveals how God created man and how man can approach God.