Is It Out With The Old And In With The New?
The Old Testament is a book of covenantal laws that God established with the nation of Israel. Because of the law, many believe the Bible presents two methods of salvation depending upon the time the person lived. They assert that the Old Covenant required strict obedience to commandments and through these people could be saved. The impossibility of this is apparent because the human heart cannot produce any work that satisfies God or justifies him in God’s courtroom. Perfection cannot be born out of imperfection, and this is what God requires.
In Old Testament worship, there is a forward-looking representation of the way that God would give perfection to a people that was perpetually breaking His laws. These were the laws of sacrifice that were emblematic of the payment to justice that God Himself would make. It would come through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the perfect Son of God. He would earn righteousness by His perfect life and the merits of this perfection would be accounted to us through faith in this eternal sacrifice. For those marking doctrine in these statements, this is known as the imputation of Christ righteousness by faith.
Since the sacrifices of the Old Covenant are forward-looking, they were never intended as a means of salvation. If I might put it this way, they were a placeholder of belief and forgiveness until the perfect sacrifice would come. The prophet Jeremiah declared the word of the Lord stating that Israel had repeatedly broken the covenant the Lord made with them. They were hopeless to be saved by obedience to laws because the human heart is incapable of keeping them. Though God was displeased and angry at their often forays into sin, still in His love and mercy, Jeremiah assured them God planned something better. A new covenant would come in which God would write His laws in their heart—not on tablets of stone—and He would be their God in the perfection of His holiness. God would forgive their wickedness and no longer remember their sins. This establishes that that Old Covenant believers were saved by grace just as we are today.
It is important to understand that Jesus entering the world as a little baby is not a nice fairy tale story to recite to our children. The necessity of the birth of Christ was forged in the bloodiness of Old Testament sacrifices and in consequence of the blackness of human depravity. Thousands upon thousands of animals were killed as a temporary placeholder for forgiveness of sins. Christ must needs come to offer a better sacrifice, a once for all sacrifice that would satisfy the Father and end animal sacrifices forever.
The book of Hebrews is the Bible’s definitive explanation of the need for the New Covenant. It says the Old Covenant sacrifices could never permanently take away sins and this is the reason for their constant repetition. A marvelous scripture in Hebrews speaks of the Old Testament tabernacle. It says Christ did not go into an earthy tabernacle made with hands to present His blood for atonement. Instead, He went into the presence of God into a far more exceptional sanctuary which is heaven itself. There He offered His blood and obtained eternal redemption for all who believe. Thus, never again does anyone need to offer an animal sacrifice. Today, our sacrifices are spiritual, and they magnify the eternal gift that God made of His Son.
Is there law in the New Covenant? Most certainly. It is the law fulfilled by Christ. It is the perfection of the law in Him that saves us. We must lay down all efforts of our own or we diminish and profane the sacrifice of Christ. This is not the Old Covenant vs the New Covenant as if one was bad and the other good. No, the Old Covenant recognized the necessity of the incarnation as much as the New. The blessing for us today is that we have both the Old and New Testaments (covenants) to tell us marvelous truths about Jesus Christ.
Pastor V. Mark Smith