After writing 37 posts about the Old Testament, I will wrap things up with this disclaimer. I don’t spend much time in the Old Testament. I don’t often read, teach, or preach from the Old Testament. And here’s why.
The old covenant is the SHADOW, the new covenant is the REALITY. The old covenant contains the MYSTERY, the new covenant is the REVELATION. The old covenant points to the PROMISE. The new covenant is the FULFILLMENT. Why would I spend much time in the shadow, the mystery, or the promise when the reality, the revelation, and the fulfillment are waiting for me to explore, understand, and live?
Because we have been taught that all Scripture is of equal importance – even in this new covenant age – we think that we need to be reading and teaching from both the Old and New Testaments to proclaim the whole counsel of God. But if you have been following this series, especially posts 1 through 4, you know that the old covenant is obsolete, over and done (God’s words, not mine in Hebrews 8:13 and elsewhere).
But what do we see in our evangelical churches? We often see a pattern of teaching through a book of the Bible from the Old Testament followed by a book of the New Testament and back and forth we go. Unless you are preaching Christ in the Old Testament, you are wasting the time of your congregants. This approach only leads to mixed covenant confusion.
Please hear this … the old covenant is over! Its promises of blessing and curses. Its Law as a guide for living a God-honoring life. Its calling out for the presence of the Lord to come to us. Its stench of death. All of it. The old covenant is over.
I beg of you – teachers, preachers, church elders – focus on the REALITY, the REVELATION, and the FULFILLMENT of the new covenant. This is the reality that your audience needs to understand. This is the reality that your people live in today. This is the reality they need to embrace to live the victorious Christian life.
I am not here to disparage the Old Testament. I am just saying, “Let’s keep it in its proper place in the progressive revelation of God; its proper place as home to the promise of the coming Messiah and His salvation. It is NOT the standard for Christian living.”
But what about an Old Testament sermon on the character of God, for example? Don’t we learn some valuable things there? An Old Testament explanation of God’s character will always fall short in giving us the full picture. Where do we find the most complete revelation of God’s character, of God’s glory? In the face of Christ! “For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (II Corinthians 4:6). We see the most complete expression of the glory of God in the face of Christ. Jesus said it this way, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father” (John 14:9).
Think back to Exodus chapter 34 when Moses requested of God to see His glory. God effectively said, “No”, explaining that no one could see His glory and live. So God hid Moses in the rock, covered him with His hand, and passed by so that Moses only saw God’s back. But Moses did eventually see God’s glory; 1500 years later at the Mount of Transfiguration, in the presence of Jesus. When Moses and Elijah appeared with the glorified Jesus in the gospels (Mark 9:2-8), what did Moses see? He saw the glory of the Lord in the face of Jesus. It took a face-to-face with Jesus to finally see the compete glory of God.
The Old Testament can never stand on its own in explaining the character of God, how to live a God honoring life, or how the blessing of God works. It is out dated and obsolete regarding any of these issues. We NEED the reality, the revelation, and fulfillment explained for us in the New Testament to finish the picture.
Christianity is Christ. It is right in the name. Christianity is NOT the rules, laws, or principles of the Old Testament. Jesus Christ is the face, founder, and sole source of our faith. One way we could help folks understand this is if we published our Bibles a bit differently. I will explain next time.