My Unusual Journal 62
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
There Are Two Testaments - How Could the Same God Write Both?
We who follow God in this day have noted the difference between the demands laid on the Israelites of old and the believers in Christ of this day. When we take a first cursory glance at the Old Testament Law and the New Testament guidelines and compare the two, they appear to be so very much different from each other. We are made to see apparent differences between the Old and the New Testaments/Covenants that God made with His people. (In this instance, when speaking of the Old Testament [Mosaic] Law, we are not including the Moral Law, also known as the Ten Commandments, which are a sort of preamble to the Mosaic Law.) The Ten Commandments and the New Covenant can quite well coexist in our way of thinking; they are much alike in what they enjoin the children of God to do. It is the ceremonial law of the Old Covenant that apparently clashes with the NT Law of Christ.
Although the requirements for being a disciple now may seem to be simpler and easier than in the time of the ancient Israelites, we find on taking a second and closer look at what seem to be two laws, that the “law” of today is simply a form that is more refined, more comprehensible to humans and more pleasing to God than the first (Old Testament) law. The Jamieson, Fausset and Brown Commentary refers to the New Covenant as a “purer and more spiritual” form of the Old Testament Law, which it undoubtedly is.
Any law of God, Old or New, necessarily expresses the will of God, and there is only one overall will of God communicated to mankind. This God-to-man communication occurred first in the Mosaic Law and then, centuries later, in the New Testament Law. The latter was the fulfilling of, and an expanding on, the Old Testament Law. To restate: There is only one God and therefore only one law expressing the one will of God. There are, within that one law, a myriad of details covering this or that aspect of our life, service and communication with God. The Old and the New both comprise the one will of God working toward one end: bringing together and perfecting a people for God.
The Law is the Law, whether Old or New, and both Old and New are one, one, ONE in being an expression or displaying of the great God Jehovah. When Moses told the Israelites in his day, “And it shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the LORD our God, as he hath commanded us” (Deu 6:25 KJV), he was speaking of the old Law that was then in force. You will note, at least in this case, that Moses emphasized only the doing of the Law and not its effect on the heart and mind. But I cannot get into that now.
We in this day are not required to keep the old ceremonial law for two reasons: 1) Jesus fulfilled it in His life and death, and 2) the New Testament Law does not literally demand of us the various sacrificial rites contained in the Old Testament Law. As stated above, Jesus fulfilled them in His own life and death.
The Israelites of old and the Gentiles (all who are not Jews) of today who comprise the great majority of the present day Church, seem to be a mismatch unrelated to each other, but God in His peerless wisdom knew exactly what He was doing. When Jesus arrived on the scene, He pointed out the dissimilarities between the Old and the New Covenants in His Sermon on the Mount. At the conclusion of the Sermon the Scriptures make this note: “…when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine: For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” (Mat 7:28-29 KJV)
If the people had only known and accepted Jesus for who He really was, the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Col. 1.19, 2.9), they need not have been surprised; Jesus was the human love expression of the Godhead come down to dwell among men as the human Son of God. He was the Creator of all things and the embodiment of the will (law) of God. He was Himself the Law in human form.
You may demur: “Jesus couldn’t be the personification of the Mosaic Law! The Law was harsh and unyielding and the Jesus portrayed by the Bible was a gentle, loving Person.” There are a couple of things you forget, my friend. The old Law had more than a smattering of grace in it; it was a sacerdotal system, that is, it was based on offerings and sacrifices offered by a priest as mediator. The whole system in turn was predicated on the fact that all men are sinful and need to sacrifice for their sins in order to come before the righteous God and holy Creator. In the Old Testament the priests were men who eventually died and had to be replaced. In the New Testament there was only one Priest and He was/is Jesus who lives forever. That is undeniably grace; but admittedly this grace is an island surrounded on all sides by the fear that the worshiper of that day could err in his various rituals and be struck with the judgment of an offended righteous Deity. That is a very sobering thought. But let’s continue this discourse.
Here is the larger picture: The two covenants or laws were representative of God and each emphasized one or the other side, judgmental or soteriological (redemptive). It seems that God wished to stress His love in the New Testament and His wrath and judgment in the Old Testament. But they all – wrath/judgment and love/salvation – are of the same essence of God.
We have shown how the old law had flashes of grace and mercy while calling attention to God’s strict righteousness. On the other side of the coin Jesus, who was love personified, also spoke more than a few times about judgment and the accounting that all men must give for their sins. (Mat. 11.21-24; 23.33) At this point in the schedule of God we cannot have a God who is all love without judgment nor are we left with a God who is all wrath and no love and tender concern for His children. The point is this: we who follow after Christ and righteousness do not from henceforth have to live with the fear that the wrath of God will come crashing from the skies like a thunderbolt – or come insidiously in a deadly disease – to execute punishment on us for our sins. There can be no judgment for sins where there are no sins; and we who believe in Jesus are forever free of sin. When we do sin in this area or that, the blood that Jesus is offering to the Father immediately washes it away and we are freely justified (Heb. 9.24). The sin does not appear on our record and we can continue to live in God's presence, which we could not if there were sin of any kind defiling us. Surely, surely, this is grace unbounded!
Is this too much to ask of your faith in Christ? Think on this: No one can commit a sin that God did not see before the one who sinned committed it. Would it not stand to reason, then, that the blood of Christ, which flows forever to cleanse sins that are presently uncommitted, cleanses (not merely will cleanse) all of these uncommitted sins? I am not presently subscribing to Unconditional Eternal Security because I believe this future cleansing is in effect only where the faith of the one who sins does not fail. This may not give us the gratuitous gift of never ever falling, but it certainly gives all believers a great measure of security. We need only to trust in the blood of Jesus no matter how great our failure may be. Our difficulty lies not in the “greatness” of the sin committed, but in the constancy of the faith in Christ of the one who committed the sin.
If we refuse to not believe – “Lord, to whom shall we go?” – and if we maintain our trust in the efficacy of the shed blood of Christ – it is impossible for us ever to lose our salvation.
At this point I have not by any means exhausted the mystery of the Old and the New Testaments, but I believe I have accomplished what I set out to do. I have presented to you the one true God of the Bible – of the Old and the New Testament. God is still a God of wrath, but we who believe in Him will never face that wrath. He is also undoubtedly a God of love and salvation, but those who steadfastly refuse to believe in Him will never experience that love and salvation that are both immeasurably great and eternal.
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