“The most urgent
task facing evangelical Christianity today is the recovery of the Gospel” J.I. Packer
Many liberal Bible scholars and Bible deniers
consider the Old Testament sub-Christian and not to be considered
authoritative. For them, it’s a closed chapter with zero relevance for the
Church and little meaning for us today. The common claim is the God of the Old
Testament is harsh, brutal…even evil. Maybe you’ve heard questions like these: How could God kill all those innocent
people, even children, in the Flood? Why would God send the Israelites into
Canaan to exterminate the innocent Canaanites living in the land? Why did God
continually require blood sacrifices?
A logical
and initial response to this can simply be, “How can a skeptic or non-Christian
say God is harsh, brutal, and evil when they deny the Bible, the very book that
defines harsh, brutal, and evil?” Add to that, for atheistic, materialistic or evolutionary
worldviews, such things are neither morally right nor wrong because there’s no transcendent
God in their view to establish what is right or wrong. It’s all subjective. Those
who believe in a naturalistic worldview accept as “natural” animals raping,
murdering and eating their own kind yet attack the God of the Bible and call
Him evil.
But even the most fanatical atheists have an
innate sense of right and wrong, wanting justice. They’d be outraged if Omar
Mateen, the Islamic Orlando shooter, had survived and were allowed to go free
without facing justice or consequences for his cold blooded massacre of 49
victims. Yet, if God really doesn’t exist and the Bible isn’t His Word, then those
who attack God and His Word by calling Him harsh and evil shouldn’t care. If
Naturalism rules, if it’s a dog eat dog world, justice is only a cultural or
subjective human derivative. For example, what is justice for us in America
would be heroism for much of the Islamic world.
It’s only in Scripture, we find true justice
and grace. They go all the way back to the beginning, Creation and the Fall. From
an honest human standpoint, God’s mercy is counter-intuitive. We wouldn't
expect a God of perfect justice and righteousness to put up with stubborn
sinners. No, we’d expect Him to stamp out evil entirely. After all, aren't we
tempted to avenge ourselves for much lesser faults?
The Old Testament is the Bible Jesus and the
early church used to explain His coming, His sacrifice and God’s plan of grace.
It’s what Jesus shared after His resurrection with the two disciples on the
road to Emmaus: “‘O foolish ones, and
slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not
necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into His
glory?’ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He interpreted
to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself” (Luke
24:25-27).
Even many well-meaning Christians have a file cabinet view of the
accounts from the Old Testament. In that paradigm, the book of Psalms contains
files of reassuring words for hard times. The Genesis file folder is full of
interesting moral lessons. The book of Proverbs file is useful when one needs
good advice. The Law and Minor Prophets? Many aren’t sure of their purpose. The
file folders containing those stories often gather dust.
This separate file folder approach to the Old Testament misses the
connections between those accounts and the Gospel that Jesus explained on the
road to Emmaus. As we look for the Gospel in the Old Testament, the file
folders begin to open up and the characters stumble out of our filing cabinet,
joining hands from Genesis until Jesus appears in person in the New Testament. Each
story feeds the next, teaching us of God’s good plan before time even began –
to forgive, show grace and redeem His people.
This morning we’re beginning a new study: The Gospel in the Old Testament. God’s
plan of forgiveness and redemption is not Plan B, or a New Testament God plan.
It began in the Old Testament with the Fall when our first parents disobeyed
God’s one command, bringing death upon themselves and the entire human race. If
God had not rescued Adam and Eve, and the human race, if there had been no
death and no plan of rescue, we’d have been forced to live in a sin-cursed
world for all eternity.
It’s why the path to the Tree of Life was guarded by an angel. Yet, by
dying in this sin-cursed world with Jesus Christ as our Savior, one inherits the
new heaven and new earth which will be restored to perfection, where there is
no curse, death, or suffering for all eternity. Death will have no sting (1
Corinthians 15:53-56) for those in Christ. That’s the seed of the Gospel and
goes all the way back to Genesis 3.
Man
sinned and God acted justly by punishing that sin, yet in love God also
provided three blessings: a grace period, a means of salvation and a perfect
place to live an eternal life without sin, death, or the curse. The New
Testament simply can’t be understood in isolation from the Old Testament. The Scriptures
which Jesus and the Apostles used in the authoritative proclamation of their
message were those of the Old Testament. “The
Gospel of God, which He promised beforehand through His prophets
in the holy Scriptures…” Romans 1:1-2. We miss so much of the force, as
well as the richness and depth of the gospel, when we fail to see it against
the backdrop of the Old Testament.
The
Old Testament is written in the context of the tragic human situation. Man, who
was made in the image of God to rule, to inherit thrones and dominions and to
enjoy God forever, is in a dire situation. He’s enslaved, oppressed and
afflicted. The Old Testament rudely reminds us we’re victim to countless
disorders and prey to the cruel tyrants of sin, misery and death. But there is
hope...
The Old Testament is filled with promises and prophecies of hope. They find
their fulfillment in Jesus Christ and the Gospel. The Gospel announces God has
acted in Christ to fulfill what He’d promised in the Old Testament. In Jesus these
promises are no longer future tense. God has acted in Christ to do all He
said He would do. It’s truly The Gospel in the Old Testament.
Please join us each Sunday this summer as we unpack God’s wonderful plan
of grace for us from the dawn of time!
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