A Testament of Grace— An Introduction
It has been said that any good work has need of a companion. Now, this is not to say that our survey of the Old Testament “Grace and Fire” was a good work and therefore, it needs a companion. But, this is to say that simply stopping at our last endeavor in trying to understand the Old Testament a little better would be a gross error because it is only part of the story of redemption. Therefore, our previous work does in fact need a companion. To gain a clearer picture, we need to traverse through the pages of the New Testament.
That said, you are about to embark on the journey of a lifetime! There is simply no greater adventure than sifting through and understanding the message of the New Testament. By saying this, I am not trying to diminish the Old Testament in any way, but simply pointing out that looking at the Old Testament through the lens of the New Testament gives us a clearer picture of the story of Redemption; to stop at the Old Testament, in other words, places us at a disadvantage. If I were speaking to you, and told you that there was a message vital to your survival but stopped in mid-sentence, you would probably be exceptionally frustrated with me. Or, if I were to tell you a story, but then…
This is what happens if we were to stop at the Old Testament and go no further. We would be left screaming, “But how does it end!?”
But with the New Testament… God tells the rest of His story.
We can imagine the end of the Old Testament as a ‘comma’ of sorts— a four-hundred-year-long comma! But now God is answering for us what had so long been shrouded in mystery. That’s the word the New Testament uses— it uses the word mystery for those things that are now known but were previously not known.
When we left off with the Old Testament, we left off with a Testament of Law, a Testament of Burden, A Testament of Weight. Inside of these thirty-nine books we find mankind in a tragic state. God, from Genesis 3 all the way to the book of Malachi was showing us what we could not do for ourselves.
Let me see if I can illustrate this:
If you’re one of those people who like picking up spare change off the ground, I’m sure you would never dream of looking down and whistling at those little pieces of coins and asking them to jump in your pocket for you (that’s crazy). Instead, what you have to do is reach down, pick it up, and put it safely in your pocket. That is what God had to do with us spiritually. After the fall of mankind, He couldn’t, because of His infinite holy nature, look at us and simply tell us to come up to where He is; He had to reach down and pick us up.
That’s the story of the Old Testament. God’s law (which is the absolute reflection of who He is) is too much for us to bear and we can see this in full force with the Nation of Israel as God’s righteous law dominated the lives of His people— and it didn’t just dominate them; it defeated them. Over and over again we see this cycle of repentance and failure as God’s people struggled with the weight of God’s Law. But what is interesting is that with each failure, as we observed in our Old Testament survey, God continually held out hope that He would provide salvation for His chosen nation, and for the world, but never says exactly how.
Well, once we get inside the New Testament, we move from a Testament of Law, to a Testament of Grace, and we find that salvation has a Name! Once we look at the Old Testament through the lens of the New Testament we see that once God revealed that grace would be the new standard and this mystery of salvation was revealed, we see that the entire Bible, from start to finish, was speaking of our Lord Jesus Christ!
If you would like to think about it like this, it may prove helpful. In the Old Testament, we see the expectation of Jesus. Though His name is not mentioned, God told His people that the Messiah would come and would fulfill all righteousness. This Messiah would come and live the life that we could not. He would come to bear the burden of the weight of the law, and where we fell, He would carry the load.
Once we approach the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), the expectation is over and we see the proclamation of Jesus. As we move through each Gospel, you will see that these books say loudly and boldly, “Here He is! Christ has Come!”
Then we’ll move into the book of Acts and all of the letters to the churches, and this is where you will see the explanation of Jesus. In other words, This is where we will see how the power of Christ is worked out in the life of the church and the life of the believer. It is in these books where you will find out specifics about what Jesus accomplished on the cross, and what a life of grace is intended to look like.
Lastly, as we make it to the book of the Revelation, we will be able to study the absolution of Jesus. While Jesus is now, and forever will be, the reigning King of kings and Lord of lords, at this point in time, people have a choice of whether or not to accept His authority. But after we approach the end of God’s Revelation, that choice will no longer exist.
In the Old Testament we find a veil that separated a portion of the tabernacle and the temple. It was the veil that separated the holy place from the holy of holies where the mercy seat was located. It was at this location where God met with, and dealt with His people. However, this place was very hard to get to; it could only be entered into one time a year. This place was hard to approach; only the high priest of Israel could enter into this place. This is God telling us that He is very separate from us. This is God telling us how holy He is. This is God though, telling us that we could come to Him if it was by His prescribed method— a blood sacrifice. But when we do enter in, with the description given to us in the Old Testament, once the high priest was in this place to offer blood, and came before this golden slab, there was an incredible amount of mystery that surrounded it. It has been said that when the high priest entered into this place to meet with God and deal with the sins of the people, there was no image that he met, there was only an event; a mysterious atonement event. The blood of animals picturing the passing over of sin.
And now, in the New Testament, the mystery has been revealed. The torn body of Christ is the event that resulted in the torn cloth of the veil. In other words, what we learn about Jesus in the New Testament is that we, as God’s people get to go behind the veil and approach God directly.
Book by book that is the story of the New Testament that we will examine together; that Jesus came “And preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.” (Ephesians 2:17-18)