A die is made up of two parts, the obverse and the reverse; the one fitting perfectly into the other, the two making a completed whole. It is thus with the Scriptures, made up of two parts, the Old and the New Testaments; both equally inspired, the One incomplete without the other.
It has often been said that the New Testament is hidden in the Old Testament, whilst the Old Testament is revealed in the New Testament: that the New Testament is enfolded in the Old Testament, whilst the Old Testament is unfolded in the New Testament.
This is to a large extent true, nevertheless we shall see that the New Testament of necessity must go far beyond the Old Testament in revelation.
The Old Testament is a book of
UNFULFILLED PROPHECIES,
UNEXPLAINED RITUAL,
UNSATISFIED ASPIRATIONS.
A die maker would not be content to make the obverse and leave the reverse unmade. The one without the other would be useless. The two parts, making the whole, would alone justify his work. So with God. He will not leave His work half finished. The Old Testament demands a New Testament. Prophecy claims fulfilment; type, the Anti-type; shadow, the Substance; aspirations cry aloud for the Satisfier.
In the main the Old Testament prophesies concern the coming into the world of the Messiah; a Divine Person, who should become Man, die an atoning death and bring in everlasting blessing for His people. All history in the Old Testament leads up to and circles around Israel, and Israel was chosen in view of Christ coming into the world. All indeed hinges upon Him. There is only One Person who has rightly claimed to be the fulfilment of all that the Old Testament held forth, and only one book that claims to be the complement of the Old Testament.
The subject we have chosen is a very interesting and vital one. The materials are so abundant that we must be content with a very partial presentation of the theme. We propose to accomplish this in the form of a dialogue between an unbelieving Jew and an earnest Christian.
J. It is all very well for you Christians to come along, and substitute your New Testament for our Old Testament. It is this that arouses our deep resentment. We want nothing to do with your Scriptures. We refuse to read them.
C. That refusal is just where you do yourselves a grievous wrong. If you would only read the New Testament, you would find that it does not supplant the Old Testament, but on the contrary it fulfils it. The Old Testament is quoted more than 350 times in the New Testament. My copy of the New Testament has 245 pages, so that over 350 quotations mean a very large number. These quotations are made as from an inspired volume with all the authority of God’s name behind them, and in many cases are used to establish Christian doctrine. How can you say that the New Testament supplants the Old Testament, when you have never opened its pages?
Hear the words of the Messiah, whom your nation crucified, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say to you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled” (Matt. 5:17-18).
J. You say that Christ came to fulfil the law and not to set it aside. I have heard it said that He put His authority above that of the law, that He tells His hearers that the law said so-and-so, but that “I say to you;” thus putting what He said above the law.
C. There again you argue on hearsay. Why not read for yourself? What you object to comes in the very discourse where our Lord said that He had not come to destroy the law but to fulfil it. If you would study that most wonderful Sermon on the Mount, you would find that the law is not set aside, but that the law brings in a deeper spirituality, a code of conduct that did not set aside the law, but went beyond it, yet upholding it in all its integrity.
Let one instance suffice out of the seven occasions in that discourse when our Lord said, “I say to you.” “Ye have heard that it was said of them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: but I say to you, That whosoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart” (Matt. 5:27-28). Where is there the setting aside of the law? Nay, He upheld it. The law was content to forbid the actual act, the Lord went further, and not only forbad the outward act, but the inward desire.
Nay more, if the Lord were to forgive sins, He must uphold the righteous requirements of the law by meeting its curse on the cross. Not one jot or tittle of the law but what He upheld it. We read, “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree” (Gal. 3:13). Was there ever a greater proof that our Lord upheld the law than when He voluntarily submitted to its curse, knowing full well what that awful ordeal would mean, in order that “grace might reign through RIGHTEOUSNESS to eternal life” (Rom. 5:21)?
Oh! is a wonderful story, and you are missing the blessing of it. Does it not stir your heart to think that every Christian worships one of your race? He is infinitely more than a Man, even One, “who is over all, God blessed for ever” (Rom. 9:5), else worship would be impossible, for we may worship none but God. Our Christ is the Jehovah of the Old Testament, and He is the Fulfiller of all the prophecies concerning His sufferings, whilst we wait for Him to be the Fulfiller of “the glory that should follow” (1 Peter 1:11). All our Christian hopes centre in Him, whom the woman at Sychar’s well recognized at first as a Jew, but in the end as the Messiah, David’s Son truly, a Man but David’s Lord, a Divine Person, God the Son.
J. Ah! there you are. You Christians take it for granted that your Christ was the Jehovah of the Old Testament. How can you prove that? Everything hangs on the answer to that question. If you can prove that the Jesus of the New Testament is the Jehovah of the Old Testament, then I must perforce to be a Christian.
C. That is a good question you ask. To settle that question will solve a thousand difficulties. The Lord turned to the Old Testament Scriptures in proof of His deity. When He demanded of the Pharisees, who were familiar with and professed to believe the Old Testament Scriptures, “What think ye of Christ? whose Son is He?” they replied, “The Son of David.” He then referred them to Psalm 110:1, and asked a further question, “How then doth David in spirit call Him Lord, saying, The Lord said to My Lord, Sit Thou on My right hand, till I make Thine enemies Thy footstool? If David then call Him, Lord, how is He His Son?” (Matt. 22:41-46). The Lord, who, as a man, lived centuries after David’s time, existed before him. He was therefore a Divine Person, and yet was David’s Son. This Psalm conclusively proves that the Messiah would prove to be both God and Man, one person, David’s Lord and David’s Son. But that alone would not identify Jesus as the Messiah.
But examine the record of Christ, and it abundantly proves that He was David’s Lord and David’s Son. Did the Old Testament tell us that the Messiah, “whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting” (Mic. 5:2), should be born at Bethlehem? Christ was born at Bethlehem. Did the Scriptures not aver that He would be born of a virgin (Isa. 7:14)? Christ was born of a virgin. What meant all the blood that flowed on Jewish altars? Did not each sacrifice prophesy the great coming sacrifice of Christ on the Cross? Was not His public life marked by a constant stream of miracles, of a number and a kind that had never been seen before? Did He not read from Isaiah 56 in the synagogue of Nazareth, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent me to heal the broken-heartened, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord” (Luke 4:18)? Did He not add, “This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears” (v. 21)?
And above all, the resurrection of Christ proves him to be the Jehovah of the Old Testament and the Saviour of the New Testament. We read that the One, who was “made of the seed of David according to the flesh” was “declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead” (Rom. 1:2, 4). Resurrection from the dead was an act of divine power, and could be nothing else. Again and again did the apostles testify that God raised Jesus from the dead. The resurrection was historically proved by irrefutable testimony, and itself proved that God put His seal upon all that Christ was and said and did, especially the great work of atonement on the cross.
The Lord said to the Pharisees, “Before Abraham was I am.” If that affirmation were not true He was a deceiver and God would never have raised a deceiver from the dead. The resurrection proves that that and all other statements of Christ were true. He constantly claimed to be divine, the only Source of blessing to the world. He affirmed His death to be a necessity if men were to be blessed; His resurrection, as bound to take place.
There have been many who claimed to be the Messiah, but their course was meteoric and their followers few, and their pretensions soon found out. Not so with Christ. For near two thousand years He has been revered and trusted by millions.
J. You certainly have gone a long way to convince me of the truth of Christianity. You have given me a new view of the New Testament. I mean to study it carefully. I want the truth at all costs.
C. I am glad to hear you say this. But let me make a few general remarks on the subject. Take the summing up of the whole human race, where we are told in Romans 3:23, that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” No Jew could consistently take exception to that statement for the condemnation is presented in a mosaic of texts culled from your Old Testament Scriptures. You will find that Psalms 5:9; 10:7; 14:3; 140:3; Proverbs 1:16, are all quoted. You cannot say that the New Testament supplants the Old Testament. It is more like storey upon storey in a building. The upper storey does not supplant the lower storey. It rests upon it. It continues the building to a more elevated position. That is an illustration of the relation between the two Testaments.
Take the famous Epistle to the Hebrews.
J. What is that? I have never heard it.
C. No, because in your folly you have hitherto refused to read the New Testament. Read the Epistle to the Hebrews and you will see that it is impossible to understand that book unless you understand a good deal of Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus, and something of the history of Judges and Samuel. Take the Old Testament characters, who are used in this Epistle to illustrate Christian doctrine, Abraham, Moses, Aaron, Melchisedec. Take the things—the tabernacle, the holy place, the holiest of all, the veil, the golden candlestick, the showbread table, the ark, the sacrifices of bulls and of goats. Take the men and women to illustrate the path of faith, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sara, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jepthah, David, Samuel, the prophets. Take places to illustrate truth, Sinai, Zion. There is not time save to point these things out.
Take the Epistle to the Galatians. It is impossible to understand that epistle without a knowledge of Genesis and Exodus. In it the priority of grace is shown over the law in that Abraham, received the covenant of promise, that in his seed all nations should be blessed, 430 years before the law was given, whilst in Romans it is said, “he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised; that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised” (Rom. 4:11).
You can see that it was the Old Testament Scriptures that prepared the way for the proclamation of the gospel in the New Testament, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15). Jehovah was not a mere tribal God to a little nation like Israel, but the God of the whole earth.
Perhaps we have said enough for the moment on this deeply interesting theme. We have merely scratched the surface, whilst below is a veritable mine of wealth. We shall have been well rewarded if you are encouraged to dig for hid treasure.
The Bible is not a mere collection of pamphlets, but an organism, a growth. We see prophecy after prophecy fulfilled; type after type meeting its more than fulfilment in the glorious Antitype, the Lord Jesus Christ; aspirations satisfied. Finality is found in Christ. He is your Countryman according to the flesh, but He is infinitely more, and in His resurrection and ascension has put things on the line of the new creation, so that the Apostle Paul exclaims, “Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more” (2 Cor. 5:16).
Will you not put honour upon your Old Testament Scriptures by following the road it has clearly marked out to the New Testament, and above all to—CHRIST? All our hope lies in Him.