Saturday, June 1, 2013
Salvation in the Old Testament
"Now before faith came, we were held
captive under the law, imprisoned until
the coming faith would be revealed.
So then, the law was our guardian until
Christ came, in order that we might be
justified by faith.
But now that faith has come, we are no
longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus
you are all sons of God, through faith."
Galatians 3:23-26
****************
John Samson recently received a question at his blog, Effectual Grace.
The reader wrote:
"It's a fair question: How were Israelites saved in
the Old Testament? The rationale behind the question
mostly stems from the fact that we, as New Testament
believers can look back at the Person and Work of Jesus
for our salvation.
However, what if you lived during a time when Jesus
hadn't arrived, namely the period of the Old Testament?
Were you saved by your obedience to the Law? Did
God just give everyone a "free pass" until Christ arrived?
How did salvation work for those who were still waiting
for the gospel of Jesus?"
Samson answers:
"One of my favorite responses to this question is from Old Testament and Biblical
Theology scholar Graeme Goldsworthy. In his must-read work Gospel and
Kingdom, he writes:
"From man's point of view the Scriptures unfold a
step-by-step process until the gospel is reached as
the goal. But from God's point of view we know
that the coming of Christ to live and to die for sinners
was the pre-determined factor even before God made
the world.
We must not think of God trying first one plan and then
another, until he came up with the perfect way of salvation.
The gospel was pre-ordained so that at the exact and perfect
time God sent forth his Son into the world.
"But when the time had fully come,
God sent his Son, born of a woman,
born under law, to redeem those
under law, that we might receive
the full rights of sons."
Galatians 4:4-5
Goldsworthy continues:
In the meantime, until that perfect 'fullness of time' should be
reached, God graciously provided a progressive revelation of
the Christ event.
These prefigurements of the gospel had two purposes.
First, this progressive revelation led man gently to the full
light of truth.
Second, it provided the means whereby the Old Testament
believer embraced the gospel before it was fully revealed.
The Old Testament believer who believed the promises of God
concerning the shadow was thus enabled to grasp the reality.
It was by Christ that the saints of Israel were saved, for such is
the unity of the successive stages of revelation that, by
embracing the shadow, the believer embraced the reality.
Only in this way can we account for the 'unity expressions' of the
New Testament which speak of Old Testament believers as
hearing the gospel, seeing Christ, or hoping for a heavenly
Kingdom."
****************
Samson writes:
"Goldsworthy's answer is one worth committing to memory.
How were Old Testament saints saved? By Christ! But how
could Christ save those who lived centuries before the Cross?
Because God gave his people types, symbols, and experiences
that progressively pointed to the arrival of Christ.
They were intentionally given the shadow of things which one
day would blossom into reality. And so, salvation came to Old
Testament individuals who embraced the 'shadow' of the One
we, as New Testament believers, now see clearly in the light."
*****************
The animal sacrifices in the Old Testament were shadows of Christ's
ultimate, once for all time sacrifice of himself. The fact that they had to be
repeated year after year, proved that the perfect sacrifice that removed sin was
still to come.
"The law is only a shadow of the
good things that are coming --
not the realities themselves.
For this reason it can never, by the
same sacrifices repeated endlessly
year after year, make perfect those
who draw near to worship."
Hebrews 10:1-2
The ceremonial laws of the Old Testament were also shadows, symbolizing
Christ's coming. Perfect salvation is found only in Christ!
"These are a shadow of the things
that were to come; the reality,
however, is found in Christ."
Colossians 2:17
****************
"The Levitical system was not designed by God to remove or forgive sins.
It was preparatory for the coming of the Messiah in that it made people
expectant. It revealed the seriousness of their sinful condition, in that even
temporary covering required the death of an animal. It revealed the reality
of God's holiness and righteousness by indicating that sin had to be covered.
The Old Testament sacrifices not only could not remove sin, but their constant
repetition was a constant reminder of that deficiency.
The promise of the New Covenant was that the sin would be removed and even
God would remember their sins no more."
John MacArthur
"For I will be merciful toward their iniquities,
and I will remember their sins no more."
Hebrews 8:12
****************
So, in the Old Testament, salvation came by grace through faith, just as in the
New Testament.
When the person embraced the "shadow" of Jesus by faith, God credited it to
him as righteousness. He is made right with God, through faith.
"Does he who supplies the Spirit to you
do so by works of the law, or by hearing
with faith -- just as Abraham believed God,
and it was counted to him as righteousness?"
Galatians 3:5-6
"How were Old Testament saints saved?
By Christ!"
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Hebrew children in the Old Testament were born into God's covenant, both male and female. Circumcision was the sign of this covenant for boys, but the sign was not what saved them. Faith saved them. Rejecting the sign, circumcision, for boys, either by the parents or later as an adult himself, was a sign of a lack of true faith, and therefore the child was "cut off" from God's promises as clearly stated in Genesis chapter 17:
ReplyDelete"Every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. 12 He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, 13 both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. 14 Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”
What was the purpose of this covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? God tells us in the beginning of this chapter of Genesis:
"And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you."
This covenant wasn't just to establish a Jewish national identity or a promise of the inheritance of the land of Caanan, as some evangelicals want you to believe. In this covenant, God promises to be their God. Does God say here that he will be their God only if they make a "decision for God" when they are old enough to have the intelligence and maturity to decide for themselves? No! They are born into the covenant!
If Jewish children grew up trusting in God and lived by faith, they then received eternal life when they died. If when they grew up, they rejected God, turned their back on God, and lived a life of willful sin, when they died, they suffered eternal damnation. Salvation was theirs to LOSE. There is no record anywhere in the Bible that Jewish children were required to make a one time "decision for God" upon reaching an "Age of Accountability" in order to be saved.
Therefore Jewish infants who died, even before circumcision, were saved.
The same is true today. Christian children are born into the covenant. They are saved by faith. It is not the act of baptism that saves, it is faith. The refusal to be baptized is a sign of a lack of true faith and may result in the child being "cut off" from God's promise of eternal life, to suffer eternal damnation, as happened with the unfaithful Hebrew in the OT.
Christ said, "He that believes and is baptized will be saved, but he that does not believe will be damned."
It is not the lack of baptism that damns, it is the lack of faith that damns.
Gary
Luther, Baptists, and Evangelicals
An orthodox Lutheran blog