BASIC BIBLE STUDIES
# 003
The Two Testaments: The Old and the New
When a person picks up a Bible and begins to examine it, one of the first things he discovers is that it is divided into two major sections--the Old Testament and the New Testament. Why is this the case? What is the difference between them? Are they not both parts of the inspired word of God? Why is one called "Old" and the other "New"? These are excellent questions, and the answers to them provide one with tremendous assistance in better understanding the Bible and applying it to our lives today.
The 39 books of the Old Testament are a record of God's dealings with the Israelite people, the people who came from the twelve sons of Jacob (whose name was changed to Israel), the grandson of Abraham, the ancestral head of the Hebrew/Israelite people. The first eleven chapters of Genesis provide one with a background to the eventual choosing of Abraham to be the head of a great nation of people from whom would come One through whom "all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Genesis 12:3). (In the New Testament, the apostle Paul reveals that this One was Christ--Galatians 3:16).
From Genesis 12 through 50, we have the stories of the lives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. Joseph, we may recall, was sold by his brothers and wound up in Egypt. Eventually, his identity was made known, and he moved his aged father (Jacob) and his brothers and their families from Canaan to Egypt. There the Israelites flourished to such an extent that an Egyptian Pharaoh (king) saw them as a threat and subjected them to slavery. It was during this time that Moses was born. In time, God chose Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt back to the land that he had promised their ancestors (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob)--the land of Canaan.
The first nineteen chapters of Exodus tell the exciting story of how Moses liberated the children of Israel from Egyptian bondage, led them across the Red Sea, and to Mount Sinai. On Mount Sinai, God gave to Moses the laws that were to govern the children of Israel for the next approximately 1500 years. Among these many laws were the ten commandments (Exodus 20).
The fifth book of the Old Testament--Deuteronomy--is composed of three speeches that Moses delivered to the Israelites during the last month of his life. In these he reviewed God's dealings with them from the time they left Egypt until they came to the very edge of the land of Canaan. In Deuteronomy 5:2-3 Moses said: "The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb (another name for Sinai, hf). The Lord did not make this covenant (the laws emanating from Sinai, hf) with our fathers (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, hf), but with us, those who are here today, all of us who are alive." Thus, we learn that the covenant or testament issued at Sinai was with and for the descendants of Jacob, the Israelites (later known as the Jews, a name derived from the tribe of Judah, one of the twelve sons of Jacob).
But this covenant/testament emanating from Sinai was not destined to be God's final covenant/testament. As already mentioned above, it was only preparatory for the coming of Christ, the illustrious Seed (descendant) of Abraham who would bless all mankind. Paul wrote: "What purpose then does the law (the law issued through Moses at Sinai) serve? It was added because of transgression, till the Seed should come to whom the promises were made..." (Galatians 3:19). This Seed, remember, is Christ (Galatians 3:16).
With the coming of Christ into the world, the old covenant/testament made with the children of Israel had served its purpose and was fulfilled and removed. In His sermon on the mount, Jesus declared: "Do not think that I have come to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to destroy but to fulfill" (Matthew 5:17). Following His death, burial, and resurrection, Jesus said to His apostles: "These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning me" (Luke 24:44). Paul says that when Christ died He "wiped (blotted) out the handwriting of requirements (ordinances) that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to His cross" (Colossians 2:14).
The writer of the New Testament book of Hebrews affirms of Christ: "And for this reason He is the mediator of the new covenant (testament)..." (Hebrews 9:15). He then proceeds to announce: "For where there is a testament, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator (in this case, Christ, hf). For a testament is in force after men are dead, since it has no power at all while the testator lives" (Hebrews 9:16-17). Thus, with the death of Christ, the Old Testament was taken away as a binding covenant, and the New Testament became of force. "He takes away the first (the old testament) that He may establish the second (the new testament)" (Hebrews 10:9). And it is "by that will (the second, the new testament, hf) we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all" (Hebrews 10:10).
In a magnificent sweep of God's dealings with humanity through the ages, the writer of Hebrews says: "God, who at various times and in different ways spoke in time past (the time of the Old Testament, hf) to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days (the time of the New Testament, hf) spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds" (Hebrews 1:1-2). "For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John 1:17). While the old covenant/testament was made with the Israelites, Christ's new testament is for "every creature" (Mark 16:15) and "all nations" (Matthew 28:18-19). It is that part of the Bible that is to govern all mankind today. It is to the New Testament that we are to turn to learn how to come into a spiritual relationship with God through His Son, Jesus Christ (John 14:6). It is to the New Testament that we are to turn to learn how to worship God and how to live our lives pleasingly to Him.
If this essay has blessed you, feel free to forward it to others who may benefit from it.
Hugh Fulford