Well, it's been a
while since I wrote anything here ( life does that to you sometimes ).
Our family has seen major changes in the last 6 months, both geographically and
spiritually as a result of moving to Charlotte, North Carolina (yeah seasons!) and
coming into a different understanding of the applicability of the old testament
to new testament believers that is very different than what we previously
understood.
For me, as I dug
deeper and deeper into this new understanding, I had to root myself in a few
foundational principles to [re]build on:
1a. God
and his word are eternal and do not change: "The
grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever."
So, when God says "Forever", it really means "Forever" and
when He says "Never", it really means "Never".
1b. Context,
context, context: The events of the new testament Gospel accounts
happened between 3BCE and 30CE (or 3Bc and 30AD if you like).
The remainder of the New Testament canon all were written before 100CE.
The New Testament writings were not canonized (or combined) until around
393CE. So.... when some new testament writing refers to
"scripture", they are not talking about the new testament (see below
for how this is relevant to this discussion).
1c: This does not seem as important as the two
above but the distinction between a Jew and a Hebrew is important: Jews are Hebrews who belong to the tribe of
Judah; A Hebrew is any offspring of Jacob, including those of his son
Judah. All Jews are Hebrews but not all Hebrews are Jews. The
nation of Israel divided itself into two kingdoms after King Solomon died; a
Southern kingdom composed of the tribes of Judah ("Jews") and
Benjamin and the Northern kingdom of Israel with the remaining 10 tribes.
So, back to the
original issue: what does the bible teach about the Old Testament applicability
to a "New Testament believer"?
If it sounds like I'm teaching something, please forgive me; I am not
qualified to teach this to anyone. This
is my attempt to communicate where I've been so far in this journey to better
understand God's plan for my life.
Without having ever
heard this taught or said explicitly, it appears that the Christian church generally holds to replacement theology, the idea being that the
Jews rejected Jesus as messiah so God "replaced them" as his chosen
people with a new group, Christians/the Christian Church. To get
salvation, to "get to heaven", Jews and the rest of the heathen mass have
to put their faith in a Christian Messiah named Jesus (who happens to be
Jewish).
Of course, in Romans
11, we find this "I
ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means!". Another possibility then is Separation
Theology which is similar in that it divides the church from national Israel,
each with their own future role to play in God's plan. Of course, this means that God has 2 standards, one for the Jews and one for the rest of us. That's even harder to swallow than God rejecting Israel.
If you belong to a
church that does not hold to this and/or similar theologies, please ignore the
rest of this post.
A lot of Jews have
and continue to actively reject Jesus as Messiah because the Christian church
teaches that Jesus introduced "a new law", doing away with
"the law and the prophets" or Tanakh, the Old Testament teachings God
gave them starting with Moses. The issue with this of course is that God instructed the Jews
to avoid anyone that taught them to turn away from his instructions, his Torah,
and what would happen if they did turn away. In fact, a lot of the Old
Testament is dedicated to prophet after prophet giving Israel warnings about
how their waywardness would have dire consequences. Both
the Northern and Southern kingdoms of Israel were eventually taken away
into captivity because of their disobedience to God's Torah. While the
Southern kingdom of Judah returned after 70 years, the Northern tribe's
idolatry was so great that they have yet to return! So imagine the Jews great reluctance to accept a messiah that
is presenting a "new covenant" that abandons
the authority of the Tanakh.
If you asked a
somewhat knowledgeable everyday Christian when God introduced this "new
law", they might point to Jeremiah 31:31-34, the "New Covenant"
passage:
A few points:
- God says "I will put my law within them". He did not say "I will put a new law within them" but "…my law…". What law would that be exactly in the time of Jeremiah if not the law given to Moses? Is this really an important distinction? Is "new law" different than "new covenant"? Reread it again. The reason God the author of the covenant gives for needing a new covenant is that the houses of Israel and Judah broke the covenant he made with them through Moses, not that the law needed replacing or updating (if you are struggling with this, go back to 1a above and stay there until you've got it)! This new covenant would see God writing the same laws again but this time the writing would be on their hearts, tablets of flesh not stone.
- This passage is specifically written to "the house of Judah and the house of Israel", not to Gentiles! How can a Christian claim that this passage is for us? Is there something in the bible that somehow links Christians to either of the houses of Jacob or Israel? (spoiler alert: Yes)
Remember, Jesus was
born a Jew, lived his whole life as a Jew, died as a Jew, and was resurrected
as a Jew. The church acknowledges all this and at the same time says that
Jews have to become Christians through faith in a Jewish messiah to obtain salvation. Huh?
When did Jesus ever teach that Jews had to abandon "Moses and the
Prophets" to obtain salvation?
Jesus never taught
anything that diminished the authority of the Tanakh. He
said himself that he came to fulfill every aspect of the Law and the Prophets.
It is so easy to think he was saying "old bad, new good" in
the many passages where Jesus says "you've heard it said, do this, but I
say, do that", etc. Remember though, from the same passage where he
says he came to fulfill all, he warned "Therefore
whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do
the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them
and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven".
Did God the Father say that Jesus was least in the kingdom of heaven or did he
say that he
was well pleased in him?
I had totally bought
into the idea that the Old Testament did not apply to Christians, you know,
that whole "law of sin and death" thing. But the bible clearly
links the Old Testament Tanakh with salvation through Jesus Messiah: take this passage from 2 Timothy 3?
"14 But
as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing
from whom[a] you learned it 15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted
with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through
faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable
for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work."
Did you catch it,
how Paul couples Timothy's knowledge of the "ancient writings" with
"salvation through Christ Jesus"? Read it again: "...the sacred writings, which are able to make you
wise for salvation through Christ Jesus". How did I ever skip
over that and not just stop and say "Whaaaaaaattttt"? Just to
be clear, 2 Timothy is believed to have been written somewhere around 67CE, so
Paul would not have been referring to
New Testament writing as scripture.
This is also a great
example of how God's word speaks to the present and the future. In this
case, the scriptures in 67CE were just the Tanakh but it was also a
foreshadowing for us in the 21st century applying to the New Testament as well.
There is more to
this that I'll discuss in a future post, specifically the Old Testamanet referenes to "sojourners"; Romans 11:11 and gentiles
being "grafted in"; and Ephesians 2 and gentiles being reconciled to
the "commonwealth of Israel" and "the covenants of promise".
In the end, God will
hold each of us accountable for what we did with his commands to us, all of
them, and not what our pastors and teachers taught us.
