Author : Tom Rainwater
The Bible is divided into two major parts. The first part is called theOld Testament and contains 39 books written over a period of approximately 1000 years. The first book, Genesis, begins with God’s creation of the world and traces man’s history through the times of Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. The rest of the Old Testament depicts mostly the history of the Israelite people and God’s efforts to guide them through His Law and His prophets.
Today, we are expected to use the Old Testament to learn more about the nature of God and the necessity of serving Him. “For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.”(Rom. 15:4).
In studying Israelite history, we can learn from their faith and the blessings God gave them when they were obedient. Likewise, we can learn from their disobedience and the consequences God brought upon them when they were apathetic, compromising or rebellious. We are expected to make positive spiritual application in our lives of the principles found there. “Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition…” (1 Cor. 10:11).
In the Old Testament, God gave the nation of Israel a special set of laws to follow. This Law was commonly called “the Law of Moses” since Moses delivered it to the Israelites from God. This Law commanded them to do certain things in their public and personal service to God. We can learn many things from Moses’ Law, but there are two main things that the Law was designed to teach:
(1) When man disobeys God it is sin. “What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions….” (Gal. 3:19).“…for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” (Rom. 3:20). These verses explain that the Law of Moses was given to show man how sinful he really is. In other words, God had told the Israelites “thou shalt not” and “thou shalt” about many things, but they would often disobey and transgress His Law, falling way short of God’s standard. Under the Law, animal sacrifices were continually offered God as atonement for sin, yet the blood of animals was never a fitting, permanent sacrifice for the sins of a man’s soul. Thus, all the world could see that something more was needed to deliver the people from their sins — a Savior.
(2) The Christ would come to suffer for our sins. During Old Testament times, God revealed that the Messiah would be born into the world and die as a sacrifice for the sins of mankind. God told Abraham “In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed…”(Gen. 22:18). In other words, one of Abraham’s descendants would do something to bless the whole world. That “seed” or descendant is identified in the New Testament as Jesus Christ (Gal. 3:16). Many Old Testament prophecies point to Christ as coming to be a sacrifice for our sin:”But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.” (Isa. 53:5). “The Scripture was fulfilled which says, ‘And He was numbered with the transgressors.'” (Mark.15:28).
Thus, the Old Testament pointed the Israelites to Jesus of Nazareth, providing proof that he is “the Christ, the Son of the living God.” The Apostle Paul said, “Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.” (Gal. 3:24-25). This verse explains that when Christ and His new Law of Faith came, we were no longer under Moses’ Law which, in prophecy and in parallel, had pointed to Christ. The Old Law has served its purpose. Now we must follow the commandments given to us in the New Testament by our Savior Jesus Christ and His inspired apostles.
