Old but not Obsolete

For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. (Romans 15:4)

I realized as I read this verse this morning that it is obviously referring to the quotation immediately preceding in the last verse talking about the attitude of Jesus. The New Testament writers often quoted the Old Testament Scriptures to show how truth and prophecy are not disconnected between the two periods of time.

It has become very popular today among many Christians to teach that the Old Testament is obsolete in many ways and therefore we do not have to take it very seriously. They mistakenly teach that since the details of the symbolic services that pointed forward to Jesus are no longer required for believers today that somehow all the rest of the Old Testament lacks credibility. This is a fatal and most dangerous teaching that is giving false comfort to millions in believing that the Law of God and the principles taught in the Old Testament times have somehow been changed or suspended in a supposed new age of grace. These people typically teach a concocted theory of dispensationalism in which God supposedly changes the way He goes about restoring His image in His fallen children in His plan of salvation for different “dispensation” periods of time. But none of this can be realistically supported from the Word of God when properly studied as a whole. Instead, it is a scheme devised to keep people believing that they can never be completely free of the control of sin in their lives and instead that somehow God's grace will just wink at the residual rebellion that they are unwilling to release in their hearts.

But far from being obsolete or irrelevant to our lives today, the Old Testament is a living, powerful testimony to the consistency of God throughout all time. The perfect golden thread of truth about reality and how God created all things to exist in perfect harmony never needs changing or tweaking. To believe that is to insist that God Himself was not perfect enough to create a universe that could effectively be brought through the crisis of sin and rebellion as originally designed. It implies that somehow sin caught God by surprise and He had to come up with one proposal after another in attempts to deal with the sin problem that is causing so much havoc in His universe.

But these are all the musings and theories that only expose the ignorance and the infected nature of the minds of sinful people, not accurate explanations of the way God relates to us over the history of this world. Far from teaching that the Old Testament is no longer applicable to Christians today, the New Testament writers repeatedly refer back to the Old Testament as their source and authority upon which all truth should be based. Jesus Himself declared that He did not come to do away with the Old Testament Scriptures but came specifically to fulfill them. That means that He came to this world to clarify and demonstrate all the principles of life and the heart of God that was so confusing to humanity through all the previous ages.

Peter even declares that the Old Testament Scriptures are even more valid than the personal experiences that Peter himself had experienced while living personally with Jesus on this earth. He declared that personal experience must be confirmation of the truth already seen in Scriptures, not a replacement for it. So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts. (2 Peter 1:19)

Far from being now obsolete, Paul declares here that the Scriptures – and he can only be referring to the Old Testament because the new was mostly not even written yet at that point in time – were written for our instruction. The word our here is referring to people living after the days of Jesus on this earth. And not only were they written for our instruction but they are also to be a source of encouragement and to induce in our lives this thing called endurance. The resulting effect of properly utilizing the Old Testament Scriptures applied to our hearts and minds according to Paul is the appearance of hope in our hearts and souls.

The stories and instructions and prophecies and accounts collected in the Old Testament Scriptures are a most important and integral part of the foundation upon which our personal Christian experience must be built or it cannot stand the storms of life and the deceptions that will come against us. Hope, faith and love are the three most important elements in the life of a true Christian, and without the Scriptures it will be impossible for us to have the stability that these three things build into our lives to withstand the deceptions and onslaughts of the enemy of our souls and the archenemy of our Father in heaven.

While it is true that many have mistakenly believed that the symbolic rituals and traditions of the Jewish experience in the Old Testament are incumbent on Christians yet today, that does not mean that we should ignore the teachings and revelations about reality that are expose in the Old Testament accounts. When we properly understand both the purpose and the fulfillment of the Old Testament symbols such as the sacrificial system and the feast days and holidays celebrated by the Jews, far from rejecting the Old Testament as authoritative in our lives today we will come to more deeply appreciate and understand the consistency of God throughout all ages. All of those symbolic traditions and requirements are now to be experienced at a whole new level of reality that far supersedes what those original Hebrews were able to experience back in ancient times.

Yes, it is true that we no longer need to offer a lamb as a sacrifice for our sins. The same applies to many other requirements that filled the life of the average Hebrew in the Old Testament period. But every one of those requirements were full of rich hidden meanings that suddenly explodes with significance and insights when studied with the light glowing from the fuller revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Those things are not obsolete but are superseded by realities we should be experiencing that are still fully consistent with the underlying principles that those former external practices were founded upon.

The following passage goes on to insist that it is God Himself that intends for the Scriptures to be the source for our unity in Christ. Whenever we try to bring about unity among Christians without basing that unity on all of the Scriptures available to us, then we are really trying to make a new religion that is not in harmony with God's original plan of salvation. And no matter how many centuries this new religion may have been around or how many millions have embraced it, it still is a counterfeit that must be avoided if we are to be faithful to the Word of God in both the New and the Old Testament Scriptures. Any unity achieved based on methods or theories that distort or abuse the Word of God in support of them are bound to be deceptions that can ruin our souls. And no matter how convincing a deception is or how provable it may appear by stringing proof texts together in its support, the true Spirit of God cannot validate it.

False theories and rejection of the Old Testament are evidences of the desires of selfish hearts looking for excuses to avoid dealing with all of the sin in the heart and life. Whenever we find ourselves excusing or ignoring anything that is exposed by the Word of God we can be sure that we are still living to some extent under the illusions of God's enemy. We can never free ourselves from the deceptions of Satan with our own mental efforts. Only by choosing to embrace a humble and teachable spirit and turning our attention to the true Spirit of Truth and the Scriptures that reveal that truth can we be safe from the contaminating atmosphere of lies about God that permeates everything in this world

When we accept the authority of Scriptures in our lives, both Old and New Testament, and are led by the Spirit of Truth to understand them in their beauty and perfect harmony and how they apply to our lives today, then we will experience the kind of unity that produces true and authentic praise and gratitude that glorifies God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Only when Jesus is truly our Lord can we experience and offer up the pure worship that is acceptable to God and that brings His life into our souls.

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