The Old makes the New Clear

There are many debates about the meaning of words and events in the New Testament. What does the cross of Christ achieve, and is substitutionary and penal? Is it helpful to speak of sin as rebellion against God? What exactly is grace? And many other debates. In ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’, the Old Professor says, ‘It’s all in Plato, all in Plato: Bless me, what do they teach them at these schools?’ As I have been going through the early chapters of Jeremiah for our preaching series, I am reminded that “it’s all in the Old Testament”.

The concepts that the New Testament assumes and uses are all introduced in the Old Testament. So Jeremiah introduces the idea of idolatry being a turn from Creator to created things, from life giving to worthless, which Paul will uses in Romans 1. Jeremiah even itnroduces the idea that worshipping worthless idols makes us worthless, echoed in Paul’s folly extending from worship to behaviour.

Jeremiah 3-4 introduces God’s Father/Husband heart for his faithless people to return, a Father heart that Jesus teaches in the famous parable of the lost son.

Jeremiah 5 speaks of the people’s sin as a rebellion against their divine King. v6 “For their rebellion is great and their backslidings many.” The people and leaders broke off the yoke of God’s rule to be free (v5), a rebellion which feels very contemporary.

In a similar way, the work of the cross is made clear in advance in Isaiah 53, which proclaims the substitution of the servant and that he bears the punishment we deserve, so that we might be healed and forgiven and live.

So while the fulness of God’s revelation is seen in the New Testament, in the coming of Jesus, the Old Testament is not obsolete. Rather, it makes clear the categories and concepts which enable us to understand the New Testament rightly. Without the Old Testament background, concepts that help us understand God’s rescue plan can be missed, and words can be redefined and misused. In their physicality or extended descriptions, the Old Testament makes it easier to grasp what words mean and what concepts help explain the spiritual realities in Christ. So we need the Old Testament to make the New Testament clear.