Dr. Chris Wright, Principal of All Nations Bible College, gave the first of this year's two Keswick lectures entitled 'The Old Testament - Antiques Roadshow or Tomorrow's World?'. Into which of these two categories does the Old Testament fit? Both of them, according to Chris Wright.
'The Antiques Roadshow' looks at old furniture and decides whether or not it is old junk. 'Tomorrow's World' looks ahead to the future and asks: 'What will happen?'. The Old Testament has both the value of an antique and also points us to the present and the future.
Many Christians do not even read it. Yet the Old Testament is essential if we are to understand Jesus.
Matthew uses the Old Testament genealogies to show where Jesus came from, as if he is saying to us that to understand Jesus, we have to understand the story that leads to him. Jesus is the climax of the OT: he did not simply appear. What God began in the OT with the creation, the Fall and the redemption, reaches its completion in Jesus, and our faith is rooted in this history.
Matthew then goes on to say five times in his early chapters: 'This was to fulfil what the prophet had said.' Only one occasion involves an actual prediction, which is Micah's words on Bethlehem: 'Out of you will come one who will be ruler over Israel.' Matthew is saying that Jesus fulfils the promise of the OT - without it, Jesus does not make sense. In Acts 2, in order to explain what was happening at the Day of Pentecost, Peter referred to what Joel had said. On the road to Emmaus, Jesus uses the OT to explain all the events surrounding his crucifixion and resurrection - so that the two disciples with him could understand what had happened. When God spoke to Jesus following his baptism, the words he used were actually two OT verses, one from Psalm 2.7: 'You are my son: today I have become your Father' and Isaiah 42.1: 'Here is my servant, whom I uphold: my chosen one, in whom I delight.' These Scriptures identify Jesus with the line of David and the Messiah, and also the suffering servant of Isaiah - the Scriptures here providing Jesus with his sense of mission. When he went into the wilderness, he meditated on Deuteronomy and used it against the Devil: it was from the Scriptures that he derived all his values and his teaching.
Even in Jesus' day, the OT was an antique, with parts of it being over 1,000 years old. And even then, it was priceless, authoritative and of growing value. If you want to get close to the heart of Jesus, read the Old Testament.
Familiarity a problem
Perhaps we think we know all this Old Testament stuff already and that it was all fulfilled in the New Testament, so it is out of date and we don't need to bother with it - and besides, doesn't it lead to legalism? We can't have that, we're all under grace now . . . But in fact, the law of the Old Testament is itself based on grace. This is so fundamental that I want to proclaim it from the housetops. The law that God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai was given to a people who had already experienced God's redemption in bringing them out of Egypt. In Deuteronomy 6, when God tells fathers what to say to their sons when they ask: 'What is the meaning of the laws and statutes?', God could have instructed the fathers to reply: 'Just do it: God has commended it' - but he doesn't. He tells the father to relate the story of redemption from Egypt. Obedience to the law in the Old Testament, just as much as in the New, was always meant to be a response to the grace of God, motivated by gratitude.
Even in the Old Testament, salvation is not motivated by works and obedience to the law - God did not give the law for people to be saved by keeping it. He gave the law to the people he had saved so they might keep it and maintain the relationship that he had established for them, that they might continue in his blessing. Israel later fell into the misunderstanding that they should earn their salvation by keeping the law, just as Paul was combating the same misunderstanding in the New Testament, but the law was based on the saving grace and love of God. It was the same dynamic as we see in the New Testament - that we love because he first loved us.
Blessing to the nations
The law in the Old Testament is also motivated by mission in the sense that God had a declared commitment to bring blessing to the nations of this world. In Genesis 12, God said to Abraham: 'Through you all the nations of the earth will be blessed.' Long before God established Israel, he was concerned with the nations of the world, with humanity. God created Abraham because of sin and rebellion, creating a people and calling them to be a blessing to other nations. God called on the people of Israel to live in righteousness and justice, so the nations of the world would notice and ask questions. Moses was constantly motivating the people to obey the law, and he used this reason in Deuteronomy 4.6-8: 'Observe them (these laws) carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say: 'Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.' Moses is saying that if you keep the law, the nations will see a different people, and will ask questions about the sort of God that you have, that you live lives of such righteousness, justice and compassion? So the motivation for keeping God's law is to be a witness to the nations. In Exodus 19, God said: 'You will be my priesthood in the midst of the nations' - and that is missionary language.
A model to use
The law was also meant to provide a model for us to use. Israel was given a law that would shape them into the kind of community that would be a paradigm, that would have a distinctive holiness of life which would permeate the whole of their society. They were given a constitution and political structure which modelled servanthood and accountability. They were told that if they chose a king, he should not have more women, more wealth and more weapons than anyone else, but that he should be a servant. They were given economic structures, a whole theology of the land that would model economic equity, justice, compassion for the weak and poor. They were given social structures where the family, the household and the wider community were of great importance, where the worth of every individual, including women, children and slaves, was to be highly valued, not according to economic value, but as human beings made in the image of God.
Israel failed to keep these laws, but that is no reason to discard them. The Old Testament law still stands as a model - not a blueprint - for every society, that provides objectives and core values, a sense of moral direction and priorities. As we look at these laws, we can ask ourselves what they were framed to accomplish? What sort of society does this law promote - or seek to prevent? Looking at the laws of our country, we can ask the same questions. Laws are passed to make things better, to stop abuses, to provide protection for particular groups of people. What moral principles are these laws based on? As we ask these questions of the OT laws, we can step out of that time into the 20th century. God is still the same God and he is morally consistent - so what kind of objectives and values can we find in these laws, reflecting God's priorities?
Tomorrow's World
Moving on to consider the Old Testament as 'Tomorrow's World', some do use it to predict tomorrow. This has been happening for 2,000 years and people have consistently got it wrong. The OT is not an almanac for the end of the world, but it does shape the future for us as Christians. To begin with, the OT clearly explains to us the past and present upon which the future is based. It answers the fundamental worldview questions.
The first is: 'What is this world in which we live?'. The OT tells us that it is the world that God has made. It answers the question: 'Who are we?'. We are humans, made in the image of God, entrusted with the stewardship of the world and accountable to our creator. 'What's gone wrong - why are we in such a mess?' is another fundamental question and the OT tells us that it is because we have rebelled against God. The final question it answers is: 'What is the answer?' and the OT begins to tell us - that God who created the world has intervened to redeem it and to bring salvation, originally through the call of Abraham. That gives us a secure enough place to stand. The OT shapes our future because it explains our past.
It also anticipates a new humanity. God called Abraham and created Israel to help the problem of humanity, and the Old Testament is full of prophecies about the expansion of God's people to include all the nations (Isaiah 19, Isaiah 56, Psalm 22). It also anticipates the new creation, a new world. In Romans 8, Paul speaks of the whole of creation 'waiting in eager anticipation for the sons of God to be revealed'. Paul took that idea from Isaiah 65: 'I am creating a new heaven and a new earth.' The Bible does not speak of us floating off to heaven but of God coming down to earth to redeem his creation, and this is an idea we see again in 2 Peter 2 and Revelation 21. The Old Testament truly is a priceless antique as well as anticipating the new people of God, of tomorrow.
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