The Old Testament

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The Old Testament

Michael Pickford

Members of the church of Christ often hear, “You don’t believe in the Old Testament.” Is this true? No! We do believe in it. We simply don’t believe that we now live under the Old Testament laws. God’s children today live under the “law of Christ.” (Gal. 6:2) and are to “abide in the doctrine of Christ.” (2 John 9). Many religious people today want to go to the law of Moses to find authority for things they practice religiously. This we cannot do! Some first century Christians wanted to follow the old law along with the new, mixing the two together. Some, converted out of the Jewish religion, wanted to bind the old law on other Christians, specifically, they wanted to bind circumcision and the observance of certain days on Gentile converts. Paul dealt with these “judaizers” in many of his epistles. Years ago someone asked me if the Bible taught that we no longer live under the Old Testament today. It does! Galatians 1:6-9 teaches that to mingle the old law with the new is to pervert the gospel of Christ and one who does so will be “accursed.” To do so would be to “set aside the grace of God.” (Gal. 2:21). The law was added “till the Seed should come.” (Gal. 3:19). From this, we must conclude that when the Seed came, the law ended. The Seed was Christ! (Gal. 3:16). Therefore, when Christ came, He put an end to the law. “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law.” (Gal. 3:13). He has abolished it in His flesh (Eph. 2:15,16) and nailed it to the cross (Col. 2:13,14). The old covenant has become obsolete and has vanished away (Heb. 8:7-13). Our authority for what we practice in religion today must come, not from the Old Testament, but from the teachings of Christ. “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus...” (Col. 3:17). 2 John 9 speaks to anyone who would want to go to the Old Testament or any other law or book of teachings for religious authority, “Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God.” Although we do not appeal to it for religious authority, we do “believe in” the Old Testament. We believe it is the inerrant word of God but that it was given to specific people for specific purposes. We believe it is useful for us today. “They were written for our admonition...” (1 Cor. 10:11), “for our learning...” (Rom. 15:4). We can learn about our beginnings. We can learn from the faithfulness of Joseph and Daniel, and from the disobedience of Saul and David. Many crucial lessons can be learned from the things written on those sacred pages. But when it comes to finding religious authority for the things we practice, we must appeal only to the saving power of Christ’s Gospel (Rom. 1:16). Do you believe in the Old Testament? I do.



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