There is and Old and there is a New Testament. It's interesting that there is a parallel in our spiritual lives: There is an old 'us' and there can be a new 'us'. The people of Israel paint a vivid picture of faith and of the law and of obedience and disobedience throughout the Old Testament. Woven through the Old Testament is the promise of the Messiah...One to be sent by God to deliver and to restore His people. So then, who are His people? Clearly God has, and continues to have, a special role for the people of Israel...the only nation that can directly trace its roots to God's chosen person, Abraham. It was through this nation that the promised Messiah came and the wonderful truth is that this deliverer came through one chosen nation to make deliverance possible to the people of every nation...or you might say to all the people, regardless of nation.
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In the book of Romans, Paul makes it clear that the Lord's plan was expressed in the scriptures through the Hebrew prophets hundreds of years before Jesus' arrival in Bethlehem so that all might have the opportunity to benefit: Here Paul quotes from the prophet Hosea:
Romans 9:
25 As indeed he says in Hosea,
"Those who were not my people I will call 'my people,'
and her who was not beloved I will call 'beloved.'"
26 "And in the very place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,'
there they will be called 'sons of the living God.'"
and here from the prophet Isaiah:
Romans 9:
33 as it is written,
"Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense;
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame."
It is Jesus who ties the Old Testament and the New Testament together to complete God's purpose of reaching and restoring all who will come to Him. He will make the Old life a New life.
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blessings,
Rob Smith
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"Death is inevitable. Life is a choice!"
John 11:25
Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live."
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