Surveying the Old Testament

When I was a child in grade five, I was given a New Testament by the Gideon Society, like everyone else in my grade.  Note:  the New Testament, not the entire Bible.  I suspect that the decision to confine the gift to the New Testament Scriptures was dictated more by economics than by theology—after all, there were a lot of kids in the schools in those days and giving an entire Bible to each one of them would have cost a lot.  Nonetheless the decision tended to give the impression that it was only the New Testament that mattered and that the Old Testament didn’t count for much for Christians.

It is easy to avoid and ignore the Old Testament, thinking that the Old Testament belongs to the Jews while the New Testament belongs to the Christians.  Yet without the Old Covenant, the New Covenant in Christ’s blood could not exist.  Marcion is justly dead and buried and as Christians we are heir to the Jewish Scriptures.  We are called to understand their meaning and their value to us as the disciples of Jesus. 

       That whole period of the Old Covenant can be divided into three periods:  the time from Abraham to Moses, the time from Moses to David, and the time from David to John the Baptist.  Each of these periods was characterized by a unifying institution, and by examining each of these institutions we can learn more about our Christian Faith.

       From the Patriarchal time between Abraham and Moses, the central unifying institution was circumcision.  The rite of circumcision was not unique to Israel.  Many groups in the ancient Middle East practised such a rite, though for many it was a coming of age ritual.  In Israel this fertility rite was transformed into a rite denoting not maturity and adulthood, but rather national identity.  In Israel a boy was not circumcised upon coming of age, but on the eighth day of his life, the time of viability and probable survival.   

That is, circumcision did not signify adulthood, but membership in a people and belonging to the covenant which God made with Abraham.  Yet even in the days of the Old Covenant, this physical ritual did not signify simply ethnic inclusion, but also spiritual obligation.  It pointed to an inner circumcision of the heart:  even as the surgical act of circumcision left one physically tender, so the rite spoke of tenderness of heart.  Even the Law exhorted Israel to “circumcise your heart” and predicted that God would circumcise their hearts by His own power (Deuteronomy 10:16, 30:6).  The prophet Jeremiah exhorted Israel to “Circumcise yourselves to the Lord and remove the foreskins of your heart” (Jeremiah 4:4). 

That is, being a Jew was not simply a national reality, but a spiritual one—as St. Paul would later insist when he wrote, “He is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit” (Romans 2:28-29).

       This reality, like all realities, is given to us by Christ.  Baptism is the true circumcision, the circumcision of Christ, for in baptism we cut away not a little piece of flesh, but the whole of our fleshly, sinful, and carnal existence (Colossians 2:11).  After baptism we forsake the whole of our former sinful life and live differently than does the secular world around us.  As circumcision in Israel meant that the circumcised person now belonged to the people of Abraham, so now through baptism we now belong to the people of God.   

After our spiritual circumcision we no longer belong ultimately to America or Canada or Russia or Ukraine or any other earthly tribe.  We now belong primarily to the family of Abraham, and to Christ our God.  We may justly sing this or that national anthem, but our true citizenship is now in heaven (Philippians 3:20).  In Christ we find the fulfillment of ancient circumcision.

       From the time of Moses to David, the central unifying institution was the Ark of the Covenant.  This was a small wooden box, overlaid with gold, and carried around by the Levites, as God ordered.  It was part of a complex of rituals and was set within an inner tent, the “Holy of Holies”, which was itself situated within an outer tent, “the Holy Place”.  In the Mosaic shrine, this Holy Place was surrounded by a courtyard, in which was the altar of sacrifice.  The whole shrine was portable and could be carried by the Levites from place to place.   

The Ark and the whole tent shrine could be erected at the foot of Mount Sinai, or in Kadesh Barnea in the Sinai peninsula or in the city of Shiloh or even in Jerusalem.  God could have directed otherwise and arranged not for a portable Ark and a portable altar and shrine, but an immovable temple.  But He decreed in the Mosaic legislation that His place of worship was to be portable and carried wherever His providence directed. 

This reveals that we are to be a pilgrim people, a people on the move.  Here we have no final stopping place, no continuing city (Hebrews 13:14).  We move through this passing sinful age to the age to come, and to the city of God, the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God (Hebrews 11:10).  We are constantly tempted to camp here in this age and permanently settle down and make our country’s national anthem our own. 

It is a snare, for we are called to follow God and His ark through this age to our true home in the age to come.  Our flags and patriotisms are acceptable but can never become ultimate and can never define us.  We follow the spiritual Ark, Jesus Christ, and can never make this earth our final home.  Our pilgrimage through this world was typified by the Ark of God, and in Christ we find its fulfillment.

       From the time of David to John the Baptist the unifying institution was the Temple.  The building of the Temple was itself a sign of God’s condescension to us.  For as we have seen, God’s original intention was for a movable tent shrine, not an immovable Temple.  But when David wanted to build a Temple for God, God accepted such a gift, and allowed David’s son Solomon to build it (2 Samuel 7).   

This humility and condescension would find its ultimate expression in the Incarnation when God came to live among us.  In the Temple we see how God allowed Himself to be confined to one location.  No longer would His Ark move from place to place, from Kadesh Barnea to Shiloh to Ephratha.  Now His Presence would be permanently gifted to Jerusalem and the Temple built there.   

This reveals prophetically that God’s Presence would one day be accessed only in one place:  in the Body of Jesus Christ.  In all the places of earth, in all its religions and philosophies, God’s saving Presence and transfiguring salvation may be found in Jesus Christ alone.  That is what the Lord meant when He said that no one could come to the Father but through Him (John 14:6) and what St. Peter meant when he said that there was Messianic salvation in no other Name than that of Jesus (Acts 4:12). 

This did not mean that only Christians could be saved, but it did mean that forgiveness and healing of the human heart was available only through Christ.  If one wanted to sacrifice to the God of Israel in Solomon’s day, one had to come to the Temple and altar in Jerusalem, and if one wants to find sonship and forgiveness and glory today, one needs to come to Jesus.   He is the true Temple; through Him alone do we find access to God’s Presence and power. 

       The days of the Old Covenant were many and varied as God worked among His covenant people down through the centuries.  All this work pointed to Christ and to the salvation He would bring.  The Old Testament Scriptures are the treasury of those blessed years, and the prophetic realties which point to the Lord.  Through God’s mercy we now can experience those realties.  We are the heirs of the Old Covenant.  In Christ all that sacred history belongs to us.