This is a topic I have on numerous occasions run into and I generally find it's the atheists and agnostics that have this belief, although I am sure that a lot of other non-Christian faiths have the same beliefs and that is that the Old and New Testaments of the Bible are a contradiction from start to finish. Yet again, something I was guilty of believing as well in my rebellious days....I remember often questioning the reason why some laws in the Old Testament seemed to contradict themselves in the New Testament and that in my eyes discredited the Bible.
However, in recent weeks I have decided to read the Bible from cover to cover; a task or challenge I know a lot of people have not been able to accomplish and those that have, have found it to be a mammoth feat of endurance...
I have to honestly say I am finding it to be very enjoyable, I haven't given myself a time limit as I want to do it in my own time, at my own pace. But I am enjoying the story and thoroughly enjoying reading the Bible from start to finish and have yet to encounter boredom or lethargy in my latest challenge.
When I started reading the Bible I instantly realized that I would be reading it in the flesh and the best way to gain the type of understanding one needs is reading in the spirit. This is how we gain a deeper understanding of the Bible, so before I started I asked the Holy Spirit to guide me and to open my eyes to deeper truths, to a deeper understanding and to guide me and teach me through the pages of the Bible. And this is what I ask each time I open my Bible I ask for the Holy Spirit to guide me and to impart His Wisdom and Knowledge and to give me understanding and as always He is faithful and I can honestly say I have gained a deeper knowledge and when you read the Bible with guidance from the Holy Spirit it becomes an awesome and amazing adventure and an experience that I am thoroughly enjoying.
Anyway...I'm digressing, so back to the topic at hand. As I was saying I have encountered people saying that the Old Testament and New Testament are a contradiction from start to finish and it was something in the past that I questioned as well and never understood, but recently I have gained understanding.
And this is the basis of this particular post....is to impart that knowledge onto you....my readers.
Basically it comes down to this in a nutshell - The Old Testament and the New Testament are representative of humankind living under 2 different covenants. The Old Testament Covenant is known as the Abrahamic Covenant.....The New Testament is a record of Jesus' life and ministry and The New Testament is representative of the New covenant which WE are now living under. 2 different times, 2 different covenants.
Lets explain that first.... (please remember I am explaining under my understanding and more experienced Christians are more than welcome to correct me).
Remember God is Holy, He is beyond Perfection, and because of that He cannot look at us covered in sin, He cannot look at our imperfection. And because of this He had to institute a system or a method for us to atone for our sins and receive forgiveness.
We need to remember that blood is sacred in God's eyes and the shedding of blood is required as atonement for sin.
The Abrahamic Covenant was given to Abraham by God in Genesis 12:1-3 and was repeated by God again to Abraham's son Isaac and again to his grandson Jacob (see Genesis 26:1-5; 28:13-15) therefore these 3 are known as the covenant fathers.
The covenant was basically the offering of a burnt sacrifice or offering to The Lord as atonement for their sin.
Basically God required the shedding of blood as atonement for mankind's sin.
Also as an extra on the difference between The Old Testament and The New Testament....In Exodus 33:18 (NKJV) Moses said to The Lord "Please, show me Your Glory" and The Lord said to him in verse 20 "You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me and live" and He put Moses inside the cleft of a rock as He passed by and Moses got to see His back. That was the way things were in The Old Testament and it is also a testament to God's Glory, Perfection and Holiness, we couldn't come face to face with Him, He could only deal with our imperfection and sin with His back to us. He couldn't face us, or rather we were not worthy to come face to face with Him and live to tell the tale.
Now we get to The New Testament.
Think about by the time Jesus entered the world how bad the world was at that time, how much wickedness had entered into the world, how disgusting (for lack of a better term) was the human race, how horrible were us sinners. God had created hell but it was never meant for us, it was not created for us, that was never the intention and things had gotten so bad that God was about lose His entire creation to hell.
Obviously He had to do something to save us, to redeem us and the covenant of burnt offerings just wasn't sufficient anymore. Although God still required the shedding of blood as atonement for our sin.
And God made the ultimate sacrifice....He gave His Son.
Now, those of you that have children especially boys especially those who only have one boy...I'm going to stop for a moment and let you imagine taking your only son and sacrificing him, allowing him to suffer the bloodiest, most gruesome, horrific, painful death known to mankind in order to save someone. Just imagine that for a moment >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Times up!! Could you do it? I didn't think so.
I couldn't. But that's what God did, He sacrificed His son for u and me and the entire human race. We were created for the purpose of having a relationship with Our Father, He wanted to have a relationship with us, He wanted us to serve Him, to love Him from the beginning. But sin entered the world and it wasn't possible anymore, God had to make a way to make it possible for us to have a relationship with Him. So He did away with the old Abrahamic covenant and made one final sacrifice in the spirit of the old covenant in order to redeem us once and for all. A living sacrifice and the shedding of blood as was required.
There is no more need for burnt sacrifices or for the way things were done in the old testament because Jesus' sacrifice was sufficient to redeem us once and for all.
I think a lot of people don't realize the extent of what Jesus' actually did for us...when Jesus was being crucified, God looked down from Heaven and He didn't see His son being nailed to a cross, what He saw was every single wickedness, sin, mental illness, illness every bad and ugly thing in this world, every murderer, rapist, child molestor, homosexual, abuser, thief, paedophile, adulterer, prostitute...you name it that is what God saw and all fury was let loose. With every nail that was driven in, every gasping breath Jesus took, every cry of pain, every drop of blood God's wrath was satisfied and it had to be done for the purpose of redeeming humankind. Every bad thing whether it be sin, illness, addiction, abuse, anything bad in anybody's life was nailed to The Cross that day and it matters no more.
Just as an interesting thing to consider. The Bible says that "by His stripes we are healed", in Roman law a prisoner was only allowed to receive 40 lashes, if the guards inflicted more than that they would receive lashes themselves. And when Jesus was being whipped they stopped at 39 to prevent going over and them being punished. He only received 39 lashes, study a few medical journals today or speak to a medical doctor or professor or just do some research and you'll find that today....all the illnesses and afflictions known to man today fit into 39 categories....something to think about.
The new covenant made by Jesus' sacrifice means we are redeemed and we are saved by Grace, Jesus said "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, NOBODY comes to The Father except through Me"....He is now our way, He is our intercessor before God, He is our mediator, we are now free to have a relationship with The Father through Jesus. Because as I said before, God looks at us now through blood stained eyes, the blood of the lamb, the blood of His Son and when He looks at us now, He sees us as perfect and whole and He looks at us with nothing but unconditional love. Nothing we can do can make Him love us more and nothing we've done can make Him close the door.
Before I finish off another difference between The Old and New Testament. In The Old Testament God gave us the Ten Commandments the Ten Commandents was law, what does the law do? the law condemns. Moses went up onto Mount Sinai for an extended period and spent time in The Lord's presence, when he eventually came down he had to wear a veil over his face, why? because his face was shining so brightly, nobody could look at him, but heres the kicker, the people saw how Moses' face was shining and they ran in terror. Why do you think that is? because he represented The Law and he was bringing to them The Law and......all together now....say it with me....The Law Condemns. And in those days, God could only give us His back as He did with Moses.
I read somewhere recently - I think it was in one of Joyce Meyer's books, that by the time Jesus arrived the scribes and the pharisees had taken the Ten Commandments and turned it into 2000 laws that the people had to live by, how can anybody possibly live like that? That's bondage!
Jesus arrived and in the Bible it talks about the first time God introduced His son, He went up onto a mountain (please forgive me I can never remember the name of the mountain, I apologize for this, I will however look it up and make sure I don't forget - ever), Jesus shone up on the mountain brighter than daylight and Moses and I think Abraham appeared on either side of Him and God's voice said from Heaven "This is my Son, in whom I am well pleased, listen to Him" Not "listen to Moses" or "listen to Abraham" no, "listen to My Son". Jesus came down from the mountain as I said shining brighter than daylight and the people ran to Him and wanted to be near Him. Why? because he represented the Redemption, the Grace and the Love that He was bringing us....not The Law that condemns. And He was here to show us a way that we are able and can have a loving relationship with Our Father. And now today the new covenant means that we can come boldly before The Throne and God can deal with us face to face and love us unconditionally as He has always wanted to because we have been redeemed and made new and washed with the Blood of Jesus.
That is the difference, no contradiction, just plain Our Lord having a made a way for us.
God Bless :)
xxxx
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