The Relationship of the Old Testament to the New Testament

And our topic today, here on the Table Podcast, is, broadly speaking, the relationship of the Old Testament to the New Testament. And we're gonna break this up into three distinct categories. But that'll be a great dialogue for us. It's timelesls. It's something we need to be thinking about on a regular basis.

And I'm joined here with three wonderful guests and friends. To my left is Dr. Mark Bailey. He serves as the president and senior professor of Bible exposition. It's always good to have you involved in these discussions.

We are also joined by Andy Stanley. Andy thank you for joining us.

It is an issue that seems to rear its head every so often in evangelism about showing the connectivity between the Old Testament and the New Testament. And so, Dr. Bock, you wrote a little pamphlet on the book of Acts.

Christianity appeared to be the new thing on the block, and it also had a surprising element to it, and that is that it was attempting to bring Jews and Gentiles together. That was controversial because of the history that existed between Jews and Gentiles and the need for reconciliation between those groups.

And so, Luke is really the story of how the gospel was intended to be for all people, and it was designed to be that way from the time God made His covenant commitments to Abraham.

So, you've got continuity and discontinuity literally located in chairs next to one another, and theologians have wrestled with that dance –

Now, I didn't mean to confuse you there, but it's – but that's basically it. Do they have to engage in circumcision, which was the sign of the covenant commitment made to Abraham, in order to be Christians?

And, of course, what had happened with Cornelius was Peter had preached the gospel, and the Spirit had come down on them, indicating that God had accepted them without them having to have – having to have participated in circumcision.

So, when we get to Acts 15, and that gets explained, that actually becomes a key to how that situation is resolved. And the answer becomes, "Gentiles don't have to become Jews and don't have to connect to the Law at that point in order to receive the benefits that come through Jesus Christ.

To begin with, I think – and you guys weigh on this – weigh in on this – I think it is impossible for us to understand the emotion of that meeting. That this group of people – and correct me if I'm wrong – but this is nineteen or twenty years after the resurrection. So, for 19 years or so, there has been this tension within the local church, and finally it's come to a head.

So, this isn't, you know, two weeks after the resurrection, "What are we gonna do?" This tension has been building and building and building, and now, as we've already talked about, you have many, many Gentiles who have embraced the faith and are now being asked to embrace not just circumcision, and not just the Law, but this is a way of life. This is – the old covenant is a worldview. It encompasses everything; it touches on everything.

And so, finally, after 20 years, the leaders of the Jerusalem church realize, really, how realistic is it for Gentiles not to simply be circumcised, but to – I mean as they'd – I guess it was Peter who said, "Guys, really, I mean it's difficult enough for us to carry this. Do we really expect the Gentile world to basically relearn everything?"

So, my point being I don't think – and we can fully appreciate the – I don't know if "sacrifice" is the right word, but the concession that these Jews in Jerusalem, who have been brought up – for whom this was a way of life, the concession they made by saying, "You know what? We are going to essentially" – I don't want to use the word "unhitch" 'cause nobody likes that word – "We're essentially going to allow Gentiles to develop, in a sense, their own approach to faith and not require them to do what basically has characterized our lives forever."

So, you know, in John 17, when Jesus prays for unity, this was an extraordinary, extraordinary step of unity. And we can get into this later, but when they write the letter to the Gentiles in Antioch, from a theological perspective, we get all tied up into what were those requirements.

And my point is they – this was not asking – this wasn't about law keeping; this was about peace keeping. This was everybody's got to make concessions. Because at the end of the day, we cannot have two churches. We can't have the Jewish church and the Gentile church. So, whatever it takes, there needs to be one church.

This was an extraordinarily emotional meeting, and the decision they made, I don't think we can even begin to comprehend just what a big day that was. And again, I tell the folks in our church, when I preach on this, "Hey, we are the folks in Antioch. Okay? We're in Antioch waiting on their decision. Their decision impacted every single one of us who are Gentile believers."

And he walked through – his response was basically, "Your complaint isn't against me; your complaint is against what God did in our midst, as I was in the midst of preaching." I like to tease people that when Peter was giving his speech, he never got a chance to warm up the organ and give the invitation because God acted before he was done.

But in James – and the explanation of it comes, obviously, with James' explanation, is this is in keeping with Old Testament prediction in the book of Amos that there would be – the gospel, you know, would affect Gentiles as well as Jews, and that there would be an outpouring of God's people as He pulled the people for Himself, which that Law is the word that's predominantly used for the chosen people. It now becomes a new people of God – you know, not that God has cast away the Jews, but He'd draw a people to Himself – He drew a people to Himself in the Old Testament; He's drawing Gentiles to Himself as a part of this Church in the New Testament.

But, so, salvation was the one issue that had to be solved, but the second issue that comes up in the passage, which is that practical issue, is an issue of fellowship. How do we take Jews, with their background, Gentiles coming in from their background – how do they become unified in Christ through grace in the Lord Jesus Christ and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? But now, how do they live together coming out of those backgrounds?

And I think the fellowship factor was – ironically, the things that are listed, the four counsel of, "Here's what we would ask of the Gentiles," I think is a consideration of living with liberty on the part of the Gentiles because the now are going to be in fellowship with Jewish people who have this Law steeped in their heritage.

And ironically, the four requirements really come out of Leviticus 17 and 18, which were the same things a Gentile had to observe if he came into the Jewish camp of the Old Testament by faith. He would have been asked to do those very same things.

So, in essence, the continuity of the Jewish community, these are things that some would call a moral and some would simply call ceremonial.

And so, I think what you have is a great sense of "deference," if I could use that word, that Gentile believers ought to have, for their Jewish brethren, in these four areas, because that's going to make fellowship at the table a much easier experience.

So, there could be an undercurrent to this that says, you know, "Don't do anything that associates directly with things associated with paganism."

And a parallel to this is the discussion of meat offered to idols in 1 Corinthians 8 to 10, where you actually get four different solutions, depending on what you're dealing with.

So, there's a sensitivity about how – and this gets to the fellowship point, which is there's a sensitivity about how Gentile table fellowship and their general response to paganism in general rubs off to the Jewish person with whom now they're sharing fellowship.

There's also a flip side to this that's important, and that is, within Acts, we do see communities made up primarily of Jewish people who are still very Jewish in their practices so that – and in fact Paul, in numerous parts of his letters, say, "I don't want you fighting over dates; I don't want you fighting over food, those kinds of things, as long as someone isn't trying to make someone else do something that they, in good conscience can't do."

In fact, that's what's happening in Acts 15. That's what happens in Cornelius' home. In fact, my favorite line when Peter – just to get off track for a second – when Peter goes into Cornelius' home, he's talking to all these Gentiles and says, "You know, before yesterday, I really considered all of you impure and unclean. But, you know, I've had a breakthrough."

I mean the insult – I mean he insults everybody in the room and says, "This is my first time to ever be in a Gentile's home." So, think about where the Church was – again, 20 years after the resurrection there's still a struggle.

But anyway, back to your point, I want people to understand these passages sequentially. And what I mean by that is that, as we've talked about already, there's a story line going on here that began with Abraham, that I'm gonna bless the entire world through you, who becomes a family, that becomes a nation.

Jesus came to introduce something brand new to the world, a new movement in His Church, a new covenant, a new ethic, His new command. And consequently, hopefully we'll get to later, a brand new apologetic for why we believe.

So, again, for me, this isn't theological as much as it is sequential, and it represents an invitation to a group of people, 300 miles north, that are deciding, you know, "Can I really do this?" I mean, you know, if they hadn't decided the way they decided, you know, the men would pull up on Sunday morning and say, "Honey, you and the kids run on in; I really gotta think about this because, you know, this is gonna require surgery."

So, this was – again, this was a really, really big deal. So, you know, in a contemporary – or in any church in modern times, this chapter, Acts 15, it represents two big things; we've only touched on one. But what we've touched on so far, the doors were thrown open wide to the entire world. So, it's a big deal, and it certainly has relevance to the modern church.

There's a value system that's associated with the old covenant that's not so much stated as inferred. I mean it's as simple as – I mean we know – in the Great Commission, Jesus said, "Not only are you to love your enemies, now we're gonna leave our land, we're gonna leave this piece of geography, and we're gonna go out into all nations.

Well, you know, for about 20 years, they all pretty much stayed around home because, again, they're not even willing to go into the home of a Gentile. How are they gonna fulfill the Great Commission?

So, there's so much more that is illustrated in the narratives of the old covenant – or the Old Testament, I should say – that stem from the old covenant, but it's broader than that. And my plan was to come back later and talk about that. In fact, in the message, I said, "Hey, we'll come back and talk about that later," talking to my congregation. 'Cause I threw out a little bit of a teaser that became a bomb. So anyway –

So, I do think there was a – we gotta let go of, you know, not only the old covenant itself, but some of the things associated. I think we're saying the same thing.

So, in our church, nobody heard me say we're doing away with the Old Testament. And – but again, you know, people hear what they want to hear. So, thank you for that clarification.

Mark, as you talked about, there's also – and other things of like, "Don't go down that path again, you Gentiles, if that's what you were associated, because salvation is by grace through faith in Christ."

And so, we kinda have this picture, again, of a new era, but yet it's a very old promise that is now being fulfilled in Christ. And so, we've got this tension, and that's part – when we had that language of continuity and discontinuity.

Let's move a different direction and talk about some of the contemporary challenges that the Old Testament poses for some Christians and for those that are questioning Christianity.

Andy, again I know you deal with an awful lot of people that this topic probably comes up or it surfaces.

So, in fact, we know from Acts 10, Acts 15, and just the history between Gentiles and Jews that followed the first century, there was so much tension between the two, and continued to be for hundreds of years after that.

So, historically, it was Jesus first, Old Testament second. Logically, it's Jesus first, Old Testament second. But for most Christians, that's not how they're presented Christianity. As children, we're given the whole thing. We're given a book where it said, "This is God's Word. It's God's Holy Word. Don't set your coffee cup on top of it. It's all true." And we agreed and believed it was all true before we read it, and probably the person who told us it was all true, they hadn't read it either. So, we didn't come to this sequentially, and we didn't come to this logically or even historically. We came to it as children.

So, consequently, most Christians – because that's their view, and they've never understood the relationship or the sequence between Jesus and the old covenant – that becomes problematic once they become adults. And then for people who were outside the faith, to frontload the gospel with Genesis through Malachi, to frontload the gospel with the creation story, it's an insurmountable obstacle.

So, those are some of the challenges, and that affects the way I preach and teach. And my goal, especially for students – I'm not concerned about our faith or probably the faith of most of the folks who listen to this podcast – my concern is the next generation, and I want them to know that Christianity can stand on its own two nail-scarred, resurrection feet. And as terrible as this may sound, it doesn't need to be propped up by the Old Testament.

Now, when I say that, people immediately begin quoting all the verses that Peter and Paul used to substantiate and to defend Christianity, which I totally understand. And that made perfect sense in their culture. It does not make as much sense in our culture.

So, I say to preachers and teachers and church leaders, "Come on, we should not make it difficult." Now, we're not – this isn't about dumbing anything down or compromising, but let's not create unnecessary obstacles. The only obstacle should be is Christ Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God. Did He rise from the dead? And if He rose from the dead, game on.

You know, it's interesting – I don't know if I can find it now, but I wrote in my notes what the apostle Paul didn't say. He did not say if there is no Old Testament, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. He said, "If there is no resurrection, then Jesus didn't rise, and our preaching and teaching is useless."

So, our faith rises and falls on the resurrection. But when a person comes to the conclusion that Jesus is the Son of God, then you trust everything He said, including what He said about the Law and the Prophets.

You were talking, Mark, on the book of Romans in particular.

At the same time, that simplicity of faith in Christ because of who He is based upon, obviously, the death and resurrection of Christ that proves who He is. I'm amazed that when Paul writes to the Romans, whom he has never been with, he is making case for the gospel with incredible amounts of quotations from the Old Testament to prove that it's not ritual; it's not Law. In other words, his – the whole argument of Romans, for getting to the message that is in Acts, is a message to a group of people in Rome.

And so, the issue of – I don't understand how much they would have or would not have known about the Old Testament quotations in Rome. But it was a – it was a very critical part of his argumentation for the gospel. And so, I don't think it's an either/or. I mean I think it's a both/and.

And what I will say to college students is the person who – and I was an unbeliever; I came to faith in college. I did not grow up in a Christian home. I knew what an unbeliever does in deflecting the discussion of the gospel, 'cause I did it. M-kay?

So, whenever Jesus kinda got closer to my heart, before I came to faith, I would do things like, "Let's talk about that African who's never heard," or, "Let me bring up the objections that I have about the Old Testament." And the reason I was doing that is he was – that person was getting close to what I really needed to be thinking about, and I was getting nervous.

I said, "Get the person to acknowledge this much, 'Is the Bible trustworthy enough that we ought to at least look at the way in which it presents Jesus?'" If I get a yes to that question – okay? – they aren't signing onto inerrancy, but they're signing on to respect – a level of respect for Scripture, now I can talk about Jesus. And the way I'm gonna get 'em to the Bible is by getting 'em to Jesus.

And here's the thing I want to throw in; this is so important. This isn't just about skeptics and nonbelievers. Most believers – most believers in our seats and pews have a very fragile faith. It's so fragile they are afraid to look at certain parts of the Scripture. They are afraid to have to address certain questions.

Mark, let me come to you and – what thoughts do you have on that?

In other words, it is a diminishing glory. And he actually uses the dimmer board experience – I call it the dimmer board experience of Moses coming off the mountain. As it gets dimmer, he's going, "Hide your face, Moses; it's looking bad." And that gets transferred as an imagery of what I call the big step up. And it's the continuity, but it's the discontinuity.

The Old Testament was great. I use the illustration that when my kids told us they were going to have a baby, they brought us a little set of booties. Those pink booties told us something's coming.

But when Paul says, "It has no glory in comparison, that's a major contrast. But it's still continuity. It's a continuity because all of that prophecy that was fulfilled in Christ, the Abrahamic covenant, the blessing of the world – from the beginning, God had a vision for the world.

So, the New Testament is not a contradiction, as Andy said. It's not contradictory; it's not antithetical. It's just preparatory to, and that's the sequence issue that's so important is that booties have their place, but they don't compare to a hug.

And so, the intent of the Law was a godly life with God. There's nothing wrong with that, never was anything wrong with that. But part of it, as Paul says to Timothy, in 1 Timothy 1, the function of the Law has a – there's a righteous function of the Law that is, basically, if I could say it, it's not for your salvation; it's to expose sin. And it's for the lawless, the ungodly, because it's the Galatians thing. It led you to the Law was given because of transgression to lead you to Christ.

In Ephesians 5, "Submit to one another out of reverence to Christ," that our application is taken from, Jesus' new covenant, new command to "Love as I have loved you." So, the Old Testament is inspiration; it's principles; it's not application – again, it's stories of endurance, as the apostle Paul says. It's examples.

And the apostle Paul is very consistent about how he appropriates and leverages old covenant and Old Testament narrative and content as it relates to the life of the believer. So, I think, you know, he sets the pattern and the example for us.

And here's another – maybe another topic for another day. But I can't get – I can't get over the fact – again, thinking sequentially – that the apostle Paul pivoted, in one afternoon – I mean he was the Pharisee of Pharisees who was gonna stamp out the existence of the way, and in the course of one afternoon, he pivots from, you know, the all-star Law keeper to someone who very quickly embraced a completely different worldview and a different approach to faith.

And he's the one who think we should pay closest attention to because he was at the epicenter of the transition post-resurrection. So, I think he gives us our clearest picture of how new covenant people should appropriate and consider the old covenant.

So, I would probably broaden the issue of application. I would distinguish what I think Andy's saying by application is precept. In other words, you know, in Law, from that standpoint. Obviously, it has application by principle to us.

The other is the positive written for our admonition, for our instruction. And so, it's a great tool to instruct us – if I could say it – in the worldview of God that would take us from creation to consummation, but it would say, "How did God choose a people to bring us the Messiah to reach the rest of the world.

And so, I think the continuity aspects of all of that fits the contrast. In other words, the contrast of no glory vs. total glory is in keeping with – and I – doesn't he – he doesn't destroy the staircase; he just takes a big step up. So, he didn't wipe out the first step of value.

But they didn't transfer over to us. They illustrate and give examples, but they don't – we shouldn't treat them as the Law in the sense that we tend to think about it, even though we can learn from it.

And now, you know, the interesting thing is – the passage that keeps echoing in my head is, "Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength; love your neighbor as yourself. In this is summarized all the Law." And I'm going, "Now, that is a –"

The Ten Commandments work the same way. Table one is about my relationship to God. Table two is about my relationship with others. And when I do that, I've got an ethical center that's driving through the whole of Scripture that I can unify and rally around because that's where Jesus is taking me. Jesus is taking me to a faithful walk with God that allows me to interact with other people in healthy ways. And that the Scripture defines as life.

Okay, let's talk about, then, language and how we communicate this entire topic – Old Testament and New Testament – to the unchurched, people that haven't grown up, you know, like me, in front of the flannel graph, learning every story under the sun in the Bible. And I'm thankful for that.

So, I don't view that as a disparaging mark. But I grew up in a wonderful home, heard the text, had it modeled out. Everything that you just described in one of the other sessions, Andy, that was my life.

But, Andy, as you've been thinking through this in language, and with sermons series and lessons and books and things like that, this has been a topic of yours for quite some time, to think strategically about the words that we use talking to that audience in particular.

But how would you respond to those who say that they don't understand what you're talking about – okay? – and what it is you're trying to get us to think about – preachers, in particular, and pastors that communicate. And unfortunately, as you know, some have accused you of leaning towards Marcionism or being anti-Semitic because of the language you're trying to use as it references the Old Testament.

And you used it, a minute ago, of saying, "Okay, great. I'm not gonna use the word 'unhitched' because that – maybe people have surfaced some really good things for us to think about of the language that we use." But in that big, giant topic, how would you respond to all of that in that is we're thinking about language.

I'm talking about an approach to how we talk about the Scripture to people who are outside the faith, but people who don't – it's not the people who don't have an opinion about faith; we live in a post-Christian culture, as if anybody needs to say that anymore. Right?

So, I'm just trying to give people handles – pastors and teachers specifically – how do you – you know, what are the handles to begin that conversation and keep people in the conversation? Because the challenge for us is not what the Bible says; it is what else the Bible says.

Once upon a time, you at least had to find one to discover what's in it, and it took forever to read it, and you had to really be diligent to find all the parts that are so difficult, you know, to deal with. Not anymore; it's just a few clicks and it's all there in front of us.

So, consequently, we have to step back, we have to think sequentially, and we have to think contextually. And so, those are the – those are my presuppositions; those are my assumptions when I come to the text and stand up to teach the Scripture. I don't know if that answered your question or not.

How would you – what would you say to both of those issues if people made that accusation towards you?

But the broader conversation is they have a different theological framework, and they are afraid that I'm leading evangelicalism, you know, in some dangerous direction at which, for the life of me, I can't quite figure that out. But they have a different worldview. They are presuppositionalists for the most part. So, they begin with the Bible's inerrancy; the Word of God, let's begin there.

That's just not where I begin because I'm talking to people who that's a nonstarter. So, why would I – you know, why would I begin the conversation there?

The whole anti-Semitic thing, that is so incredibly bizarre because if – you know, kudos to the Dallas Theological Seminary – people who think dispensationally, if – let me put it this way – if the early Church had taken the Jerusalem Council's advice – and by the early Church, I mean the Church fathers and those that followed – if that group of people had taken Jesus' advice about what He said about the Law and the Prophets, if that group of people had taken what the apostle Paul taught seriously, they would have left the old covenant where it needed to be left with it as in terms of something that points to Jesus, it's inspiring, but it's not our marching orders.

Because the strange thing is – and push back on this if you disagree, the roots of anti-Semitism come from the Church baptizing, Christianizing, and allegorizing the Old Testament and bringing it into the Church inappropriately because that's where they found the grit and the tension, and that's where they found the fertile soil for persecuting people who didn't follow Jesus.

It was the stories of the Old Testament that, within their original context make perfect sense dispensationally, but you bring that narrative into the Church, and, you know, consequently, even in the Reformation, you know, both sides went to war with each other in Jesus' name.

So, I think, you know, a lot of this is just stirred up by some really bad theologies, some bad theological systems, and some people who just, for whatever reason, don't like me.

So, there is another way that that can flip. And actually, I think some of the people who have accused you of Anti-Semitism, are fearing that that's where some of your rhetoric is going. I don't read it that way, but I think that's part of what may be motivating it. But I want you to explain what you mean when you say, "I don't talk theologically."

'Cause I can hear someone listening to this and going, "You never not talk theologically."

I try, to the best of my ability, to teach, again sequentially, that once upon a time there were two groups of people who both held to the Law and the Prophets. One persecuted one, and the other went on to say that a man arose from the dead and fulfilled that very same old covenant. They all believe basically the same thing about the Law and the Prophets.

But then there was an event – an event in history that launched a movement that we now call the Church. And it's – that's at the epicenter of what we believe and why we believe what we believe. And if a person will embrace that Jesus is the risen Lord and risen Messiah, whatever theological system they want to develop from there going forward, I'm fine, because I am trying to stay on the frontlines of people who have walked away from faith or who are considering faith, or who are in the Church and are reaching for the door to leave the faith.

Darrell, let me start with you. And Dr. Bailey, if you want to jump in on that –

Let me pick one that is almost sacred, the term "sin." M-kay? Now actually, a lot of people outside the Church know what sin is. And whenever they hear it, they don't hear "sin," they hear "SIN!" And phaser shields go up. You know? They're immediately put on the defensive.

And so, here's how I try and tackle that. I try and – I'll talk to someone, and I'll talk about dysfunction. And I'll say, "Is your life dysfunctional?" I might actually get a confession to that question. And then I might even push and say, "And do you contribute to that dysfunction?" And I might even get a confession there. Okay?

And then I'll turn around and you say, "You know what the Bible calls that? The Bible calls that sin." And now we're into a discussion in which someone has already come down the road with me a certain distance, and we have a different kind of discussion because I've now put this in language that they can begin to get, and I can work on defining even more precisely.

And I often say to believers who've grown up in a Christian home, "If you never darken the door of a church, and your definition of Christianity comes from what you've heard in the general culture, how does that make you feel as someone who's a Christian?"

The answer is, "Not very good, 'cause the chances are they aren't gonna get it right."

So, there's a lot – there's a lot of static that's gotta be dealt with as you are interacting with someone who's completely outside the faith.

So, when I hear Andy, you know, wrestle with that reality, I'm sitting here going, "He's wrestling with something that's very, very real and that gets in the way of our communication because we use words that we understand, but we throw 'em at people for whom they have little or no meaning or a misunderstanding. And that doesn't help them with regard to actually what we're trying to do."

And Dr. Bock, you just said it, you're looking at a person who knows you're trying to communicate to a person, not make a point. You're trying to communicate to a person, not use theological language. When you begin with people, I think our language – and if you care about people, and you're not simply trying to make a point, you really are trying to make a difference, I think we can figure out the language – and again, because we care about people.

It's like with your children, you just figure it out because you love your children. So, again, what you said, Dr. Bailey, once you had an actual family situation with an actual person in the room, it just changes everything. And it should change everything.

And I say it's really important to get a spiritual GPS on a person, to just let them tell their story, share their life. And what you're listening for is what's driving them, what influences them? And I tell them, "Mute your theological and heretical meter. Just mute it. You can't shut it off, but mute it."

Pay attention. Save some of the stuff that you hear, but don't get in the mode that we often get into of, "The moment I hear something that's theologically wrong, I'm gonna jump on it and correct." Because what you want to do is you want to get to know the person; you want to get them to trust you.

And in the midst of that, you're asking, "How does the gospel speak into where this person is?" Not the theoretics about where they fall in the grid, but just where they're coming from. And I find that the gospel's able to speak into where most people are, but you have to – you have to determine where that is. And getting a spiritual GPS, which requires listening – it requires not being engaged in the conversation, engaged in a debate – it requires muting that meter for a while.

There's gonna come a time for challenge, 'cause the gospel challenges everybody. But you want to step into it kinda knowing where you're going. And so, that is relating to someone, and caring about them, and hearing their story, and finding out what motivates them, finding out if they've had a negative experience with the Church in the past, which is worth knowing before you talk about the Church, that kind of thing. All that's very, very important, it seems to me, in how we engage.

Well, guys, this has been a great discussion. I greatly appreciate it. So, Dr. Bailey, Dr. Bock, Pastor Andy, we appreciate you joining the dialogue.