The message of the Old Testament is clear: God is not to be trifled with. Believers instead present their lives as a living sacrifice to God, and worship God wherever they are any place in the world. Alternate places of worship were forbidden.īut in the New Testament, animal sacrifices became obsolete because Christ’s sacrifice of Himself on the cross fulfilled the purpose of all animal sacrifices. In the Old Testament, God’s people were expected to travel to Jerusalem regularly to celebrate festivals and to make animal sacrifices at the Temple. #6 Worship: Temple sacrifices or anywhere Instead, both the church (i.e., all followers of Jesus-NOT a church building) and the individual believer are considered the home (temple) of God. In the New Testament, God’s presence is no longer focused in a building. The Wailing Wall (or Western Wall) in Jerusalem is considered to be part of the ruins of the Temple complex. It signified that God had opened up a way for His people to enter His home.) It was destroyed by the Romans about 40 years after the crucifixion of Jesus. (This, by the way, was the significance of the curtain in the Temple being torn in half at the time Jesus died. While both the Old and New Testaments understood God to be omnipresent and unable to be contained even by the entire universe, in the Old Testament, God’s presence was centered in the Most Holy Place (or Holy of Holies), a special room within the Temple of God that was never entered except by the high priest and then only once a year on the Day of Atonement. #5 Presence of God: Temple in Jerusalem or God’s people It is understood that this life isn’t fair, that good people are often persecuted and deprived of the rewards that should be theirs, but their reward will be given in the life to come. In the New Testament, the focus is on eternal life. A long life was a sign of God’s blessing. As a rule, good people were rewarded for their faith by prospering in this life. This salvation culminates in the return of Jesus Christ to earth to set all things right.Īlthough Old Testament authors had a concept of resurrection and life after death, the focus of their thinking was on this life. New Testament authors understood salvation to mean that the people of God (the church) would be saved from sin and allowed to enjoy God’s rule. They would be “saved” from their enemies. In other words, there would probably be a war, and the nation of Israel would win the military victory. The Old Testament people of God understood “salvation” to mean that they would be rescued from their enemies. #3 Salvation: military victory or removal of sin Instead, the reward for their faithfulness is God Himself-a relationship with Him. In the New Testament, God makes no such promise to the church. When the nation of Israel turned away from God, God took away the land from His people, but He promised to one day restore it to them. God promised His people the land of Canaan, and He promised they would own and occupy it as long as they remained faithful and obedient to Him. More specifically it was the land currently occupied by the nation of Israel plus some. The reward for the righteous in the Old Testament was the land. In the Old Testament, the focus was on a nation in the New Testament the focus was on the individual and on communities of faith. This was a huge paradigm shift for the early followers of Jesus. The original New Testament word for “church” is ekklesia which literally means “called out.” God’s people are called out of every nation. In the New Testament, God’s people come from any and all nations. While anyone could worship God, the right ancestry gave one an enormous advantage. God’s people were members of a nation, a people group, all descended from a common ancestor-Jacob, son of Isaac, grandson of Abraham. In most of the Old Testament, God’s people were understood to be the Israelis (or Israelites, the Jews). #1 God’s people: a nation or a faith community If you don’t understand this shift in thinking, you’ll find many passages of the Bible to be confusing, and you’ll take away from the Bible meaning that was never intended. Between the end of the Old Testament and the middle of the New Testament, a huge shift in thinking takes place.
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