God: The Parental Genius

One of my favorite studies in the Word right now is understanding the difference between the New and Old Testaments.  I find the study both interesting and instructive, interesting because it provides a window into the genius of God -- who created a culture within a nation that at just the right time (Romans 5:6) gave birth both to the Messiah and I find it instructive because some of the ways of thinking that we can develop as believers are more Old Covenant in nature than they are New Covenant and exploring the contrast between the two helps us to see where we might need to make adjustments in our thinking and living.

Reading some of the books in the Old Testament -- particularly books like Leviticus and Numbers -- can be a bit of a bore.  Mainly because we know that they in large part don't directly apply to us as New Covenant believers but also because they read like legal documents.  And while I understand why these aren't the most quoted of books, they are ignored at a loss to the Church.  And here's why -- the Pentateuch reveals how God instilled His values in a people that were over a million in number and who had just spent 400 years in oppressive slavery by a people who had a very different value system than God did.

I think we can overlook this point a lot but consider what would have happened if God didn't have the foresight to build His values into the people that He sent Christ to.  Imagine if He sent Jesus to come in the flesh to the Greeks.  Jesus would have come and preached that He was the Father's Son and did many healings and miracles to demonstrate who He was but the polytheistic Greek culture would have ended up thinking that Jesus was just a really powerful and compassionate god among many other gods and the whole message would have not been rightly received by the people.

Thus the genius and elaborate planning nature of God is revealed in how He established the Old Testament Law.  If you read the Old Testament outside of this paradigm then you may see God as an angry taskmaster or a grumpy landlord who was always threatening to kick his people out of their land unless they did what they were supposed to do but nothing could be further from the truth.  The Old Testament must be understood in the light of Christ and as such we don't see a grumpy landlord but rather a loving parent who disciplined His children so that they would be able to rightly receive the Messiah, who would end up being the salvation of all mankind for anyone who would believe.  If you consider the ramifications that Israel's culture had on the Savior coming to the earth then you don't see a tireless taskmaster but rather a mega-rich billionaire parent who is dead-set on making sure that his children don't become selfish and spoiled but rather disciplines them so that when their time comes to receive their inheritance that they have the character to rightly receive it.

I would go so far so to say that a significant portion of the Old Testament Law was a means to an end. Meaning that while its true that many of the principles of the Law, particularly its definitions of right and wrong, are carried over into our day; its also equally true that many of the applications of those laws radically changed.  For instance, in the Old Testament the punishment for adultery was execution by the community but in John 8 when Jesus is around when a woman is caught in the act of adultery He convinces the community to not carry out the execution.  Which isn't to say that Jesus didn't teach that adultery was sin -- He most certainly did -- but rather that the punishment for sin was not to come by the hands of the faith community but rather would be given by God on the Day of Judgment.

This one revision alone was most definitely a massive paradigm shift for what it meant to walk out holiness in a community but it was the relevant way in which to understand sin in the community now that God had already sent His Son.  Once Jesus came the need to make sure everybody in the neighborhood was living holy was no longer necessary because it wasn't important anymore to have a culture that would be able to receive Jesus rightly as they had already received Him.  It has now shifted to the Church making sure to challenge its members to live holy and to use Church discipline -- which at its highest manifestation involves someone being kicked out of the fellowship (which I would say is a very far cry from the Old Testament mandate to stone an unrepentant sinner) -- to ensure that the people of God are in a faith community that is moving towards holiness.  In addition to that the Church is to call the world to a relationship with Jesus who can forgive all of their sins and grant them pardon from the punishment that is to come for all sin on the Day of Judgment.

This boils down practically for us today in that it calls us to move from the culture wars of our day and into the battle to win souls.  That we should be concerned much less with what flavor of sins unbelievers are partaking in and more with how we can see a move of God that will reach the lost in our generation.

Help us to walk this out oh God. In Jesus' Name. Amen.