Abuse of the Old Testament

There are many things practiced in the name of Christianity today that have no biblical
basis to be found in the law of Christ. The Old Testament is, at times, appealed to as the
source of authority. Does the Old Testament have the same authority for Christians today
as the New Testament? How should Christians today relate to and handle the Old
Testament scriptures? These are questions we all ought to be interested in for we are
saved by truth, not error.

God has commanded us to rightly divide the truth (2 Tim. 2:15) and Peter says (2 Peter
3:16) that the scriptures can be twisted to our own destruction thus we must be careful
and not make assumptions or just give our opinion. We can only rightly divide the word
of truth by following what God has said about how to do that. We then know we are on
safe ground.

That the Old Testament scriptures have value for us today there is no doubt for Paul says,
"For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, that through
perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope." (Rom.15:4
NAS) We thus learn that we can receive instruction from the Old Testament scriptures.
We learn we can have hope from them for they give us encouragement and help us
persevere.

No better example can be given than what James said in illustrating this point. He says,
"Behold, we count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job
and have seen the outcome of the Lord's dealings that the Lord is full of compassion and
is merciful." (James 5:11 NAS)

Hebrews chapter 11 is another good illustration. We are taught by the examples of Old
Testament characters what faith is and what it means to have faith. We are encouraged to
persevere as we see what some of those men and women were willing to do and endure to
be faithful to God. We compare our trials with theirs and ours seem but little things and
we are given strength to go on and not give up. The Bible speaks of these as being those
"of whom the world was not worthy." (Heb. 11:38 NKJV)

We are told to remember Lot's wife (Luke 17:32), told in so many words that we ought to
learn from the fact that "anyone who has rejected Moses' law dies without mercy on the
testimony of two or three witnesses" (Heb. 10:28 NKJV) and consider that in relation to
our treatment of the Son of God (Heb. 10:29) where the punishment will be worse. This
list could be extended but the point has been adequately made that there is much to learn
from the Old Testament as the New Testament reveals lesson after lesson we ought to
learn.

Furthermore, much of what we learn about God, who he is, his character, his attributes,
his expectations for man, his purposes are found in the Old Testament. We find in the
Old Testament the history of man. We find the history of God's chosen people. We see
his eternal purpose being set forth in prophecy.
And then there is the book of Psalms. Who is there among God's people who have not
gone to the book of Psalms time and again over the course of his or her life to find
comfort and hope and especially in time of sadness and sorrow?

Want to learn how to pray? Read David in the Psalms to see prayer from the heart.
Learn how to praise God in prayer and how to petition him for his blessings. Learn how
to thank God.

Need wisdom? Go to the book of Proverbs. Many, many New Testaments that one can
buy also include as an addition the books of Psalms and Proverbs. They are books that
are often consulted by men today and rightly so.

I have said many good and true things in praise of the Old Testament scriptures. I believe
everything I have said has been scriptural and so much so I do not believe anyone who
calls himself a Christian would disagree with me to this point.

We have now come to the time in this article where we need to divide the word
attempting to use the scriptures themselves to help us divide rightly. The Bible is very
clear, as I will show, that the Old Testament is not meant for us today as law. We readily
see this when it comes to animal sacrifices but too often want to bring in from the Old
Testament other things that should have been left there.

The Hebrew writer says, "For the priesthood being changed, of necessity there is also a
change of the law." (Heb. 7:12 NKJV) Read in context the argument has been that Jesus
is now our high priest and he is not of the tribe of Levi as were all the priests under the
old law of Moses. He was of the tribe of Judah.

But, our point is that the inspired writer tells us as clearly as words can make it that the
law has changed. There is now a new law. The Law of Moses is gone, fulfilled,
completed, and is now history. There is now a new law, the law of Christ. In Gal. 6:2
Paul says, "Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." (NKJV)

Everyone readily admits that Jesus gave to man commandments to obey. A

commandment is nothing other than a law to be obeyed. Disobey a law of God and you
sin. As the old King James puts it in 1 John 3:4, "Whosoever committeth sin
transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law." In our day the law that
is transgressed bringing sin is the law of Christ, not the law of Moses.

Hear God the Father speak from heaven on the Mount of Transfiguration when Peter
wanted to make 3 tabernacles, one each for Moses, Elijah, and Christ. "This is My
beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!" (Matt. 17:5 NKJV) Christ was not
to be put on an equal plain with Moses and/or Elijah. Neither was to be heard any longer
as present day authorities. Henceforth Christ was the one to be heard and followed.
In Hebrews 3 the Hebrew writer has been talking about Moses and Christ and how Christ
is superior to Moses and then in verse 7 and 8 says, "Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says:
'Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts." (NKJV) The day of
hearing Moses is over as regards law to be followed. Hear the voice of Christ which is
the voice of God. Hear it today. Jesus says, "the word which you hear is not Mine but
the Father's who sent Me." (John 14:24 NKJV)

Paul says of himself in Gal. 2:19, "For I through the law died to the law that I might live
to God." (NKJV) He goes on to say "if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ
died in vain." (Gal 2:21 NKJV) And in Rom. 7:4 "Therefore, my brethren, you also have
become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another -
to Him who was raised from the dead." (NKJV)

And, then, in Gal. 3:24-25 he makes it clear enough that an older elementary school
student ought to be able to easily understand it. He says, "Therefore the law was our
tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come,
we are no longer under a tutor." (NKJV) The law was our tutor; we are no longer under a
tutor, thus no longer under the law. (For that matter the Gentiles were never given the
law anyway nor were they under it. The law was for God's chosen people, the Jewish
nation.)

Part of the problem the Galatians were having was that they were wanting at the very
least an admixture of the old Law of Moses with Christ. Paul called it a perversion of the
gospel of Christ in chapter 1 verse 7. Some were going so far as to wanting to go back to
the law for Paul says, "Tell me, you who desire to be under the law." (Gal. 4:21 NKJV)
The desire was wrong. Remember, God said this is my beloved son, hear him, him not
Moses (the Law of Moses).

Paul goes so far as to say that being under the works of the law is a curse. "For as many
as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, "Cursed is everyone
who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them."
(Gal. 3:10 NKJV) He says, "do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage." (Gal.
5:1 NKJV)

I could go on and on with proof texts for the book of Galatians and the book of Hebrews
both deal extensively about the change of the law telling us clearly that we are not under
the Law of Moses today. The book of Romans also gives us much the same. But, my
main interest is making an application as to how all of this affects us today as Christians
and believers.

The idea seems to be prevalent today that the Old Testament gives us authority to worship
in ways we please if we can find an example for our practice in the Old Testament. But,
does it?

Paul says of certain Galatians, Gal. 5:4 (NKJV), "You have become estranged from
Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace." They were
wanting to bring over into Christianity circumcision. "Indeed I, Paul say to you that if
you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. And I testify again to every man
who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law." (Gal. 5:2-3 NKJV)

The only way these people could justify themselves, even in their own eyes, was by an
appeal to the Old Testament scriptures, justification by Old Testament law. It won't work.
Why not? Because it is not a part of the law of Christ. We do not have a problem with
the issue of circumcision today but we often seek to do what that group did who wanted it
- justify our practice that cannot be found in the law of Christ, the New Testament, by an
appeal to the Old Testament.

We are given a choice of whose law and authority we will live by. Will it be Moses' law
or Christ's law? We cannot mix them. What Christ wanted from the old law to be
observed today he brought with him and had it recorded in the pages of the New
Testament. We can go backwards to Moses or we can move forward to Christ. That is
our choice.

There are things that seem so right to a man, how can they be wrong? The writer of
Proverbs says, "There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death."
(Prov. 16:25 NKJV) God speaking in Isaiah 55:8-9 (NKJV) says, "'For My thoughts are
not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,' says the Lord. 'For as the heavens are
higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your
thoughts.'" We error greatly when we think that because a thing pleases us it is
automatically going to please God.

We also ought to learn from this that we ought not to just accept without question the
things that have been handed down to us from man (men) who lived in the past but whose
teachings have come to be accepted as a sort of a standard - it doesn't matter whether the
man was Calvin, Luther, or the Pope, or whomever it might be. Isaiah said in Isa. 2:22
(ESV), "Stop regarding man in whose nostrils is breath, for of what account is he?"
Good question. I think Isaiah answered his own question didn't he?

Nadab and Abihu in Leviticus 10 "offered profane fire before the LORD, which He had
not commanded them" (verse 1) and the Bible says "so fire went out from the LORD and
devoured them, and they died before the LORD." (Lev. 10:2 NKJV) They had no
authority from God to use profane fire or as some versions put it "strange fire." (NAS)

What is the application? To Nadab and Abihu worship was worship as long as it was
directed to God and meant for his praise. It seemed right to them. Who could object to
worshipping God? Well, we found out. God does not think as man thinks.

What Nadab and Abihu did was no different than what we do today when we add to the
worship things we cannot find in the law of Christ, the new covenant, the New
Testament.
Col. 3:17 reads as follows, "And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of
the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him." (NKJV) How does one do
a thing in the name of the Lord Jesus about which the Lord Jesus spoke nothing?

A careful reading of 1 Chron. 21:18-19 will show you that the phrase "in the name of the
Lord" means by the Lord's authority. The angel of the Lord had commanded Gad to go
speak to David about building an altar and verse 19 says, "So David went up at the word
of Gad, which he had spoken in the name of the Lord." Thus by the Lord's authority
which is expressed in his word, not outside it. We are to do what we do "in the name of
the Lord Jesus," by his authority found in his word. Now reread Col. 3:17 and you will
see this involves everything we do in religion and most assuredly in our worship.

Nadab and Abihu were doing a thing in the name of God which God had spoken nothing
about. Nadab and Abihu were not condemned for doing a thing that was written or given
but for what was not written or not given and doing it anyway because it pleased them.
Do you think for a single moment that Nadab and Abihu thought it would matter? You
know they didn't.

Peter says, "if anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God." You will need an
oracle of God to do that. When you have to go outside the word of God for your practice
it is because there is no oracle.

The New Testament tells us exactly how far we are allowed to go. We can go that far and
no farther. How far? In 1 Cor. 4:6 Paul says, "not to exceed what is written" (NAS) -
"not to go beyond what is written" (ESV). John says, (2 John 1:9 NKJV), "Whoever
transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God." When we
step outside what Christ has said, his written word, we step outside his doctrine and adopt
the doctrine of man. On the day of judgment you do not want to find yourself trying to
explain to God why you did that.

Today all kinds of things have been brought into the typical worship of churches for
which man cannot find a New Testament book, chapter, and verse for and we all really
know that. I am not telling anyone anything they do not know. Most will readily admit
it. They say God will not care. It makes no difference. It is still worship to God they
say. It pleases him. But what do you do with John 4:24 that says, in part, that worship
must be in truth and then John 17:17 which says God's word is truth? You then search the
New Testament and cannot find a word about your practice, what then?

Sometimes they say they did it in the Old Testament. Moses did it or David did it so it
has to be okay. Instrumental music in worship is an example. Which law did Moses and
David live under? Instrumental music was a command of worship under the law of
Moses (see 2 Chron. 29:25), that is to say that era or dispensation. Does one seek
justification by an appeal to the law of Moses? God said to those with Jesus on the
Mount of Transfiguration, "This is My Beloved Son. … Hear Him!" (Matt. 17:5 NKJV)
(You are aware that the church we find in the New Testament existed for hundreds of
years before man brought the instrument into the worship. This in itself tells you where it
came from, God or man.)

But, the things brought from the Old Testament over to us today go far beyond just
instrumental music. Things like the special robes and/or priestly attire worn by those
who are considered to be some what in the church, the idea that there are two classes of
brethren - one priests and then the rest of us, the ritualism we find often in the churches,
sprinkling, and so on. All from the days of the Law of Moses and none of which can be
justified without an appeal to it. Will we hear Moses or Christ?

The title of this article was abusing the Old Testament. How is that done? I think we see
now it is by seeking justification from it and especially in the realm of public worship in
our own day. That is not where you will find justification, not today.

I close with the words of God the Father on the Mount of transfiguration. "This is my
beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!" (Matt. 17:5)