Nov 5, 2011

One Reason to Study the Old Testament

   
“The most compelling reason for Christians to read and study the Old Testament lies in the New Testament. The New Testament witnesses to the fact that Jesus of Nazareth is the One in whom and through whom all the promises of God find their fulfillment. These promises are only to be understood from the Old Testament; the fulfillment of the promises can be understood only in the context of the promises themselves. The New Testament presupposes knowledge of the Old Testament. Everything that is a concern to the New Testament writers is part of the one redemptive history to which the Old Testament witnesses. The New Testament writers cannot separate the person and work of Christ, nor the life of the Christian community, from this sacred history which has its beginnings in the Old Testament.”

Graeme Goldsworthy, Gospel and the Kingdom: A Christian Interpretation of the Old Testament (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1981), 19.
  

1 comment:

Mike Gantt said...

Yes indeed!

Just as the Old Testament is a puzzle that only the New Testament can explain, so also is the New Testament a puzzle which only the Old Testament can explain.

Those who do not see that Jesus Christ is the central and constantly repeated point of both testaments are missing its message.