What does the New Testament say about the Old Testament?

When we reach the New Testament, we find plain endorsements of the inspiration and authority of the Old, first from the lips of our Lord Himself (Matt. 4:4, 7, 10; Matt. 5:17; Mark 12:24; Mark 14:21; Luke 4:21; Luke 16:31; Luke 24:25-27, 44-46; John 5:46-47; John 10:35), and then from the Evangelists in their frequent references to the fulfilment of Old Testament scripture in the life and death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. "That it might be fulfilled," "That the scripture might be fulfilled," are words that we read over and over again. In the epistles, too, we have inspiration clearly claimed for the Old Testament writers in such passages as 2 Timothy 3:15-17; 1 Peter 1:10-12, and 2 Peter 1:19-21.

Some Examples of Old Testament Use in the New Testament. Many intimate relationships exist between the Old and the New Testament, as the following scriptures show:

Christ quoting from Moses' writings, the prophets and the Psalms, to show that He needed to suffer and be raised from among the dead (Lk. 24:27, 45f). In John 5:46-47 our Lord places Moses' writings (the inspired Word of God) even above His own words. Romans 15:4 establishes the principle that the Old Testament writings have been written for our instruction, that through endurance and encouragement we might have hope. In 1 Corinthians 9:8-10 Paul applies an Old Testament regulation to himself with regard to threshing oxen! 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 reviews Israel's history and goes as far as saying that their history happened and was written for our admonition to teach us about God's faithfulness.

Have we not much cause to bless the Lord for these words of His addressed to His poor perplexed ones on their way to Emmaus? They may seem severe; but it is the necessary severity of a pure, a perfect, and a divinely wise love. "O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory? And" — mark these words! — "beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself." He Himself — all homage to His glorious Person! — is the divine centre of all the things contained in the Scriptures from cover to cover. He is the golden chain that binds into one marvellous and magnificent whole every part of the inspired volume, from Genesis to Revelation.

"Think not that I am come to make void the law or the prophets; I am not come to make void, but to fulfil" (Matt. 5: 17). The preaching of John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, and his call to repentance, as well as the words of the Lord Jesus Himself, announced something completely new. But this did not mean that everything that preceeded this had become invalid. The law and the prophets (i.e. the entire Old Testament) were not destroyed by Christ. Quite the opposite, He was come to fulfil them. "Fulfilling" does not only mean obedience to the Word of God, because this could only have referred to the law, and not to the prophets. "Fulfilling" therefore means here "to confirm" and "to bring to fulfilment." The entire Old Testament testified of Christ and He was its fulfilment (John 5: 39).

And the indication of this lofty object in the writings of Moses. is by no means confined to these verses. The Lord points out the same thing to His disciples after His resurrection. To the dejected and sorrowful pair wending their way to Emmaus He reproachfully says, "O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory? And beginning at Moses, and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself" (Luke 24:25-27). Thus the true spiritual nexus of those ancient writings, missed by the dissecting critics, is "Christ," as another passage in the same chapter also states, "These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms concerning Me" (Luke 24:44). Here, too, the Lord alludes to the well-known triple division of the books of the Hebrew canon, viz. the law, the prophets, and the psalms. These together comprised the "scriptures" as the next verse shows, "Then opened He their understanding that they might understand the scriptures." So that as has been said, "we may accept the Hebrew scriptures from the pierced hands of Christ Himself in resurrection:" though it is not hereby implied that His words were more true one time than another.

Therefore it was that Timothy had these precious things from a child, and if he did not now abide in the things which he had learned he would be giving up that too. You cannot abandon one part of scripture without the other, because the scripture is an undivided whole; it is a complete unity. As has been said, the New Testament lies hidden in the Old, and the Old Testament lies open in the New. Put them together, and you have a perfect revelation from God. Separate them and you are in a fog, a mist; and you cannot understand either one or the other. So Timothy was exhorted to abide equally in what was of the New Testament, and in what was of the Old.

"The law and the prophets" was the recognized phrase for the Old Testament as a whole, the Scriptures of a dispensation already past, but which had not passed themselves with the dispensation. Thus in the Gospel of Luke He says again (Luke 16:16): "The law and the prophets were until John; since that time the Kingdom of God is preached." Thus it could be said that they were passed, and that they were not passed. They were passed as the sole and governing truth: that was now come, or at least was at hand, for which they had been preparing the way; and necessarily this must be now the higher truth, but which must by the very fact bear witness to and establish what has gone before it. No truth can pass away. The more complete that is, to which we have arrived, the more surely must it embrace and set in their place all lower and partial truths which have anticipated and led on to it.

Thus then Christ came not to destroy the law and the prophets. He came to fulfil, or rather complete, ― fill them out. What would the Old Testament be without the New? Very much like a finger, pointing into vacuity!

Take Numbers — the history of the journeyings of God's people through the wilderness. "These things," says the apostle, "happened to them for examples [types], and they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come." Who was it that wrote them for us? Certainly not Moses (although he was the human instrument), but He who knoweth the end from the beginning, and who orders all things according to His good pleasure.

All the circumstances of Christian life are found treasured up in these oracles, in so complete a manner, that the apostle could say, "They are able to make us wise unto salvation through faith in Jesus Christ." On the other hand, the New Testament is equally far from merely repeating the substance of the Old, or from making void its authority. It brings in an altogether new light — a light which (while setting aside a multitude of things as fulfilled) throws upon the Old Testament a radiance which alone gives its contents their true bearing. All this applies to the moral and to the ceremonial law; to the history of the patriarchs; to the royalties of David and of Solomon; to the sentiments expressed in the Psalms, as well as to other subjects. Is it not one mind which has done all this? Was it the mind of Moses or of Paul? Assuredly not.

"Is the law, then, against the promises of God? God forbid; for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin." There the children of Israel were, and the law had locked them all up together under sin. And this, "that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe." Not to the Jews, as such, but "to them that believe." "But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster unto Christ." "To bring us" has no business here. The meaning is that the law was a schoolmaster dealing with these Jews, until Christ came; as it was said before, "It was added because of transgression till the seed should come to whom the promise was made." It is not a question of bringing people now to Christ: the effect of the law is rather to minister death and condemnation, as we are so clearly told elsewhere. God may let people thus come under sentence of death, and afterwards by Christ bring them out of it; but no man can say that a killing power is in itself the means of bringing people to Christ. "The law was our schoolmaster." It did the office of the slave who had the charge of children under age. It dealt severely with those under it till Christ came. The Galatians were Gentiles who had never been under the law, to whom Paul is describing the manner of God's dealings with the Jews that were. Speaking of such he says, "The law was our [not, your] schoolmaster unto Christ." When Christ came there was a new object manifested, and the negative process of legal discipline closed, "that we might be justified by faith." The law made souls feel their state; but God opened their eyes when in that state to see that the only hope of righteousness was in Christ. "But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster." Not even Jews who believed were any longer under the law! The moment they had Christ revealed, they passed from the dominion of the law and owed their new subjection to Christ. Christ is the Master and Lord of the Christian. The Jew had had the law for his tutor. When he received Christ, the law's office terminated, and he entered a new domain altogether.

The covenant is new in the sense that it is entirely different to the old covenant: it is not a new covenant of the same pattern. Being new makes the old out of date; and decaying and waxing old, it is ready to vanish away. It is vain, therefore, for Jews or Christendom to go back to that which man has broken and which God has set aside by the cross, and the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple.