- So we, we're considering the question, how were people saved
in the Old Testament? And Christians have
wondered about this because we're saved by putting our
faith and trust in Jesus Christ in his finished work on the cross. Obviously in the Old
Testament Jesus hadn't come and many of them would
not have even known him by name, so how were they saved? What did they believe in? And the answer is quite
simply from Genesis to Revelation everyone is saved by faith, through the grace of God.
And in the Old Testament they were saved by faith
in a coming deliverer, a coming savior you
could say they were saved by faith in Jesus Christ dimly perceived. We could go right back to the beginning. Where we have the first
man and the first woman rebel against God and God
comes and brings judgment upon them but in the midst of
that judgment, there is grace and God talks about
the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman
being hostile towards one another but that eventually
the seed of the woman will conquer fatally,
will deal the fatal blow to the seed of the serpent. It says there that the
man named his wife Eve because she was the
mother of all the living. Well I don't think that
means that she was the first woman so that all descendants
would come from her. I think it means something more than that, that she would, he was
actually exercising faith in the promise that there
would be a descendant of the woman who would eventually bring the death blow to evil in the world. That promise is developed in various ways as the narrative unfolds. Things become really bad
and God brings in a judgment on the entire world and
then he rescues Noah and his family and so God
makes a brand new start, and then that seems to go
down the tubes pretty quickly and God makes a brand
new start with Abraham, and in the story of Abraham we read that Abraham believed in Yahweh
and his faith was credited to him for righteousness. So because Abraham
believed in what God said was true, they were able to
have a covenant relationship. So Abraham was saved by faith in the Lord, and then as Abraham's family
grow into the nation of Israel, God makes a covenant with
them and creates a priesthood and a system of worship
and tells them how they are to relate to him and how
they're to treat each other. The sacrificial system was basically a grand audiovisual communication
that when you disbelieve the word of God when you
disobey the will of God there has to be punishment. There has to be death. But it should be obvious
from the sacrificial system itself that this was not
successful in removing guilt because they had to keep doing it over and over again and so this is
the point made by the author of Hebrews that the priests
never sat down because they never finished their job. They had to offer sacrifices
over and over again, and so the continuity of
offering sacrifices was a message in itself to the ancient
Israelites, that this is not the answer itself it's pointing forward to a sacrifice that will come
that will finally satisfy the wrath of God and satisfy
the indignation that God has because the covenant
relationship has been broken, and ultimately this is
based on whether or not you're a believer in Yahweh
a believer in the Lord or are you not a believer in the lord? And so this is developed right
throughout the Old Testament, when you come to for example
the wisdom literature like the Book of Proverbs he
says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
well the fear of the Lord is a way of talking about
covenant allegiance, faithfulness and loyalty within
the covenant relationship with Yahweh. You look at
Proverbs he says in Proverbs chapter three, don't trust in yourself, trust in the Lord with all your heart, and don't lean to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge
him he will direct your paths, and then he says fear the
Lord, and then he says love the Lord, don't despise his discipline. This is all dealing
with faith in who God is and in what he says and in his promises and in his instructions, and along with that we have the promise of a coming deliverer being developed. So in Genesis 49 it talks about a scepter coming from the tribe
of Judah, there's a king coming from Judah and in the messages of the false prophet Balem he
says there's a coming king. The shout of the king is
among them, a star will come from the tribe of Judah,
and so there are promises of a coming king, these
are being developed throughout the Old Testament. When we get to the New Testament
and we see Paul explaining the good news that has come
in Jesus Christ for example, in Romans chapter three it
says that God overlooked, the rebellion, the sin, the transgression in the past because he was
looking forward to the coming of Jesus Christ whose death
on the cross would pay the penalty for our rebellion and sin. So in the Old Testament
basically you have people looking forward to Jesus
Christ dimly perceived you have a person like
Job his friends think that he's experiencing all
these problems because he sinned, he knows that
he has a good relationship with God that he's a believer in the Lord. So he doesn't understand
why he's going through this difficulty, he wants
an audience with God, where God will vindicate
him and prove him right in court and he argues that somewhere out there, there has to
be a kinsman redeemer. The nearest relative
who will take his part, plead his case in court and defend him, and I would argue that it's Jesus Christ very dimly perceived,
that he's looking forward to a coming deliverer a coming savior who will deal with the problem, and then now that we have
the coming of Jesus Christ, we have the Gospels, we
have the life of Christ, we have his death, we has his resurrection and we have the good news
preached by his qualified agents the apostles, we instead
of looking forward, we're looking back on
the event that brings salvation to the world. (upbeat music) - [Narrator] Thanks for
watching Honest Answers don't forget to subscribe. (upbeat music)
