FEB 20

Romans 4:3
Memorise Hebrews 10:38
“Now the just shall live by faith…”

The word “testament” or “covenant” simply means “contract” or “agreement”. It may seem like God dealt with Old Testament (OT) saints in ways that were entirely different from the way He deals with believers in the New Testament (NT) and today. After all, during the Old Testament times, Jesus had not yet gone to the cross to die for the sins of man. How, then, were OT people saved, and is there discontinuity in the Bible since there are 2 testaments, the old and the new?

The Bible teaches that during the OT times, which is the period before Christ, the many symbols and rituals practiced by the priests at the time were merely indicators which pointed towards Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross. In NT times, every person who receives Jesus by faith enters into a spiritual relationship with Him and accepts Jesus’ death on the cross as the perfectly completed work of salvation for repentant sinners. In other words, OT saints looked forward in time to the cross of Jesus for their salvation, while NT saints looked back in time to the cross of Jesus for theirs. The OT signs which predicted Christ’s birth, life, work and death became reality in every detail in the NT. This is Covenant Theology, which sees the entire Bible as one continuous account of God’s plan of salvation for man. There is therefore no discontinuity in the Bible.

Dear Teen, if we’re not careful, we may have the wrong idea that people in the OT had to perform rituals and sacrifices just to “earn” their salvation. This would mean that OT saints were saved by works while NT saints were saved by faith instead. However, Romans 4:3 tells us that the OT saint, Abraham, was saved (“counted unto him for righteousness”) not by works but by faith, because he believed that God would send a Saviour to redeem him sometime in the future. This is the very same faith that saves every believer even today. Both OT and NT saints are saved by grace through faith.

Thought: The NT is in the OT concealed. The OT is in the NT revealed.
Prayer: How wonderful, O Lord, that every sinner may be saved by faith through Christ’s perfect sacrifice on the cross.