Foundations for new testament believers – Part 2

The greatest problem in the church today is lack of understanding of the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament. The difference is not in the demarcation you find in your modern-day Bible. Jesus lived in the Old Testament. He fulfilled the law of the Old covenant for us, so we won’t need to continue in it. The New Testament started after the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. Jesus enacted this Covenant with His blood!

Pastors and teachers who are supposed to know better but are teaching their members to live like Old Testament saints cause this error in the body of Christ. We are able ministers of the New Testament – we are not to build church doctrines on the life and practices of Old Testament saints. Jesus, though was the bridge between the Old and the New Testament, left His disciples to lay the foundational doctrines of the church. (Eph 2:20)

The old way, with laws etched in stone, led to death, though it began with such glory that the people of Israel could not bear to look at Moses’ face. For his face shone with the glory of God, even though the brightness was already fading away. Shouldn’t we expect far greater glory under the new way, now that the Holy Spirit is giving life? Unfortunately, we are not satisfied with this new way; our pastors and teachers are taking us back to the old way of pleasing God. (2 Cor 3:7-8)

This is like putting new wine in old wine skin and like patching old garment with brand new one. See how Jesus put it in Mark 2:21-23.“No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; or else the new piece pulls away from the old, and the tear is made worse. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins.”

This is exactly what we are doing in church today – mixing the Old Testament doctrines with New Testament! Jesus warned that mixing the Old covenant with the New would cause more damage to people than good. The New Testament is not the continuation of the Old; rather it’s the replacement! The old is faulty, hence its replacement.

The Old Testament was called the ministration of condemnation and death. When we preach to New Testament saints in the Old Testament saint way, we bring them under the ministry of death and condemnation. Unlike the ministry of Moses, we have nothing to hide. Everything is out in the open with us. He wore a veil, so the children of Israel wouldn’t notice that the glory was fading away — and they didn’t notice. They didn’t notice it then and they don’t now, they didn’t notice that there’s nothing left behind that veil. Even today when the proclamations of that old, bankrupt, ministry are read out, they can’t see through it. In Christ the veil is removed through revelation, so they can see for themselves that there’s nothing there only a dead religion!

As able minister of the New Testament, our duty is to introduce Christ life and way to God’s people both from the old and New Testament books. He is in the Old Testament concealed but in the New Testament, He is boldly revealed. Until they recognise that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognised as obsolete. We’re free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so, we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him. New wine must be put in new wine skin! Glory to God!
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