The Old and new testaments are one book. They are one long story. If you have never read the entire old testaments, there are parts of the New Testament you will never understand.

The entire bible is the story of how God created man, and man continually did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. God finally picked Abraham and his descendants who eventually became the nation of Israel to bless the people of the earth. Israel was to represent God and show the nations of the world what God was like by living right. Abraham’s descendants got so bad at one point that God wanted to destroy them and start over with Moses. They continued to sin “do things their way instead of God’s way” and continued in this downward spiral until there was hardly any difference between them and the other nations of the world that God was trying to bless through them. Finally, God had grace upon Israel and gave them the law to show them how Good, Holy, and Righteous He was. He gave them the law to slow down the evil they were doing. Until God gave the law to them many of them did not have a clue on what was wrong and right. They had nothing to constrain their sin nature. One minister said if God had not given the law, Israel might have become so evil that there might not have been a virgin in the whole nation to give birth to His son.

The law never made any of them right with God because none of them could fully keep the law. If they obeyed 612 of the 613 laws and only broke one law, they were guilty of the whole law. That’s why they had to continually make sacrifices to cover their sins. Them doing things their way instead of God’s way. The Bible says in Galatians 3:24 the law was our schoolmaster “tutor or Guardian” to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. The law revealed what God loves and what God hates. Because we humans have a fallen nature that we received from Adam, when he disobeyed God in the garden, we can never measure up to how Good, Holy, and Righteous God is. No matter how hard we try we do not measure up. None of us!

Because of this God had Grace on mankind and sent his only son to die on the cross, so we could be made right with God. Not by our good works because none of us measure up, but because of Jesus who never sinned became sin so we could be made right with God. He was final sacrifice! Because of this we now can be born again and receive the nature of God so we can do the things that please God.

Ezekiel prophesied In Ezekiel 36:26-28 “I will give you a new heart, I will put a new spirit in you. I will take away your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit in you and cause you to walk in my ways and keep my commandments. This was hundreds of years before Jesus died on the cross, yet Ezekiel prophesied that God was going to take away our hard heart that causes us to do all the things that God hates and would give us a new heart. He said he was going to put his law “God’s nature” in our heart so we could walk in God’s ways and keep his commandments. He did not say he was going to abolish the law. He said he was going to give us a way to keep it. Now before everyone thinks I’m saying we still need to obey the OT law that’s not what I am saying at all. Because of the change of being born again we now have God’s law in our hearts. Romans 5:5 says God put his love in our heart by the Holy Spirit. The Bible also says that God is Love. If we listen to the love that God put in our heart at the new birth, we will not disobey the His laws or His nature.

When The Pharisees came to Jesus and asked “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And He said to him, “‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.” This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, “YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.” On these two commandments hang the whole Law and the Prophets. Jesus was saying that all 613 of the Old Testament laws hang on these 2 laws. If we do these 2 things, we can obey all of the OT Law. And God put his LOVE in our heart at the new birth so we can do this. 2 Peter 1:3 says that God has given us all things that pertain to life and Godliness. Godliness means becoming like God.

So, it’s not that now the law is a bad thing. It’s that we now have a new way of keeping it and it looks a little different. Now we have all the tools to do it. He took away the penalties of the broken law and is not imputing our trespasses or sins against us now. If we follow the new nature of LOVE that God put in our hearts, we can become what Israel never could be by trying to obey the Law. We are made right with God through our faith in what Jesus did for us. Does this mean that we can do whatever we want because God is not holding our sins against us anymore? In the words of Paul in Romans “GOD FORBID”!!! He still wants us to walk in our new nature, put our flesh under, and renew our mind so we can continually become more like Him and show the world what He is like.

Jesus said in Matt. 5:18 that for assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Some things Jesus fulfilled like the sabbath and the sacrifices, other things God made clean like eating pork, shrimp, and such. However, much of what God told Israel in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy that are moral laws are things that he hated and detested. He still hates and detest these things. He is the same God in the Old Testament that He is in the New Testament. We make a grave error by saying that the Old Testament no longer applies to us because we are under grace. Thank God for Grace but grace is to help us do the things that please God and not do the things that displease God. He is the same God. He has not changed. He did not go through anger management or therapy and now he is ok with things he hated in the OT. The reason God hates certain things is because those things hurt humans. He wants us to have an abundant life. If we continue to do things our way instead of God’s way, we will never have the abundant life he has planned for us. It’s not because God hates humans and wants to ruin all our fun. It’s because he loves us and wants us to have an abundantly life that he sets boundaries and rules for us. Many have said that Christianity is not a bunch of rules and regulations, and I will agree that rules and regulations never saved anyone. However, if God is a loving father he will tell us not to do certain things because they will hurt us. It’s like the father in Florida that told his son not to play by the lake. It wasn’t that he didn’t want his son to enjoy the lake. He knew that there were alligators in the lake that could hurt or kill his son. God sets boundaries for us so we can have the abundant life he wants us to have. All He ever wanted for Israel was to take them to the promised land and bless their socks off, but he knew because of their human nature there had to be some rules or they would become just like all the other nations of the world at that time that were destroying themselves.

According to Romans 10: 9 if we confess with our mouth that JESUS is LORD and believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead we will be saved. Jesus doesn’t just want to be our savior; He wants to be our LORD. Lord means boss, master, supreme authority. Basically, we quit doing things our way and start doing things His way. This is a qualification to be saved. Many have said I could never do that. I can’t quit doing things my way. Of course, you can’t! Israel couldn’t and neither can we. But when we realize that God’s way is so much better than our way and we take the step of faith of making Jesus LORD of our life God changes us on the inside and put’s his love in our heart so we can do the things that please God. We can receive the FREE gift of salvation and be BORN AGAIN. We can be changed. I say this all the time “If you have not been changed you might not be born again.” You can repeat a prayer after someone, join a church, and become religious, but if you have never made Jesus Lord of your life and been changed on the inside you are not BORN AGAIN. You are not saved. You’re not right with God.

God want’s Christians to live above all the drama and horrific things that are in this world today. He has called us to come out from among them and be separated for our own good not his. When God says don’t do something or to do something, it’s for our benefit not his. He is either trying to bless us or protect us. However, like the nation of Israel we think we are smarter than God and continue to do things our way instead of his way and live substandard lives compared to what he has for us. We say because we are now under grace God is Ok with all the things, He was not ok with in the OT.

What we do not understand that the law was to show us how Good, Holy, and Righteous God is and he always wanted man to come up to this level but they could not because of the sin nature. But now we are made right in God’s eyes because of Jesus, and we have been given all the tools to become like God. When we do mess up He is not holding our sins against us so we are not under the penalty and curse of the broken law. He has given us the gift of repentance so that when we mess up our lives from doing things our way instead of His way we can repent, turn, and change and do things His way and continue to live in His Blessings.

–Jerry Moyer