For centuries, the Jews kept God’s command by setting aside the seventh day of the…
Category: Old Law
Under the Old Law, God expected the Israelites to tithe up to three times a year. Christ mentions tithing in a few places, but early Christians did not incorporate the practice of a tithe. Instead of a tithe, early Christians gave based on their own discretion. The church used the funds to support Christian widows, the poor, gospel preachers, Christian prisoners, and those affected by calamities.
“But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for possession, so that you might speak of the praises of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light…” 1Pe 2:9 With Christ’s triumphal ascension to the right hand of God and the establishment of the Church there was, no later than this, a change that took place in the way of access to the Father. Since no one may come to the Father but through Jesus (by His own words) and “there is no other name under Heaven by which we must be saved”, there is no ambiguity in the NT regarding the covenant and the ‘covenant people’; who they are, how they came to be, etc.
Occasionally I will hear people make comments referencing “the God of the old testament,” or “the God of the new testament.” Statements like these stem from the perception that God behaved differently, with different expectations in the old testament than he did in the new. Often the connotation is that the “old testament God” was an angry and vengeful God, while the “new testament God” is kind, forgiving and loving God. There are many examples to counter such ideas, one has but to look at the repeated cycles of forgiveness and redemption in the old testament or the ultimate punishment outlined in Revelation to see that God is kind, capable of righteous anger, forgiving, able and willing to exact vengeance, and loving.
Of all the gifts of God, the Lord’s promise of liberty must be among the greatest. In Christ’s Kingdom there is liberty, a special kind of freedom not enjoyed by those outside of his body. What is this liberty? The Bible explains.
The knowledge of the glory of God is today revealed in the face of Jesus, as it once was in the face of Moses, but in a vastly superior way. As Moses came down from the mount with the law and a countenance reflecting God’s glory, so did Jesus—He just happened to be coming down from a much loftier, heavenly peak with a perfected law and, since He is the express image of God’s person, His glory and God’s are one.
The above title is a fragment of what was spoken by the Lord to Moses and later written among the ten commandments. According to the book of Hebrews, they along with other matters of the Old Covenant are “. . . obsolete.” “Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.” (Heb.8:13)
The word “grace” appears 18 times in the Old Testament. It appears 125 times in the New Testament. A striking change. What accounts for this? The apostles tell us. John said that “the law was given through Moses, but grace…came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). Paul declared that Christians are “not under law but under grace” (Romans 6:14, 15).