The relation of the Old and New Testaments
The Christian terms “Old Testament” and
“New Testament” are strongly theological in nature. These Christian terms rest
upon the belief that the contents of the Old Testament belong to a period of
God’s dealings with the world which has in some way been superseded or
relativized by the coming of Christ in the New Testament. Roughly the same
collection of texts is referred to by Jewish writers as “the law, prophets, and
writings” and by Christian writers as the “Old Testament.” There is thus no particular
reason why someone who is not a Christian should feel obliged to refer to this
collection of books as the Old Testament, apart from custom of use.
The
Christian theological framework that leads to this distinction is that of
“covenants” or “dispensations.” The basic Christian belief is that the coming
of Christ inaugurates something new, while still being continuous with God’s
earlier actions in history. This leads to a distinctive attitude toward the Old
Testament, which can be summarized in two principles:
1 Theological
principles and ideas (such as the notion of a sovereign God who is active
in human history) are taken up by Christianity;
2 Cultic practices
(such as circumcision, dietary laws, and sacrificial rites) are not.
How,
then, are the Old and New Testaments related to one another, according to
Christian theology? One radical option was developed by the second-century
writer Marcion, who defected from Christianity in the year. Marcion argued that
the Old Testament was the sacred text of a religion which had nothing to do
with Christianity. According to Marcion, Christianity was a religion of love,
which had no place whatsoever for the legalistic and violent God of the Old
Testament. The Old Testament relates to a different God from the New; the Old
Testament God, who merely created the world, was obsessed with the idea of law.
The New Testament God, however, redeemed the world and was concerned with love.
According to Marcion, the purpose of Christ was to depose the Old Testament God
(who bears a considerable resemblance to the Gnostic “demiurge,” a semi-divine
figure responsible for fashioning the world), and usher in the worship of the
true God of grace.
There are faint echoes of this idea in the
writings of Martin Luther. Although Luther insists that both Old and New
Testaments relate to the actions of the same God, he nevertheless insists upon
the total opposition of law and grace. Judaism, according to Luther, was
totally preoccupied with the idea of justification by works, believing that it
was possible to merit favor in the sight of God by one’s achievements. The
gospel, in contrast, emphasized that justification was completely gratuitous,
resting only on the grace of God. Although grace could be detected in the Old
Testament (e.g., Isaiah 40–55), and law in the New (e.g., the Sermon on the
Mount, Matthew 5–7), Luther often seemed to suggest that the Old Testament was
primarily a religion of law, contrasted with the New Testament emphasis on
grace.
The
majority position within Christian theology has, on the one hand, emphasized
the continuity
between the two testaments, while, on the other, noting the distinction between them. John Calvin provides a lucid and
typical discussion of their relation. He argues that there exists a fundamental
similarity and continuity between Old and New Testaments on the basis of three
considerations. First, Calvin
stresses the immutability of the divine will. God cannot do one thing in the
Old Testament, and follow it by doing something totally different in the New.
There must be a fundamental continuity of action and intention between the two.
Second, both celebrate and proclaim the grace of God manifested in Jesus
Christ. The Old Testament may only be able to witness to Jesus Christ “from a
distance and darkly”; nevertheless, its witness to the coming of Christ is real.
In the third place, both testaments possess the “same signs and sacraments,”
bearing witness to the same grace of God.
Calvin
thus argues that the two testaments are basically identical. They differ in administratio
but not in substantia. In terms of their substance and content there
is no radical discontinuity between them. The Old Testament happens to occupy a
different chronological position in the divine plan of salvation from the New;
its content (rightly understood), however, is the same.
Throughout
this discussion of the distinction between the Old and New Testaments, and the
superiority of the latter over the former, Calvin is careful to allow that
certain individuals within the old covenant – for example, the patriarchs –
were able to discern hints of the new covenant. At no point do the divine
purposes or nature alter; they are merely made clearer, in accordance with the
limitations imposed upon human understanding. Thus, to give but one example, it
was not as if God had originally determined to restrict grace to the nation of
Israel alone, and then decided to make it available to everyone else as well;
rather, the evolutionary thrust of the divine plan was only made clear with the
coming of Jesus Christ. Calvin summarizes this general principle with the
assertion that “where the entire law is concerned, the gospel differs from it
only in clarity of presentation.” Christ is shown forth and the grace of the
Holy Spirit is offered in both Old and New Testaments – but more clearly and
more fully in the latter.
This
viewpoint has been characteristic of mainline Christianity. It can be found,
for example, in the declarations of the Second Vatican Council, which affirms
the importance of the Old Testament for Christians:
The Church of Christ acknowledges that in God’s
plan of salvation the beginning of her faith and election is to be found in the
patriarchs, Moses and the prophets. She professes that all Christ’s faithful,
who as men of faith are sons of Abraham (cf. Galatians 3: 7), are included in
the same patriarch’s call and that the salvation of the Church is mystically
prefigured in the exodus of God’s chosen people from the land of bondage. On
this account the Church cannot forget that she received the revelation of the
Old Testament by way of that people with whom God in his inexpressible mercy
established the ancient covenant.
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