RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE OLD TESTAMENT
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

The Christian Bible consists of two major sections, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These two sets of writings are usually bound together in one book. Hence the question of the nature of the relationship between the two testaments is inescapable for every reader of the Bible. Scholars, too, have engaged in sustained studies, seeking to understand this profound yet complex relationship. Each of the NT writings has been examined to observe its specific use of the OT.

There are two important realities we need to bear in mind when dealing with the relationship between the OT and NT. The first is that Jesus, his followers and every author of the NT writings saw the Christian gospel as essentially rooted in the faith of God’s people, as found in the OT. God’s purpose to bless the whole earth began with the call of Abraham (Gen 12:1-3). This call then passed on to Abraham’s descendants as God formed them into a holy nation and entered into a covenant with them after their redemption from Egypt (Exod 19:3-6). Israel was intended to be God’s instrument of blessing to the world, but it failed in that task.

However, Israel’s task was ultimately fulfilled in the life, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God (Heb 1:1-4). His role was anticipated by the OT prophets who foretold that God would ultimately introduce a renewed covenant in which his law would be written not on stone but on human hearts (Jer 31:31-34).

The first followers of Jesus recognised the fundamental continuity of God’s redemptive purposes, even though there was obvious discontinuity. This was bound to be the case, since the first covenant was between God and Israel whereas the second covenant is between the same God (now fully revealed in Christ) and a reconfigured people of God, consisting of both Jews and Gentiles. Thus there is unity and diversity, continuity and contrast.

Jesus knew, read and interpreted Scripture (Luke 2:46-47; 4:16- 21). In fact, he declared that the Scriptures testify of him (John 5:39) and that his life and mission would fulfil Scripture (Matt 5:17-20).

The disciples understood this more fully after Jesus’ resurrection, as their minds were opened by Jesus and the Holy Spirit (Luke 24:25-27, 44-49; John 16:13-15). Peter, Stephen and Paul all boldly proclaimed that Jesus had fulfilled God’s deliberate plan as revealed in the Scriptures (Acts 2:14-36; 3:18; 7:2-53; 13:16-48).

Paul, referring to the OT writings, says that “all Scripture is Godbreathed” or inspired and life-giving (2 Tim 3:16). Thus an understanding and appropriation of the OT is absolutely essential to a proper understanding of the NT writings. To give one simple yet significant example, when Jesus said, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener” (John 15:1), he was not just using a common plant and its branches to speak of his connection with his disciples.

Rather, as his Jewish hearers would have readily grasped, he was making a very sober and serious claim. He meant that from now on, God’s people (like the Israel of old) were being newly reconstituted in him – since Israel was seen as God’s vine or vineyard (Ps 80:8-16; Isa 5:1-7). His disciples were going to be the new people of God, with the Holy Spirit writing on their hearts (2 Cor 3; Gal 6:16; Phil 3:3). This Spirit-empowered church, founded on Christ, is now called to continue and fulfil the redemptive purpose of God (Matt 28:18-20; Acts 1:8). As believers in Christ Jesus, this is our calling, today (1 Pet 2:9).

The second foundational reality is that the writers of the NT employed the OT texts in a wide variety of ways. While they all held that the OT (both in the original Hebrew as well as in the Greek translation) was God’s life-giving word, they proceeded to draw upon this foundational revelation in distinctive and multiform ways. Some of them directly quoted OT texts, along with an introductory formula like “it is written” (see Matt 1:22-23; 2 Cor 8:15). One count identifies 224 examples of this type of quotation. Apart from these clear citations, countless NT texts paraphrase, summarise and allude to OT passages in often unique ways. This was bound to happen when we realise that the OT was “the Bible” for the early Christians, since the NT documents had not yet been assembled.

We discern this multiform usage in the NT writers. The four Gospel writers have varying ways to connect the story of Jesus with the biblical story of Israel. For example, Mark shows that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecies of salvation (1:2-3; Isa 40:3; Mal 3:1). Mark also alludes to Jewish messianic expectations, as in the voice that came from heaven at Jesus’ baptism and at his transfiguration (1:11; 9:7). These words echo or allude to texts such as Genesis 22:2, Exodus 4:22-23, Deuteronomy 18:15, Psalm 2:7 and Isaiah 42:1.

Matthew’s gospel uses the OT even more extensively yet differently. The author wants to show that Jesus fulfils not only the prophetic Scriptures but the legal requirements as well (Matt 3:15).

So he records Jesus discussing five scriptural topics in 5:21-48. Apparently, this gospel seeks to present Jesus as the new Moses, as when the resurrected Jesus stands before his disciples on the mountain and commissions them (28:16-20).

The letters of Paul also provide evidence of the rich and complex ways in which OT texts, analogies and metaphors are employed. Paul feels enabled by the Spirit to express God’s continuing and ultimate revelation in Christ and the gospel using OT categories. He quotes the OT more than a hundred times; yet there is no uniformity in his style.

Sometimes the citation is closer to the Hebrew text (as in Rom 1:17, citing Hab 2:4) and at other times it is closer to the Greek translation (as in Rom 2:24, citing Isa 52:5).

Further, there are countless allusions to OT texts in Paul. One scholar identified more than a hundred citations and allusions in Romans 9–11 alone. Again, this shows that the fundamental thinking of NT Christians was based on and was in continuity with the revelation of God in the OT. Paul’s letter to the Philippians is full of allusions to the OT, although it does not include a single explicit reference to the OT. For example, when Paul writes that “every knee should bow … and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Phil 2:9-11) he is alluding to Isaiah 45:15-25 (especially verse 23), where YHWH, Israel’s Lord and Saviour, declares his exalted status over all gods and nations. His use of Scripture reveals Paul’s exalted conception of Christ.

Paul also provides several pointers as to how we ought to see the revelation in Jesus Christ as meeting the ultimate aspirations of the law, or the first covenant. In Galatians 3:24, he used the analogy of the law as a “guardian” or “caretaker” who served an important but interim purpose “until Christ came”.

The book of Hebrews cites OT texts more extensively than any other NT document. Inspired by the Spirit, the writer creatively uses the OT for pointed Christian exhortations. For example, he builds a high-priestly Christology in Hebrews 5–7. Even the book of Revelation, which does not explicitly mention the OT Scriptures, is saturated with OT imagery and ideas. The images of the new heaven, the new earth and the new Jerusalem blend ideas and images from Isaiah (65:17; 66:22) and Ezekiel (40–48).

The whole of the OT still remains the word of God for us, even if it is not still the word of God to us. This means that most of the dietary, legal and ritual laws in the OT, which were addressed to Israel living in Canaan, do not apply in the same way to modern believers living all over the world. These laws, however, reveal God’s concern for Israel’s welfare; present-day believers will also benefit by reflecting on the reason and intention of these directives.

The rich and varied reality that confronts us when we read the OT and NT serves to highlight this central truth: The God who revealed himself in the OT as the Creator of all things and as the God of patriarchs and the prophets is the same God who has revealed himself ultimately in Christ, in whom “all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form” (Col 2:9). The writers of the NT express in their own unique ways the common conviction that the core and characteristics of the Christian gospel are foreshadowed in the multi-layered narratives, laws, poetry and prophetic writings of the OT. The careful reader of the Bible is ushered into this wonderful interplay between the testaments.

Jacob Cherian