OT Salvation

HP: While you are on a roll of blasting OT saints, will you lay sin to the charge of Elijah as well?

By the way, was Sarah Abraham's sister?

 

HP: Where is your Scriptural proof of that assertion?

 

It is a bogus notion to imply that if anyone lived a sinless life before God that they could have been our sacrifice for sin. God ordained that He would give of Himself a sinless sacrifice to redeem man. IF any did live sinless, they would have only procured their own standing before God, not that of any other, Jesus excepted.. Certainly there could only be a couple of ‘possible’ cases recorded in Scripture. Enoch and Elijah are the only ones I can think of.

 

HP: BR, do you enjoy manufacturing paper ducks to shoot at? Who has ever stated that salvation was not real in the OT??

You made a statement to the effect that it was 'the same gospel.' If it was the same gospel in every sense as your comment would imply, the same conditions should apply to both the OT and NT. The problem is that God required far different conditions to say the Jew in the OT and the Gentile or Jew in the NT. Your 'same gospel' comment does not take into account the changes that were made in procuring an atonement for sin, which is what salvation is all about is it not? Does not salvation encompass a host of requirements under the OT that do not have an effect on us today? I can see much change in the NT as opposed to the old covenant. Your trying to make them both the same is simply an oversimplification at best, an unscriptural assertion at worst.

Scripture tells us that we are dealing with TWO not one covenants. The old is decayed and the new was put in its place.
Heb 8:13 In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.

 

HP: If you are trying to be novel you are doing a great job of it. To ‘be saved’ is somewhat confusing, but just the same it is basically synonymous with entering into a right relationship with God. In the OT as a Jew it was through the sacrificial system, looking forward to the Messiah to come, that such was made possible. It is NOT that the sacrificial system, in and of itself, had the power to save, but just the same, God chose that system to be followed and obeyed in that dispensation in order to enter into a right relationship with Him. That was, for all practical purposes, one temporary way, set up by God to act as a schoolmaster until the new covenant was established.

Hebrews 10: 9 sets the two systems at antipodes, one having to be abolished that the other be revealed. The first had to be taken away for the other to be established. Heb 10:9 Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.

 

HP: Let the reader take notice. The above is a constant fabricated talking point of BR but it holds no validity neither is it the end of my argument or the end of the Churches argument for two thousand years. It is BR that is inventing an idea foreign to Scripture, not I. BR suggests an idea foreign to Scripture, and foreign to reason when he implies that if God so loves He must show mercy or If God does love, His mercy must be extended to all in the same manner through out all ages.

One needs to understand that God loves Himself and His law as well as His sentient created beings. What would happen in our society if every time the penalty of the law was inflicted, mercy was made readily available? What would happen to the law and its ability to enforce moral sanctions upon the citizens under which it was established to govern? Mercy has the distinct ability to destroy the laws effectiveness if not meted out wisely and under certain wise conditions.

God in His wisdom chose not to simply send the Messiah from the garden to establish his offer of mercy, but rather chose to utilize a schoolmaster as the chosen means to establish the law for a period of time, to a chosen group of individuals called the Jews. During this time, a universal call to partake of God’s mercy resides in the figment of BR’s imagination, and not within the confines of Scripture. God’s show of mercy was extended primarily and for all practical purposes directly to the descendants of Abraham alone. When BR charges myself with folly for suggesting that God’s mercy was not directly distributed to all of mankind through out the OT period, his contention is with God not I. Ro 9:14 ¶ What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. Ro 9:18 Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.

One only need read the parable of the marriage supper to see first hand how, when, and why the Gentiles received the call universally to salvation.
Lu 14:23” And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.” Note the means by which God utilizes to spread the good news. His chosen means is man, not some universal means as BR suggests is the case.

HP: God is the Savior of the entire world, but the direct call to the Gentiles did not happen until the NT took effect, namely beginning with the advent of the Apostle Paul coming on the scene.

HP: Obviously God demands no impossibilities out of man, neither in the OT nor in the NT. God has every right to make exceptions where He in His wisdom finds it just and wise to do so. What one cannot wisely do is to find a ‘possible’ exception by a Jew of not fulfilling the law as prescribed in the OT for forgiveness of sin, and extrapolate that to somehow show that God’s law could simply be set aside at will or that His law upon the Jews dealing with the sacrificial system could be ignored or set aside at will. Neither can any such example of a Jew be extrapolated to show that all Gentiles had the same offer of mercy or the same opportunity extended to them during this time period as any general rule.

HP: Were you there? How do you know that? Besides, no one is saying that one could not have prayed and at certain times and certain circumstances found forgiveness without a sacrifice being offered at that time, but that is no indication that they did not offer a sacrifice when able just as prescribed by God to do so.

HP: Try as you may, the New Testament did not take full effect until Christ died on the cross. The prophets of old foretold of the new testament yet to come, The testator had to die for the covenant to take effect. Heb 9:16 For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator.
Heb 9:17 For a testament is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth.

HP: Play word games if you wish with covenant and or testament, but there were two distinct covenants, the old and the new. Christ was indeed the focal point of both, the Old Testament in types and shadows and the New Testament He is revealed as the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Christ came in the NT to fulfill the promises made and foretold in the OT about that which would happen in the future.

HP: What are you speaking of here? It is completely incoherent as I see it.

HP: Where is there any support for the notion you claim here? Where do Scriptures assert or imply that the old covenant is a ‘spiritual condition of Not having the law written on the heart?” Speaking of manufacturing notions out of thin air BR…

HP: Show us one OT verse that even mentions the gospel. The gospel of the kingdom was not preached until the advent of Christ in the NT.

 

HP: Who said it did? Certainly not I. Still the same, it was God’s prescribed plan to be followed until the revealing of Christ in the NT.

 

God calls all men to repent, yet repentance in and of itself cannot save anyone. God calls upon man to exercise faith, yet faith in and of itself has no power to save anyone. These facts do no lesson the fact that without repentance and faith, no man shall be saved. Conditions of salvation are always thought of in the sense of not without which, not that for the sake of.

In the OT God gave His law and prescribed a sacrificial plan of redemption to point to the Messiah to come. That sacrificial system can best be seen as conditions to be fulfilled in order for forgiveness to take place. They had no salvic ability in and of themselves, but just the same God established and enjoined the sacrificial system as temporary conditions to be met, a schoolmaster, until Christ be revealed.