old testament salvation

The problem of the religious Jews of Paul’s day, was the problem of self righteousness and surface compliance with the Law of God (and he is not addressing the common, non-religious Jew, but his fellow Pharisees and their allies the Scribes).

1. The Self Concept of the Jewish Legalist—Six Categories of self concept (Robert Haldane)

a. Their bearing the name of Jew. 2:17
(1) The Legalist proudly bears the name of his denomination
(2) The religious leaders were challenged by John the Baptist “We have Abraham for our Father…” Mat 3:9, but Abraham would have been sick of them in five minutes.
(3) As they proudly (and erroneously) said the same to Jesus (Jn 8:33-40), along with the proud declaration that they had never been slaves to any man—which they said even as Roman soldiers were looking down upon them from the fortress of Antonina, which overlooked the temple courts.

b. Having received the Law.
(1) Interpretation—they had the Law, the Gentiles did not. They rested on The Law, they were proud of the Law.
(2) Why didn’t the Gentiles have the law? Why had Israel not given it to them?
(3) The law did them no good unless it was really the center of their life—Dt 6:4-9 was obeyed in form, but not in reality. They argued over the fine points and minutiae of the Law, and ignored the basic teachings of the Law.

c. Having the true God as their God.
(1) Truly and surely they had the real God as their God, but they tried to exclude others from having any part of Him
(2) They had not shared Him with the Nations
(3) They had not spread His word to all, but were hoarding it for themselves, and even then, their obedience was surface.

d. Knowing His will—and so they did, but they did not work his will. Rather, they refused all but a surface compliance with His will for their lives.

e. Discerning what is evil (and what is good). They could do this on the surface, but two things got in their way.
(1) They did not understand the true meaning of the Law—as given by Jesus in Matt 5:17-48
(2) They did not understand obedience, nor did they obey, even at the surface level of their understanding.
f. Their ability to teach and guide other men—2:19-20—In spite of their own ignorance, they had not sought to teach other nations!

g. What was the result of these self concepts, of this knowledge of God and His Law?

(1) They had the form of religion, without the powerè having the form of knowledge and truth in the law…” 2 Tim 3:1-5
(2) But they did not understand the Law, nor did they understand its proper use.

2. Six challenges to the Legalist
a. Overview: surface knowledge, real ignorance—21 You, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself?
b. First case—a surface understanding of theft, and no understanding of covetousness. They steal, but it is white collar crime, perhaps even technically legal—“You who preach that a man should not steal, do you steal?”
c. Second case—a surface understanding of adultery—Mat 5—adultery is not running around on your spouse, it is desiring to run around on your spouse, it is wanting another woman, even in speculation and fantasy.
d. Third case, sacrilege by surface obedience—You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?

Commit sacrilege. — The word here used literally applies to the robbery of temples, for which the Jews had many opportunities, as well as of appropriating to themselves what was devoted to religion, as is complained of, Nehemiah 13:10; and of robbing God in tithes and offerings, Malachi 3:8; also of violating and profaning things sacred.

e. Fourth case—empty hot air devoted to God—23 You who make your boast in the law, do you dishonor God through breaking the law?

f. Fifth Case—their hypocrisy has given God a bad name among the “unchurched,” “The church house discussed at the ale house,” as the Puritans like to say—24 For "the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you," as it is written What God wanted from them (and what He wants from us) Not Ceremony, but Reality—1 Sam 15:21-23

g. The ceremonies of the Law were not the essence—obedience was the essence! And, celebration of the rites with out the obedience made the rites revolting to God—25 For circumcision is indeed profitable if you keep the law; but if you are a breaker of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. Psa 51:16-17, Isa 1:11-20, Mal 2:9-14

(1) Interpretation—they were relying on the outward ceremonies of the Law to save them, but they had missed the essence totally—God demanded obedience, not sacrifices. God demanded justice and mercy (in their lives), not ceremonies.
(2) Application—just as in the days of the Law, so we have empty ceremonies todayèBaptism, Preaching (vain preaching, or people vainly attending to preaching they refuse to heed), The Lord’s Supper, Church membership
h. Theoretically, if a lost man kept the Law, it would be as if he had gone through the ceremonies, even though he had not! Such a one could even honestly judge the false legalist.—2:26-27


3. The True Jew (or, the True Lawkeeper)—2:28-29
Even under the dispensation of the Law, there has only ever been one way of salvation—Isa 43:3,11, 45:15, 45:21-22, Isa 49:26, Isa 60:16, Psa 19:14, Isa 44:6, 24, 47:4, 48:17, Isa 49:7, 26

a. How was Abraham, the father of faith, saved?
(1) By believing the Gospel—Gal 3:8-9, Gen 12:1-3, 15:1-6

b. How are these statements considered to be the Gospel? “...in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
(1) God said it was the Gospel
(2) Well, the only aspect in which Abraham can be said to touch ALL the families of the earth is that Abraham is the ancestor of the Messiah—Rev 5:9-10, Gal 3:6-7, Gal 3:16 Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, "And to seeds," as of many, but as of one, "And to your Seed," who is Christ
(3) Abraham believed the promise of God, WHICH INCLUDED the coming Redeemer--and, as we see later when we look at Hebrews, Abraham saw God’s plan “afar off”, and God put it to his account for righteousness—Abraham was saved by IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS.

c. Salvation is Salvation--The real answer to how Old Testament believers were saved is this: "God's people in the Old Testament were saved the same way that people are saved in New Testament times, that is, by grace, through faith in the sacrifice of Christ
(1) The Revelation of Christ
(a) Heb 11:24-26
(b) Job 19:25-27
(2) How could Job know about the Redeemer? How could Job know that the Redeemer would be God Incarnate--God the Son? There are some liberal theologians around today who read the Bible from cover to cover and can’t figure out that Jesus is God! Job had no Bible!
(3) God revealed to Job sufficient information for Job to have faith in what God was going to do. Job did not know the all details, though he knew a lot more than others, but Job believed in God's promise of redemption, because God had apparently revealed it to him in some way.
d. The bottom line in the question of salvation for all times is this: The only way of salvation was always salvation by Grace through Faith.
(1) The Old Covenant merely prepared the way for the New Covenant.
(2) The New Covenant's central principle, Grace, was the central principle of the earlier covenants of promise, so that it is the consummation of those covenants.
(3) The only way of salvation in the Bible has always been by Grace through Faith, either faith in a Redeemer to come, or faith in the Redeemer which came. (See Romans chapter 3, Hebrews chapter 9.)
(4) Old Testament believers were justified by faith, just like New Testament believers. The main difference being that we look back to something God has done (the sacrifice of Christ on the cross), and they looked ahead to God's promise of redemption (which was fulfilled in the Cross).