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March 2001, Page 10.
Index of articles.
Questions:
index,
Christenings,
Mission giving,
Homeopathy,
Downs baby,
Bloodthirsty OT,
Marriage prep.
In this issue:
(March 2001)
Vicar's Letter,
Manifesto,
Sidesmen,
Vision,
Healing,
Question.
In our "Questions to the clergy" slot, John will try to answer any query you throw at him, without hesitation, deviation or repetition...
Bloodthirsty Old Testament
Q. The Old Testament is so full of violence and bloodshed that I think Jesus must have been embarrassed about it. Why don’t you leave it out of the bible and just concentrate on the New?
A. I have a certain amount of sympathy with this view: a lot of the Old Testament is history, and a lot of history concerns people killing each other. The Old Testament doesn’t try to deny the evils which men have done, and in that sense it is a realistic book.
It is also a moral book: it is quite clear that the evils of mankind are incompatible with the perfection of a holy God, and deserve punishment. So, if a nation indulges in atrocities it gets its just desserts. It gives no apology for the fact that the child-sacrificing Canaanites, who lived in Palestine before the Israelites came, were put to death for their evils. Don’t you think it’s right that evil should be punished?
However, the New Testament doesn’t agree with you about Jesus’ attitude. Jesus respected the Old Testament very highly. He already loved to study the Old Testament by the time he was twelve. He quoted the Old Testament at the devil when he was being tempted. He drew his own understanding of his mission from the Old Testament, and he knew he would rise again because the Old Testament said so. When he argued with the rabbis and teachers of his day, he criticised them not for the parts of the Old Testament which they got right, but for neglecting other parts of the Old Testament and getting the balance wrong. In his best known teaching (the “Sermon on the Mount”, Matthew chapters 5-7) he said that not a dot nor a pen-stroke of the Old Testament would pass away until it had all been accomplished. In all these ways Jesus showed that he respected the Old Testament as God’s word.
There are some parts of the Old Testament which Jesus set aside (e.g. see Mark 7:19). The sacrifice system is now obsolete, for Jesus’ death has taken away the need for sacrifices. But there are many other parts which we can still learn from, if we have the patience to study it properly.
It is not an option today for a follower of Jesus to ignore the Old Testament. We need it for background to understand Jesus better, and we also need it for its own sake, because God still speaks through it. Yes, we need to interpret the Old Testament in the light of the New, but no, we can’t simply write it off.
John Hartley