SALVATION IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
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Salvation under the Old Covenant resembled the New. Throughout, it was a matter of the mercy of God. However, the earliest revelation of salvation left out many crucial features. Conspicuously absent was any promise of an afterlife, of a heaven or hell. In a comprehensive list of the ways that God would bless Israel for their adherence to His commandments, there was no promise of a salvation from sins or of an eternal life (Deuteronomy 28). Instead, the blessing was for a long life, as specified for Sabbath observance (Exodus 20:12; Deut. 5:16) and for obedience in general (Deut. 4:40; 22:7).
Consequently, we read in the New Testament about the ongoing debate between Pharisee and Sadducee regarding whether eternal life even existed. In Ecclesiastes, we read that King Solomon, who had everything, had hated life, because, even with all of his wisdom, he could not perceive through the curtain of death into the next world:
Consequently, we read in the New Testament about the ongoing debate between Pharisee and Sadducee regarding whether eternal life even existed. In Ecclesiastes, we read that King Solomon, who had everything, had hated life, because, even with all of his wisdom, he could not perceive through the curtain of death into the next world:
∑ For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool! So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity ["incomprehensible"] and a striving after wind. (Ecclesiastes 2:16-17)
Without the knowledge of the afterlife, the meaning of life remained hidden from even Solomon's wisdom:
∑ For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity...Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth? (Ecclesiastes 3:19, 21)
How blessed we now are to see beyond the horizon! However, in a dialogue with the Sadducees, Jesus, referring to Moses’ encounter with God in the burning bush (Genesis 3), revealed that, even in the Torah, eternal life, the salvation of God’s people, had been revealed:
∑ “And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching. (Matthew 22:31-33)
Weren’t there plainer texts in the Torah from which Jesus might have made His case in favor of eternal life? This silence illustrates the fact that God kept many secrets. One of them was the source of His mercy and salvation, symbolized by the one object that Israel could not look upon without being struck dead – the mercy seat of God (Leviticus 16:13; Romans 3:25), which covered the Ten Commandments within the Ark.
Nevertheless, God would reveal it to those who hungered and thirsted to understand His ways (Psalm 25:14). In fact, God was always preaching the Gospel. He preached it to Abraham and his offspring (Galatians 3:8). On one occasion, God had commanded Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac. However, before Abraham could accomplish this task, God intervened and gave Abraham a ram to sacrifice in place of Isaac. But this was far more than a test of Abraham’s obedience. It was also a revelation of the heart of God:
∑ And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place, “The LORD will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided.” (Genesis 22:13-14)
Why didn’t Abraham name Mount Moriah, “The Lord has provided,” as He had, instead of “The LORD will provide?” It had evidently been revealed to Abraham that what he had experienced was prophetic of something that the Lord would do – provide a Son as Abraham had provided with Isaac.
It was also revealed to the Apostle Paul that the Lord had revealed the means of His salvation through Abraham:
∑ For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” (Romans 4:2-3; quoting Genesis 15:6)
This was a righteousness that God had reckoned to Abraham apart from any merit that Abraham might have achieved. Instead, it was mercifully given because Abraham had merely “believed God.” Did it also consist of God’s gift of eternal life? Paul was convinced that it did:
∑ For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. (Romans 4:13)
They would live again, and the world would be their inheritance. Quoting Psalm 32:1-2, Paul also used King David as an example of this gift of salvation:
∑ …David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.” (Romans 4:6-8)
In both cases, Paul had demonstrated that in both instances salvation was a matter of the mercy of God in forgiving sin. This is the revelation of the OT, as well as the New. The entire sacrificial system was a revelation of the mercy of God. It taught that each sin deserved death but that an animal could be sacrificed in the place of Israel’s sins, and the mercy of God would receive it in place of the death of the Israelites.
Could any Israelite ever be good enough so that he would not deserve death? Not according to the Scriptures:
∑ Enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you. (Psalm 143:2; Job 9:2; 15:14; 25:4)
∑ If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? (Psalm 130:3)
No one could stand before God apart from His mercy (Psalm 15, 24). Similarly, at King Solomon’s consecration the Temple, God affirmed that Israel’s hope had to be in His mercy alone:
∑ “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn [repent] from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:13-14; 1 Kings 8:46)
No one would ever be able to successfully plead that their good works entitled them to God’s forgiveness or salvation:
∑ When iniquities prevail against me, you atone for our transgressions. Blessed is the one you choose and bring near, to dwell in your courts! We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, the holiness of your temple! By awesome deeds you answer us with righteousness, O God of our salvation, the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas. (Psalm 65:3-5)
God had to be the Source of Israel’s salvation. There was no other hope. King David certainly understood this:
∑ Great salvation he brings to his king, and shows steadfast love to his anointed, to David and his offspring forever.” (2 Samuel 22:51)
The truth of the need for the mercy of God was illustrated before Israel in many ways. They had rebelled against the Lord repeatedly:
∑ And the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.” Then the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you. Pray to the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live. (Numbers 21:5-9)
Jesus understood that this had been a demonstration of the mercy of God that also pertained to His atonement on the Cross:
∑ “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” (John 3:14-15)
Jesus illustrated that fact that salvation in the OT prefigured salvation in the New. Both depended upon faith in the mercy of God. However, His salvation was dimly perceived in the midst of the Old. However, it should have been clear that salvation didn’t depend on their own merit:
∑ The salvation of the righteous is from the LORD; he is their stronghold in the time of trouble. (Psalm 37:39)
This is the way it had been from the beginning:
∑ Leviticus 26:40-42 “But if they confess [changing their mind about sin – repentance] their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in their treachery that they committed against me, and also in walking contrary to me, so that I walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies—if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity [a demonstration of faith/repentance], then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.”
This highlights the fact that the Biblical faith had always been opposed to other religions where the faithful had to earn their way up to their deities, through obedience, knowledge, or by gaining spiritual insight. However, the Biblical faith reveals that becoming worthy of God through human efforts was impossible (Romans 3:19-20; 11:35; Galatians 2:16). Instead, Israel had to humble themselves by confessing their sins, and God would reach down to them:
∑ “Go, and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, ‘Return, faithless Israel, declares the LORD. I will not look on you in anger, for I am merciful, declares the LORD; I will not be angry forever. Only acknowledge your guilt, that you rebelled against the LORD your God and scattered your favors among foreigners under every green tree, and that you have not obeyed my voice, declares the LORD.” (Jeremiah 3:12-13)
Many verses simply indicate that “God is our salvation.” Consequently, salvation is in a Person and not by our own deeds:
∑ Truly the hills are a delusion, the orgies on the mountains. Truly in the LORD our God is the salvation of Israel. (Jeremiah 3:23; Psalm 68:19-20; 98:3)
Other verses refer to God as “The LORD is our righteousness” (Jeremiah 23:6; 33:16), indicating that our hope of righteousness and salvation doesn’t depend on our performance but upon His. He Himself would clothe us “with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness” (Isaiah 61:10). All of our good deeds could not adequately clothe us to come into His presence.
The Prophets of Israel had consistently revealed that salvation was of the Lord not of ourselves:
∑ And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the LORD has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the LORD calls. (Joel 2:32; also Romans 10:12-13)
No one would ever be able to say, “I am entitled to salvation!” Instead, Israel had to seek out the Lord’s mercy by calling upon Him as He had directed, “Seek the Lord and live” (Amos 5:4, 6).
• “I will go away and return to My place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek My face; In their affliction they will earnestly seek Me.” (Hosea 5:15, NASB)
∑ “Return, Israel, to the Lord your God. Your sins have been your downfall! Take words [of confession] with you and return to the Lord. Say to him: “Forgive all our sins and receive us graciously.” (Hosea 14:1-2)
Israel had to confess and repent of their sins. They only had to come to their Savior with their broken hearts. All of this demonstrated that salvation is a matter of the mercy of God (Isaiah 44:3; 45:17; 46:12-13; 51:4-5; 52:10; 57:18-19; 61:1-8; 63:9; 66:22). God would unilaterally regenerate His people so that they would never again rebel against Him:
∑ “I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me forever, for the good of them and their children after them. And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from doing them good; but I will put My fear in their hearts so that they will not depart from Me. Yes, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will assuredly plant them in this land, with all My heart and with all My soul.” (Jeremiah 32:39-41; Isaiah 59:21; Ezekiel 34:25-26)
Salvation is all about God. Notice how many times He declares, “I will.” God will perform major heart surgery upon Israel, removing from them any reason for boasting:
∑ Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. (Ezekiel 36:25-27; 16:59-63)
How will God accomplish this? In a manner prefigured by the Old Testament sacrificial system! However, God cryptically promised that it would be He, not the priesthood, who would make atonement for the people:
∑ "Rejoice, O Gentiles, with His people; for He will avenge the blood of His servants, and render vengeance to His adversaries; He will provide atonement for His land and His people." (Deut. 32:43, Psalm 79:9)
He would be their Redeemer:
∑ No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast go up on it; it shall not be found there. But the redeemed shall walk there, And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy on their heads. (Isaiah 35:9-10; Psalm 19:14)
Israel should have realized their hope was in promised Messiah:
∑ "Behold, I send My messenger, and he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple, even the Messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight. Behold, He is coming," says the LORD of hosts. "But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears?” (Malachi 3:1-2; Isaiah 42:6; 49:8; Isiah 9:6-7; 11:1-10)
However, the role of the Messiah was also carefully concealed (Isaiah 49:2; 51:16) until God could not contain Himself anymore:
∑ Surely he [the Messiah] has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:4-6; Psalm 22, 40; 69)
God’s salvation and eternal life is progressively revealed throughout the Bible. The portrait is so consistent that we can conclude that it represents the single plan of One surpassingly intelligent Being who worked seamlessly through many authors, cultures, and epochs.
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