Does Jesus Contradict the Old Testament?

Does Jesus contradict the laws given to Israel in the Old Testament? 1-833-THE-CORE. That's 1-833-843-2673.

You can also post your question on our Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts. And you can email us with your question at questions-at-core-christianity.com. Well, on yesterday's show, Adriel talked about some misconceptions, a particular verse. It's 1 Corinthians 10-13. And then after the show ended, Nick left this voicemail for us. I like what you said in today's episode that people often misquote 1 Corinthians 10-13, that God won't give us anything more than we can handle. You said there are verses in the Bible that suggest otherwise, and I certainly would like to have those when I talk to people about the misuse of that verse. Thank you very much.

Hey, Nick. Thank you for following up after that answer yesterday. And I think that this is a really, really important thing for Christians to understand, because my sense is that the majority of believers that I talk to, I mean, they quote that almost as if it's a verse in the Bible. God is not going to give you more than you can handle. And they're misunderstanding what Paul said there in 1 Corinthians 10-13.

And so where do I go typically to correct this false assumption? I go to something else that Paul said of the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 1. I think that this is the best verse to go to for thinking through this question in particular.

2 Corinthians 1, beginning in verse 8, Paul said, We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia, for we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death, but that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us on Him.

We have set our hope that He will deliver us again. And brother, one of the reasons I think it's so important for us to understand this, that actually there are times in our lives where God does give us more than we can handle, is because if we assume I can handle this, whatever it is that I'm going through, we're going to be crushed. I remember talking to a dear woman years ago whose child was ill, very sick, and she was crying. And she just said, I know that God will never give me more than I can handle. And so I'm trying to muster up the strength that I have in order to walk through this very difficult situation.

I mean, here was a woman whose child was very, very ill, and she's trying to cope, trying to deal with this situation. I just said to her, look, sister, God does give us more than we can handle. We're not supposed to rely upon our own strength. That's what Paul says there very clearly in 2 Corinthians 1. We were burdened beyond our strength. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death, but that was to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead. And so when we're going through things in our lives, and we will, circumstances that are just beyond our own strength, what God is calling us to is to trust in Him, to rely upon Him and the strength that He gives to us. And so really important that we understand those verses in their context. And so I appreciate you following up with us, Nick, and I know that a lot of people are going to find that to be very helpful. I just love it when folks dig into God's word on a regular basis. It reminds me of what Paul said about the Bereans daily searching the scriptures. And when we have callers that do that, wow, that's really encouraging, isn't it? Oh, absolutely, yeah.

And that's what we want. We want people to search the scriptures and to call in with their questions, so reach out. Here's Kyle from Salem, Oregon. Kyle, welcome to CORE Christianity.

Thank you, it's a pleasure. Hey Kyle, what's your question? Okay, so I am new to the faith, and as I'm looking for a church, I am just having a lot of difficulty, a lot of churches that I find that just don't align with my understanding of historical Christianity. And so I'm just wondering what advice you would give to somebody when looking for a church, and what marks you would want to check off when you're deciding for a church home.

Yeah, excellent question. A question that's very near and dear to my heart as a pastor, Kyle, and so I want to point you in the right direction. I like the word that you use there, you know, what are the marks that we want to look for when we're thinking about what a true church is, and what are the things that we want to look for when we're thinking about what a true church is.

And I think we could summarize those marks with just three things. You know, true churches, the church that you want to look for is a church that preaches the word of God faithfully, where the gospel is being proclaimed, that worships Jesus in accordance with how he's called us to worship him, you know, the ordinances there that he instituted baptism in the Lord's Supper, where you have things like church discipline taking place. I mean, Jesus talked about this in Matthew chapter 18, a church that takes sin seriously.

They're not sugarcoating things, they're preaching the word of God faithfully and loving sinners, but taking sin seriously as well. And one passage of scripture that I would go to in order to defend those sort of marks of the church, if you will, is in Acts chapter 2, immediately after the day of Pentecost, you know, the believers are gathered together, they're fellowshipping, they're worshiping, and we read in Acts chapter 2, verse 42, listen to what the early disciples devoted themselves to. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers, and all came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles, and all who believed were together and had all things in common. So here we have a wonderful picture of the early church community, and what are they devoting themselves to? The apostles' teaching, sound doctrine, the word of God, the gospel, right, the first mark of the church. God is what creates and sustains the church. You know, the New Testament says that faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of Christ. We've been born again, we're told, not of a perishable seed, but of an imperishable seed through the living and abiding word of God.

And so the word, Kyle, has to be central. And I think a lot of people today, when they're looking for a church, they're asking, I think a lot of times the wrong question. They're saying, what kind of programs does the church have?

Does the style, the musical style, sort of fit with what I like? And those are important things, but we want to prioritize what the word of God itself prioritizes, what Jesus prioritizes, and that's, is the gospel being faithfully taught here? Is the word of God being proclaimed?

Are we worshiping Jesus in line with how he's called us to worship him? And is this a church that fellowship, you know, church discipline, that kind of thing, those things are happening. And you find a church like that, I would say, get plugged in and become a part of the body and invest. It really is important for our own spiritual well-being and growth and grace.

And so, Kyle, I hope that you do find something very soon nearby to where you live. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. And if you would like to talk to Pastor Adriel live, here is the number to call. It's 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. Let's go to Curtis from Blue Eye, Missouri. Hi, Curtis. Hi, how are you guys?

Doing well, how are you doing? Good, we love the name of your town. We love Blue Eye, Missouri.

Blue Eye, Missouri is right on the Arkansas-Missouri border just south of Branson, Missouri, and it's a beautiful place by Table Rock Lake. All right. What's your question, Curtis? My wife has been believers for a long, long time, and we've recently been watching a cable program called the Days of Noah. We watched three of the four-part series, but as it goes through, it goes in-depth with Bible verses and a timeline that's steered towards what we believe is they're steering us toward the Seventh-day Adventist movement. But it says very clearly in this program that if we do not observe Saturday as a Sabbath, that we will not be eligible for salvation. And he likens that in a way to the mark of the beast.

Wow. Yeah, well, Curtis, I think one thing we have to be really careful with is adding to the gospel of Jesus Christ. What is it that God requires of us to be saved?

Well, it's not so much something that we do. It's a gift that we receive by faith. And from the very beginning, after the apostles began preaching the gospel, what you had is you had people who were trying to add to that once-for-all finished work of Jesus Christ. I think in particular of the book of Galatians, for example, where you had these people, these agitators who had entered into the church and they were telling people, look, if you want to be saved, if you really want to be a Christian, that's great that you've accepted Jesus, but now you need to follow the law of Moses as well.

You need to adhere to some of these ceremonial practices that we see there in the old covenant. And one thing that really concerns me about those who say, well, if you really want to be saved, you're going to have to make sure you're observing the Saturday Sabbath too, that kind of thing, is it sounds to me very much like adding to the finished work of Jesus Christ. And one thing that's absolutely clear from the New Testament is the early church gathered together on the first day of the week. I just was reading from Acts chapter two. If you turn several chapters later in Acts chapter 20 verse seven, it says, on the first day of the week when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them intending to depart on the next day and he prolonged his speech until midnight. They're gathered together for the breaking of bread, probably a reference to communion, the Lord's supper, and to hear preaching. This is the church gathering. You see this idea of the church gathering on the first day of the week in First Corinthians chapter 16 verses one and two, the book of Revelation chapter one verse 10. I mean, it seems very clear that the early Christian community gathered together on Sunday.

Why? Because that was the day that Jesus rose again from the dead on the first day of the week. And so I get really nervous when people start to say, well, look, that's great that you've accepted Jesus by faith, that you've received his grace, the forgiveness of your sins, but if you really want to be saved, you need to follow these other rules. And in particular, going back to the Old Testament and appealing to some of these laws that were really primarily associated with Israel as this political body, the ceremonial worship of the Old Covenant, we have to be so careful. The gospel is not, and this is something we've said over and over again on this program, the gospel is not, here's what you need to do so that God will accept you.

That's the law. The gospel is, here's what God has done for sinners so that they might be received into his family, not on the basis of our own merits, what we do, but on the basis of what Jesus Christ has done for us. He died for our sins, was raised again for our justification, and we worship him. We gather together as the people of God on the first day of the week to celebrate that great reality.

And so that was the practice of the early church, of the apostles themselves, and I think we want to follow their example, brother. Thank you so much for your call. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and if you are a regular listener to this program, we want you to know that we are listener-supported. That means that we count on people just like you to make donations to keep the show on the air. Now, one of the ways you can do that is by joining what we call our inner core.

Yeah, Bill, thank you for mentioning that. The inner core is, well, one, we want to say thank you to all of you who have joined the inner core. It's such a wonderful thing for us to be able to partner together to share the truths of the gospel, to open up God's word and encourage people who really need this encouragement, this truth. And so if you've been blessed by Core Christianity, if you've been encouraged by this program, I want to invite you to consider joining the inner core. It's a monthly donation of $25 or more, and right now the team is really working hard together to create some new resources, some exclusive material for the inner core members. We were actually just working on that yesterday, and so I'm excited to announce that. You can find out more information about this by going over to our website. Head over to corechristianity.com forward slash inner core to learn more, or give us a call at 833-THE-CORE. And again, I just want to say thank you so much for your support and your partnership. We have some great folks who have joined the inner core. We'd love to have you join as well, so do that. Go to our website corechristianity.com forward slash inner core. Well, let's get to a call that came in. This is a voicemail we received. By the way, one of the ways you can leave us a voicemail is by going to our website at corechristianity.com forward slash radio and just click on the little microphone icon and leave your message there.

Hi, my name is Chris Bandari. My question to you is, uh, in Old Testament, the God image is different, and New Testament, the image of God is different. In Old Testament, a leper is untouchable, whereas Jesus touches and heals a leprosy person in New Testament.

Could you please explain me on that? Thank you. Yeah, Chris, thank you for that question.

So it sounds like, you know, what's, what's the deal? In the Old Testament, you weren't supposed to touch lepers, and then Jesus shows up, and during his earthly ministry, he is laying his hands on lepers and cleansing them. In fact, just yesterday, uh, for our family in the morning, we were doing our family Bible reading, and I read Matthew chapter 8 to our kids, and the very beginning of that chapter has Jesus cleansing a leper, and I asked my children, kids, you know what a leper is?

And one of my, one of my boys said, it's an animal, and I said, no, not a leopard, a leper. So this is the cleansing of the leper, and Jesus cleansed multiple lepers throughout his ministry. Is he contradicting the teaching of the Old Testament? Well, one thing you need to know, brother, is that lepers and, and others, those who were considered unclean under the Old Covenant, and what that referred to is that they were in this sort of state of death, sickness, loss of life, loss of blood. They were, they were viewed as unclean, unclean.

They couldn't enter into the, the temple worship of God's people in this, in this particular state. Well, typically they were handled by the priests in the Old Testament. That was one of the jobs of the priests throughout the Book of Leviticus is they worked with the lepers, with the unclean, to help get them back into a state of cleanliness, if you will, of purity so that they could enter back into the worshiping community. And Jesus is the ultimate priest of God's people. Now, one thing that I think is so awesome when you look at the New Testament is over and over again, this is highlighted, especially in places like the Gospel of Mark. If you go to, to Mark's Gospel, at the beginning of the Gospel of Mark, back in Mark chapter one, verses 40 and following, Jesus cleansed a leper. And then in Mark chapter five, Jesus healed a woman with the, with an issue of blood, with the flow of blood. And then at the end of that section in Mark chapter five, Jesus touched a little girl who was dead and brought her back to, to life.

You have Jesus cleansing a leper, Jesus healing a woman with the flow of blood, and Jesus touching a corpse. Well, these were all things that would have put someone in this state of uncleanness under the old covenant, but Jesus is showing us, he's revealing to us that he is the ultimate priest of the people of God who deals with our uncleanness, who puts us in a state where we're able to approach the father and his throne of grace with boldness. And so there's no contradiction here because Jesus is the ultimate high priest of God's people. And one book that you can go to in the New Testament that really highlights this is the book of Hebrews. And so what we're being shown there through the ministry of Jesus is the fact that he's the ultimate priest of the people of God. And what did he do as the ultimate priest of God's people? He offered his own body as a sacrifice for our sins.

And even now we're told in the New Testament, he ever lives to make intercession for us, to pray for us as our great high priest from heaven. Thank you for your question, brother. Thanks, Chris, we appreciate you.

Let's go to another call that came in. Ricky is on the line from Nashville, Tennessee. Hi, Ricky, how are you?

Doing very well, thank you. My question today is, can a spirit-filled Christian be oppressed by demonic spirits? Thank you for that question, Ricky. So, I mean, I've often been asked, you know, can a true believer be possessed by demons? And to that I would say no, on the basis of what John says in 1 John chapter 5. He says there, beginning in verse 18, we know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who has been born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him. We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. The words of John there, I think, are really important, and they should be very comforting for us as Christians, that the evil one in one sense can't touch us. And I think what that means is we're not under the control of the evil one. We can't be possessed, as you said, as spirit-filled believers. But can we experience spiritual oppression, demonic attack?

Well, I would say yes. Paul makes it absolutely clear that we are in a spiritual battle, that we need to put on the armor of God, the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, that we need to be committed to prayer, to standing against the evil one. And so we are, brother, in a battle, not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers, rulers and authorities. And there are times, I think, in the midst of the battle where we can be discouraged, where we can feel oppressed, and that's when we flee to the Word of God and prayer, and to the confident reality, the hope, that the evil one, while he can attack us, and while we can be discouraged, while we can fail and fall even as Christians, the Lord himself is the one who keeps us. And because we've been born again, I quoted this verse earlier, and not of a perishable seed, but an imperishable seed through the Word of God. God is going to sustain us and keep us and protect us ultimately from Satan.

And so we have a great hope there, but we do need to recognize that we're in a very real spiritual battle. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. We can receive your call anytime. Here's the phone number.

It's 833-843-2673. Jessica joins us from Mesbitt, Mississippi. Hi, Jessica, how are you?

Hi, doing great, thank you. My question is, is it biblical to say that the Holy Spirit makes us one with God? That's a great question, Jessica, and it gets at the sort of a broader question of what's the role of the Holy Spirit in the world today.

What is he doing? How is he working in our midst? And a lot of times I think Christians focus on the miraculous, you know, signs and wonders and that kind of a thing. And if we're seeing that, then the Spirit is really at work. But if we don't see that, then we're not really a part of a Spirit-filled church or that kind of a thing.

But what you're touching on here is the fact that the Spirit of God does a lot more than just the the signs and the wonders. Actually, he unites us to God, to Jesus. It's by the Spirit that you and I are united to Jesus Christ. And through the Holy Spirit, everything that belongs to Jesus, everything that he's done for us in accomplishing his redemption becomes ours.

It really is this beautiful thing. Now, so in one sense, I think, you know, if we're defining it in that way, we can say, yes, the Spirit of God makes us one with God. That is, he unites us to God the Son, to Jesus. We're adopted into the family of God through the work of Jesus Christ for us. But if what people mean by that, and you know, this is where I think it can get kind of weird, is when people talk about becoming one with God, and we're sort of merging with God, essentially.

We're even becoming gods, if you will. That's sort of out there, and that's not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that the Spirit of God makes Jesus and his work for us present and available to us now. What Jesus accomplished 2,000 years ago is yours through the grace of the Holy Spirit. He applies it to your life by working faith in you and uniting you to Jesus when he called you to Christ.

And so it really is this wonderful thing. Now, Jessica, were you thinking in terms of, you know, becoming one with God, were you thinking of it in terms of, you know, merging with God, essentially, if you will, or more in the idea of becoming one with Christ in our union with Jesus? Actually, I saw that phrase in an about page of a church that I'm looking at, and right when I read it, it just seemed kind of fishy, so that's why I ask questions.

Yeah, no, that's an excellent question. I love that you are digging deep to find out what the church that you're visiting, you know, what they believe. I think that's really important. I mean, this is one of the most important things, you know, what is this church teaching? And usually, you know, that language of becoming one with God, that does kind of sound fishy to me. The Spirit of God unites us to Jesus Christ, and we're one with each other, we're one body. You know, Paul says to the Corinthians, by one Spirit, we were all baptized into one body. And so the Spirit gives us union with each other as a church, union with Jesus himself as the head of the church, and we are adopted into the family of God through the Spirit of adoption. And so I prefer that language, and maybe that's what this church means. You might want to reach out and follow up and see if you can get some more clarity there. But again, sister, thank you so much for your call and for doing the hard work of really digging into what this church believes.

I pray that the Lord will bless you. You know, that brings up a good point, Adriel. There are some churches, even some denominations, who have kind of strayed into Eastern religion and would say, yes, we are one with God, and almost we become gods. And man, oh man, that is a huge danger when churches move in that direction.

Yeah, and again, it's why we emphasize the things that we do on this program, Bill. We want people to understand the scriptures in their context. And while it might sound wonderful, oh, we become one with God, that kind of a thing, I mean, there's this distinction between the Creator and the creatures.

We're totally different. While we have communion with God, fellowship with him by the grace of the Holy Spirit, we're always going to be creatures, and he's always going to be God. And that's why we worship him, because he's great, he's glorious, he's different than we are. But I do love the idea, Bill, of us being united to Jesus Christ by faith. It's there that our sins are forgiven, and that's what gives us fellowship with each other and with God. That's what we want, fellowship with the Lord.

With the Lord. Thanks for listening to CORE Christianity. To request your copy of today's special offer, visit us at corechristianity.com and click on offers in the menu bar or call us at 1-833-843-2673. That's 833, the CORE. When you contact us, please let us know how you've been encouraged by this program. And be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's word together.