The New Testament (Part One)–1 of 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. In the drama of redemption, the Old Testament is a grand prologue. In the New Testament, the great transaction takes place. Jesus gives His life, not far from where Abraham almost offered Isaac.

No playwright could dream of a story so wonderful. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, the great divide in the Bible is between its Old and New Testaments. For those not familiar, what exactly is a Testament?

Well Dave, before I answer that question, I want to commend you for the way in which you set things up. Nobody could have written this drama of redemption where you have Jesus Christ crucified close to where Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac. What a wonderful example of the unity of the Old Testament and the New. What is the meaning of the word Testament? A Testament is basically a covenant. So in the Old Testament, you have the Old Covenant. In the New Testament, you have the New Covenant. Of course, the covenants are related, but in the New Covenant, what we discover is that God works directly to transform human hearts in a way that was seen in the Old Testament, but not nearly as clearly. So the two Testaments are united.

And even as we think of the Scriptures and we're trying to put them all together so that we can see them at a glance, so to speak, or from a 30,000-foot view, let's listen carefully. We live today, as always, in a world of promises, don't we? Politicians make promises. We've all made promises. Some of them we have kept.

Undoubtedly, there are also some that we have broken. The question before us today is, is God trustworthy? Does he keep his promises? The Bible says that all the promises of God are yes and yes in Jesus Christ.

God is a God of integrity. This is actually a message entitled The Drama of Redemption. It's the third message in the series, The Drama of Redemption.

Two of them were based on the Old Testament, an overview of the Old Testament history, so that we all might be able to know where the books fit, and we've prepared a chart that you can use so that in your reading, you know what books carry along the storyline and those books that support the storyline. Today we get to the New Testament, and we're going to cover 26 of the 27 books of the New Testament, but I need to also say that the 27th book, the Book of Revelation, that is going to have its own message. That's the time when you need to bring your Bibles for sure because we are going to take a survey of the 22 chapters of the Book of Revelation, and you need to be here for that. But today the New Testament, remember the Old Testament promise was that, Genesis 3.15, God says to the serpent, I will put enmity between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed, and it, that is the seed of the woman, will crush your head. And the question was, how does this holy seed relate to our redemption? And the story of the Old Testament is tracing that promise. First of all, we know it's going to come through Abraham, then through Judah, then through David, and all the way down to Jesus Christ.

As we learned last time after the time of Malachi, 400 silent years. God isn't speaking through prophets. Not much seems to be happening in the world, and undoubtedly the people began to think God hasn't kept his promise. Where is the promise of his coming? And then Jesus Christ bursts onto the scene. He's born in Bethlehem, and there is a huge explosion of revelation. And God, who in many different ways, at many different times, spoke in times past, now speaks through his Son, and the megaphone of heaven comes to earth because God has arrived personally in the womb of a woman.

What a story. And now what we discover is that the New Testament is the outworking of God's promises. Old Testament, God promised, New Testament fulfillment. When we look at our Bibles, we'll notice that in the New Testament, you have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These are the gospels. And these gospels give us the story of Jesus Christ on earth in that little territory that we refer to as Israel. Jesus never went very far from home. Perhaps from north to south a hundred miles, from east to west, perhaps 30 or 40 miles. And there in this territory is where also the world is going to come to a climactic, dramatic end.

At least the world as we know it. Now when we open the book of Matthew, and you can open it, and by the way, this is the only time I'm going to ask you today to open the Bible. I know that I'm going to be using many different scriptures, and I decided to simply quote them to you rather than have you turn to them so that you can follow along. But don't let that discourage you from bringing your Bible to church.

You need to do that. This is an unusual message. You'll notice it begins the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. And many people who read the New Testament say, well, why is it that it begins with this long, boring genealogy?

It's a critical genealogy. What it's showing is that Jesus is the holy seed. It's tracing the lineage of Jesus, and David is Jesus Christ's legal father so that Jesus can meet the requirements of what God promised David. And so it's critical to the Bible's storyline. And now what I'd like us to do is to realize that Matthew is a book that was written primarily by a Jew to the Jews, showing the fulfillment of prophecy.

Mark is a book written primarily for the Romans, although it's for everyone, as is Luke, with the stress possibly for the Greeks. And then the Gospel of John, which is for the entire world is showing that Jesus is the son of God. And all of those miracles in the four gospels are designed with one purpose, and that is to show us that Jesus is qualified to be who he claims to be, Messiah, son of God, Lord God in the flesh. What I'd like us to see now is how the New Testament actually fulfills the old. When I was in Bible college, there was a line that we had to memorize, and it's very simple to remember. It is simply this, that in the Old Testament, the new is concealed.

The new is concealed in the old, and in the new, the old is revealed. The Bible is a remarkable book. Just imagine 40 different authors writing over a period of 1,500 years. Some of the authors were fishermen, others were kings and prophets and all kinds of different shepherds. They all wrote it over a period of 1,500 years and from a number of different countries. And yet it all hangs together. It's a library of 66 books.

I want you to love the Bible, love the laws of God, love his word. Imagine, for example, a cathedral being built, and you have some material, perhaps the stones coming from one part of the country, the windows come from another country, the mortar comes from somewhere else, the beams from another part, and yet it comes together over a period of time and it fits perfectly. Wouldn't you say to yourself that back behind it, there must be a divine or a super mind that has actually planned this?

Imagine a book on medicine written over a period of 1,500 years with 40 different authors, each of them contributing, each of them giving a different perspective but all unified. Surely you hold in your hands the book of God. But now how does the New Testament fulfill the Old? How does Jesus do it? Well, very briefly, first of all, we need to realize that he is the seed, the seed of Abraham. Galatians chapter 3 verse 16, the Apostle Paul says this. He says that in the Old Testament, God didn't say seed, plural.

God said seed singular because at the end of the day, the fulfillment of the seed is in Jesus. The promise that was made in Genesis 3.15 is fulfilled in Jesus who crushed the head of the serpent. When Jesus died on the cross, the Bible says that he disarmed all principalities and powers, taking a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it. I want you to visualize Jesus taking his heel and crushing the head of the serpent into the dirt and just moving his heel like I'm doing now. I want you to visualize Jesus doing that. And Satan is out on bond briefly but his doom is sure.

It's been established. When you receive Christ as your savior, you receive into your life a winner who proved that he was able to crush the head of the serpent. So Jesus is a winner. He's the seed of Abraham. He's also the king of Israel. He's the king of Israel.

Now just imagine this. At Christmas time, we go over this so quickly, we forget its significance. The angel is coming to Mary and the angel is saying, regarding the child that she will bear, behold, he shall be great and shall be called the son of the most high and the Lord God shall give on to him the throne of his father, David.

There you have it. Second Samuel chapter seven, where the promise was made to David. The Lord shall give on to him the throne of his father, David, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom, there shall be no end. And when Jesus comes to establish his kingdom, fulfilling those promises, when that happens, that kingdom is going to be a bridge to the eternal kingdom. And that's why he shall reign forever and ever. And the Bible says we shall reign with him forever and ever. Jesus is the promise that God made to David.

He is Israel's king. So when you receive Christ as savior, you receive a victor, you receive a king, you also receive a savior. He's our Passover. Paul says in first Corinthians chapter five, Christ, our Passover is sacrificed for us.

Now you remember the Passover. God says, I want you to kill a lamb, take the blood of that lamb and put it on the doorpost, the lintels of your door, because when I see the blood, I will pass over you. And the plague of the killing of the firstborn will not happen in your house. If I see the blood, the reason it is called the Passover, God says, I will pass over you. Now I want you to imagine for a moment that there is a child in the Jewish home. And this child, first of all, says, well, dad, what good is blood?

And he says, I may not understand it all, but the angel said, the Lord said through Moses, when I see the blood, I'll pass over you and the plague won't come near you. Maybe the firstborn son in one of those homes was evil. Maybe he was a disobedient child, didn't matter. The promise was when I see the blood, I will pass over you. Of course, if he was evil, if he had committed crimes, those would have to be dealt with most assuredly. But at the end of the day, it wasn't the greatness of his sin. It was the power of the blood that delivered him. Just like some of you, if I could talk to you one on one and you'd be honest, some of you have committed crimes.

You've done some pretty terrible things. But when you receive Christ as savior, that blood is as it were applied to you. And God says, when I see the blood, I will pass over you. And the plague will not come upon you. You may die in an earthquake, but, but the wrath of God will no longer be upon you.

You are exempt from that. And that's why we urge you to receive Christ as savior, because when you do, you benefit from his death and the blood that was shed. And later on, Jesus said, you remember, he said so beautifully at the Passover feast with his disciples, this cup now is the new covenant in my blood. This drink in remembrance of me, I am your Passover. And so we no longer celebrate Passover.

Rather we celebrate communion, the new covenant, because Jesus did away with the need for the Passover because his blood can make the foulest clean. His blood availed for me. He is the Passover he turns out to be. So when you receive him as savior, you do indeed receive somebody qualified to save you. Let me say that he's also the temple. Jesus one day was standing next to the great temple of Herod that we talked about last time.

And by the way, if you weren't here last time, you should get the CD so that you see the continuity. And he says, destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. And the Jews said, this temple has been 46 years in building and you're going to raise it up in three days. And then John adds, but he spoke of the temple of his body. Jesus is the temple. In fact, in John 1 14, the word became flesh and tabernacled among us. It dwelt with us. What was the tabernacle, the temple of the old Testament?

What was it all about? It was the meeting place between God and man, because God always wants to meet with his people. And God says, I want to take you through this ritual so that you understand the seriousness of sin. And you will have a high priest who will represent you to me. He has to make sacrifice for his own sins first, but he'll represent you to me.

And I'll represent what I have to say through him to you. Jesus abolished all that because Jesus is high priest. Now the high priest in the old Testament, he offered bulls and goats on the altar. Jesus turns out to be not just the priest, but also the offering he offers himself. He is the lamb and he is the priest.

And so he did away with the temple. We here at Moody church do not have an altar. Now maybe you were brought up in a church that had an altar. They talked about the altar. Well, usually up front here, we have a communion table. We have stairs that lead to the lower platform, but you'll never hear me say, come to the altar.

Why? We don't have one. Jesus did away with the need for an altar. We do no longer offer sacrifices. His sacrifice, the Bible says, sanctifies us eternally by one offering. He's perfected all those who are sanctified. He is our high priest. Don't you love him?

Don't you love him? When you think of what he's done on our behalf, Jesus also is the end of the law. Paul says, Jesus is the end of the law to all those who believe. You know, you read the old Testament law. That's why I suggested when you read the book of Leviticus and some of these passages in the old Testament, I gave you permission to speed read them.

And I've received some, some feedback from that, but it's all been good. People say, you know, this time I'm going to get beyond Leviticus. When I read through the Bible, we don't understand all those laws. Now they're rich in meaning. If we stop and study them, but you'll never get through your Bible.

If you're going to stop and study everywhere, what you should do is designate and say, I want to investigate this. And then you study those more carefully in a different time. But all these rituals, all these laws, there was the moral law. There was the ceremonial law. There was the civil law. Jesus is the end. He fulfills it all and says, I release you from the obligation of fulfilling the law.

Now, the reason is because the law could never be fulfilled by the people. They would stand and they'd say all that the Lord has said we will do. And then moments later they were rebelling against God and breaking their covenant.

You know, when you stop to think of it, human nature hasn't changed much throughout the centuries, has it? We all want to say that we're going to do thus and so, and then we discover we don't. Thank God for redemption. I'm holding in my hands a book entitled The Vanishing Power of Death. There was a man, a Christian man who had been a leader who was about to die. And he was very troubled. People told him about the books he had written and where he had preached and the things that he had done. And it gave him no peace until someone reminded him that the way we get to heaven is through the blood of Christ alone. And at that point, the man died peacefully. I believe that this book, The Vanishing Power of Death, is going to be a great encouragement. It's going to help you even as you face your death and as you contemplate the death of others.

And if you order today, you'll be able to have it for Easter, The Vanishing Power of Death. Hope that you have a pen or pencil handy. Here's what you do. Go to RTWOffer.com. As you might know, RTWOffer is all one word. RTWOffer.com or pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-218-9337.

Let me give that to you again. RTWOffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. It's time again for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question you may have about the Bible or the Christian life. Roberta listens to Running to Win in Cottonwood, California. She refers to scripture and then has three questions.

Here's what she wrote. After Jesus died, Matthew 27 records that tombs were opened and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. And coming out of the tombs after his resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many. Pastor Lutzer, were these people raised with glorified bodies? Did they have to die a second time? And did they go to heaven after Jesus?

Roberta, the thing I appreciate about answering questions on Running to Win is the fact that we have so many listeners who know where the difficult questions are and they are the ones who ask the questions, which is, of course, exactly the way it should be. What we have in the 27th chapter of Matthew is an anomaly. It is in many respects very puzzling. Suddenly Jesus Christ dies, and after he dies, there are saints that come out of the tombs and walk around the streets of Jerusalem.

You can imagine the shock, by the way. If you saw someone who was dead come back to life and apparently able to communicate, I know that most of us would run as quickly as we possibly could away from that person. So here's what I believe. First of all, you ask, were these people raised with glorified bodies?

No, I do not believe they were. One of the reasons is because Jesus Christ is the first one to have a glorified body. And the text says that this happened after his death. So Jesus hasn't been raised yet.

He had not been raised. And so as a result, I believe that these people came back in some kind of an earthly body. Did they have to die a second time?

Yes, I'm sure that they died a second time, something like Lazarus, who had the very same experience. And you ask, did they go to heaven after Jesus? Well, when believers died in the Old Testament, before Jesus Christ sent the Holy Spirit and so forth, they went to paradise.

I mean, certainly Jesus seemed to teach that in that story about the rich man and Lazarus. And so I assume that their souls were in paradise. Their body was raised, which means that God apparently brought the soul back into their earthly body. And then after they died a second time, they would go back to paradise. Their souls would. And of course, they are still awaiting the final resurrection, because that has not yet happened. They are in a disembodied state, but they are communicating. They are talking with one another. They see Christ.

All of these things, the soul takes on the characteristics of the body. Roberta, thanks for your question. And you keep listening. And I know God has going to bless you. Thank you, Roberta. Thank you, Dr. Lutzer. If you'd like to hear one of your questions answered, go to our website at rtwoffer.com and click on Ask Pastor Lutzer. Or call us at 1-888-218-9337.

That's 1-888-218-9337. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635, North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60614. If the drama of redemption were a play, it would have two acts, the Old and New Testaments. The central theme is that of a sacrifice. On our next Running to Win, we'll learn how Jesus fulfilled all the requirements of the Old Testament sacrificial system. For Dr. Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.