OT Overview Part 2
The Ten Commandments • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Introduction
Introduction
Recap from last week. . .
We discussed eight reasons why we should read and study the OT.
Then we went into discussing four key themes to look for as you read the OT.
We learned that even though God originally created all things in perfect harmony. . . since the fall in Genesis 3. . . the problems of Sin, judgement, and death hang over all of humanity.
Yet, in response to this curse of sin and death that has infected the entire human race. . . The Old Testament begins to provide a solution to this curse through four specific themes that are littered throughout the pages of the Old Testament.
Think of these themes as signposts that point us to the coming Messiah, Jesus Christ.
Last week, we discussed the first two. . . Messianic Prophecy and Kingdom.
We learned that. . .
Messianic prophecy refers to the prophecies about the coming Messiah who would come to crush the head of the serpent.
The first prophecy begins in Genesis 3:15 and is continually proclaimed through the law, the prophets, and the writings.
This prophecy ultimately has its fulfillment in Jesus.
God’s Kingdom can be defined by God’s people, God’s Place, and God’s Rule.
The OT portrays God seeking to establish his rule and reign with his people on earth.
We learn in the NT that Jesus is the true king that finally brings the kingdom of God to earth and will bring it to a full realization at his second coming.
Tonight, we are going to cover the last two themes of Covenant and Substitutionary Sacrifice.
Now as we talk about these last two themes tonight, I want you to associate them with two other themes. . . perfect obedience and a perfect sacrifice.
But why are these two themes important?
Well, we know that originally, God created us to live in a relationship with him where we would worship him and enjoy him forever.
Yet, we have all chosen to rebel against him and worship ourselves instead.
Our sin now separates us from God and we are under his righteous judgement. . . awaiting the penalty of facing his wrath for all eternity in hell.
The two things that must happen for us to be restored to a right relationship with God are. . . first. . . we must be perfect and completely obey his commands. . . and second. . . we must be able to pay our sin debt by taking the full wrath of God and survive.
I want you to hold onto these truths as we will circle back to them at the end of our time. . . but for now. . . remember to associate:
Covenant=Perfect Obedience
Substitutionary Sacrifice= a Perfect Sacrifice
Covenant
Covenant
A covenant was a formal promise that God made with his people.
God made covenants with his people in order to have a relationship with them.
This shows that even after man’s sin. . . God still desired and chose to initiate a relationship with his creation that had rebelled against him.
This shows the grace, mercy, and love of our great God!
There are six main covenants that God made with his people in the Old Testament:
Creation: Genesis 1-3
Noah: Genesis 6-9
Abraham: Genesis 12, 15, 17, 22
Sinai: Exodus 19-24
David: 2 Samuel 7; Psalm 89
New Covenant: Jeremiah 31-34, Isaiah 54, Ezekiel 33-39
Now, as far as the format of the covenant’s in the Old Testament. . . they consisted of two parties. . . God and his people. . . and normally required obligations on at least one of the parties for the relationship to be maintained.
The covenants were known as “Sovereign treaties” that would normally begin with a declaration of who the king is and what he had done.
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
The second half of the covenant lays out what the King requires of his subjects and the resulting blessings and curses depending on if the covenant is kept.
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
So these were the parts of the covenant. . .
But to understand a covenant, we must not get a covenant confused with a contract. . . which is what we often see take place in our culture today.
Contracts are oriented around things and services.
Covenants are oriented around people and establishing a relationship.
contracts are based on performance. . . where covenants are based on loyal love and faithfulness.
The covenants God made in the OT were based upon establishing a relationship with his people that was centered around his faithfulness and loyal love. . . a love to a people who least deserved it.
So God was always faithful and loyal to his covenant. . . but the problem was that humans were never able to stay faithful to the Lord and keep their side of the covenant. . . They broke it every time.
As we read the OT, time and time again, we see that humans were never able to obey God perfectly, which proves the point that all of us constantly fall into sin and disobedience.
Since Adam and Eve’s disobedience in the garden. . . all of us have been infected with a sinful nature that leads us to likewise sin against God and become condemned.
Our sinful nature has completely corrupted every aspect of our being. . . our thoughts, our desires, our words, and our actions. . . everything we do is tainted with sin.
But our sinful nature not only makes us unwilling to obey God. . . but also unable to obey God (Romans 8:7).
We are enslaved to our sinful cravings and desires and are helpless to fulfill God’s perfect standard apart from his grace.
But God, in his sovereignty, already had a plan to send his Son to become a human so that he could take our place and fulfill our part of the covenant.
As you know, this person is the Lord Jesus Christ.
God knew that the only way we would be able to fulfill his covenant is if he did it for us. . . and the only way we would be able to trust in him is if he were to give us new hearts and put his Spirit inside of us.
This is what he did in establishing the new covenant towards the close of the OT.
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
This new covenant was then inaugurated by Jesus in the NT through his sacrificial death on the cross. . . which brings us to our last theme of the OT. . . substitutionary sacrifice
Substitutionary Sacrifice
Substitutionary Sacrifice
From the very beginning when the first sin was committed, God made clear that people could not do anything to cleanse themselves of their sin.
Adam and Eve tried to do this by covering their nakedness, which represented their sin and shame, with fig leaves.
However, the Lord killed an animal in their place and covered their sin with the animal skins.
This demonstrates that for sin to be forgiven, a substitute must die and blood must be shed.
But why? Why death? Why so much blood?
Because the payment for sin is death
but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
God will not lower his standard and will righteously punish sin because he is Holy and good and hates evil.
Therefore, something must die for forgiveness to take place.
Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
We continue to see images of this sacrificial substitute throughout the OT. . . specifically in the passover lamb in Exodus and the sacrificial system in Leviticus.
The lambs and goats of these sacrifices had to be perfect, without any spot or blemish, and there was a specific way the priest would have to offer the sacrifice for it to be acceptable.
Yet, these animal sacrifices never removed the stain of sin. . . they never cleansed Israel of their wickedness but was simply a temporary covering.
For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said,
“Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,
but a body have you prepared for me;
in burnt offerings and sin offerings
you have taken no pleasure.
Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God,
as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’ ”
When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
The substitutionary sacrifices for sin in the OT reminded the people of their sin and constant need for atonement. . . it reminded them that they could not cleanse themselves and needed a substitute. . . and savior to take their place.
As the text says. . . this savior was fulfilled through Jesus.
Response
Response
So What? Why is this important? Why should you care about covenants and the demand for a substitutionary sacrifice???
So, circling back to where we started. . . covenant = perfect obedience and substitutionary sacrifice = a perfect sacrifice.
These are our two issues. . . the two things that separate us from God.
We cannot obey or keep God’s covenant. . . we cannot be perfect and meet God’s holy standard. . . therefore we need someone to fulfill God’s covenant and live a perfect life for us.
This person is Jesus!
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.
Through turning from our sin and trusting in Jesus, we fulfill God’s covenant and all of his law. . . because when we trust in Jesus, all of our sin is given to him and all of his perfection is given to us.
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
But remember that our sin must be paid for as well. . . a death must take place in order for us to be forgiven. . . which is also something that we cannot do on our own.
Enter Jesus, the perfect lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world.
And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
You see. . . the OT saints were not saved through obedience to the law, nor through animal sacrifices. . . but they were saved by faith through what these sacrifices pointed to. . . which was God’s promise of the Messiah that was fulfilled in Jesus.
It was Jesus who died for these OT saints.
and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
It is this same Jesus who also died for us. . . but we must trust in him.
Stop trusting in yourselves and your attempts at obedience. . . you cannot obey God’s law perfectly and you never will. . . remember that apart from the grace of God it is impossible for you to obey God or to please him.
Your daily bible reading will never be good enough.
Your church attendance will never be good enough.
Your baptism will never be good enough.
Instead, trust in Jesus and follow him. . .
walk with him every day. . .
Proclaim his salvation to all people and call them to repent and follow Jesus alongside with you. . .
and when you fall into sin and your eyes are enticed by lesser things. . .
turn back to Jesus. . .
remember that he is your perfect substitute. . .
he is your covenant keeper. . .
he is your sacrifice. . .
he is your savior. . .
who will forgive you. . .
who will help you. . .
who will transform you into his perfect image. . .
so that you can glorify God with your life and enjoy him forever!
Let’s pray. . .
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