Old and New Testaments Serve Their Purpose
June 21, 2011 in FAQ by biblereading
What’s the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament?
When approaching the Bible, it is helpful to understand the roles the Old and New Testaments play and how they complement each other.
The Lord defined the Old and New Testaments in Luke 24:27, 44-45 when He said, “And beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, He explained to them clearly in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself ?And He said to them, these are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all the things written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and Psalms concerning Me must be fulfilled. Then He opened their mind to understand the Scriptures.
Theologian Augustine once said that the New Testament is contained in the Old and that the Old Testament is explained in the New. We may put the matter this way: The New Testament is in the Old contained, and the Old Testament is in the New explained. This means that the New Testament is in the Old Testament and that the Old Testament is explained by the New Testament.
–“The Conclusion of the New Testament, page 1 (Living Stream Ministry)
The Old Testament gives a portrait, in types and prophecies, of this wonderful person as the Coming One. Now, in the New Testament, this wonderful person has come. The first page of the New Testament, in recommending this wonderful person to us, gives us His genealogy. This genealogy can be considered an abstract of the Old Testament, which in itself is the detailed genealogy of Christ. To understand the genealogy in Matthew, we need to trace the origin and history of every incident.
–“Recovery Version of the New Testament, page 5, footnote 1:11 (Living Stream Ministry).
While these excerpts show the importance of the Old Testament, the New Testament stands alone in that its sole subject is Jesus Christ.
The first name (Matt. 1:1) and the last name (Rev. 22:21) in the New Testament is Jesus, proving that Jesus Christ is the subject and content of the New Testament. The Bible is a book of life, and this life is a living person, the wonderful and all-inclusive Christ
–Recovery Version of the New Testament, page 5, footnote 1:11 (Living Stream Ministry).




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