Many people intend to and do read through the Bible each year, January 1 (Genesis 1) to December 31 (Revelation 22). Some follow reading plans which each day incorporate a bit of the Old Testament, New Testament, and the Psalms. Others read in a linear fashion, from the beginning to the end, and pace themselves to complete the Bible by or around the end of each year. And there are those who prefer to read only the New Testament. Why? The majority declare the Old Testament to be irrelevant, dated, and/or too judgmental, which begs a question.
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Avery Foley of Answers in Genesis gives us a succinct answer to the question of the focus of the Old Testament: “The Old Testament is one giant arrow pointing to Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross.”
We must bear in mind God wrote the Bible — the entire Bible (2 Timothy 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:20-21). He has a purpose for every word He’s included in the Scriptures. Beginning with Creation, the Old Testament traces human history through the Fall, the Flood, the call and acts of the Patriarchs, and the records of Israel. The Old Testament then concludes about 400 years before Jesus’ first advent. Its record consists of the Law (Genesis - Deuteronomy), History (Joshua - Esther), the books of wisdom (Job – Song of Solomon), the Major Prophets (Isaiah – Daniel), and the Minor Prophets (Hosea – Malachi).
Jesus Christ is the focus of the New Testament. Why?
John Piper shares an explanation by J.I. Packer, who “sums up the whole New Testament with propitiation by substitution. He considers that the whole message. Propitiation, meaning condemnation from God, deserved by sinners, lands on a substitute. This is unspeakable love: God substituting himself in his Son to bear our condemnation, his wrath. He condemned sin in the flesh — our sin.”
The New Testament proceeds from Jesus’ birth to the culmination of history in the new heavens and new earth, with Christ as everlasting King.
Late fourth- and early fifth-century saint, Augustine of Hippo rightly said, “The new is in the old concealed; the old is in the new revealed.” (Italics added.) In current vernacular, The Old Testament is the New Testament concealed, and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed. You can’t have one without the other to come to as full an understanding of Scripture (and Him) as God intends.
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Luke 20:18 alludes to Zechariah 12:3.
Jesus quotes various passages from Deuteronomy in Luke 4:1-13 as He is tempted by the devil.
The Apostle Paul, in Romans 1:17, quotes Habakkuk 2:4.
Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished” (Matthew 5:17-18).
When we read the New Testament, we have to ponder what its writers and persons of the New Testament used as their Scriptures. They did not have what we have — a complete canon of Scripture. Instead, they had the scrolls written by the Old Testament prophets and the letters written to the first century churches. God’s Word is given to us as one special revelation of Himself (Jesus Christ is His other means of special revelation).
When Jesus said He came not to abolish the Law and the Prophets but instead to fulfill them, He spoke of the Old Testament (Matthew 5:17-18).
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