Saved in the Old Testament

GodzThunder,

Could you explain this a little further? I just know you must mean something more than what this implies...."It was not for future people,..."

 

RJ says;
Jim,

My objection to your wording is based on the blending of OT saints and NT saints as being no different.
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But they aren't any different. Every man who ever lived is saved exclusively by his faith in the promises of God. Doesn't matter if all he had was the promise of a Redeemer or the promise of a son in his old age or or the promise of a boat to survive the coming storm, or the promise of salvation through the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness.
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RJ says;
Salvation after Abraham was vitally connected to his descendants through Isaac and Jacob. Gentiles who were saved were saved not based on general faith in a creator, but by specific faith in the God of Israel.
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See above. Gentiles who were saved in the OT were saved by faith in God.
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RJ says;
An imprecise explanation of the concepts leaves loopholes and fallacies that are closed by clear and precise understanding of the Word of God.
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There are no loopholes. One is saved by his believing God. Not what some man may say about God. Or what some man may think he knows about God. But believing God, period. Noah, believed God. And was saved.
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RJ says;
Your statement that OT saints were saved by faith in the promises of God fails to distinguish that the promises they believed were different from the specific promises related to the cross which are the objects of our faith.
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Again, it does not matter what the distinctions are in the specifics of those promises. No man is saved apart from believing God. It does not matter the amount of light or revelation that man may have had during any period. Moses, however haltingly at first, still believed God and was saved.
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RJ says;
An overly broad generalization leads to problems.
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While I agree it CAN lead to problems, I don't think my simple statement leaves room for problems. OT saints and NT saints alike are counted righteous through faith. Both before, during and after the covenant of law. Pre-cross and post-cross. All people of all times must be saved by faith. The object of that faith must be God. Not some heathen god nor some other thing men may call god, but God Almighty. I really didn't think I was all that unclear.
Sorry.

In HIS service;
Jim

 

And what verse of Scripture in the OT do you base this on? That is the problem ... this gets thrown out, but no one actually can tell us where Scripture teaches it.

 

Sins are forgiven only through Christ. The blood of bulls and goats could never take away sin Heb 10:4). The OT sacrifices were demonstrations of faith in God. There is no evidence that OT believers understood the Messianic pictures involved. They were never told of such things, and they were never told to offer them in hopes of a coming Messiah.

 

Where are they told toh have faith in a future redeemer? This is the crux of the issue ...

 

Where are they told toh have faith in a future redeemer? This is the crux of the issue ... </font>[/QUOTE]You didn't go back far enough to my post of Genesis and Adam and Eve.

 

Actually, I did read that post and I repeat my question: Where are they told to have faith in a future redeemer? YOu read that passage with the benefit of what we know now. There is no evidence that they knew that. You cannot just transport our knowledge back to them.

 

Larry, you missed the whole point. They were saved by God's GRACE! In my opinion there is not one better example of that than what happened in the Garden of Eden. They were given the "picture" of the redeemer by the "garments of skins" {from an animal obviously}. Scripture doesn't say that they were "told of a future redeemer" but they were given the picture of it by God Himself. They certainly must have understood that picture because later in Genesis 4:4 Abel is bringing "the firstling of his flock" as as sacrifice. Adam and Eve were still alive so they had to have given their children the instructions about sacrifices as it does not say that God told Cain and Abel what to do.

As I said before, they obviously did not understand the full scope of what the earliest practices of sacrifices meant but whatever their understanding was - it was sufficient for God because it came from God originally.It took "faith forward" in what they were doing and it has been that faith of a mustard seed ever since.

 

I didn't miss that point at all. I completely agree. You said (in the post quoted at the top of this page) that they were saved by having faith in a future redeemer. Yet the text says no such thing. They were saved by faith in God ... faith taht the sacrifices of animals covered their sin. There is no evidence they were saved by faith in Christ as their ultimate sacrifice.

 

Larry,

The picture was a "shadow of what was to come."As I said before....

 

So what exactly are you saying? The Bible gives us no indication that they understood anything as a picture. You are reading that in. Abel brought a lamb becuase that is what he did. Cain brought fruit because that is what he did. There is no indication taht Cain was rejected because it wasn't blood. That is pure (and probably bad) hypothesis. Cain's offering was rejected because of his heart attitude.

You said they had "faith in a future redeemer." The Bible gives no indication taht I know of that they did.

 

Larry,

I beg to differ with you on the sacrifices.

1) The ground had just been cursed by God. Speaking to the serpent, God said; "...cursed are you - and upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life." Hence, the earth was now the lowly dwelling place of the serpent.

Then He proceeded to say to Adam; "...cursed is the ground because of you - thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you." (3:17)

Keep in mind, at this point they are still in the Garden of Eden where everything was good. But outside the garden, the earth was to produce (thorns and thistles) and by the sin-cursed earth man's livelyhood was to come from it and, also to die and be buried in it.

After God cloathes them with "garments of [sheep]skins" they are banished from the Garden. (It probably was sheep skins because "Abel was a keeper of sheep." 4:2)

Then the first indication of a sacrifice to God is stated in Gen 4:3-4. First, "Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground," - that had been cursed and was now the dwelling place of the serpent.

Next,..."Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions" of which God had regards for but not of Cains sin cursed earth offering. Hebrews 11:4 speaks of this by saying "By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he received righteousness..." Abels heart was right with God, and because his heart was right with God, He offered what He knew was pleasing to God. Because Adam and Eve had received their "covering up of sins by a God's grace with garment of skins" as the picture, Abel had to have known through his parents instructions, obviously, what would and would not be an acceptable sacrifice. It was notthat one was better that the other - that would be salvation by works. It was what he knew God expected of him.

*Just as an interesting thought, I find it strangely curious also that it was Christ that was crowned with thorns - which came out of the sin-cursed earth.

Therefore, Adam, Eve and Abel were the first to be saved by the grace of God through their faith!

 

Your argument about teh ground is, at best, questionable exegesis. That seems like you are really reaching after something. Consider the later testimony of Scripture, that Israel was to bring to God the first fruits of all their crops, and that God blessed the nation by giving them great crops. In fact, there were many grain offerings to God as a part of the sacrificial system. All that to say that to argue that God rejected Cain's sacrifice because it came from the cursed ground simply doesn't fit with SCripture.

Second, to say that God gave Adam and Eve coats of sheeps skins based on the fact that Abel was a keeper of the sheep won't fly either. Abel wasn't even born yet. That fact is completely irrelevant.

ON that we can certainly agree ... But let's not save that their faith was in a coming Messiah becasue there is no indication from Scripture that that was the case.

 

Larry,

I'm not surprised you disagree. However, check out Matthew Henry. I did not get that from him. It was something my Spirit filled (non-charismatic) pastor taught us a long time ago. Supurb insight into scripture! Should be on TV!

Matthew Henry is the only one I check but I'm sure there are others. But Matthew Henry is my favorite.

Sorry, but I guess you just don't get it. There is nothing more I can add that will convince you as it seems your heels are dug in.

 

Larry,

You don't really mean to say that anyone can be saved without Christ now do you?

 

Larry,

Try this for an experiment. You take a picture of your wife and get it developed.It's slightly blurry. But you take it to work and then look at it. Is what you have in your hand the real, genuine, in flesh real person? Or is it a visual picture of the reality that you will go home to tonight? You have faith that the real thing will be there that you can now touch and hold. Yet, all you have in your hand is a shadow or a picture of what is in the future at home waiting for you!

It's the same thing

 

My point on the ground issue is that it is not consistent with the rest of Scripture, it is not stated in the text, and other textual indicators give a better option. It doesn't really matter who said it. Does it handle the text properly? I say no. If the cursed ground was hte reason, why did God command a first fruit offering?

No, I didn't say that at all. In fact, I said previously that their forgiveness is on the basis of Christ, but their faith was not in Christ since they didn't know about him.

The problem with your picture analogy is that it is not from Scripture. They had a picture, but they didn't know what it was of. If you have a tree in your yard, and you prune it and sit under its shade and everything that's great. Then you run into the family that you bought the house from and they say they planted that tree at the birth of their first child. Now, you see the picture. You didn't know about it before. That is more like the case. They could see the sacrifices, but there is no evidence at all that they knew about the antitype that the sacrifices represented. Remember, we cannot act like they had the later knowledge. They didn't. You have to read the Bible from their perspective, not yours.

When you are preaching the text to a modern audience, we can see the picture, but only because of later revelation. But we can't say that they had faith in a coming Messiah because Scripture doesn't say that.

 

Sins are forgiven only through Christ. The blood of bulls and goats could never take away sin Heb 10:4). The OT sacrifices were demonstrations of faith in God. There is no evidence that OT believers understood the Messianic pictures involved. They were never told of such things, and they were never told to offer them in hopes of a coming Messiah. </font>[/QUOTE]Pastor Larry,

I think you misunderstand me. I didn't say anything about the sacrifices of bulls and goats. I did say that OT saints, such as Abraham were saved through their faith in God, in that they stepped out in faith and followed him. Of course they had no concept of the Messianic pictures at the time. But, if they were saved through faith, does that not also mean that their sins were forgiven as well because of the faith which saved them? Or do you believe that their sins were not forgiven until several millenium later when Christ died on the cross?

Joseph Botwinick

 

Can you tell us anyplace in the OT where someone was told to put faith in that? Abraham was never told to put faith in his seed. His faith was in God that he would give him a seed. There is no evidence that Abraham or anyone else had faith in a coming Messiah.

Heb 4:2 does not identify what exactly was preached. You are taking a huge leap that is unsupported by the OT. We are never told that anyone OT person believed in Christ for salvation. In fact, the book of ACts records several God fearers who had to become Christ believers. </font>[/QUOTE]Paul said Abraham believed God, and it was counted to Him for righteousness.

What was it exactly that Abraham was told that he believed? That he would be the father of many nations, Gen. 17:4-5. What is this other than Christ? Paul in another place calls the Christian faith the "faith of Abraham," Rom. 4:16. It matters not whether Abraham fully understood it. It only matters that the Gospel was believed.

You're proceeding on the false assumption that the Jews had to have faith in a different Promise than the One in which we have faith. The Scriptures I cited above state the opposite.

 

Yes ...

Actually, through Isaac and Ishmael, not through Christ. Through Christ, Abraham was never the father of many nations. That was a genetic promise, not a spiritual one.

But what was the content of the "belief"? It was not the coming Messiah. There is not one verse to show that it was.

Not at all. I don't think the Jews had to have faith in a different promise. I think that they actually did have faith in a different promise becuase of what the Bible says.

Which of those verses show that the OT people were saved by putting faith in the Messiah to come?