FAITH IN THE MESSIAH, JESUS CHRIST, IS OUR SALVATION
Author: Sakkie Parsons
The righteous shall live by faith
Someone wrote to me and ask the following question:
How did the people of the Old Testament in the absence of Jesus – through whom we go to our Father, gained Heavenly status?
I want to start by making a statement which some people who still heavily rely on the Mosaic Law, will at least raise their eyebrows at me. I trust however that the Holy Spirit will lead you to see that I speak the truth.
Many people think that in the Old Testament times, the path to Heaven was through the Mosaic Law, but that is of course wrong.
Before I explain how the people in the Old Testament times could inherit eternal life – according how I find it in the Word – let us look what the Word itself says about my above statement and I will make some comments as we go:
This writing is probably lengthy – not because I talk so much but because the Bible talk so delightful about this subject.
The Mosaic Law could not save the people of the Old Testament. The Mosaic Law by its statutes only made people aware of sin and thus made them conscious of sin in their lives.
ROM 3:20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
As we look back to Calvary in faith today and what Christ did for us there, so did the religious people of the Old Testament looked forward in faith to Calvary and the Messiah.
They did not have all, to put it in this way, the detail as we have today. However, they knew and the true believers lived in anticipation and faith for the day that the Messiah will come just as you and I have the expectation that Jesus Christ will come again.
But let us first look at the Mosaic Law with all its statutes:
HEB 10:1-10
1 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.
2 Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sin?
3 But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin every year.
4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
5 Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, "Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me;
6 in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.
7 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.'"
8 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),
9 then he added, "Behold, I have come to do your will." He abolishes the first in order to establish the second.
10 And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
GAL 3:8-11
8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, "In you shall all the nations be blessed."
9 So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
10 For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, "Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them."
11 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for "The righteous shall live by faith."
Before I now share with you on how the people in the Old Testament times received everlasting life, I just once again quote for you the relevant passages of the Word to bring it strongly to your attention – that the Mosaic Law with all its statutes could to no one give salvation and eternal life. It only makes you aware and reminds you constantly of your sinful life so that you can change your lifestyle.
HEB 10:1 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.
GAL 3:3-5
3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?
4 Did you suffer so many things in vain–if indeed it was in vain?
5 Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith–
ROM 4:13 For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith.
I pointed out when I quoted HEB 10:10 that this is how it worked for all people from the beginning until the end as I will illustrate now:
Do you recall?
HEB 10:10 And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
I also pointed out that the true religious people in the Old Testament times, looked in faith ahead to the promise of Jesus’ sacrifice on Calvary and so are justified by God, as we look back through faith today to Jesus’ sacrifice on Calvary en so by our Lord’s grace through our faith in Jesus Christ, is justified.
Let me quickly show it to you:
In the very beginning, shortly after our Lord created Adam and Eve, God already gave the promise of Jesus’ salvation on Calvary to mankind:
GEN 3:15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel."
So, right from the very start, no one’s works could bring salvation. No, right from the start, only the loving grace and the believe in God Almighty and the Messiah who will come, could save someone and today – until Jesus return to come and fetch us, only Almighty God’s loving grace and belief in God Almighty and the Messiah Jesus Christ who came and who will come again, save us.
No work that anyone ever did and no works that anyone in the future could do can save them.
Jesus Christ did all and everything on the cross that has to be done for someone to inherit Heaven, and He did it for all people.
JOH 3:16-18
16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
I share with you examples of the Old Testament about people that believed in the Messiah that will come:
We read about Abram:
GEN 15:6 And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
Do you see?
Abram did not have the Mosaic Law; because Moses will receive it about 400 years later from our Lord en he did not do one or other great works. He just believed in God Almighty and he believed in God Almighty’s promise:
GEN 12:3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
This belief in the Messiah to come, for example, enabled Job to rejoice out loud under extremely dire circumstances:
JOB 19:25 For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth.
Paul wrote and used David as an example:
ROM 4:6-9
6 just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:
7 "Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered;
8 blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin."
9 Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness.
1JOH 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
For we know that JESUS already gave the perfect sacrifice and so a prophet of the Old Testament who looked forward in faith to his Messiah and our Saviour Jesus Christ and prophesied:
ISA 53:1-12
1 Who has believed what they heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
2 For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?
9 And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.God is immutable and so is man’s salvation to everlasting life also still immutable.
It is only through God’s loving grace and in belief in the Messiah, Jesus Christ.
ACT 4:12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."
FIL 2:9-11
9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Greetings,
Sakkie