January–the month of the year where people read 37 chapters of Genesis.
As people re-familiarize themselves with the beginning of the Bible in one more failed attempt to read the Bible through in a year, I will take an opportunity to fill you in on the sequence of events, in short form, to show a fascinating progression in God’s progressive revelation.
Genesis–Focuses mainly on family interaction. Adam and Even, Cain and Abel, Noah and his sons, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and then Joseph with his brothers. The emphasis is highly focused on families.
Exodus through Malachi–Focus spreads out to cover the leadership of the nation of Israel beginning with Moses and Aaron and covering Israel’s leadership under their prophets, priests and kings. The focus is on a nation, no longer on a family.
New Testament–Focus now shifts to the individual and the individual’s interaction with the Gospel and with Jesus Christ. As the individual gets to know Christ, the individual also has interaction with the Body of Christ (all believers) and the implications for the believer’s interactions with the “world.”
What is of note here, assuming my assumptions are remotely accurate, is that the whole family business in Genesis was wildly unsuccessful–Adam and Eve ruin creation, Cain kills Abel, Noah survives the world destruction and gets drunk and shames himself in front of his sons, Abraham and Sara have interesting times and then Jacob is even weirder in his marriage, and the relationships between Joseph and his brothers is horrendous.
The rest of the Old Testament covers the unflattering history of Israel, their turning from God and their subsequent destruction and dispersal among the nations of the world.
In the New Testament, you don’t see this level of failure. There are always warnings about false brethren and those who fall away, but when the Gospel sinks in, the individual is transformed.
I don’t yet know what my point is, but I think there’s something to all this. Good luck finishing the Bible this year! It’s a great book, one worthy of being ready many, many times.
Thinking about this further, it could be that in the NT rather than focusing on the individual, which is probably more an American ideal, the new group that replaces the family and the nation is the Church. As Jesus said, “Those who do my will are my father, mother, sisters, brothers, etc” and according to Peter the Church is now the chosen nation. I think I like that better than what I said above.
Pingback: It’s The End of The Church As We Know it and I Feel Like This Was Prophesied | anti-itch meditation
One certain difference between the Old and New Testaments is the magnitude of the revelation of God through Christ. In the Old Testament it was veiled. Christ was shown as the mediator and connector between God and man, but only through symbols, ceremonies, and types: the burning bush, the sacrificial lamb, the work of the earthly priest, the smitten rock. Some Old Testament saints really understood the spiritual realities behind this revelation and reached a very high level of character development: Enoch, Abraham, Moses, Joseph, Daniel, and Job…are a few. But it was rare that the whole nation of Israel came to such an understanding.
In the New Testament, Christ is no longer revealed through types, but in the flesh. The revelation of God is much more intense and clear. This intensity of light means that the believers are now able to be more unified and in harmony with the work of God.
At the same time, this also means that those who turn away from the revelation or distort it, are capable of even greater depths of wickedness. And so in the New Testament, we are told of the “falling away” that develops the “man of sin” (2 Thess. 2, although also described in Daniel 7). This is worse than the apostasies of the Old Testament. It means the corruption of the church into Satan’s direct agent to fight against the work of God.
Greater light means greater privilege. But turning from greater light means greater apostasy.