Posted on 04/19/2020 5:20:51 AM PDT by Pilgrim's Progress
“He that keepeth the commandment keepeth his own soul; but he that despiseth his ways shall die” (Proverbs 19:16).
In the Old Testament economy, those Laws were very important to God’s relationship with the nation of Israel. Man’s soul hung in the balance. People say, “Well, in the Old Testament, people were looking forward to the Cross, and in the New Testament they look back on the Cross—except that no one even had any conception of what a cross was, and they were looking for a conquering Messiah, not a suffering Saviour. Israel, in their spiritually blind condition did not have a clue that the lamb they were daily sacrificing pointed to the “Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world.” Even Jesus’ closest associates, the apostles, balked when He told them of His death at Calvary. They refused to believe that their Leader could die, “Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee” were the words that the so-called first Pope uttered. Jesus called Him Satan.
“There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless” (Luke 1:5-6).
Now, that is pretty clear. Their righteousness was not based on trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ and His Blood atonement. That hadn’t happened yet. Their righteousness was based on them keeping the commandments and statutes. And if a man did not do this, according to Ezekiel 18, he would go straight to hell.
“The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him: in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live” (Ezekiel 18:20-22).
There had to be an element of personal righteousness and of keeping the Law in the Old Testament. Abraham was saved by promise, but that was before the Law was given, which Israel told God that they would obey at Mount Sinai: “And all the people answered together, and said, All that the LORD hath spoken we will do. And Moses returned the words of the people unto the LORD” (Exodus 19:8).
The purpose of the Law was to expose sin, that they might seek a sacrifice through the Levitical priesthood—which was a type of Christ, and the tabernacle/temple were types of Christ—so they truly were seeking Christ, but only in types.
They had to keep that Law, and when they didn’t, the Law told them what they had to do to be forgiven. When they did commit sin, there was a sacrifice for it, and they offered it.
“He that keepeth the commandment keepeth his own soul; but he that despiseth his ways shall die.”
If you study out Leviticus 4 and 5, you’ll find that if sins were premeditated, there was no sacrifice for them. The offerings were given for sins of ignorance only. You can imagine how shocked the hearers were when Jesus told them that all sins could be forgiven except for the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. That was just not the way it was in the Law.
Now, there were some sins in the Old Testament that there was no sacrifice for, a man had better not murder anyone because that sealed his fate. David was in trouble, that is why he prayed, “take not thy Holy Spirit from me.” One major difference between salvation in the Old Testament and the New is that in the old there was no sacrifice for some sins, while in the New all manner of sin was forgivable except that of dying without Christ. There is no salvation beyond this life.
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