Posted on 06/12/2022 11:29:59 PM PDT by Pilgrim's Progress
“Righteousness keepeth him that is upright in the way: but wickedness overthroweth the sinner” (Proverbs 13:6).
Doing right as a Christian will keep you in the way of blessing, in the way of joy, and in the way of being led by the Holy Spirit. If a Christian does not do right, it doesn’t result in losing his salvation because we are sealed unto eternity by the Holy Spirit at our new birth: “That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:12-14).
In the Old Testament, it is different. Notice that he says here: “Righteousness keepeth him that is upright in the way: but wickedness overthroweth the sinner.” In the Old Testament, if a man did right he was considered righteous; but if he did wrong, he was considered a sinner. Now, we know now that “all are sinners” –lost sinners and saved sinners—but in the Old Testament, the revelation was that if a man did right and kept the Law, he wasn’t classified as a sinner. He was classified as righteous. Paul wrote: “We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles” (Galatians 2:15).
Sin was looked at differently in the Old Testament. Christ came to reveal sin. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus gave a new definition of sin to include the very thoughts and not just acts. Jesus reveals the heart of man, and the nature of man. “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).
The way of righteousness in the Old Testament was doing right.
“Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord GOD: and not that he should return from his ways, and live? But when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and doeth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doeth, shall he live? All his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned: in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die” (Ezekiel 18:23-24).
In the New Testament, we that are saved are not “in sin,” we are “in Christ.” That relationship never changes and cannot change—we are sealed in Christ. The Old Testament saint does not have the new birth, he does not have the sealing of the Holy Spirit, he is in a precarious situation. He must keep himself in the way of the upright.
If the Old Testament saint got saved the same way that the New Testament saint does, then what was the purpose of the New Testament?
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