THE OLD TESTAMENT HAS BEEN RENDERED PERMANENTLY OBSOLETE
This mistruth is a doozy. Whole books—lots of them, in fact—have been written both for and against the Old Testament's obsolescence. I can't hope to do justice to the importance and depth of the subject here. Even so, this mistruth must be treated if only because it, along with the question of the Old Testament's boringness (Mistruth 2), helps to explain Mistruth 1: why some people think the Old Testament is "someone else's mail." In fact, in the grand scheme of things, Mistruth 3 may well be the most pervasive of all the mistruths we've been misled to believe about the Old Testament. If Mistruth 3 can get set straight, a lot of other problems with the Old Testament disappear. Since Mistruth 3 is such a big issue—a very large mistake to correct—things that are said in some of the other chapters of this book, even the book as a whole, can be seen as addressing it in one way or another.
Let's begin, though, with why someone might assert that the Old Testament has been rendered permanently obsolete. The answer, of course, is because of things we've heard or been taught—that we've been misled to believe—but those things come from somewhere. In this particular case they come, no doubt, from many places—once again, too many to list, but here are a few examples:
• The language of "new covenant" used in texts like Luke 22:20, 1 Corinthians 11:25, and 2 Corinthians 3:6, implies an "old covenant" that is . . . well, old and, as a result, not nearly as good. Hebrews 8:13 makes the comparison explicit when it says: "In speaking of 'a new covenant,' he [God] has made the first one obsolete. And what is obsolete and growing old will soon disappear." Could anything be more clear?
• This language of "new covenant" is actually where the term "New Testament" comes from (because of the frequent Latin translation of "covenant" as testamentum). The "New" Testament, no less than the "new" covenant, not only implies an older version, it often implies (if not asserts) that the old one is no longer in effect. Look, again, at Hebrews 8:13.
• There are numerous places where the New Testament appears to contrast things found in the Old Testament with something different and presumably better. A famous instance is the so-called "antitheses" found in the Sermon on the Mount. There Jesus says, "You have heard it said . . ." (Matt. 5:21, 27, 31, 33, 38, 43) before contrasting that prior word with, "but I say to you . . ." (Matt. 5:22, 28, 32, 34, 39, 44). Another instance might be Jesus' statement about not putting new wine into old wineskins (Matt. 9:17; Mark 2:22; Luke 5:37–38).
• There are various institutions and practices that were central to the Old Testament that are no longer operative within Christianity. The Temple is an obvious example, as is the practice of making sacrifices of animals, special dietary legislation, and so forth.
These examples are significant and are not isolated. More could be said under each point and additional points added.
The problem, however, is that these points (and any others that might be factored in) tell only part of the story, and certainly not all of it. Consider the following items in light of the previous list:
Old Doesn't Mean Bad
"Old" needn't mean "out of date" or "obsolete" or the like. As for Hebrews, as explicit as it is on this matter, it remains the case that Hebrews is profoundly indebted to the Old Testament throughout. Jesus is a new Melchizedek or a new high priest, but the accent in that kind of presentation is as much on Melchizedek or high priest as it is on new. In the ancient world, after all, newness wasn't equated with "right," "good," or "better"; in fact, the opposite was frequently the case. Heresies were often shunned precisely because they were "new." That which was "old," in the sense of tried and true, was better—best to stick with that. In this light, maybe we should replace the adjective "old" in Old Testament with a term like "ancient" in the best sense of that word: elder, venerable, authoritative.
Beyond Hebrews specifically, Mistruth 1 noted how thoroughly dependent the New Testament is on the Old Testament in terms of citation and allusion. The example that was cited there concerned how the Gospel of Matthew repeatedly states that one thing or another took place "in order to fulfill" what had been written before in the Old Testament (see Matt. 1:22; 2:15, 23; 4:14; 8:17; 12:17; 13:35; 21:4).
New Doesn't Mean Christian
As surprising as it may be to hear, the language and concept of a "new covenant" occurs for the first time not in the New Testament, but in the Old! The key passage is Jeremiah 31:31–34:
The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the LORD," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
This passage states that God gives "the New Covenant" (even "the New Testament," in light of the Latin testamentum) first and foremost to Israel, not to Christians after the coming of Christ. In fact, the passage I cited from Hebrews 8:13 follows directly upon a citation of Jeremiah 31:31–34 (see Hebrews 8:8–12). That means that the author of Hebrews depends upon Jeremiah 31 to make his point, but it also means that the author's point—about an old way of relating to God that is passing away—applies already to Israel, within the Old Testament, which was exactly Jeremiah's point long before Hebrews was written. And it isn't just Jeremiah's point. It's God's point, since God is the one talking about "the New Covenant/Testament" in Jeremiah 31. As for the endurance of that covenant with Israel—its liveliness, not its obsolescence—no less an Apostle than Paul said about that covenant that "the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable" (Rom. 11:29). Or, to quote Jesus, "salvation is from the Jews" (John 4:22).
Jesus Wasn't Replacing the Old
With regard to New Testament passages that seem to denigrate the Old Testament, things aren't always what they seem. In the case of the "antitheses," not all of them can be located in the Old Testament exactly—some may be interpretations of some of that material (whether by Jesus or by others at his time) since they aren't direct citations. Or some may be pieces of contemporaneous material that didn't end up in the Bible—the line about hating your enemy is a prime example (Matt. 5:43): that just isn't found in the Old Testament. Conversely, the positive injunctions by Jesus are often found in the Old Testament. Note, for example, Matthew 5:39:
"But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also."
A laudable and justly famous verse, to be sure! But now let's compare it to some equally laudable, but far less well-known texts from the Old Testament:
Proverbs 20:22: "Do not say, 'I will repay evil'; wait for the LORD, and he will help you."
Proverbs 24:29: "Do not say, 'I will do to others as they have done to me; I will pay them back for what they have done.'"
Isaiah 50:6: "I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting."
Lamentations 3:30: "[It is good] to give one's cheek to the smiter, and be filled with insults."
These verses from the Old Testament suggest that Jesus's various "but I say to you" statements might have continued on with "because I read it in our Scriptures!" (which are, of course, the Old Testament; see Mistruth 1). Still further, in many of these "antitheses" (which, by now, we see isn't a good name for these statements) Jesus isn't really against the prior (Old Testament) statement at all, but heavily in favor of it, which is shown by how his rearticulation frequently makes the imperative even more ethically demanding. Not just avoidance of murder, but also avoidance of anger (Matt. 5:21–26). Not just avoidance of adultery, but also avoidance of lust (Matt. 5:27–30). Jesus isn't doing away with the Old Testament commandments. He's making them harder. Maybe that is why, very early in the Sermon on the Mount—prior to the first "antithesis"—Jesus says:
Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matt. 5:17–20)
As for the new wine bit, in Luke's account of that saying, Jesus immediately points out that aged wine tastes better: "And no one after drinking old wine desires new wine, but says, 'The old is good'" (Luke 5:39).
Discontinued, Not Rejected
What about "obsolete" institutions like the temple and sacrifice? Ancient Israel also had to deal with the absence of such things during the Babylonian exile, where the exiles had no access to the Temple in Jerusalem or to the sacrificial system. The same is true for Judaism after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. But quite apart from the exile (or diaspora), the Old Testament is quite clear—repeatedly—that God cannot be limited to the Temple (see 2 Sam. 7:4–7; Ezek. 1–3, 7–10; Isa. 6, 66:1; Ps. 2:4; etc.), that the Temple is no "get out of jail free card" (Jer. 7:1–15), and that sacrifice, too (and not unrelatedly), is not ultimately what matters. As Samuel tells King Saul: "Surely, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams" (1 Sam. 15:22b). The psalmists and the Prophets line up to say the same (see, e.g., Ps. 40:6; 50:7–15, 23; 51:16–17; Isa. 1:11–17; Amos 5:21–24; etc.).
The problem with Mistruth 3, therefore, like so many other cases of misinformation, is that it doesn't tell us the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but only a small little part of it. Mistruth 3 isn't completely wrong in all the details it cites on its behalf, but despite that fact, it is still deadly wrong. Such a careless, undisciplined laissez-faire attitude toward the whole truth is a serious problem—not only to Scripture but to truth itself.