by Ken Alexander

Created on: September 01, 2008

What the Old Testament Means To Us Today

In short, the Old Testament contains the history of the Jewish nation and their laws and tribulations. The Old Testament represents the Old Covenant (agreement) between man and God- the laws that man should obey to merit favor with god. This Old Covenant passed away with the coming of Christ who initiated the "New Covenant" (New Testament) with man.

The Old Testament (now called "The Tanakh" by Jewish people) was loosely divided by them into three parts: The Law which was instituted by Moses and carried out by the Loevitical priesthood under Aaron; The Prophets who were God's mouthpieces to the people; and The Scriptures which included the Psalms, Wisdom books, and other stories applicable to God and the progression of the line of Kind David, leading to Christ.

The most important thing about the Old Testament is its application to Christianity today. The Old Testament speaks largely of things which occurred on a physical level to the Israelites. When Christ came, He spoke of spiritual things and thereafter all fulfillment was on a level of the spirit realm, where God and Christ dwell. However, the Old Testament is valuable to us in that many, many spiritual principles are revealed in the laws, stories and prophets.

For one thing, the Bible contains hundreds of references to the birth of Christ and the Kingdom, centuries away. It contains some of the most accurate descriptions of Christ (See Isaiah 53). Christ Himself said the following: "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me" (John 5:39). The "scriptures" spoken of was the Old Testament. The Old Testament was a testimony of Christ. Many, many Old Testament scriptures were quoted word for word in the New Testament.

So how does the Old Testament apply to us today? To answer this we must go to the Book of Hebrews which contains the most accurate descriptions of the relation between the Old Testament and the New.

In Chapter the writer of Hebrews discusses the eternal priesthood of Melchizedek. Melchizedek appeared to Abraham as a priest and a King of Salem (meaning peace). He states that Christ, as our high priest, did not come according to the old Levitical priesthood but was descended from the eternal priesthood of Melchizedek. The old Levitical priesthood was faulty in that it did not permanently eliminate sin, but required Israelites to come at least once a year (The Feast of Tabernacles, the Day of

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