Christians call themselves New Testament people. I hear so many moral arguments based on the Old Testament, though. Is there any way a layperson can find some kind of consistency here? I want to be biblical in my thinking and doing.
This ultimately is a question of authority. We Christians believe authority comes from God. We also believe God has revealed himself in history and guided the recording of his revelation in the Scriptures. As we read the Scriptures, God reveals himself to us through the Holy Spirit.
The Scriptures show God didn't instantaneously reveal everything about himself and his will for humanity. Instead, his revelation unfolded over time and was recorded in the Old and New Testaments. He began by revealing himself through his covenants with people like Abraham and continued through his covenant with Israel. The Bible clearly asserts the fullest and clearest revelation of God came in the Lord Jesus Christ (see John 1:1-18 and Hebrews 1:1-4).
In the gospels, we find great tension between Jesus and those who wished to uphold the details of the Old Testament law, along with all its oral and written interpretations. Jesus said he came not to set aside the law, but to fulfill it. He claimed to have authority superior to what we call the Old Testament, and at times, he set aside or went beyond the laws found in it (see Matthew 5:17-48). Later in the New Testament, we find that God through the Holy Spirit set aside Old Testament ceremonial laws like circumcision (see Acts 10:1-48; 15:1-35).
What does this mean to us as we seek to determine our authorities for moral decisions? First, it means that we affirm the Old Testament as authoritative Scripture. It tells the story of God's redeeming work that led up to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ himself affirmed the authority of the Old Testament and worked from its theological and moral framework. To say that the Old Testament has no authority over us is to commit the same error as the Gnostic heretics in the early church. They went so far as to say that the God of the Old Testament was different from the God of the New!
Second, it means that Jesus Christ is our ultimate authority. His life and teachings are recorded in the New Testament, so it must have primacy in our moral decisions. For example, some Christians base their moral decisions about war and violence on passages like Deuteronomy 20:10-18, which call for “Holy War.” Yet they don't take into account Jesus' commands in passages like Matthew 5:38-48.
Perhaps the last line of the article on the Bible in the Baptist Faith & Message of 1963 sums it up best, “The criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted is Jesus Christ.” We must make all our moral decisions through God's revelation in him.
Robert Prince is pastor of First Baptist Church, Waynesville, N.C.
Right or Wrong? is sponsored by the T.B. Maston Chair of Christian Ethics at Hardin-Simmons University's Logsdon School of Theology in Abilene, Texas. Contributors include Baptists in Texas, Virginia and other states. Send your questions about how to apply your faith to btillman@hsutx.edu.