Is Christianity Consistent With The Old Testament?
Nearly two thousand years ago, the missionary Paul took the newly established Gospel of Jesus Christ to Berea. Luke records something significant about these Jews to whom Paul ministered, saying, “they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11b ESV). Jesus made His first advent and fulfilled many of the prophecies written about Him years prior in the Old Testament Scriptures. Paul, a former persecutor of the Church, had now been saved by Jesus on the Damascus Road. He went about preaching this Christian message, and it must be noted that the message was based on the Old Testament revelation. This is why Luke, who wrote Acts, mentions it as a noble characteristic of Paul’s audience, who searched and fact-checked the doctrines of Paul in the Old Testament to make sure that his teaching was consistent with what was written. There was a burden on the early Christian movement to show itself as a consistent religion with what came before, as was handed down to Moses and the other prophets. Jesus said that the Scriptures (the Old Testament) bear witness to Him (Jn. 5:39). At the end of Luke’s gospel, Jesus interpreted to the disciples the things spoken concerning Him from Moses and all of the prophets (Lk. 24:27). There was a problem, however; many of the Jews rejected the Christian message. John says that Jesus came to His own people (the Jews), but they did not receive Him (Jn. 1:11). Many said that Jesus was leading people astray (Jn. 7:12). When the Christian movement was taking off, missionaries like Apollos were opposed and entered into debates with the Jews, as recorded in Acts 17:24-28. The objections ranged from Jesus and the disciples not holding to customs of their forefathers (Mk. 7:5), to others being rooted in misunderstandings of Jesus, such as His place of birth (Jn. 7:42). In more modern times the movement known now as Rabbinical Judaism (which claims to hold to the Scriptures written in the Old Testament as well as the faithful interpretation preserved in the Oral Torah) objects that the Christian message contradicts the Old Testament. They claim that Christianity is a wrongful add-on to the Old Testament. Some equate modern cults like Mormonism, which claims to come in succession to the Christian message (but contradicts it), concerning the way Christianity relates to the Old Testament. This paper will argue that Christianity is consistent with the Old Testament Scriptures over and against Rabbinical Judaism.
Origin of the Problem
Ever since the fall of Adam into sin, there has been a lineage of God’s elect chosen by grace who hold to His true revelation and trust Him, as well as the multitudes who turn away and trust in their own forms of religion. For example, God tells Elijah during his ministry to an evil nation that He has kept for Himself 7,000 in Israel who did not bow to Baal (1 Kg. 19:18). This framework of two people groups, the faithful and the unfaithful, held even into New Testament times. Until then, there were eras within the Jewish movement that were developing traditions; these include the Sopherim era (400-30 BC) and the Tannaim era (30 BC-220 AD). The main sects found opposing Jesus and the Christian message in the first century were the Pharisees on the one hand and the Sadducees on the other. The Pharisees held to the oral law and the authority of the entirety of the Old Testament, while the Sadducees held only to the authority of the five written books of Moses.[1] One key controversy between these two groups was the doctrine of the resurrection, which was affirmed by the Pharisees but denied by the Sadducees. The former makes adherence to the doctrine essential to having a share in the world to come, as noted in the Mishnah (M. Sanhedrin 10.1). On the spiritual level, the reason many Jews opposed Jesus was due to their hardness of heart towards God (Heb. 3:12, Rom. 9:32). However, on an intellectual level, their objections stemmed from various places in their thinking. One was an understanding that the Messiah was supposed to be a political ruler who would immediately overthrow Roman rule. Josephus records that some thought one from their own country would come to be ruler of the world.[2] When Jesus claimed to be the Messiah but did not overthrow Roman rule, for them this provided an intellectually based objection to reject His claim. Michael Bird summarizes seven beliefs about the Messiah according to early Jewish sources from this period. He notes the Messiah was expected to be Israel’s king, the Son of David; he would defeat the Gentiles and Israel’s enemies; he would restore Jerusalem and the cultus; inaugurate a period of proper law observance; he would come during a time of trial and tribulation, and his coming would mark a return of Jews from the Diaspora.[3] As Jesus did not align with the ways they understood these tenets, the opposition grew.
As events unfolded, the Romans destroyed the Jewish Temple in AD 70, and the remaining groups were the Christians, on the one hand, who held to the teachings of the New Testament, and the Pharisees, who later became known as Rabbinic Judaism based on the oral and written torah. The opposition, theologically, would remain and grow until the present day. Next, the question of the consistency of other religious options with the Old and New Testament revelation is taken up to begin to answer the fundamental objection of this paper, which is that Christianity contradicts the former revelation it is supposed to fulfill.
Why Islam Won’t Work
Roughly 500 years after Christianity began, a new religion sprang up in the Middle East, Islam. The forty-year-old Muhammad claimed to receive a revelation in a cave from the angel Gabriel.[4] Muhamed and his followers set out to combat the polytheism of their day. He also believed himself to be giving revelation in succession to the already received Scriptures of the Jews and Christians.
An effort is made to find Muhammad’s coming predicted in the preceding Scriptures, laid down and completed 500+ years beforehand, in passages such as Deuteronomy 18:18 and John 14-16. The Deuteronomy passages fail to amount to Muhammad for two reasons. For one, the passage requires that the prophet will come one day from among the brothers of the Israelites alone, which Muhammad fails to be since he was an Arab. Secondly, the New Testament identifies the person whom Moses spoke of as Jesus in Acts 3:22-24. There is no need to look for fulfillment beyond Jesus in the first century.
The next passage is in John 14-16, where Jesus promises to send His disciples another helper after He ascends to heaven. However, Jesus identifies this helper as the Spirit of truth in John 14:17, not Muhammad. Of course, there is no need to look for fulfillment beyond the first century since Acts 2 records the Spirit of truth being poured out on the people of God on the day of Pentecost.
On a theological level, the Islamic religion cannot be a consistent successor to the biblical religion since it contradicts it at two fundamental points. One is the denial of the crucifixion of Jesus on the cross. Surah 4:157 emphatically denies that Jesus was crucified, “But they neither killed nor crucified him – it was only made to appear so.” Central to the biblical salvation narrative was the crucifixion of Jesus as recorded in John 19 and the other three gospels, as well as its foretelling in the prophets (Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, and Zachariah 12).
Theologically, the Quran denies the doctrine of the Trinity as held by Christians in Muhammad’s day. Surah 2:171 says, “So believe in God and His messengers and do not say, ‘Trinity.’ Stop! - for your own good.” The preceding Scripture affirms this doctrine about God in passages such as Genesis 19:24 and John 1:1. The Quran also denies that Jesus is divine in Surah 5:72, saying, “Those who say, ‘God is the Messiah, son of Mary,’ have certainly fallen into disbelief.” However, the Bible already taught Jesus’ divinity hundreds of years prior in Isaiah 9:6 and John 1:1. Muslims at this point try to reconcile the revelation with the prior scriptures by arguing that the prior scriptures had been corrupted. But as James White notes in his book What Every Christian Needs to Know About the Quran, the Quran itself does not teach this but rather affirms the validity of the previous scriptures.[5]
Why Mormonism Won’t Work
The next religion that Rabbinic objectors try to equate Christianity with is Mormonism. They say, “Mormonism is to Christianity what Christianity is to Old Testament Judaism.” In 1820, in New England, Joseph Smith Jr. claimed to have been called by God the Father and God the Son, both in materialized form (problematic since John 4:24 teaches God is Spirit). The notion was that Christianity had been corrupted, and a restoration needed to occur. In 1823, Smith claimed to receive a vision consisting of golden plates from the angel Moroni, which later became the Book of Mormon.[6]
Unlike Christianity's infallible view of the Old Testament Scriptures, early Mormonism taught that the Bible, in its current form, must be suspect of error and must be translated correctly (assuming it has not been). Joseph Smith made his own translation of the Bible with many arbitrary alterations from the standard readings, such as the King James Version.
Mormon theology contradicts the Bible in fundamental ways. Take the issue of monotheism. The Bible teaches there is one God in places such as Deuteronomy 6:4 and Isaiah 43:10. However, Mormonism taught through its early prophets and leaders polytheism. “As man is, God once was: as God is, man may become,” said the Mormon prophet Lorenzo Snow. Note how the former quote also contradicts the immutability of God taught in Malachi 3:6. Joseph Smith also taught in a sermon, as recorded in the Journal of Discourses 6:3-4, that those in his audience must learn to become gods themselves, the same as all gods have done prior.[7] So, according to Mormon theology, as many humans as desire to become deified can accomplish this themselves, amounting to a polytheism greater than even Hinduism.
Soteriologically, the Mormon gospel contradicts the Bible. Ephesians 2:8-9 and Romans 3:28 state that sinners are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Paul says we are saved by grace through faith, it is not a result of works lest one should boast (Eph. 2:8-9) and “we hold that one is justified by faith without works of law” (Rom. 3:28). But in the Journal of Discourses 2:4 Mormon prophet Brigham Young taught that good works and baptism by immersion in addition to faith were necessary for the cleansing away of sin. In the Book of Mormon 2 Nephi 25:23, it teaches in contrast to the above biblical texts that one is saved by grace “after all we can do” (emphasis mine). Thus, it is safe to conclude that the teaching of Mormonism, rather than validating the prior Scriptures, undermines them and contradicts them in fundamental ways.
Why Baháʼí Won’t Work
A final religion in this cursory look at alleged successors of the Old Testament is Baha’i. Beginning in the nineteenth century, an Iranian businessman named Mirza Ali Muhammed, who believed himself to be a divine manifestation, became known as the “Bab” or “gate”, opening a new era for the world. After the original Báb was killed, another leader known as Baha’u’llah rose up to lead the movement in 1863. The basic teachings of Baha’i are to unite the world into one brotherhood of religion and to work for universal justice and peace in all areas of society.[8] Baha’i sees itself as coming in the succession of all major world religions before it, amounting to a total of nine manifestations of the true divine religion (Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, etc.). The problem, logically speaking, is that these alleged divine manifestations contradict one another. For example, if the Baha’i claim is true, why do the Old and New Testaments affirm the crucifixion of Jesus but the later Qur’an denies it? Which one is true? Or the nature of God. Early Buddhism denies the existence of God, but Judaism, Christianity, and Islam affirm it. The author once asked a Baha’i follower questions like these, and no adequate answer was provided. In conclusion, these alleged successors to biblical religion fall flat when analyzing their consistency with prior scripture. Next, Rabbinical Judaism will be taken up to see if its own teachings are consistent with the Old Testament Scriptures.
How Rabbinical Judaism Contradicts the Old Testament
Theology Proper
Now, the doctrine of God proposed by Rabbinic Judaism will be compared to that provided from Scripture through Moses (including the later writings and prophets). The medieval Jewish teacher Moses Mainmonedes laid out the thirteen principles of Jewish faith to give ordinary Jews a philosophically consistent way to explain their faith.[9] The first five of these principles are focused on God. The second tenet states that God is one, unique, and an indivisible unity unlike any other. While it is true that it captures what many biblical passages teach on the oneness of God, such as the Shema found in Deuteronomy 6:4, which states that “the LORD is one,” or as Isaiah 43:10, which states that before Yahweh there was no god formed, neither shall there be any after, there are other passages that must be factored in to develop an orthodox and biblical view of God. For example, Genesis 1:26 says, “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Notice the three self-references of God in the plural. Or Genesis 19:24, when Moses writes, “Then the LORD rained down on Sodom and Gomorrah fire and Sulphur from the LORD out of heaven.” Notice the grammatical plurality in references to the Divine; notice the spatial distinctions of the two Divine referents; and notice the two distinct functional roles carried out in the two Divine references. Some have combatted this difficulty by showing how Solomon seems to be referenced twice and in the third person in 1 Kings 8:1. However, a major difference is that the context for 1 Kings 8 does not present Solomon in two different places, whereas the context of Genesis 19 presents God on earth eating and talking with Abraham (beginning in chapter 18), conversating with Abraham about Sodom and then calling down judgment from God out of heaven. A second difference is that the 1 Kings passage does not present two Solomons carrying out two distinct acts, whereas the former passage has the first Divine referent calling down the judgment while the second Divine referent sends down the judgment from heaven; nor is this an instance of omnipresence, since nowhere else in the Bible is omnipresence depicted in such a way.
In fact, scholar Alan Segal noted that early Rabbinic Jewish theology had to mark passages like these to prevent people from coming to the conclusions suggested by them, namely that along with the unity of the God of the Bible, there is also a plurality to Him. Segal says that by the third century A.D., Rabbi Simlai and Rabbi Yohanan warned about these passages: Genesis 1:1, 1:26, 11:5, 19:24, 35:5, Deuteronomy 4:7, 2 Samuel 7:23, Daniel 7:9, Joshua 22:22, 24:19, Psalm 50:1.[10] This was either due to the plurality in term Elohim applied to God, to a corporeal manifestation of God, or due to grammatically more than one Divine referent presented in a passage. Abraham Cohen, a Jewish scholar, notes references in the Talmud where this concern for a plurality being attached to God is seen in Sanhedrin 38a, which states, “He created in the beginning one man only, so that heretics should not say that there are several powers in heaven”.[11] The rabbis were working to preserve the strict unitarianism they held to. At this time, other followers of the Bible were developing a different doctrinal interpretation based on all of the theological data presented in Scripture.
The third principle of Judaism states the belief in God’s non-corporeality, that He is not affected by any physical occurrences, such as movement, rest, or dwelling. However, as noted in several of the passages above, the Bible presents God in a corporeal manner on multiple occasions. In Genesis 32:22-32, Jacob wrestles with a man all night who ends up putting his hip out of socket. The man tells Jacob in verse 28 that he has striven with God and man and has prevailed. In verse 30, Jacob says that he had seen God face to face and yet his life was spared. If wrestling with another does not show their corporeality, the term has no meaning. Another passage showing corporeality is when Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up on the mountain and saw God and even ate and drank before Him according to Exodus 24:9-11. The passage even describes the details of this corporeal scene, saying what the bottoms of God’s feet looked like, that there was a pavement of stone, like the very heaven for clearness (Ex. 24:10). Now, the Old Testament clearly teaches that God is spirit and is transcendent, omnipresent and not limited corporeally or spatially, however the issue remains whether the Jewish theological system is consistent with all that the Bible says about God.
It has been shown here that on two accounts, Rabbinic theology cannot show itself consistent with all of the data given by Moses on the nature of God. Rabbinic theology affirms only passages on the unity of God but contradicts the passages on His plurality; it also only affirms the teaching on God’s transcendence and incorporeality while denying passages establishing His corporeal manifestations. There is a stark complexity concerning the divine being presented in Scripture that Rabbinic teaching fails to affirm. This amounts to committing the idolatry prohibited in Exodus 20:3. This also amounts to sinning against the warning in Deuteronomy 13:2, where one arises and entices God’s people to go after other gods which they have not known. Moses wrote of a God that is presented in the plural at times, and Jacob knew of a God who could manifest corporeally. The god of Rabbinic Judaism is different from both these descriptions.
Soteriology and Messianic Hope
The essential topic of salvation and atonement for sin is taken up now with the Rabbinic perspective laid out and then compared to the biblical view. It is clear from the torah itself that sinful man needs peace restored with God. Moses writes in Leviticus, speaking of this animosity when God says, “Then if you walk contrary to me and will not listen to me, I will continue striking you, sevenfold for your sins” (Lev. 26:21). According to Deuteronomy 28:15-68, even the hostility Israel would face between other nations is ultimately because of their hostile relationship with God. This confirms that Israel in particular and mankind in general need a salvation that includes forgiveness of their sins and reconciliation with God.
In Moses Maimonides’ work Mishneh Torah 1.3 and in the section on repentance (Hebrew teshuvah), he says, “At present, when the Temple does not exist, and there is no altar of atonement, there remains nothing else aside from Teshuvah. Teshuvah atones for all sins.”[12] The Babylonian Talmud, in Avot DeRabbi Natan 4, likewise supports the same notion of prayer and repentance replacing sacrifice when it narrates Rabbi Johanan Ben Zakkai comforting Rabbi Joshua who was grieving over the destroyed temple and he said, “My son, be not grieved, for we have another means of atonement which is as effective, and that is, the practice of loving kindness, as it is stated, For I desire lovingkindness and not sacrifice.” The position taken here by the authoritative Rabbis is that when the temple is not standing, and there is no way to properly make atonement by sacrifice with blood being shed and the priests performing the rituals, then repentance and prayer are sufficient. One way the Rabbinic tradition has argued for this position is to minimize the centrality and necessity of blood sacrifice. In response to this, Dr. Michael Brown has pointed out that a careful study of the Torah shows more chapters devoted to sacrifice and offerings than to sabbath observance, high holy days, idolatry, adultery, murder, and theft combined.[13]
To respond to the use of Hosea 6:6 to the effect that repentance and prayer replace blood sacrifice, the fact of how the original readers understood Hosea’s message cannot be missed. A good principle of hermeneutics is that a text can’t mean what it never meant. Hosea was a contemporary of Isaiah in the 8th century B.C.[14] Yet after his time, God spoke through Haggai in 1:8, saying, “Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the Lord.” It stands to question that if the Hosea passage means that the temple with its blood sacrificial system was no longer needed, why did God tell Haggai it was needed?
Next, in response to the Rabbinic use of Hosea 6:6, one must harken back to what Moses already taught in the torah, namely, that God provided the blood sacrificial system to make atonement and to forgive sin. In Leviticus 5:10, it teaches that once an offering of blood atonement is brought forth, then the sin shall be forgiven. Even in some cases where flour is brought by the sinner and given to the priests, the flour is then taken and made efficacious on the altar where blood atonement is made. In Leviticus 16, the focus is on the annual day of atonement, Yom Kippur, when the priests would confess all the sins of the people on the animal sacrifices and then kill them, whereby making temporary atonement (see verses 16 and 21). In the next chapter, 17: 11 clearly states that it is the blood that makes atonement by the life. Since the torah already taught that God provided atonement and forgiveness of sin by blood sacrifice, it is not warranted to interpret a later prophet to the contrary of this principle.
Lastly, to make sense of why Hosea reports God saying He does not delight in sacrifice, one must note how God looks at the hearts of man. Isaiah 29:13 shows God rebuking the Israelites because their hearts were far from Him even though they had external obedience. This is the principle that flows through the Bible, namely, external obedience must be coupled with internal obedience to God. In light of this, it becomes clear why at times God speaks against all kinds of law keeping, not only sacrificial ones. Proverbs 28:9 says, “If one turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination.” It does not follow that God rescinds the duty of prayer entirely, only that He counts it evil apart from internal obedience. Or with sabbath keeping and holy days, Isaiah writes in chapter 1, verses 13-14 of God’s repudiation of these as well when done without internal obedience. Ed Konig explains that the original audience of these prophetic writers would have understood the exaggerated, hyperbolic and emphatic ways of putting things at times.[15] Sometimes prophets can speak against a matter in a way that seems absolute, when in reality they are making a point of emphasis against a backdrop that calls for correction.[16] In summary, the biblical means of forgiveness of sin and atonement includes repentance and faith on the side of the sinner and then blood sacrifice on the side of the priest. The Rabbinic position denies that the latter is needed in spite of the biblical testimony to the contrary.
Next, the topic of the messiah will be dealt with. The messianic concept is related to the overall doctrine of soteriology since key passages in the Bible teach that the messiah is essential to the means of redemption. In Moses Maimonides’ 13 principles of the Jewish faith, number twelve deals with the messiah and states that the messiah will arrive one day with the messianic era. The sense here is that this is in the future and has not yet occurred. The rabbinic tradition is complex in its assertions about the messiah. Rabbi Hillel claimed that there is no more messianic expectation since Hezekiah was the messiah (B. Talmud Sanhedrin 98b). Obviously, Maimonides and Hillel disagree here. This leaves one in the rabbinic tradition who is looking for truth quite unsettled. In the Babylonian Talmud Sukkah 52a, it narrates how there are two messiahs: one who is the son of Joseph who would suffer, and the other who is the son of David who would raise the son of Joseph back to life after suffering. What is clear, however, is that the notion of one messiah coming before the second temple was destroyed in A.D. 70 is rejected as an authoritative view in Rabbinism.
Over and against these Rabbinic messianic views, the Hebrew Bible spoke of the messiah who was prophesied to come before the second Jewish temple was destroyed. Daniel 9:24-27 states, in a message given to Daniel in exile in the sixth century B.C., that seventy weeks were decreed to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. The following verses tie a messiah to this prophecy, saying that after 62 weeks, an anointed one would be cut off and have nothing. F.F. Bruce cites how the Jewish revolts in the first century leading up to the Roman destruction of the temple were based on a timeframe believed to be based on this passage in Daniel.[17] Sometimes Rabbinic apologists try to argue against the idea that the timing of the Daniel passage really adds up to the first century. However, against this, it is noteworthy that the Jews in the first century calculated according to the Christian interpretation. Other objections come from the fact that likely two messiahs are mentioned in the Daniel passage. Dr. Brown argues that the first messiah referenced in the text may have been Joshua the high priest during the return of the exiles from Babylon.[18] This does seem to be true; however, it does not make the Rabbinic position any more consistent with the Bible since the sum of the prophecy has a time limitation that ended around 2,000 years ago.
Another messianic passage with a time indicator is Genesis 49:10, which states that the scepter would not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him: and to him would be the obedience of the people. This messianic line gained clarity as more prophecies were later given to King David. However, it was noted by Rachmiel Frydland that even through the time of exile and return, there was always a political ruler of the line of Judah until the first century prior to the destruction of the Second Temple.[19] This shows that the messiah, according to the Bible, had to come nearly 2,000 years ago, since no recognizable political ruler remained in Judah’s lineage afterward. The Rabbinic notion defined by Maimonides does not seem to account for this.
Lastly, tied to the topic of the messiah is the messianic era. Daniel 2:36-45 narrates the interpretation of King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. He shows how there will be a reign of four kingdoms starting with the present one. In the fourth kingdom, verse 44 says that the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed. The calculations of these four kingdoms are usually identified as Babylon, Medea-Persia, Greece, and Rome. Most historians would safely mark the end of the Roman Empire to be 476 A.D., when the Ostrogoths invaded the Italian city of Ravenna.[20] This means that the messianic era was supposed to be set up over 1,500 years ago. If the Rabbinic view holds that this is still to be awaited, one must choose which authority to believe: the Bible or the Rabbis.
Ethics
Several examples of ethical commands proposed by Rabbinic tradition will now be examined and compared to the teachings of the Bible. One is found in Mishnah Sotah 9:9, where the rabbis nullify the command about breaking the heifer’s neck in Deuteronomy 21:1-9. In this same Mishnaic passage, the commandment about the jealousy waters found in Numbers 5:11-31 is also abolished by the rabbis. The reasoning is that Rabbi Yohanan Ben Zakkai annulled them based on Hosea 4:14, which states that God will not punish the daughters of Israel. Dr. Brown challenges this assertion, showing the arbitrariness of this abolition of biblical commands instructed by God.[21] Furthermore, as argued above, the prophets never contradicted Moses, who came before.
Next, the command of following the majority to exonerate is found in Mishnah Sanhedrin 1.6. The passage in view is Exodus 23:2, which states, “You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many, so as to pervert justice.” Here there is a stark contradiction where the Mishnah commands one to do the exact opposite of what is forbidden in the Torah. The Mishnah says one should follow the many to exonerate, while the Torah says not to do this. Dr. Brown says that this amounts to the Rabbis teaching people to follow them in the majority over and against the word of a prophet or from God Himself.[22]
A final example is regarding divorce. In the Orthodox Jewish Bible (the Stone edition), Malachi 2:16 reads, “For he who hates [his wife] should divorce [her], says HASHEM, God of Israel!” The Stone edition offers no rationale for why this is rendered this way. In other translations, such as the ESV, it states, “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the LORD, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence...” (Mal. 2:16). What the Bible condemns ethically, the Jewish translation prescribes. This is a serious matter since the ethics in marriage are the nucleus of society. One is left with a decision to make between which authority to obey: the Rabbis or God.
Why Christianity Alone is Consistent with the Old Testament
Theology Proper
As was laid out above, beginning with theology proper, inconsistencies were shown in the Rabbinic doctrine of God in light of the Old Testament revelation. Now, attention will be given to how the New Testament and later Christian doctrinal articulation alone fit the Old Testament.
Concerning the issue with the passages in the Old Testament teaching the oneness and plurality of God, the New Testament writers opened their volumes up, echoing this truth. For example, the Gospel of John begins with the phrase, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (Jn. 1:1). Here there is both the affirmation that God is one and the affirmation that God is plural in another sense. Notice that the Word is with God (plurality) and the Word was God (unity). James White notes how John’s use of “In the beginning” harkened back to the opening verses of the Torah in Genesis 1:1, demonstrating consistency between the two.[23] Some object that John was actually borrowing from earlier Greek and pagan ideas when he uses the term logos (word). However, as Ronald Nash has observed, this is to commit a fallacy of false cause, since coincidence does not prove causal connection.[24] Furthermore, John had ample foundation in the Old Testament uses of logos in Septuagint translations of Psalm 32:6 (33:6 in English translations), which state “By the Word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.” (LXX Ps. 32:6 Brenton translation). Larry Hurtado also recognizes how Philo of Alexandria during the same time as John’s writing (Philo not in the Rabbinic tradition) speaks of the logos as the second god, or in Greek ton deuteron theon and the God in whose image Adam was made in in Genesis 1:27. Philo refers to the logos as the firstborn, archangel, governor and administrator of all things and is the chief of God’s powers.[25] This is not to suggest that Philo was necessarily right in his entire estimation of the Logos, but rather it shows how a first-century Jew reading his bible gathered similar observations about the Logos from the Old Testament as John did and did not follow Rabbinic theological canons.
Early on in Church History, doctrinal formulations began to develop on the basis of the Scriptures to define orthodoxy and defend it against heresy. The Nicene Creed, written in A.D. 325 and revised at Constantinople in A.D. 381, stated: “And in the one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father. . . “[26] Notice the plurality between the Father and the Son affirmed here, yet the oneness of the divine substance is affirmed. The simple way of distinguishing between the oneness and plurality of God is to say that God is one in essence or substance, yet three in persons, co-equal and co-eternal.
The doctrine of the Trinity also makes sense of the twin truths revealed in the Old Testament that God is both incorporeal and yet can manifest in a corporeal way at times. John says in the New Testament that God is spirit in John 4:24 and in 1:18 that no one has ever seen God. Yet in John 1:14 it states that the Word or Logos became flesh, and in verse 18 that the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known. This shows that the God of the Bible can take on flesh and manifest Himself to His creation in a corporeal way if He so chooses. This explains what is narrated in Genesis 32 with Jacob wrestling God and Moses and the elders of Israel seeing God in Exodus 24. Michael Brown says of this profound truth, “This is a glorious revelation, and there is nothing idolatrous about it. It unfolds the mystery of the self-disclosure of the one and only God, hidden and yet revealed, invisible and yet seen, untouchable and yet touched by flesh and blood.”[27]
Soteriology and Messianic Hope
It was shown above how the Old Testament reveals that at the deepest level sinners needed salvation and reconciliation to God because of their sin. James White notes how in the Old Testament the strongest case is made for the wrath of God, citing passages of God hating sinners in Psalm 5:5 and 11:5.[28] God, in His grace, gave means and prescriptions on how to receive this: objectively, a blood sacrifice was needed; on the subjective side, repentance and faith were needed. It was shown how, in Rabbinic teaching following the destruction of the second Jewish Temple in 70 A.D., the need for blood sacrifice was denounced. But was this what the Old Testament taught? Certainly not. In the Torah, blood atonement was the means by which sinners were forgiven and restored to God. While in exile, the people had no assurance of securing their atonement with God. Daniel, however, was given a promise in Daniel 9:24-27 that before the destruction of the Second Temple, final atonement would be made, an end to sin would come, and everlasting righteousness would be brought in through a messiah.
Vern Poythress explains how the ceremonial aspects of the law of Moses served on one level to foreshadow the nature and work of Christ as our perfect and holy high priest in heaven.[29] Consistent with this, John records Jesus being called the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (Jn. 1:29). Paul taught that Jesus’ work of being crucified as recorded in the four Gospels served as the means of redemption to save sinners by the shedding of His blood (Rom. 3:24-25). Fitting with the timeline of Daniel 9, Jesus came into the world, claimed to be the Messiah, and offered Himself as the final means of atonement for His people around 40 years before the temple was destroyed. He did not have to be a literal lamb to qualify as the final atonement, as Isaiah notes in 52 and 53 that a human servant of the Lord would make vicarious atonement and be an asham or guilt offering for sinners. As Daniel 9 mentions, Jesus also brought in everlasting righteousness in two senses. First, He grants perfect positional righteousness before God to those who repent and trust Him, as Abraham did in Genesis 15:6. Secondly, He brings practical righteousness to the world through individuals who trust Him as they begin reforming their lives morally with new regenerated hearts. In sum, the New Testament records a perfectly consistent way for sinners to have salvation in the era following the destruction of the Second Temple, and that is by looking to the messiah Jesus, who fulfilled all the means necessary in the allotted timeline given by the Old Testament Scriptures.
Some object to the proposal of Christianity offering the fulfillment of the messianic hope promised in the Old Testament by pointing to the remaining evil in the world. “Why isn’t there peace on earth?” they ask. Michael Brown points out to this objection that the Christian messianic framework shows that Jesus fulfilled every prophecy needed up to this point, while the other prophecies are either being fulfilled progressively and/or will be completed in the future.[30] Several Old Testament passages speak of the progressive nature of this peace being spread in Isaiah 9:7 and 42:7. In other words, the Old Testament mention of complete peace on earth did not have the time limitation attached to them as do the priestly prophecies mentioned in Daniel 9 or the arrival of the Messianic kingdom spoken of in Daniel 2. In fact, it makes sense that, chronologically speaking, for God to promise the Messiah to come and reign as king, bringing justice to the world, as well as come as a priest making atonement for sinners, the latter would need to happen first. If the messiah came first as a king to judge evil, then everyone would be recipients of that judgment; no one would be redeemed. It makes sense in the meta-perspective of redemption: God first deals with sin by making atonement and then brings His rule and judgment to those who remain disobedient.
As mentioned above, the messianic kingdom was promised in Daniel 2 and in verse 44 especially. This time came and went with the fall of Rome nearly 1,500 years ago. The Christian timeline fits this perfectly since Jesus ascended to heaven, taking His seat in heaven as ruler before Rome fell in accordance with the heavenly scene in Daniel 7. In Acts 1, Jesus commissioned His church to disciple the nations (also see Matthew 28:18-20). Rachmiel Frydland even notes that Rabbinic literature acknowledges the timeline that accords with the Christian schema of things, citing Midrash Rabbah on Genesis 98:3, which states the school of Elijah taught: The world is to be for sex thousand years: two thousand empty without the torah; two thousand years with torah; and two thousand years messianic times.[31] Historian Tom Holland notes the many ways in which righteousness and prosperity have entered into the world because of the Christian revolution in his book Dominion. He mentions the charity exercised in the Roman world by the Christians. They would take in abandoned infants; they built the first hospitals and later Universities; they pioneered the modern scientific revolution; they abolished the slave trade. He even shows how modern social movements were founded on the idea of human rights, which derive from Christianity.[32] Vishal Mangalwadi records how Christianity, beginning in the 16th century, turned the entire economic direction of India around for the good; the political system, the abolition of widow burning, and entrepreneurial spirit in the land were realized, he says.[33] This fruit of righteousness and prosperity can be said only of the Christian revolution, making the credit being attributed to the Christian revolution significant. Any good the Rabbinic system of religion has brought to the world has been because of what it has in common with Christianity, namely, the Old Testament revelation, not because of anything unique to the Rabbinic tradition. Chiefly amongst all the good fruits brought to the world from Christianity, the knowledge of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and His Gospel of the forgiveness of sin has spread to the whole world for the past 2,000 years. Are conditions perfect? Far from it, but are they better than they were before Jesus came? Certainly. This fits with the progressive nature of the fruits of the messianic kingdom spelled out in the Old Testament. The spread of Christianity is bringing to fruition the prophecy that the knowledge of God will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea (Hab. 2:14).
Ethics
It is clear that the New Testament affirms the chief moral teachings found in the Old Testament. The command to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength is stated in Deuteronomy 6:5, and the command to love your neighbor as yourself is found in Leviticus 19:18. Jesus affirms these commands and treats them par excellence in Matthew 22:37-40. What is usually disputed are the commands that fall into the categories of dietary law and sabbath observance. It is claimed that the New Testament writers unhitch themselves from the Old Testament in these areas. However, it will be shown how their differences are justified from the Old Testament itself.
Deuteronomy 14 and Leviticus 11 lay out dietary instructions for the Israelites. A list of certain foods is prohibited to keep the people distinct from the other nations. However, these laws were not always in place. For example, in Genesis 1:29 God gave Adam every seed-bearing plant and every tree that bore fruit for food to eat. It seems that here Adam’s diet was to be plant-based only. Later, after the fall and the flood of Noah’s day, God gives a different instruction concerning diet. This time it includes everything that lives and moves (Gen. 9:3). Some object, saying there is a difference once the Mosaic commands are prescribed, since they are to be perpetuated forever. However, in response to this, it is important to note that the Hebrew term for forever, “olam” does not necessarily mean forever absolutely. One example is in Exodus 21:6, where the slave who had his master bore his ear through became his slave forever (olam). Of course, the term here only means for the remainder of the slave’s lifetime. The point being made is that there is substantial evidence in the Bible that God changes dietary codes in different times of redemptive history. There is no inconsistency, then, for the Messiah to come in the flesh, inaugurate the Messianic age, and change dietary codes as He did in Mark 7:19, declaring all foods clean.
Next is the issue with sabbath observance. The first thing to note before a justification is offered for the Christian view of the sabbath day observance is to say the obvious, which is that Rabbinic Jews, or those who make this objection, do not keep the sabbath in its entirety as prescribed in the Old Testament. When was the last time someone was put to death for picking up sticks on the sabbath? However, it must be said that many Christians through Church history have continued to keep the sabbath and refrain from work on Saturdays. Some traditions saw a change from observing Saturday to observing Sunday in light of the monumental resurrection of Jesus from the dead on Sunday. Others have seen a complete abrogation of the sabbath command. They see it as part of the ceremonial portion of the Mosaic law, which was fulfilled in Christ and now no longer literally applies as it once did (see Col. 2:16-17). Those on the side of complete abrogation cite Romans 14, where Paul seems to assume that a day of the week is not universally binding on Christians since he tells them to not pass judgment on differing opinions about this. Others have taken a middle route like John Calvin, who, according to R.J. Buckham, envisioned a practical sabbath as it relates to life in the New Covenant.[34]
To defend the most objectionable position stated above, such as the sabbath abrogation or practical relegation view, a couple of comments are needed. First, it is important to note that there is no recorded command to mankind to keep the seventh day of the week until Exodus 16:23-30, which is thousands of years after the creation of man. Yes, God is said to have rested from His work on the seventh day early on in Genesis, but not man. If this is true, then it is hard to argue that the sabbath observance of the seventh day is an absolute command for all ages. Another point should be made regarding the difference in the society of the people of God between the Mosaic covenant and the new covenant. Genesis 12 stated that the blessing of God through Abraham would encompass all peoples one day. The book of Daniel again echoes the promise of the messianic kingdom encompassing people from the whole earth in chapters 2 and 7. Isaiah 19 and 56 speak of foreigners being part of the people of God. The point is that it would not always be the case in God’s plan to deal only with a specific ethnic nation on the earth with strict feast days and rest days built into their societal structure. He planned eventually to have people from all ethnic groups as His own. This does carry practical implications for the observance of days of the week. Yes, moral principles are universal and absolute, but external observations of days are not necessarily. When God would save a slave of a non-believing master in the early Church, the slave was not allowed to rest on Saturday or even Sunday; was the saved slave in perpetual sin before God? This seems hard to affirm biblically. The argument in sum is that, given the absence of the command for strict sabbath observance before Moses, there is an indication that, like dietary codes, the observance of days was not absolute throughout all ages of redemptive history, including the Church era. And secondly, with the meta plan of God unfolding globally, and not restricted to ethnic- political Israel, it seems warranted to tolerate change in the bindingness of the sabbath command (at least in its exact and literal perpetuation).
Conclusion
It has been shown that contrary to the claim made by Rabbinic Jews that they are the true keepers of Old Testament religion, there are many essential inconsistencies between their theology and ethics and the Old Testament Scriptures. Also, rather than New Testament Christianity being an arbitrary and inconsistent add-on to the Old Testament, it has been shown that it alone is consistent with the Old Testament. It provides a fulfillment that meets the criteria of the timing and nature of what the Old Testament predicted about the Messiah and His kingdom, as well as a consistent theology and ethic to live by in this age of redemptive history. The reader is encouraged to see Christianity as consistent with and as the only true fulfillment of the Old Testament.
Author: Troy Goldsmith, founder of Aletheia Ministries, MA Liberty University, and current PhD student.
References:
[1] Arnold, Fruchtenbaum, “Judaism,” in The Evangelical Dictionary of World Religions, ed. H. Wayne House (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2018), 275-82.
[2] Flavius Josephus, The New Complete Works of Josephus, trans. William Whiston, comm. Paul L. Maier, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 1999), Wars of the Jews. Book 6. Para. 4.
[3] Michael F. Bird, Are You the One Who Is to Come? The Historical Jesus and the Messianic Question (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009), 61-62.
[4] Derek Cooper, Christianity and World Religions: An Introduction to the World's Major Faiths (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2013), 104-105.
[5] James R. White, What Every Christian Needs to Know About the Qur'an (Grand Rapids, MI: Bethany House Publishers, 2013), 171-189.
[6] Walter Martin, The Kingdom of the Cults, ed. Ravi Zacharias, Jill Martin Rische, and Kevin Rische (Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 2003), 198-200.
[7] Walter Martin, The Kingdom of the Cults, ed. Ravi Zacharias, Jill Martin Rische, and Kevin Rische (Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 2003), 236-237.
[8] Walter Martin, The Kingdom of the Cults, ed. Ravi Zacharias, Jill Martin Rische, and Kevin Rische (Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 2003), 323-324.
[9] Moses Maimonides, Maimonides—Essential Teachings on Jewish Faith and Ethics: The Book of Knowledge and the Thirteen Principles of Faith—Selections Annotated and Explained, trans. Marc D. Angel, SkyLight Illuminations Series (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing; Skylight Paths Publishing, 2014), xix.
[10] Alan F. Segal, Two Powers in Heaven: Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2012), 128-29.
[11] Abraham Cohen, Everyman's Talmud: The Major Teachings of the Rabbinic Sages (New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1949), 4.
[12] Moses Maimonides, Mishneh Torah: Hilchot Teshuvah—The Laws of Repentance, trans. Eliyahu Touger (New York: Moznaim, 1990), 1.3.
[13] Michael L. Brown, Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, vol. 2, Theological Objections (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2000), 73.
[14] David Alexander and Pat Alexander, eds., Eerdmans' Concise Bible Handbook (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1980), 233.
[15] Ed. König, “Style of Scripture,” in A Dictionary of the Bible: Dealing with Its Language, Literature, and Contents Including the Biblical Theology, ed. James Hastings et al. (New York; Edinburgh: Charles Scribner’s Sons; T. & T. Clark, 1911–1912), 5:164.
[16] Robert B. Chisholm, From Exegesis to Exposition: A Practical Guide to Using Biblical Hebrew (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1998), 175–176.
[17] F. F. Bruce, New Testament History (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1969), 380.
[18] Michael L. Brown, Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, Vol. 3: Messianic Prophecy Objections (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2003), 110.
[19] Rachmiel Frydland, What the Rabbis Know About the Messiah: A Study of Genealogy and Prophecy, 4th ed., ed. Elliot Klayman (Clarksville, MD: Messianic Publishing Company, 2012), 27.
[20] Jordan J. Ballor and Erik W. Matson, A History of Christian Political Economy: From the Patristics to the Present (Brentwood, TN: B&H Academic, 2026), 27–28.
[21] Michael L. Brown, Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, Volume 4: New Testament Objections (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2006), 214.
[22] Michael L. Brown, Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, Volume 5: Traditional Jewish Objections (Purple Pomegranate Productions, 2009), 69.
[23] James R. White, The Forgotten Trinity: Recovering the Heart of Christian Belief (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1998), 45.
[24] Ronald H. Nash, The Gospel and the Greeks: Did the New Testament Borrow from Pagan Thought? (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 2003), 198.
[25] Larry W. Hurtado, One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), 45.
[26] Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 1169.
[27] Michael L. Brown, The Real Kosher Jesus: Revealing the Mysteries of the Hidden Messiah (Shippensburg, PA: Frontline, 2012), 137.
[28] James R. White, The God Who Justifies (Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 2007), 101.
[29] Vern S. Poythress, The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1995), 99.
[30] Michael L. Brown, Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, vol. 1, General and Historical Objections (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2000), 69.
[31] Rachmiel Frydland, What the Rabbis Know About the Messiah: A Study of Genealogy and Prophecy, 4th ed., ed. Elliot Klayman (Clarksville, MD: Messianic Publishing Company, 2012), 91.
[32] Tom Holland, Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World (New York: Basic Books, 2019).
[33] Mangalwadi, Vishal. The Bible and the Making of Modern India. (Revised ed. N.p.: Sought After Media, 2025).
[34] R. J. Bauckham, "Sabbath and Sunday in the Protestant Tradition” in From Sabbath to Lord’s Day: A Biblical, Historical and Theological Investigation, ed. D. A. Carson (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 1999), 315-17.
