# How much of the NT is new information?



## WrittenFromUtopia (Jul 10, 2005)

How much of the NT is direct quotations from the OT, or allusions to and expouding upon the OT passages and themes? How much is unique material? Is it right to say the NT is really "new information" or simply a more complete explanation of the OT?


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## Robin (Jul 10, 2005)

Luke 24:25-27 (Jesus to the disciples on the Emmaus Road)
... "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

Robin


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## WrittenFromUtopia (Jul 10, 2005)

Please expound further. Are you saying that the authors of the NT were emphasizing what Christ taught them from the Scripture (OT)?


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## Robin (Jul 11, 2005)

> _Originally posted by WrittenFromUtopia_
> Please expound further. Are you saying that the authors of the NT were emphasizing what Christ taught them from the Scripture (OT)?



Well....I'd have to go back and ask, what do you mean by "new" information? 

After all, the NT is a completion and conclusion to the OT. The hints, types/shadows put-forth in the OT progressively unfold to a point - The Reality (Christ) climaxed in the NT - present as a sweeping drama of redemption - one story - laid out in a library (66 books) communicated over a large portion of human history. It's like an epic movie. To start reading at Matthew is like walking into the middle of the "movie."

For now, I couldn't say something new is revealed in the NT -- except the clarification of what's already been said; the inauguration of the New (and better) Covenant. "New" not meaning brand-new - but "new" in the sense of "WHO" mediates the covenant: Christ incarnate. (The inauguration beginning with His birth.)



r.


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## WrittenFromUtopia (Jul 11, 2005)

What I mean is ... brand new information, things not taught in some way or another (either by shadow, type, allusion or direct reference) in the Old Testament Scriptures.


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## Robin (Jul 11, 2005)

> _Originally posted by WrittenFromUtopia_
> What I mean is ... brand new information, things not taught in some way or another (either by shadow, type, allusion or direct reference) in the Old Testament Scriptures.



Well, in that case....nope - zero - not nothing, no how...



r.


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## biblelighthouse (Jul 12, 2005)

Hmmmm. . . . something NEW in the New Testament?

How about this:


" A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; *even as I have loved you*, that you also love one another. " (John 13:34)

The OT taught us to love our neighbors as ourselves (Lev. 19:18). But where did the OT ever teach us to love one another as Christ has loved us?

It seems to me that John 13:34 raised the love command to a whole new level.


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## WrittenFromUtopia (Jul 12, 2005)

> 1 John 2:7 Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard. 8 At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. 9 Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. 10 Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. 11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.


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## biblelighthouse (Jul 12, 2005)

and your point is? . . .


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## WrittenFromUtopia (Jul 12, 2005)

That isn't a new commandment, but an old one made figuratively new in Christ.


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## Philip A (Jul 13, 2005)

I just came across this as I was reading Reymond tonight. Warfield, when dealing with the doctrine of the Trinity had this to say relating to the subject at hand:




> [The Old Testament is like] a chamber richly furnished but dimly lighted; the introduction of light brings into it nothing which was not in it before; but it brings out into clearer view much of what is in it but was only dimly lit or even not at all perceived before. The mystery of the Trinity is not revealed in the Old Testament; but the mystery of the Trinity underlies the Old Testament revelation, and here and there almost comes into view. Thus the Old Testament is not corrected by the fuller revelation which follows it, but only perfected, extended, and enlarged.


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## biblelighthouse (Jul 13, 2005)

> _Originally posted by WrittenFromUtopia_
> That isn't a new commandment, but an old one made figuratively new in Christ.



Sorry, Gabe, but I don't see any reference to John 13:34 in your quote from 1 John.

Would you please go into a little more detail?

Where does 1 John say anything about us loving one another *as Christ loved us* being an old commandment?

(By the way, I hope you're right! I just want to concede based on proof, not based on my personal desire.)


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## just_grace (Jul 13, 2005)

'A New and Living Way' comes to mind. Thats what makes the New Covenant so special. It's what everybody was waiting for, even angels long to look into it


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## JKLeoPCA (Jul 13, 2005)

From Calvin's Institutes; Beveridge edition: Book II, Chapter XI, "The Difference Between the Two Testaments", point 1. 

1."What, then? you will say, Is there no difference between the Old and New Testaments? What is to become of the many passages of Scripture in which they are contrasted as things differing most widely from each other? I readily admit the differences which are pointed out in Scripture, but still hold that they degrogate in no respect from their established unity, as will be seen after we ahve considered them in their order. These differences (so far as I have been able to observe them and can remember) seem to be chiefly four or if you choose to add a fifth, I have no objections. *I hold, and think I will be able to show, that they all belong to administration rather than to substance. *In this way, there is nothing in them to prevent the promises of the Old and New Tetaments from remaining the same, Christ being the foundation of both. ..." 

(I reccomend the whole of the chapter, but will not reproduce it all here.)


Numbers 6:24-26


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Jul 13, 2005)

For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. (Rom. 10.4)

Matthew Henry:



> The subserviency of the law to the gospel (v. 4): Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. The design of the law was to lead people to Christ. The moral law was but for the searching of the wound, the ceremonial law for the shadowing forth of the remedy; but Christ is the end of both. See 2 Cor. iii. 7, and compare Gal. iii. 23, 24. The use of the law was to direct people for righteousness to Christ. (1.) Christ is the end of the ceremonial law; he is the period of it, because he is the perfection of it. When the substance comes, the shadow is gone. The sacrifices, and offerings, and purifications appointed under the Old Testament, prefigured Christ, and pointed at him; and their inability to take away sin discovered the necessity of a sacrifice that should, by being once offered, take away sin. (2.) Christ is the end of the moral law in that he did what the law could not do (ch. viii. 3), and secured the great end of it. The end of the law was to bring men to perfect obedience, and so to obtain justification. This is now become impossible, by reason of the power of sin and the corruption of nature; but Christ is the end of the law. The law is not destroyed, nor the intention of the lawgiver frustrated, but, full satisfaction being made by the death of Christ for our breach of the law, the end is attained, and we are put in another way of justification. Christ is thus the end of the law for righteousness, that is, for justification; but it is only to every one that believeth. Upon our believing, that is, our humble consent to the terms of the gospel, we become interested in Christ's satisfaction, and so are justified through the redemption that is in Jesus.



Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. (Gal. 3.24)



> The law was designed for a schoolmaster, to bring men to Christ, v. 24. In the foregoing verse, the apostle acquaints us with the state of the Jews under the Mosaic economy, that before faith came, or before Christ appeared and the doctrine of justification by faith in him was more fully discovered, they were kept under the law, obliged, under severe penalties, to a strict observance of the various precepts of it; and at that time they were shut up, held under the terror and discipline of it, as prisoners in a state of confinement: the design of this was that hereby they might be disposed more readily to embrace the faith which should afterwards be revealed, or be persuaded to accept Christ when he came into the world, and to fall in with that better dispensation he was to introduce, whereby they were to be freed from bondage and servitude, and brought into a state of greater light and liberty. Now, in that state, he tells them, the law was their schoolmaster, to bring them to Christ, that they might be justified by faith. As it declared the mind and will of God concerning them, and at the same time denounced a curse against them for every failure in their duty, so it was proper to convince them of their lost and undone condition in themselves, and to let them see the weakness and insufficiency of their own righteousness to recommend them to God. And as it obliged them to a variety of sacrifices, &c., which, though they could not of themselves take away sin, were typical of Christ, and of the great sacrifice which he was to offer up for the expiation of it, so it directed them (though in a more dark and obscure manner) to him as their only relief and refuge. And thus it was their schoolmaster, to instruct and govern them in their state of minority, or, as the word paidagogos most properly signifies, their servant, to lead and conduct them to Christ (as children were wont to be led to school by those servants who had the care of them); that they might be more fully instructed by him as their schoolmaster, in the true way of justification and salvation, which is only by faith in him, and of which he was appointed to give the fullest and clearest discoveries. But lest it should be said, If the law was of this use and service under the Jewish, why may it not continue to be so under the Christian state too, the apostle adds (v. 25) that after faith has come, and the gospel dispensation has taken place, under which Christ, and the way of pardon and life through faith in him, are set in the clearest light, we are no longer under a schoolmaster--we have no such need of the law to direct us to him as there was then. Thus the apostle acquaints us for what uses and purposes the law served; and, from what he says concerning this matter, we may observe,
> 
> 1. The goodness of God to his people of old, in giving the law to them; for though, in comparison of the gospel state, it was a dispensation of darkness and terror, yet it furnished them with sufficient means and helps both to direct them in their duty to God and to encourage their hopes in him.
> 
> ...


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## Robin (Jul 15, 2005)

(blowing whistle..)

Guys...I think we need to make the important distinction between "New" as in brand-new; "New" as in a different administration. Let's clarify the sense of the word: NEW.

The Gospel was given in Genesis 3:15 - cloaked in shadow....
I think we'd all agree that the entire OT is filled with all that "furniture" Warfield mentions. Psalms speaks of "singing a new song" which doesn't mean something other than known before...but a song related to the New Covenant that was looked to, at the time; the same covenant that saved David and Abraham, is the same one that saves us.

Also, the OT is not just about Law. The Gospel in the OT everywhere.

So, we must concede that "new" is meant in the sense of the one Who inaugurates the Covenant given to Abraham -- foretold in Genesis 3:15.

The New Testament is considered "new" because the benefits of it are bestowed upon the heirs after the death of the One Who owned the riches. Remember? We're talking about a legal will, here. Not a new brand of mouthwash or some other "thing."

Actually, new means better...

r.


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## Robin (Jul 15, 2005)

Here's why new means better:

Hebrews 7: 1 - 28 

For this Melchizedek-- King of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham and blessed him as he returned from defeating the kings, and Abraham gave him a tenth of everything; first, his name means "king of righteousness," then also, "king of Salem," meaning "king of peace"; without father, mother, or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God-- remains a priest forever. Now consider how great this man was, to whom even Abraham the patriarch gave a tenth of the plunder! The sons of Levi who receive the priestly office have a commandment according to the law to collect a tenth from the people--that is, from their brothers--though they have also descended from Abraham. But one without this lineage collected tithes from Abraham and blessed the one who had the promises. Without a doubt, the inferior is blessed by the superior. In the one case, men who will die receive tithes; but in the other case, Scripture testifies that he lives. And in a sense Levi himself, who receives tithes, has paid tithes through Abraham, for he was still within his forefather when Melchizedek met him. 

If, then, perfection came through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need was there for another priest to arise in the order of Melchizedek, and not to be described as being in the order of Aaron? For when there is a change of the priesthood, there must be a change of law as well. For the One about whom these things are said belonged to a different tribe, from which no one has served at the altar. Now it is evident that our Lord came from Judah, and about that tribe Moses said nothing concerning priests. And this becomes clearer if another priest like Melchizedek arises, who doesn't become a priest based on a legal command concerning physical descent but based on the power of an indestructible life. For it has been testified: You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. So the previous commandment is annulled because it was weak and unprofitable (for the law perfected nothing), but a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God. None of this happened without an oath. For others became priests without an oath, but He with an oath made by the One who said to Him: The Lord has sworn, and He will not change His mind, You are a priest forever. So Jesus has also become the guarantee of a better covenant. Now many have become Levitical priests, since they are prevented by death from remaining in office. But because He remains forever, He holds His priesthood permanently. Therefore He is always able to save those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to intercede for them. For this is the kind of high priest we need: holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. He doesn't need to offer sacrifices every day, as high priests do--first for their own sins, then for those of the people. He did this once for all when He offered Himself. For the law appoints as high priests men who are weak, but the promise of the oath, which came after the law, appoints a Son, who has been perfected forever. 

Robin


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## Larry Hughes (Jul 15, 2005)

> " A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. " (John 13:34)
> 
> The OT taught us to love our neighbors as ourselves (Lev. 19:18). But where did the OT ever teach us to love one another as Christ has loved us?
> 
> It seems to me that John 13:34 raised the love command to a whole new level.



Joe I don't think these differ. Both call for an altruistic love divested entirely of self or vested interest. John is merely raising the second table of the Law to the nth power, just like the Sermon on the M.

The point of loving our neighbor (just) as we love ourselves is that we love ourselves purely without other consideration, easily and naturally. To love our neighbor this way would be divested of all and any vested self interest - this we cannot do, thus condemned, Christ did and by trust/faith in Him the command is fulfilled for us. By trusting in Christ to having had removed the false pretense of being able to "please God" by our works toward our neighbor (really selfishness for the goal is not the neighbor's need but our pleasing God to save self, self interest driven) - by HIS work - then and only then, eyes upon Christ can we even begin, albeit imperfectly, to serve neighbor with no vested interest.

Ldh


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