by D. Collier Brown
Since the days of the Reformation, evangelicals have affirmed that faith in Christ alone is the means of our salvation. They have also affirmed that hearing of Him and His atoning death is necessary for saving faith. Today, however, some are arguing that since numerous Old Testament saints were saved without knowledge of Christ, the same must be true in our day. They conclude that people in other religions who rely on the grace of the Creator through general revelation may be saved without ever receiving special revelation regarding Jesus.
That Old Testament saints were saved by faith is true, but that the content of their faith was just a general faith in God the Creator without a hope and trust in the Messiah to come is not true.
The New Testament clearly regards the person and work of Christ to be the content of saving faith since His coming to earth. But what about the Old Testament? Was the object of saving faith different before the advent of Christ? Was it sufficient to simply believe in a gracious God with no concept, understanding, or hope of the coming Messiah? And would such faith be the means of forgiveness? How does the Old Testament itself answer these questions?
Christ in the Old Testament
Christ is revealed throughout the Old Testament and is its central theme. Our Lord Himself makes this abundantly plain in Luke 24:25-27 where He admonishes the men on the Emmaus Road for not believing all that the prophets had spoken regarding Him, especially concerning His suffering and death. Think with me for a moment of the places they could have found Christ.
• He was the seed of the woman who would one day bruise the head of the Satan (Gen. 3:15).
• He was found in the form of a type through the person of Melchizedek (Gen. 14:17-24; cp. Heb. 7).
• He was the seed of Abraham, the one with whom the Father would make an everlasting covenant (Gen. 15:6; 17:7).
• He was one of the three men who stood before Abraham (Gen. 18:1-33).
• He was typified through the offering of the Passover lamb (Exod. 12:1-36).
• He was seen repeatedly in and through the other offerings and sacrifices of the Mosaic Covenant which proclaimed that there is no forgiveness without the shedding of blood (cp. Heb. 9:11-28).
• He was the rock in the wilderness which produced water for the children of Israel (Numb. 20:8-11; cp. I Corinthians 10:4).
• He was promised by Moses as the superior prophet to come (Deut. 18:15-18).
• He appeared in pre-incarnate form to Joshua (Josh. 5:13f) and later to Gideon (Judg. 6:11f).
• He is David’s son who would reign forever on David’s throne (2 Sam. 7:12-29; cp. Acts 2:22-36).
• He is foreshadowed by the kinsman redeemer in the book of Ruth.
• He is the Lord’s anointed who would be King in Zion (Psa. 2).
• He is predicted to be Mighty God and Prince of Peace (Isa. 9:1-7).
• He is the Lord’s suffering Servant who would be crushed for our iniquities (Isa. 53).
• He is the Son of Man who approaches the throne of the Ancient of Days (Dan. 7), and the Messiah who was to come (Daniel 9:24-27).
• He is the Ruler from eternity past (Micah 5:2).
• He is the coming King (Zechariah).
Now consider the kind of things the New Testament writers had to say about Christ, particularly regarding the need to trust in Him for forgiveness of sins.
• Zacharias and Simeon acknowledged that Jesus was the one promised of old who would accomplish redemption for His people (Luke 1-2).
• Zacharias recalled that this was all based upon the oath (His holy covenant) which God had sworn to “Abraham our father” (Luke 1-2).
• Jesus affirmed that Abraham was aware of the future day when the Christ would come to the earth (John 8:56).
• Peter proclaimed that David looked ahead to the resurrection of the Christ when he wrote in Psalm 16 that God’s Holy One would not be allowed to undergo decay (Acts 2:25-36).
• Stephen told the religious leaders that their fathers had persecuted the prophets who had announced the coming of the righteous one—the very one that they had recently put to death (Acts 7:51-53).
• Philip explained the meaning of Isaiah 53:7 to the Ethiopian eunuch and, in doing so, preached Jesus to him so that he was saved (Acts 8:26-36).
• Peter said, “Of [Christ] all the prophets bear witness that through His name every one who believes in Him has received the forgiveness of sins” (Acts 10:43).
• Paul quoted Isaiah 28:16 in reference to Christ “Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, and the one who believes in Him will not be disappointed” (Rom. 9:33).
• Paul asserted that the gospel of Christ was preached to Abraham in his day (Gal. 3:8.
• Paul made a direct link between the faith that Abraham had regarding the promised seed (the Messiah) mentioned in Genesis 15:1-6, and his being declared righteous (Rom. 4:3).
• Paul explained to Timothy that it was through the Old Testament Scriptures that he received the wisdom necessary for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus (2 Tim. 3:15).
• Hebrews 11:24-26 pronounces that Moses, during his lifetime on earth, considered the reproach of Christ to be greater riches than the treasures of Egypt because he was looking to the ultimate and the heavenly reward.
I labor this in order to establish that Jesus Christ was not only revealed throughout the Old Testament, and at some length,but also to affirm that the content of saving faith in the Old Testament included belief in the promised Messiah who would come to bring forgiveness of sins. The only difference between their faith and ours is the amount of detail about Christ available to them. Like ours, theirs was a faith in God’s provision through His Son. Like ours, theirs was a belief that God wouldprovide a redeemer, a sin bearer. And they even seemed to have had some understanding of the need for the redeemer to shed His blood and be raised from the dead.
So, what of those who claim that the content of saving faith in the Old Testament only consisted of a general faith in the grace of the God of creation? On what basis do they make this assertion and how would we answer their arguments?
Ephesians 3
Some go to Ephesians 3:1-13 and say that Paul there teaches that the gospel of Jesus Christ was a mystery in the Old Testament and was hidden in God. Thus, they affirm that the content of faith during that period could not have included the essential elements of the gospel. But is that what the passage really teaches? In verse 5 Paul says: “[The mystery of Christ] which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit…” Notice that Paul does not say that the gospel of Christ was not in the Old Testament, just that it was not there as it has now been revealed, that is, not in as much detail as in the New Testament.
Romans 4
Some make a similar argument from Romans 4:16-18, claiming that Paul attributes Abraham’s faith to the promise that he would be the father of many nations; it was his faith in this promise that resulted in his justification. In other words, Abraham simply believed in the promise that a multitude of physical descendants would come forth from his loins, and that faith was sufficient to save him. But is this what the apostle understood?
Let’s examine the context. Certainly, we can agree that the promise regarding physical offspring is in view; Abraham hoped against hope in order that he might be a father of many nations (Genesis 17:5). But there is more. Verse 18 adds that the promise regarding many nations was according to that which was spoken, “so shall your seed be” (Genesis 15:5). This means that more than the multitude was in Abraham’s mind. There was another seed, a spiritual seed, in view. Paul refers to this seed in Galatians 3:15-18 and says that “seed,” singular, is a reference to the Messiah. Abraham had been given knowledge of this seed and had it in his mind when he believed God. He most certainly did not see the promise of Christ as clearly as we do, but he saw it nonetheless. And his trust in it resulted in his justification by God.
Galatians 3
Others cite Galatians 3:6-9 to argue that the gospel preached to Abraham was different than the gospel proclaimed in our day, that it only dealt with the fact that all the nations would be blessed in Him (Genesis 12:3). But surely this passage, as well as Romans 4:1-5, makes it clear that there was more. Both texts state that Abraham was not reckoned righteous until he believed God’s promise about his seed to come. Furthermore, in John 8:56 Jesus says that Abraham, during his lifetime, looked forward to His future day and saw it and was glad. And Zacharias (Luke 1:67-79) links Christ’s coming to accomplish redemption for His people with the oath which God swore to Abraham their father.
Melchizedek, Job, Jonah, and Hebrews
Still others point out that the Old Testament refers to righteous men such as Melchizedek and Job, who were not descendants of Abraham, and does not make clear the content of their faith. Then they point to the message which Jonah preached to Nineveh and say that elements of the gospel regarding the Messiah were not included for them to believe. And, they argue, many Old Testament saints are listed in Hebrews 11 without affirming that they had faith in Christ. How do we answer these objections?
The argument about Melchizedek and Job is simply an argument from silence. We are not told the content of their faith, but that does not prove their ignorance of the coming Christ. As for many of the Old Testament saints mentioned in Hebrews 11, the faith in view is not saving faith but the believer’s faith as he walks with God after coming to know Him. Finally, regarding Nineveh and Jonah’s message to them, we know that they repented of their atrocities, and that God relented concerning the calamity which he had declared He would bring upon them. But that is all we know with certainty. What we do not know is whether they believed God with a saving faith. In other words, they repented unto temporal life, but whether they repented unto eternal life is unsure.
Conclusion
In the final analysis, both Testaments make it clear that the content of saving faith in the Old Testament is the same as the content of saving faith in the New. It is a faith which looked to God’s promise of the provision in His Son, the Messiah. It was a faith that understood that this promised one would come and ultimately deal with their sin and bring redemption to God’s people. It was a faith (for many of them) which understood that this coming one would shed His blood and rise again for the remission of their sin. Certainly it did not encompass all the details of the New Testament saint’s faith, but it did include the essential elements of that faith. Thus, the gospel is unchanged under both the Old and the New Covenants. All men in all times are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.