Two Testaments, One God

[HKHaugan]

Two Testaments, One God

“We have a strong city, God makes salvation its walls and ramparts. Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter, the nation that keeps faith. You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you (Is.26:1-3).”

First, it is important that we don't view the God of the Old Testament and its prophets as different than the God of the New Testament whom Jesus reveals. The first sets the stage. The second carries it out. The world to which the Old Testament spoke had fallen away so dramatically from its spiritual roots that the people saw only the physical and made up gods and idols to satisfy their fears of it. People in that time were always living in the fear of imminent death through, war, disease and starvation. Fear of what might lie behind what they could see was their spiritual motivation. Their self constructed gods were created to deal with their fears. Their fears were what drove them to live as they did.

When we consider our real nature, that we are spiritual beings, images of God, the above passage solidifies our position in Christ. What Isaiah is doing is underscoring what he knew was the difference between the calling his people had received and the idolatry of the rest of the peoples in the world. God's people believed and trusted in one God who created and ruled the universe. He was a personal spiritual God who cared for the people He had chosen to be a witness to His presence. He had made His people to be spiritually conscious as they approached each day. They were to see all physical circumstances as shadows of spiritual reality as opposed to surviving the stresses strains of physical reality. Isaiah's calling as a prophet was to keep that calling in front of them.

The Old Testament calls the world to accountability. Note those first words: “We have a strong city, God makes salvation its walls and ramparts.” Salvation is the spiritual focus here. Salvation is the unbreakable bond that makes a community spiritually whole, spiritually alive and personally held together by God, the One God who rescued its people from the spiritual darkness to which had descended. The real terror is not in what they can see but in what they can't see. For God came to rescue them from the spirits of fear, depression, aloneness, rage, anger, deceit and all the broad band of evil entities that assailed them. This was the prophet's message directly from God. If any set of verses gives us the ultimate reality behind all the world's issues it is this one. Salvation, being saved, being rescued, being lifted up out of danger and the daily invisible scourge that besets every person's 'why?'; why me, why suffering, why conflict, war and personal tragedy? From the dreaded end called death, salvation builds a wall against the inner heart's struggle for answers and comfort.

This is the Old Testament message: God revealed Himself to save the inner most from the outer most. He reversed the way fallen mankind thinks. He came to restore the heart spiritually and to restore the rest of the world through faith and action. The walls are made of the faith that surrounds our hearts. The ramparts are the gifts that empower ministry to others. Both are the substance of the way God calls us to handle every personal issue that hinders us from fulfilling our meaning and purpose as spiritual beings.

What the Old Testament began the New Testament finishes. When God became a human being in Jesus, the heart had a perfect heart it could follow. Jesus has that heart and the mind and Spirit to fulfill the restoration process. When vs.2 says “Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter” it then says how that happens: “the nation that keeps faith.” Faith in Jesus is the key. Faith is the definition of righteousness. Now here is the point, faith in Jesus is the key to salvation, to the restoration of the heart, mind and spirit, the image of God. We were created for this purpose, this salvation, this wall, these ramparts. And to top it off the Lord gives us peace because our mind is set on Him, because our heart trusts in Him. Note how personal this is. Our mind, heart and spirit are personally delivered to a stability that rises above the unstable world in which we live. This is relational and it is eternal.

Three things happen: first, God restores our identity. In Jesus we are His younger brothers and sisters. We are children of the Father and spiritually empowered by the Holy Spirit. We are disciples of Jesus, inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven, royal priests serving the High Priest, Jesus and witnesses and missionaries who make more disciples. Jesus is our salvation, our relationship with Him.

Second, He brings us into a spiritual family, the Body of Christ. Here we share our identity with one another through worship, grow as disciples through the shared ministry of spiritual gifts and the study of Scripture to learn God's will for each of us personally.

Third, He gives us the necessary spiritual tools to be a nation of rescuers: belief for the mind, trust for the heart and faith for the spirit. Spiritual gifts are the job descriptions that each of us are given to practice our citizenship in the spiritual family and then, through them, to build our witness for the daily world in which we live. And, so that we may exercise our faith with His Spirit in mind, He gives us the fruit of the Holy Spirit: joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

So, in both Testaments, we see the same Lord working out His purposes among us. The walls of belief for the mind, trust for the heart and faith for the spirit, surround us. The ramparts of worship, discipleship, ministry and mission extend us into where we live and work. Prayer is our networking with God and one another. Salvation is the power in each.

The Testaments testify, give testimony, are testifiable and give us testifiability.