I’ve always wondered about the Old Testament and the New Testament. Why are they both included as part of the Bible? Why does God seem to have a different set of rules in the New Testament? Is the Old Testament still important?
The Old Testament describes God’s original agreements with His people and how that panned out. Short answer: it didn’t go well. When God first created people, He gave us just one rule (don’t eat fruit off one particular tree), with fatal consequences if broken. We broke that rule almost immediately. But God relented and allowed us to live, albeit with ugly consequences.
Later He gave us some new rules that came with wonderful promises if we obeyed and dreadful warnings if we did not. These rules are collectively known as the Law. He really wanted us to obey the Law and live with His blessings. But again we went very far in the opposite direction. God still allowed His people to live, but again we had to live with the ugly consequences of our rebellion.
And now comes today’s verse which is sort of between the Old and New Testaments. Isaiah is prophesying that God will begin to relieve the horrors of those terrible consequences of our rebellion. He will do a “new thing”.
The New Testament is the story of that new thing: Jesus. Jesus summed up the Law for us in two simple commands: love God and love other people. The huge difference with this new thing — the new rule, the new agreement — is that God knows I will fail again. He planned for that. He sent Jesus to take my disobedience upon Himself and die for it so I don’t have to. All I have to do is accept that gift from Jesus and keep trying to love.
Imagine a kid in a batting cage excited to try to hit baseballs coming out of a pitching machine. The balls are flying hard and fast. The coach is standing by the machine telling the kid where to stand safely and how and when to swing. The kid thinks she knows better and steps too close to the plate. Smack! She gets hit in the elbow because she didn’t listen to the coach.
She really wants to learn to hit fast balls though so once she recovers the coach gives her a helmet and an elbow guard, but she tosses them aside saying they are too cumbersome. She thinks she knows better. She steps up to the plate and crowds it. Smack! She gets hit in the shoulder.
The coach is sad. The kid is in pain.
The coach watches the kid try to recover and comes up with a new plan. He calls over his son, Jesus. He says, “Jesus, go stand between the ball machine and that kid. If she crowds the plate again, stand so that the ball will hit you instead.” Jesus agrees.
Hopefully when I am that kid, I accept Jesus’s gift and thank him, but also try my hardest to obey and not step into the line of fire.
Dear God,
Thank you for your new wonderful plan to save me from myself and my own stupidity and selfishness. Thank you for sending Jesus to die on my behalf so I don’t have to worry about my past sins. Guide me toward obeying you in the future and give me strength and wisdom to avoid making the same stupid, selfish mistakes again.
CamDevo 