How were Old Testament believers saved?

Hey, thanks again for sending in questions related to our recent sermons. This last week we just completed our Jeremiah series, showing how really contained within the Book of Jeremiah is the story of the entire Bible, of creation, fall, God’s work um throughout the Bible to redeem us, teach us right from wrong, show us how he will bring us into the right, um climaxing at the hero who will work on our behalf uh to take the judgment we deserve, give us his righteousness, usher us into restoration

where the world will one day um be remade into new creation with new heavens and new earth. Really, we find all of that um in the Book of Jeremiah. Um but that can bring up the question before Jesus, before Jesus came, how were Old Testament believers saved? Um how did they take part in this redemption when this redemption had not yet arrived uh in the person of Jesus? Um and so first, we’ll say uh pretty definitively how they were not saved.

We know some things for absolute certain. They were not saved uh through obedience to the law, uh by fulfilling the law. You know, Galatians 2, Paul explains, if righteousness could be gained through the law, then Christ died for nothing. There would have been no point for Jesus to come if you could become righteous uh through the law.

Indeed, the entire point of Jesus coming is that we couldn’t be made righteous through the law. Um similarly, you know, Acts 15 there, um the early believers are gathering to try to decide what what parts of the law should we tell these new Gentile believers to follow? And they say in in Acts 15, we’re not going to give them the law because it’s a burden, you know, we can’t bear, our ancestors couldn’t bear.

It was too large, right? And so they were not saved through the law, for sure. Similarly, um they were not saved through the sacrifices, which of course, sacrifices are part of the law, but you know, it’s a subset. We’ll cover that too. Some people can have the idea of, oh, God and I are not okay. So in the Old Testament, what I needed to do in order to fix that problem was to take this sacrifice, um and then God and I would be okay again.

We know for sure that is not how it worked. Um you know, Isaiah 1, God says, stop bringing these meaningless sacrifices. The sacrifices aren’t what make you and I okay. Um it’s you can’t go do whatever you want and then just bring this um you know, animal to be slaughtered and mend things between us.

That’s not how it works. Um similarly, um Numbers 15 states explicitly, verse 30, there was no sacrifice for on-purpose, defiant sin. If you if you sinned unintentionally, all kinds of sacrifices for that, but if you did it on purpose, you knew what you were doing, you did it defiantly, he it just said you got to be cut off from your people. Um and so there wasn’t even a sacrifice for much of what we do wrong because much of what we do wrong is completely on purpose, right?

So the sacrifices would not uh restore them to God. Um so how then were they saved? Um again, we have a couple of pictures. We’re going to get to this in our Romans series in a few weeks. Uh Romans 4 describes Abraham was saved by faith. He was not saved by his works. He was saved by his faith, faith in what God would do, faith in what God had promised.

This is what saved him. You know, similarly, Jesus gives a picture in Luke 18. Uh two people went up up to the temple to pray, right? The the Pharisee and the tax collector. And the Pharisee says, thank thank you, God, I’m not like these other men who make all these mistakes. Um and the tax collector stands at a distance and only says, have mercy on me, oh God, you know, for I’m a sinner.

And Jesus says it’s the tax collector who went home justified, not the Pharisee, not the Pharisee who undoubtedly thought he was following all the law, not the Pharisee who undoubtedly brought, you know, whatever sacrifice needed to be brought. Not him. He’s not the one that went home justified. It’s the tax collector who’s done much, much, much wrong, who just says, have mercy on me, oh God, a sinner. It’s faith in God that he will save, that that redemption will come, that um restoration, the

promised restoration will apply to me, and I’m just counting on God to come through for me. That seems to be how Old Testament believers uh were saved. If they had that uh repentance, belief that God would forgive, that God would restore, that God would send the redemption that he had promised, you know, even though the redemption wasn’t here yet, just them uh acknowledging they were going to need it and believing that it would be provided.

That seems to be how they were saved. Um so we hope that’s helpful. Hope it helps remind us that like them, we will not be saved through acts of obedience. We will be saved through the savior who was promised, who came, died on our behalf, rose to life again. We’ll see you next time.