When Did the Old Testament End?

When Did the Old Testament End?

The Bible speaks numerous times about believers being heirs of God, or about them having an inheritance.

And if we are children, then we are heirs; heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ; so that if we suffer with Him, we may also be glorified together. (Rom 8:17 NKJV)

…giving thanks to the Father, who has made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. (Col 1:12 NKJV)

Now it logically follows that in order for us to become heirs of God, He had to have a testament that specified that we would inherit from Him. The Bible has two Testaments, namely the Old and New Testament. Both the Hebrew and Greek words used for “testament” in the Bible can also be translated to mean “covenant”. Whenever the context had to do with relationship, it was translated as “covenant”. Whenever the context was about inheritance, it was translated as “testament”:

G1242 διαθήκη dee-ath-ay'-kay

From G1303; properly a disposition, that is, (specifically) a contract (especially a devisory will): - covenant, testament.

It is common logic that if a person goes to their attorney and requests to draw up a new testament or to make changes to their current one, that the old one is rendered invalid. In the same way God drew up His Old Testament, but later established a new one to replace it! We’ll get to the scriptures to prove this shortly.

In Genesis 12, 15, 17 and 22 we see God instating a covenant / testament with Abraham. It is important to see that initially the only heirs of this testament were Abraham and his natural descendants, who were called the Hebrews, who later also become known as Israel and still later were called Jews. The inheritance that God gave to them was the Promised Land, a geographical area called Canaan.

In short this was the entire Old Testament. Neither the Philistines, the Assyrians, the Egyptians nor any other nation became heirs under the Old Testament, because we see God in numerous instances acting against these nations in favor of Israel - the only nation who inherited under the Old Testament.

Moses later also became the mediator of the Old Covenant made between God and the nation of Israel. God gave them the law which enforced the Old Covenant and it was upheld by the blood of animal sacrifices:

Therefore not even the first covenant was dedicated without blood. For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself, and all the people, saying, "This is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you". (Heb 9:18-20 NKJV)

Jesus’ Superior Blood

In Hebrews 9 we see a stark contrast being drawn between the blood of animals (which in essence kept the Old Covenant alive) and the blood of Jesus, the spiritual “animal” (have you ever wondered why Jesus was called the Lamb of God?) offered as a perfect once for all sacrifice for sin:

For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? (Heb

9:13-14 NKJV)

And also in Hebrews 10:

For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins. (Heb 10:4 NKJV)

And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. For by one offering He has perfected for ever those who are being sanctified. (Heb 10:11-14 NKJV)

All Nations Included In The New Covenant

Later in Galatians 3 we see that God made a New Testament that drew all the nations of the earth into the covenant which God had made with Abraham:

Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many, but as of one, “And to your Seed,” who is Christ.  (Gal 3:16 NKJV)

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. (Gal 3:28-29 NKJV)

Nowhere under the Old Testament was any command given to Israel to spread and preach the gospel to any other nation on the earth, because only Israel were heirs under the Old Testament. But under the New Testament in Matthew 28:19 (after the cross) we have the great commission where the disciples were commanded to take the gospel to all the nations. Jesus became the mediator of a New Covenant or Testament, writing it in His own blood (not the blood of animals):

And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. (Heb 9:15 NKJV, emphasis added)

When Does a Testament Come Into Effect?

A testament or will only comes into power whenever somebody dies. In essence an heir cannot inherit if the testator (person who wrote the testament) is still alive.

In the case of a will it is necessary to prove that the person who made it has died, for a will means nothing while the person who made it is alive; it goes into effect only after his death. (Heb 9:16-17

GNB)

Now consider this: During the 30 years or so that Jesus lived on the earth and the three years that He ministered before He died, under which testament did He live? Under the old of course! He was still alive and we just saw in the previous two verses that a testament does not come into effect while the person who wrote it is still alive.

Some people claim that they still have to obey the Old Covenant Law simply because Jesus did it. Well

Jesus had to obey it because He was born under the Old Testament and had to fulfill it!

But when the right time finally came, God sent his own Son. He came as the son of a human mother and lived under the Jewish Law. (Gal 4:4 GNB)

During His time on the earth we never see Jesus preaching the gospel of the Kingdom to anybody other than the Jews, because He was still living under the Old Testament and He wasn’t allowed to share any of Israel’s inheritance with non Jewish people. One time though we see Jesus venturing to a geographical area outside of Galilee and running into a Canaanite woman, who wasn’t a Jew:

Then Jesus went out from there and departed to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him, saying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David!  My daughter is  severely demon-possessed.”  But He answered her not a word. And His disciples came and urged Him, saying, “Send her away, for she cries out after us.” But He answered and said, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Then she came and worshiped Him, saying, “Lord, help me!” But He answered and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.” And she said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat

the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered and said to her, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour. (Matt 15:21-28 NKJV)

In essence the woman was saying: “Lord if there is any surplus left of God’s blessings, please help me!” And by faith this woman was grafted into the New Covenant even before it was time for the Gentiles to become partakers! We also see a few other similar examples in the Bible like Rahab the prostitute who hid the spies in Jericho, Ruth the Moabite, Naaman the Syrian who was cleansed of leprosy after washing himself seven times in the Jordan at the instruction of Elijah, etc. By faith these people transcended time and received their inheritance long before it was actually due to become theirs.

So When Did The Old Testament Really End?

The crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ is described in Matthew 27, Mark 15, Luke 23 and John 19. If we take for example the book of Matthew and note that chapter 27 is where the New Testament came into effect (because this is where Jesus died), this implies that everything before Matt 27 was Old Testament because the New Testament hadn’t been established yet! Therefore according to its legal validity the New Testament actually only begins in Matthew 27 (and Mark 15, Luke 23 and John 19, after the crucifixion). Everything before these chapters is Old Testament.

So if the New Testament began at Golgotha with the death of Jesus Christ (remember Hebrews 9:16-17 above), it must mean that the Old Testament had to have been cancelled somewhere before that. God would not just leave a covenant hanging up in the air. And if He did end the Old Covenant, then there is no more reason to want to live under the Old Testament Law. We find a prophecy pertaining to this made by the prophet Zachariah at about 520BC. We’ll share the story interwoven with the scriptures:

God was the shepherd of the flock of Israel under the Old Covenant, caring for them with His staff that He called “Favor” (and another one called “Union”).

Those who bought and sold the sheep hired me, and I became the shepherd of the sheep that were going to be butchered. I took two sticks: one I called "Favor" and the other "Unity." And I took care of the flock. (Zech 11:7 GNB)

The staff called “Favor” symbolized the covenant He had made with the nation of Israel. The problem with this flock of sheep was that they were continually running after idols and persisted in rebelling against their Shepherd. Now the Shepherd had just about had enough and told them that He was going to quit.

Then I said to the flock, "I will not be your shepherd any longer. Let those die who are to die. Let those be destroyed who are to be destroyed. Those who are left will destroy one another" (Zech 11:9 GNB)

He also requested that they pay Him for the services He had rendered, but if they didn’t want to pay Him that they could just leave it.

I said to them, "If you are willing, give me my wages. But if not, keep them." So they paid me thirty pieces of silver as my wages. (Zech 11:12 GNB)

And on the day that Jesus was betrayed for thirty pieces of silver by Judas Iscariot, God broke His staff and ended the covenant He had made with Israel.

Then I took the stick called "Favor" and broke it, to cancel the covenant which the LORD had made with all the nations. (Zech 11:10 GNB)

If we look at the context of Zechariah 11 we will see “all the nations” only refer to Israel and Judah.

Then I broke the second stick, the one called "Unity," and the unity of Judah and Israel was shattered. (Zech 11:14 GNB)

Now here’s a real gem: Over five hundred years before Christ was betrayed, the prophet Zechariah spoke these words:

And the LORD said to me, “Throw it to the potter” - that princely price they set on me. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the LORD for the potter. (Zech 11:13 NKJV)

Thirty pieces of silver was the commonly agreed price paid to an owner if his slave was injured while working for someone else and also the price that Jesus was betrayed for by Judas Iscariot. So we see God sarcastically say that they paid a “princely price” for Him. The Son of God was betrayed for the price of an injured slave! And then we see the following scripture in Matthew 27 (note the part about the “potter”):

Then Judas, His betrayer, seeing that He had been condemned, was remorseful and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” And they said, “What is that to us? You see to it!” Then he threw down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed, and went and hanged himself. But the chief priests took the silver pieces and said, “It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, because they are the price of blood.” And they consulted together and bought with them the potter’s field, to bury strangers in. (Matt 27:3-7 NKJV)

See Zech 11:13 above again - the prophecy even described the potter’s field!

We see therefore that the Old Testament came to an end when Jesus was betrayed for thirty pieces of silver and in the spiritual realm broke His staff that symbolized His covenant with Israel. But praise be to God that only several hours later He wrote a New Covenant with His own blood, a Testament that included all the nations of the earth and allowed us to become His children and heirs through faith in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ!