Is "New Testament Christian" a Useful Term?
Under-selling the OT
One of the terms we in the churches of Christ like to use for ourselves is “New Testament Christians.”
While the reasoning behind this is sound—the church was founded in the pages of the New Testament and we become Christians and operate within the bounds of its doctrines—it can also be a hindrance to the full-orbed discipleship God intended for us to have.
Yes, we need to know what Jesus did in His time on earth, and we need to study what Paul and his cohorts had to say about the church and Christian living. But our Christianity is not divorced from the Old Testament.
So many times we seem unsure of what to do with the first 2/3 of the Bible. “Do we even need it?” some ask.
Consider what we stand to gain from studying the Old Testament
Christ-like Character
The New Testament is far more influential to our religious practices, obviously. We meet on Sunday, not Saturday, we observe the Lord’s Supper, not Passover, and so on. But while the New Testament has plenty of teachings on the righteous lives we are supposed to live, the Old Testament goes much further.
With its heavier emphasis on narrative, the Old Testament shows us God in interaction with mankind. It shows us what He cares about and what He demands. It shows us the kind of faith He wants to see (David’s, for example) and the kind He doesn’t (Jonah’s, for example).
When Paul said “All Scripture is inspired and profitable…” (2 Timothy 3:16-17), the Scriptures he had in mind at the time were those of the Old Testament. That’s all they had. Now that we have the New, his words apply to it just as equally. But at the time what he was urging Timothy to preach for reproving, rebuking, and exhorting were found in Genesis-Malachi.
Downplaying the Old Testament as part of our faith leads us to confess a soft Marcionism. “Marcion the Heretic,” as church history remembers him, insisted that the god of the Old Testament was a different, evil god and Jesus represents the real God’s efforts to save us from the Old Testament god.
Very few people believe this, but we often act like it when we cast Jesus as a change in direction with regards to issues like violence and confrontation. The God who looked favorably on David for killing Goliath is the same God who told us to love our enemies. We can’t just choose one of the two or say God changed.
Family History
Not only is the Old Testament useful for teaching and shaping us, but it is also our family history. When a child is adopted, they take on their new family’s last name. They receive new grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. The family’s history becomes just as much their history as it is for biologically born sons and daughters.
In the same way, the Old Testament’s history and lineage no longer belongs to the ethnically Jewish people.
Yes, we gain our understanding of the church from the New Testament—but we are also children of Abraham (Galatians 3:7). No, we aren’t genetically Jewish, but we are spiritually God’s chosen people, grafted in to the family of God, having received the circumcision of the heart (Romans 2:29, 11:19).
The “we” and “you” pronouns of Ephesians 1-3 show God’s plans for both the Jews and Gentiles, bringing us together into one new family.
You could almost call Abraham, Moses, David, and company a sort of pre-Christian. They were looking ahead (Hebrews 11:10), resting on the promises (Hebrews 11:39-40), awaiting the Seed (Psalm 110:1), and receiving righteousness credited to them because of their faith (Genesis 15:4, expounded in Romans 3-5). The system didn’t change nearly as much as we think it did.
Deeper Understanding
Finally, the Old Testament gives all kinds of color to our understanding of the New. Paul, John, Luke, and company were not starting with a blank slate when writing the texts that give structure to the Christian faith. Everything they wrote is sourced heavily from the Law and the Prophets.
Without a proper understanding of the Old Testament to guide us, our grasp of the New Testament will always be shallow and in danger of misunderstanding important context.
“It’s just a term, though,” someone might counter.
To that I would ask, is it really? The Old Testament makes up 75% of the Bible. Do we spend even 50% of our time in it?
Literally all we have of God’s special revelation to mankind is a collection 66 books. That’s it. And yet 39 of them are placed on a second tier. If we’re honest, about 35 of the 39 are placed on an even lower tier than that. We would do well to seek more balance.
So yes, the New Testament is always going to have a more direct, obvious tie into who we are and what we do. But that does not mean we are only Christians of the New Testament. No, we are Biblical Christians.
Notes
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The Old Testament points to Christ over and over and over, particularly in the prophets and the Psalms, many of which are fulfilled in him. Look at Peter’s first sermon in Acts 2, where he uses Psalm 16 as a proof text for the resurrection!! Not to mention Psalm 22 which describes the details of the crucifixion!
I was once told that you would not understand a third of the New Testament if you didn’t study the Old Testament. On another note, the term “born again Christian” is as just as confusing.