Continuity
Jesus didn’t just drop into a world that knew nothing about his coming. In fact, he was born among a people who traced their ancestry back through Jacob, Isaac, Abraham, and all the way to Adam. That’s a long line of people to whom God made wonderful promises.
At first glance, it may seem like the sort of community who would be most prepared to receive God’s messiah, and in some ways they were!
Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God.
Romans 3:1-2
Everything about the Law of Moses was designed to point people to their savior. Everything from the Passover celebration to temple life was designed to prepare people to understand who God’s messiah would be, and what his purposes were.
Radical Change
While everything should rightly have prepared people to accept Jesus as Lord, many would not. In fact, for many the transition was not only a rocky climb but an insurmountable wall. Jesus told a parable regarding cloth and wineskins to explain this.
He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’
Luke 5:36-39
In both cases, he’s not talking about introducing something completely different. You would still be patching garments with cloth and filling wineskins with wine. However, the issue is that the new cloth would not have had time to shrink (as all fabric does over time) and the wine would not have had time to expand (as wine does as it is aged).
The old was settled in. The new required change. Therefore, introducing the new to an established garment or wineskin would destroy it! He said this to explain why the religious leaders rejected him when everything they had been taught should have led them to him. They rejected the one to whom the things they lived their lives for pointed them.
You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.
John 5:39
Comfortable In Shadows
They served the things which were a lesson intended to lead them to the King whom they were to actually serve.
Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, “See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.” But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.
Hebrews 8:4-6
It’s not that the covenant God had made with Israel through Moses was meaningless. It had great value at foreshadowing the coming covenant. However, they were ultimately only designed to serve as a shadow of a greater covenant.
Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.
Colossians 2:16-17
Fullness in Christ
The new covenant in Christ didn’t abolish the old covenant. Instead, the old was fulfilled by the new he has made with all of mankind.
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 5:17-19
It’s not that the new covenant relaxed the laws of the old. Instead, they call for a greater righteousness. The sacrifices offered to God have been completed by the blood of Jesus. The day of rest is fulfilled in the daily light burden he offers. The circumcision of the flesh has guided some to circumcised hearts. In every way, to follow the old way is to miss out on the perfect.
So often, the two covenants are pitted against each other. Either it is proposed that the new destroyed the old, or that the old was for Jews and the new for Gentiles. However, neither is accurate. The truth is that the old was the form of Christ and Jesus is the substance. All the promises to Israel are fulfilled in faith to him. These promises were kept by the disciples and extended to the Gentiles who are now grafted in by faith.
Jesus changed everything but also everything that was finds its perfection in him.
