How The Old & New Testaments Are Crucial For Your Joy
How The Westminster Shorter Catechism Changes Your Life
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
2 Timothy 3:16-17
Q2: What rule has God given to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy Him?
A: The Word of God, which is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy Him.
Augustine once said, “In the Old Testament the New is concealed, in the New the Old is revealed.” Notice the oneness of the Old & New Testaments. If you are going to read the Bible correctly, and therefore truly glorify and enjoy God, then you must see the Bible as One book about One God saving One people by One Savior.
To be our Savior, Jesus had to have perfectly glorified God and enjoyed Him forever. He couldn’t just die for us; He must have lived for us. How did He does this? We see in the catechism that we know how to glorify and enjoy God by what’s written in the Word of God. We do not follow our own hearts or whatever feels right at the moment. Rather, we look to the Word of God to see what’s recorded for us there. But, here is the question: What Word of God did Jesus have during His life on this earth? Jesus had the Old Testament!
It is detrimental to the Christian to ignore the Old Testament. You cannot understand the New Testament without the Old because it is One book. Every writer of the New Testament wrote of how Christ fulfilled the Old Testament. Jesus even shows us that we see Him in the Old Testament in Luke 24:27, “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”
The Puritan Thomas Watson says, “God has stamped a divine majesty up both Testaments; and till they can show me where God has repealed the Old, it stands in force. The two Testaments are the two wells of salvation…The comforts of the gospel in the New Testament have their rise from the Old.” The saying is true: We need the whole Bible to become whole Christians. To expand that we could say that we need the whole Christ seen in the whole Bible to become whole Christians. Christians mature when they meditate on all of Scripture.
See Him in the Old & New. See Him in the genres narrative, poetry, apocalyptic, parable, and prophetic writings. See Him before He was born. See Him after He has risen. Fix your eyes on Him!