Jew, Gentile; Old, new

In answer to a question from a former student about the relations of Jews and Gentiles in Old and New, I offered these points as coordinates for that question:

1. Yes, Gentiles were saved under the Old Covenant, and Israel’s contact with an success with Gentiles increased as time went on.  Solomon influences Hiram and other kings in a way that Moses never did; once Israel is scattered around the Mediterranean, kings and emperors start confessing Yahweh as the God of heaven.

2. Calvin gets the relation of OT and NT right, I think, when he says that the OT was “relatively” darker than the NT.  It was not completely dark, but it was darker.  It was night with a full moon (Passover), moving to the beginning of dawn; but it’s wasn’t daylight yet.  Those images get at it.  Augustine talks about this in a couple of ways: He takes up the NT language about “symbol” and “substance” or “shadow” and “substance”; OT is shadow and symbol of the coming fulfillment, but those shadows still revealed God and communicate His gifts.

3. I think the easiest way to see the difference of OT and NT is to keep it concrete.  Israel sacrificed animals; we don’t.  Israel had to avoid certain meats, were defiled with bodily fluids and dead bodies, couldn’t walk on holy ground; we don’t have to worry about any of that.  Every Israelite was a priest in a weak sense, but only Aaron and his sons could enter the temple to minister there; now, all believers are in the temple – we are the temple.  Aaron and his sons couldn’t drink wine in the tabernacle (Leviticus 11); we are commanded to drink wine in the presence of God.

4. Specifically with regard to Gentiles: Even when Gentiles converted in the OT, there was a distinction between Jew and Greek.  A Gentile could convert and be circumcised; but many just remained uncircumcised Gentiles.  They were saved, but they were “second class citizens” of the kingdom.  That’s the distinction that’s now completely erased.  No Jew or Greek.

5. Keeping things concrete does present a problem: It makes it seem as if the changes were all rather superficial.  We can eat pork and don’t have to get sprinkled with heifer-water after a funeral; big deal.  But we think that way only because we’re the heirs of two millennia of Christianity.  Christianity was so radically new that pagans didn’t even recognize it as a religion; a religion without animal sacrifice made no sense at all to them.  And the end of the OT taboos on tasting, touching, and handling was a huge issue for the Jews, as Paul’s letters show on nearly every page.