OT and NT Missions: Compare and Contrast

COMPARE AND CONTRASTS OF

OLD TESTAMENT AND NEW TESTAMENT ON MISSIONS

The Bible is a book of missions. Its contents from both the Old Testament and the New Testament are full of God’s intent to reconcile mankind back to Him, the Creator. The ways that God worked maybe different from time to time, but similarities and contrasts between conditions, situation, and parties involved in the Old and New Testaments can be observed. This essay seeks to reaffirm that the Christian God is a missionary God who cares for the humanity and their depravity, and proactively works through different peoples, in different conditions and settings, throughout the history to bring salvation to the mankind.

Why is there a need for Mission? Ever since the fall in Genesis 3, sin was introduced into the lives of human. With their own limited knowledge and ability, human could never manage to reach up to God. Not only that their status is now marked as ‘sinner’, their depravity condition worsens to the point of being rebellious to God and disobeying His commands. Clearly, without God’s own intervention, it was impossible for human to be re-connected back to God. God has reached down to humankind, and this was culminated in the incarnation of Christ and His redemptive sacrifice for the descendants of the first Adam.

Although the Bible as a whole provides a unified message about Missions, many different aspects on missions are being presented differently in Old Testament and New Testament. Even the main theme that is conveyed to the nations is different! In the following pages, we shall discuss in greater detail about the chosen people to proclaim the mission, the failure of the prophets and apostles in mission, and the message and method by which the mission is being carried out, both in the Old Testament and New Testament.

The Chosen People – The Missionaries

In the Old Testament, through Abraham, God had chosen to cultivate a people, a line of family who would later become a nation called Israel. God had bound Himself in the covenant, that Abraham would become the father of great nations, and through him, all the nations of the earth would be blessed. It is important to note, that even though God has chosen a specific nation to follow Him, He actually intended the ‘other’ nations to be blessed through the one He had chosen. How was that going to happen?

God did not just single out the nation of Israel and let them continue to live in the same way as the neighboring nations did. No, He gave them a handbook - the Ten Commandments - and taught them how to live in a right manner, both in spirituality and in conduct, to God and to one another. It was hopeful, that they would set a good standard for the other nations to follow. However, in reality this did not happen. More often than not, the Israelites failed. They disobeyed God and turned to worship the idols of the pagan nations and engaged in their ungodly cultures.

In the New Testament, God set apart the church to be His ambassador to the rest of the world. If the team of missionaries in the OT was build up by means of natural reproduction, the team in the NT was build up by way of discipleship. Jesus Christ was the Teacher and the twelve disciples were the first batch of graduates. God, through Jesus Christ, entrusted the Great Commission to the apostles.

While the Israelites in OT were guided by the restrictive, yet passive Laws, the apostles were equipped with the Holy Spirit which enabled them to be super effective missionaries. But were they without flaw? Well, not really, at least not initially.

The Failure of the Prophets and the Apostles

The Prophets and Apostles were selected few specially chosen by God to convey His message to a destined party. Being able to converse with God (the prophets) or having gone through the discipleship program of Jesus Christ (the apostles) however does not mean that they would not commit any mistake in fulfilling God’s mission.

In the OT, God had raised many prophets to remind Israel of who He is, and what He had commanded the people to do. There were many prophets and books of prophets in the Bible, although the majority of the prophets was sent to Israel or Judah, there were some that were instructed to go to the other nations.

The prophet Jonah was commanded to go to Nineveh, which he constantly refused to obey. Why? Nineveh was the capital of the enemy of Israel, and Jonah was too nationalistic. Same as other Israelites, Jonah would think why should He share the ‘message’ with the godless gentiles? He failed to see that God intended for all nations to be saved, not just Israel.

In a similar way, the Apostles too, had fallen into the same pit.

Prior to the ascension, God had clearly given the Apostles to preach the gospel to Judea, Samaria, and to the end of the world. But all the twelve Apostles remained in Jerusalem, and only a lately-added-persecutor-turned-apostle Paul saw that the mission of God is intended for Gentiles also. Peter and perhaps the rest of the Apostles, with the exception of Paul, would prefer to preach to the Gentiles coming in to the city of Jerusalem, and not so much as to go out to the cities of the Gentiles.

In the next section we will discuss about the different methods that missions were being carried out in the Old Testament and New Testament. The first one is centripetal method to attract the nations, and the other is centrifugal to go out into the nations.

The Two Methods for Missions: Temple vs. Church

There are many things which can attract foreigners to come to a place or country. It can range from natural sceneries to exotic food, from business opportunities to splendor religious worship sites. The city of David, Jerusalem, reached its golden era at the rule of King Solomon the wise. During that time, the city was perhaps the one of the busiest business center connecting the Mediterranean, Africa and Asia Minor. At the same period, Solomon also completed the project prepared by his father, which is the Temple of God.

Israel maintained a peace and prosperous era under the reign of Solomon, and his wisdom was recognized even by Queen Sheba, who travelled miles in order to come and see for herself. It is safe, therefore, to say that the prosperity of Israel, the Wisdom of Solomon, and the Temple of God had become a magnet, by which the nations were attracted to come and learn the way of life and the God of the Israelites.

Could the Apostles in the NT, as explained in previous page, misunderstand the Lord’s commandment to make disciples of all nations, because they preferred the Temple method? After all, if people from all nations, which were under dominion of Rome, come over to Jerusalem, the same goal can be achieved also? How many would be like the eunuch of Ethiopia who received the Gospel gladly from Philip?

Fortunately, God did not allow that condition to remain. The persecutions to the Christians came from all sides: Romans, Greeks even non-believing Jews. This had caused great distress to the Christians to flee and spread out to other cities. From then on the community of believers as a church began to spread to all nations, as originally intended by God. The church had finally become a blessing to all nations.

The Message of Missions

The message proclaimed in the missions of Old Testament and New Testament are somewhat different. The incarnation of Jesus Christ has changed the content of the message from a call for repentance followed by reconciliation through sacrifice, to a new call for repentance and acceptance of Christ and His sacrificial work. There is no longer need for sacrifice as Jesus Himself is the perfect sacrifice, the Lamb of God who laid down His life willingly for all the sins of mankind from all ages.

In the Old Testament, the Israelites were required to come to the temple to present burnt offering in order to atone for their sins. In the New Testament, the Christians who have received the gift of salvation were commanded to spread the Gospel to the end of the world, to all nations. The first was required to do an annual reconciliation exercise by priests who were sinners themselves; the latter was obliged to share the good news of the perfect atonement, an atonement that was performed by the perfect High Priest, using Himself as the blameless and perfect Sacrifice.

Conclusion

God is actively at work in the ministry of reconciliation through out human history. Through the Abrahamaic Covenant, the splendor of the King Solomon, the voice of the prophets, God has never stopped to accomplish this task. When His servant Israel in the Old Testament failed, He sent His most precious Son, Jesus Christ, to be the perfect atonement for our sins. Even after the Son has returned to the Throne, He did not stop. He sent down a Comforter to accompany His Church, to encourage, strengthen them, so that His Mission will continue on earth, the Mission to reconcile the creation back to the Creator.