Why Christians Can't Reject the Old Testament

Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ).

John 1:40-41

Have you ever heard someone say that the God of the Old Testament isn’t the same God we find in the New Testament? Or maybe you've come across someone who rejects the Old Testament but is happy to accept the New Testament and the teachings of Jesus? A single word in the passage above, along with many other New Testament passages, reveals the error in that thinking. 

Sometimes we get confused and start to think of "Christ" as Jesus’ last name. But it wasn’t part of His name at all. His name was Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus the son of Joseph the carpenter. ‌‌"Christ" is simply the Greek word for "Messiah." And what both words mean is “anointed one.”

‌The great Jewish hope was for a Messiah or a Christ- an anointed king to come. And the Old Testament promises over and over again that He would come from the line of King David and would restore and repair David’s fallen tent. This Messiah would be a king. He would sit on David’s throne, and his kingdom would even surpass David's kingdom in glory. The Messiah would destroy the enemies of God's people and He would bring about a new order of justice and peace and prosperity for them.*

‌‌So, when we as Christians say that we believe in Jesus Christ, we are connecting our faith to the Old Testament and to the promises that God made to the Jewish people there. We are claiming a continuity with the Old Testament. We are claiming that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises, that He is the promised Messiah.

T‌his rules out the idea that we can somehow reject the God of the Old Testament while we embrace the God of the New Testament. Jesus' very identity binds the two testaments together. Remove either testament and the life and ministry of Jesus Christ makes no sense. It was the God of the Old Testament that sent Jesus, and it was the God of the Old Testament that Jesus submitted to and obeyed all His earthly life. Christians can’t reject the Old Testament or the God that we find there, precisely because Jesus flows out of its pages. So, we as Christians must be a people of the book, all of the book. You cannot write-off the Old Testament and follow Jesus Christ.

‌*Gonzalez, Justo L. The Apostle’s Creed for Today. (Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, KY) 2007, p30.