Salvation in the Old Testament - Online Christian Library

John S. Feinberg, “Salvation in the Old Testament” Tradition and Testament. Essays in Honor of Charles LeeFeinberg. Chicago: Moody Press, 1981. Hbk. ISBN: 0802425445. pp.39-77.The Old Testament teaching on sacrifices seems to indicate that the sacrifices included four basicfunctions or usages.First, the sacrifices served a governmental or theocratic function. (Obviously, before the time ofMoses no such function was served.) This function corresponds to the civil part of the law. Underthe Mosaic system, the Israelite was related to God by physical birth as a Jew through thetheocracy. God was the ruler in Israel. Even when Israel had kings or judges, God was still theultimate ruler. Consequently, when a person sinned, such sin affected not only his relation to theone who saved him (God), but also to the one who was the ruler in Israel (God). Thus, sin was agovernmental as well as a spiritual matter. As a result, the purpose of offering was not merely torestore one’s relationship with his God, but to insure his right standing within the theocracy. Thekinds of sacrifices that were most relevant to this were the sin, guilt, and trespass offerings. Inaddition, sacrifices seem on at least two occasions to have played a “political function” in thatthey were offered as the country prepared for or was in the midst of a war (1 Sam. 7:9ff; 13:8ff.).The type of sacrifices most relevant to this were those not used specifically for atoning for sin(the broad category of sacrifices that Payne calls sweet savor sacrifices). If someone committed asin that became a civil issue, he could be restored to his rightful place theocratically orgovernmentally by bringing sacrifices. However, by bringing such sacrifices, he did notautomatically give indication of spiritual salvation or restoration at all. His sacrifice, if donewithout repentance toward God, might meet the external requirements for restoration to thecommunity, but it need not be anything more. It might serve a purely civil function.Consequently, the theocratic or governmental use of the sacrifices carried no particularsoteriological implications and no particular relationship to the sacrifice of Christ, other than atypological one.A second function of the sacrifices in the Old Testament was a typological function. Sacrifices atall times during the Old Testament had this function. Hebrews 10:1, speaking of the Mosaic lawand its sacrifices, says that the law is not the image (e„kwn, eikōn), that is, the exactrepresentation, of what was to come, but it was a shadow (ski£, skia) of it. In contrasting themeaning of the two words Wescott writes:[p.68]The words contain one of the very few illustrations which are taken from art in the N.T. The‘shadow’ is the dark outlined figure cast by theobject―as in the legend of the origin of the bas-relief―contrasted with the completerepresentation e„kwn, eikōn] produced by the help of colour and solid mass. 41Bringing meaning of the words out of the realm of art and into the context of our discussion, wecan see how the figure of the Old Testament sacrifices being a shadow actually carries the idea oftheir being a foreshadowing of something to come. Given this kind of language, the writer ofHebrews seems to be stating that the Old Testament sacrifices were a type of what was to comein Christ’s sacrifice.