Only God

The way that Paul uses the Old Testament in his letter to the Roman church is interesting. Paul was both an ethnic and faithful Jew, and he and his fellow apostles wanted there to be no doubt that Jesus was indeed the promised Jewish Messiah, and that it was He whose coming was foretold in the Old Testament. Those Jews which rejected Jesus' claim to be the Messiah, were also rejecting Christianity as an illegal, non-Jewish "sect," an attempt at which they failed, according to Acts 18:12-17.

Paul's letter to the Romans shows the richly intertwined relationship of the Old Testament and the New, and of the Jews and the Gentiles. In it, Paul states that all men are sinners, and that all men have sinned. There is no exception. He further states that all of mankind are in need of justification by faith. In Romans 3:10-19, Paul summarizes a number of Old Testament texts which indicate the sinfulness of man. He demonstrated the sin of the Jews by showing that even the Patriarchs of Judaism were saved, not by works, but by faith. Romans 4 tells us of Abraham, and how he was justified by faith. Romans 9-11 makes it clear that God knowing the end from the beginning, had a plan for the salvation of both Jews and Gentiles, and that because the Jews rejection of Jesus as the Jewish Messiah presented an unmistakable opportunity to evangelize the Gentiles.

Paul was given the knowledge to explain certain spiritual mysteries to those who would listen. The joining together of the Jews and the Gentiles into the "Body of Christ" was one such mystery. It isn't that this fact had not been revealed in the Old Testament, but rather, something that had been spoken of in the Old Testament, but not understood.

It was of necessity that Paul used a lot of Old Testament references in Romans and his other epistles to demonstrate the "symbiotic" (if you will) relationship between the two testaments in order to explain that the work that Jesus did, fulfilled all the Law and the words of the Prophets. He fulfilled the promises that God made in the Old Testament. The beauty of this fact is so amazing, and so demonstrates God's love for us, that I never tire of reading about it.

Both the "bigger picture" of God's plan throughout the Old and New Testaments, and the way that He purposes to use individuals like Paul to bring things about is also amazing to me. To allow a man to be raised in the Jewish faith, to be taught by gifted Jewish scholars, to become hatefully murderous of Christians, only to touch his heart and turn that same man into a tearfully loving Christian man who, so desirous that his fellow Jews would come to know Christ that he might even give up his own salvation, is something only God could think of, and only something that God could do.