Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we're going to answer this question: Did God change how salvation works?
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Today we’re in part 4 of our mini-series on how salvation works
- Three weeks ago: Is Anyone Too Far Gone for God? (Acts 8:26-40)
- Answer: No! God can reach you on the desert road to nowhere
- Two weeks ago: How Does Spiritual Conversion Actually Work?
- We’ll looked at the dramatic conversion story of Saul (Paul)
- – and what we can generalize from his experience.
- About the HS opening eyes
- And how faith/repentance changes you in an instant
- From death to life
- From enemy of God to child of God
- Last week: How can you know if you’re really saved? (Acts 9:20-31)
- Paul went about preaching the gospel immediately
- The disciples in Jerusalem didn’t believe he was really saved!? After 3 years!
- We looked at how Christians can have “assurance” of their salvation
- Today to finish up we’ll dig deeper into a theological question:
Q. Did God Change How Salvation Works?
- Have you ever thought about this?
- In the NT
- grace, forgiveness, Jesus
- Jn 14:6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
- Jesus is THE way. But what about in the OT?
- Did salvation work one way in OT before Jesus
- And another way in NT after Jesus?
Q. What was the Old Testament way of salvation?
- Many thought: saved by keeping the commandments
- In Jewish tradition, there are 613 commandments (known as the Mitzvot) in the Torah. These commandments are derived from the five books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) and encompass a wide range of moral, religious, and civil laws. 248 positive commandments (things to do) and 365 negative commandments (things not to do)
- Scholars estimate that around 100 to 150 of the 613 commandments address issues of purity and impurity.
- Dietary Laws (Kashrut): These include commandments related to clean and unclean animals (Leviticus 11, Deuteronomy 14).
- Table fellowship refers to the practice of sharing meals, which in ancient Jewish culture held deep social, religious, and spiritual significance. In the context of the Old Testament and Jewish tradition, sharing a meal symbolized more than just eating together; it represented community, unity, and, in many cases, ritual purity. This practice also reinforced the separation between Jews and Gentiles due to differences in dietary laws and religious observance. Eating with Gentiles, who were considered ritually impure, could defile an observant Jew, requiring purification rites (Leviticus 20:24-26).
- Clean vs. unclean
- So is this how people were saved...
