Written for Our Instruction

While there are many principles that are given to us in the Old Testament, there are a few aspects that we should key in on and apply to the church and to ourselves.

We can be tempted to see the Old Testament as something that we read through just to mark it off our yearly Bible reading plan but is there for us as well. Paul explains to the Corinthian church that events of the Old Testament, “were written down for our instruction” (1^st Corinthians 10:11).

It wasn’t as if the church at the beginning stages had the entire canon that we enjoy today; their Bible was the Old Testament. 

When Jesus rebukes the Pharisees by rebuking them for not reading the scriptures (Matthew 12:3), He was speaking of the writings of Moses and the prophets.

Overall the key aspects that the church of today must see is that it must rely on God in fully trusting His plan. This will result in the response of obedience to the commands of God.

In speaking of the trust in the life of Abraham from his Handbook on the Pentateuch, Hamilton writes, “Those who adamantly reject God’s will for their life find that their decision is honored. But those who at least stumble and fall forward in the direction of God’s will find a divine resource and promise from God” (Hamilton p. 92). 

It is this trust that gives the author of Hebrews the analogy of a race (Hebrews 12:1), directly after mention the faith of the likes of Abraham and Sarah. It is, “The direction [that] is plain” even when the, “destination is unknown”. (Hamilton p. 93)

From the perspective of man, Abraham and Sarah were not the best examples of the faith that the church has been called to express. There were many times that we find them both lacking in their trust on God, whether it be Abram’s lies (Genesis 12), or Sarah’s disbelief (Genesis 18:12), it is hard to understand how they are examples to our trust in the promises of God.

In the same section, Hamilton helps us understand why their faith is seen as successful. It is the hearing of the words of God that produces the faith in us to follow His commands (Romans 10:17). He points out that, “It is supernatural… Faith is not against reason (i.e., irrational), but it does surpass reason. Behind the human realities of the situation are divine realities. If there is a God, he can do this. This God transcends human resources”. (Hamilton p. 100)

The second part of this principle is that this faith with bear fruit of obedience. It is hard for us to bypass the picture of obedience that we see in the character of Joshua and the children of Israel that enter the land of Canaan.

It was these people who by trusting the leading of God through His servant Joshua entered the land that had been promised, in contrast to those who, “perished in the wilderness because of incessant sinfulness and disobedience” (Hamilton p. 305). The trust that Joshua displayed led to the obedience to enter the land not knowing exactly how they, as an untrained army, would defeat the fortified cities that they would encounter.

In his Handbook on the Historical Books, Hamilton gives us basis on which the children of Israel had placed their trust. It was the promise of God that promoted their obedience. He says the phrase “I have given to you” in Joshua 2:24 is in, “the perfect tense: a perfect of certitude, a perfective of confidence, a perfective future—a means of expressing a vivid future when the action is considered “as good as done.”  (Hamilton p. 31)

God’s promissory word is “as good as done”

As the church of the Living God we have been called to live by these same principles that He called His Old Testament saints to live by in faith to His word.

Paul explains this to the church at Ephesus what this faith and obedience looks like. After spending three chapters explaining to them the identity that they have in Christ, or whose they are, he gives them one command. He urges them, “to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called”. (Ephesians 4:1-3)

Paul goes on to explain how this is done practically in the rest of his epistle but is driving home that faith will produce obedience when they understand Who they belong to and what He has done. 

This was the same thing that promoted the faith in Moses to lead people from Egypt, because for Moses, “the ultimate question is not “Who am I?” but “Whose am I?”. (Hamilton. Handbook on the Pentateuch, p. 31)

When we live by this principles, we with Paul are able to express with the confident that because it is our Father that has, “begun a good work” in us, it is He that will be able an has already accomplished what He has said that He would accomplish. 

The work is as good as done, the church is just to follow God in faith and obedience.