THE NEW TESTAMENT: ITS THEOLOGY, POLITICAL AND CULTURAL SETTING

 

By: Rev. Tony Costa
Payatas Baptist Church, Quezon City
B.A., M.A., PhD (cand.) Toronto, Ontario

THE theology of the New Testament (NT) is centred on the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, Jesus is the main theme of the whole Bible, both Old and New Testaments. He is concealed in the OT, but revealed in the NT. The theology of the NT is also based on the fact that Jesus is the Messiah and that He has come to inaugurate the New Covenant and the Kingdom of God. Through Jesus, the Messiah, God has made a new agreement with His people Israel (see Jeremiah 31:31) and through them, with the Gentiles as well. Through the New Covenant all peoples, both Jews and Gentiles can come into the Family of God. There are some differences between the OT and the NT. In the OT, God worked through a single nation, Israel. Anyone who wished to be part of God’s family had to join the nation of Israel, these were called proselytes. They did not become Jews. Today, according to rabbinic Judaism, if a Gentile converts to Judaism, he/she becomes a Jew. This however, is unbiblical. In the New Covenant, people become Christians but can also retain their respective cultures. Thus, there are Chinese Christians, Spanish Christians, English Christians, etc. In the NT, there is only one body in Christ, despite cultural, ethnic background. (Galatians 3:28) God is now working through the Church, made of both Jews and Gentiles. The Church is multinational, multicultural, whereas in the OT, Israel was unique.
The understanding of the NT can be summed up in the following diagram. Compare this to the OT diagram in Studies in the Bible #5.

In this diagram, the covenant is with both Jews and Gentiles, and this covenant is made by God through Christ. It is Christ who as the Mediator (1 Timothy 2:5) brings all humanity in reconciliation with God. It is no longer through Israel, but through the Messiah that God is reconciling the world to Himself. This is the great μυστηριον, (musterion; Greek) “mystery” that Paul says God had hid in times past but has now revealed through Christ. The “mystery” was that the Gentiles would also share as heirs together with Israel in one body through Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 3:1-6)