Should we unhitch from the Old Testament?

WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY?

The “unhitching” controversy was sparked by pastor Andy Stanley, who felt that the Old Testament—its laws, sacrifices, and so forth—was a stumbling block to salvation. However, Old Testament and New Testament are two parts of a single story. Jesus used the Old Testament to teach how it all pointed towards Him (Luke 24:27, 44). As the Bible of the early church, it remains God-breathed and profitable for New Testament believers (2 Timothy 3:16–17).

Key Old Testament theological foundations include humanity’s fall (Genesis 3), the promise of a Savior (Genesis 3:15) in the line of Abraham (Genesis 12:3), and the future king in David’s line (2 Samuel 7:12–13). It also demonstrates that disobedience requires death (Ezekiel 18:20) but that God accepted certain blood sacrifices in a sinner’s place (Leviticus 17:11).

The New Testament shows that Jesus, as the promised Savior, descended from Abraham and David (Matthew 1:1), whose death provided the final and permanent sacrifice, replacing the less effective OT sacrifices (Hebrews 9:26, 10:1–4).

Because everyone, from those in the Old Testament to the early church to even Jesus, relied on the Old Testament’s teaching, it would be a mistake for us to think we are better than it or don’t need it. Rather than unhitching from it, we would do well to understand it, as the more we know the Old Testament, the better we understand the New!

FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT

• The Old Testament is not irrelevant today, as it explains why humanity needs a Savior, how to identify that Savior, God’s judgment of death for all sin, and His mercy in the form of sacrifices for sin.
• Foundational Problem: When God created the world (Genesis 1), He created man and woman in His image and set them to rule over creation on His behalf (Genesis 1:26–27). However, they rebelled against Him, doing what He commanded not to do (Genesis 3:1–7), resulting in His judgment on all of humanity (Genesis 3:17–19). That judgment introduced corruption into the world and both physical and spiritual death for mankind (e.g., Ezekiel 18:20).
• Foundational Promises: Even as God responded to our sin, He provided a promise of a Savior. Speaking to the serpent who was instrumental in deceiving Eve, God said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:15). While initially subtle, that promise spoke of someone of human descent who would crush the serpent.
• Expanding Promises: The rest of the Old Testament expands on that promise. It shows how the Savior would come through Abraham (Genesis 12:3) and, ultimately, the nation of Israel (Isaiah 11:1; Micah 5:2). It also teaches that the Savior would be a descendant of King David, and thus a royal Savior (2 Samuel 7:12–13). We also get hints that the Savior would be no ordinary human but would also be divine (Isaiah 9:6).
• Need Illustrated: In addition to giving promises about the Savior, the Old Testament also demonstrates why humanity even needs one. The Israelites were God’s people, a nation He established to be His people and to demonstrate who He is to the world (Exodus 19:5–6). As such, He gave them laws to obey that reflected both His holiness and how they were to live to display that holiness. Despite God living with Israel (e.g., Exodus 25:8) and guiding and protecting them (Exodus 13:21–22), they were unable to obey Him. Their disobedience regularly angered God, and even a few times, He almost destroyed them completely to protect His holiness (e.g., Exodus 32:10).
• Salvation Illustrated: However, He refrained from destroying Israel to keep His promise of sending a Savior (Exodus 32:13–14). He did that by instituting a sacrificial system whereby the people could atone for their sin through the blood of animals (Leviticus 17:11). While those sacrifices never fully appeased God’s wrath, He used them to illustrate first to them, and then to us, that the right sacrifice could cover sin and bring salvation.

FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT

• Jesus is the Son of God and, as such, is eternally divine (John 1:1). Yet, at a specific time in history, He added on a human nature (Philippians 2:6–7) by being born as a human baby. At that time, though fully God, Jesus was also fully human. That was the first step in being humanity’s savior.
• From that birth, He began fulfilling Old Testament promises, such as being born into the line of Abraham and David (Matthew 1:1), in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:1), and to a virgin (Matthew 1:22–23). However, to be the Savior, He had to be like us, except without sin (Hebrews 4:15). That meant He needed to fulfill not only the promises but also the Old Testament Law that the Israelites had failed to keep. He did just that (Matthew 5:17). By doing that, He was able to die as a substitute for sinful humanity. The blood of bulls and goats from the Old Testament never fully appeased God’s wrath, therefore could not save (Hebrews 10:4). However, Jesus, as perfect and fully human, was able to die as the perfect and final sacrifice for humanity’s sin (Hebrews 9:26). In so doing, Jesus replaced the weak Old Testament sacrifice with the final one (Hebrews 10:1–4).
• After He resurrected from the dead, Jesus then used the Old Testament to show the disciples that it had been pointing toward Him and His death all along (Luke 24:27, 44). The Old Testament, then, was foundational to Jesus’ ministry, and “unhitching” from it removes the foundation of who Jesus is and even the Scripture He used to teach others.
• Indeed, it would be many years after Jesus ascended into heaven until the full New Testament would be complete. For the early church, the Old Testament was the Bible! The Old Testament was all they needed to share the Gospel of the risen Jesus.
• Paul later remarked that “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16–17). When he wrote that, “all Scripture” referred primarily to the Old Testament. He was saying that both the Old and New Testaments are needed to teach believers all they need to know to obey God.
• Thus, the first part of the story (the Old Testament) is critical not only to understanding the second part (the New Testament) but also to knowing how to live in a way that pleases God.

IMPLICATIONS FOR TODAY

Without the Old Testament, reading the New Testament is a bit like reading the last chapter of a novel. You get the conclusion without understanding the characters, story arc, or even why it all matters!

Christianity is not simply knowing that Jesus saves. It’s knowing why He needed to come. It’s understanding that salvation is not God fighting evil or defeating Satan, but holding back that evil to offer an olive branch to the very humanity that spat in His face.

The Old Testament sets up the story and shows humanity’s inability to save itself. Paul referred to the Old Testament Law as a tutor that taught faith in Christ (Galatians 3:24). Timothy grew up learning obedience to God through the Old Testament (2 Timothy 3:14–15). The early church read and taught almost exclusively from the Old Testament because the New Testament hadn’t yet been written (Acts 17:2–3). And Jesus showed that the Old Testament taught about Him (Luke 24:27).

With such a great cloud of witnesses who exemplified righteous faith in the Old Testament (Hebrews 11:1–40) and those after Jesus who looked to the Old Testament to read the very words of God for themselves (2 Timothy 3:16), how can we unhitch and distance ourselves from that same Old Testament?

History is filled with individuals who have attempted to revise, simplify, and even cut out portions of Scripture. Let us not follow their example, remembering instead that all “Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16–17).

UNDERSTAND

• The Old Testament is not obsolete; it's foundational in establishing the problem of sin, the promises of a Savior, and the sacrificial framework that the New Testament fulfills.
• Jesus affirmed the Old Testament's authority, fulfilled it to the letter, and used it extensively to explain His own identity and mission to His disciples.
• Unhitching from the Old Testament removes the very foundation on which the gospel stands, leaving the New Testament without the context needed to understand who Jesus is and why He came.

REFLECT

• In what ways are you tempted to treat the Old Testament as less relevant or applicable than the New Testament?
• How familiar are you with the Old Testament, and in what ways might a deeper understanding of it enrich your grasp of who Jesus is and what He accomplished?
• How does knowing that the entire Old Testament points toward Jesus change the way you approach reading and studying it?

ENGAGE

• If the Old Testament is the foundation that explains sin, sacrifice, and the promise of a Savior, what do we lose about Jesus if we treat it as optional rather than essential?
• How does seeing Jesus fulfill Old Testament promises change the way we read stories, laws, and prophecies that might otherwise feel distant or irrelevant?
• How should the church respond to arguments like Stanley's that risk undermining Scripture's authority in the name of making the gospel more accessible?