Compare and Contrast-Old Testament vs New Testament PDF

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Old Testament vs. New Testament

Have you ever found yourself wondering about the Bible? Many have! Why is the Bible divided into The Old Testament and the New Testament? Together we will dive in and uncover the differences!

Let's begin by answering the question, "What is the Bible?" Biblica.com states, "The Bible is the account of God's action in the world, and his purpose with all creation" (Biblica et al. 2017). Now, let's compare and contrast The Old Testament vs. The New Testament. We will explore how the testaments detail beginning times and the end, how the law and atonement for transgressions changed, and examine the prophecies and fulfillment.

First, let's develop a strategy for determining the similarities and differences in the Old and New Testaments. If you work from opposite ends of the Bible, beginning and end toward the middle, its structure is as follows. Genesis is the first book of the Old Testament, and Revelations is the last book of the New Testament. Let's talk a bit about the beginning of time and the end. Genesis details how God formed the world, created man and sets the stage for God's promises throughout the rest of the Bible. In Genisis, God created a world of beautiful water, lush land, abundant vegetation, and an azure sky. He then created Adam. Adam was lonely, so He created companionship, and out of is blossomed, a woman named Eve. He gave His first command that Adam and Eve could eat from any of the trees except one. Temptation led to sin, and the forbidden fruit was consumed. This transgression was the first sin that needed atoning; therefore, God's wrath was the solution for the violation. The last book of the Bible, Revelations, was a prophetic

vision given to the imprisoned man named John. It details Jesus, the Savior, who took on the punishment for our sins in God's second covenant with humankind coming to battle Satan and take believers to heaven to live in peace with God through eternity. The Old Testament begins with details of the paradise God created for man and how sin destroyed it. The Old Testament ends with the paradise in heaven that we will return home to at the end of time. Such a glorious beginning and an even more glorious end.

The word sin came up as we looked at the beginning of time and how the end of time will look. But what is sin? Merriam Webster's definition for sin is, "Transgression in the law of God: a vitiated state of human nature in which the self is estranged from God." (Sin: Merriam Webster) If we have a relationship with God, we yearn to be closer to Him. Sin impedes this. Throughout the Old Testament are stories, such as Noah's Ark, where God saw such a crime in people that He wiped the earth clean of all living creatures. Noah built an ark and took his wife and two of every species, to make repopulation possible, onto the boat while God flooded the earth to wipe out all other existing creation. He started over. The earth repopulated, and once again, sin ran rampant. God longs for us to be close to him, as any father does his children. Wiping out the world and starting over again was not the answer. God needed a savior so that we could be forgiven reside in heaven's paradise with God eternally. God spoke to his prophets detailing how He would send a savior who would be born of a virgin, live a perfect life, and die a horrific death in our place. God knew if the choice were given between the treatment and end Jesus took for us, which all could physically see, vs. the uncertainty of what hell looked like and Satan's sly trickery, we may likely choose hell. God couldn't bear it, so he sent a part of himself to take the verbal abuse, humiliation, pain, and death for our sins that was due to us. In the Old

Testament, the law of how to live was written, and atonement for not following the law was death without eternal paradise. Old Testament equals God telling us how to live and the consequences for disobeying. The New Testament details God showing us how to live the law. God, because He is a spirit and is not bound by time or space, divides and comes to us in the flesh. He comes to us as Jesus, the Savior, born of a virgin and lived a perfect life and died in our place for our sins so that our spirit can live eternally with Him. The New Testament equals God physically showing us how to live by the law He outlined in which to live and taking the punishment for our sin so that we can live in paradise with Him in Heaven.

The prophecies are some of the most wonderous content of the Bible. The predictions are located near the end of the Old Testament. They detail laws, the coming of a messiah, born of a virgin, and will take the wrath for our sins. The prophecies play a significant part in forewarning of what is to come, and also establish believability of the Bible. The New Testament plays the role of proving the prophecies right. In the Gospels: Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John, which are the first four books of the New Testament, each author details the eyewitness account of the prophecies of the Old Testament. To compare the predictions in the Old Testament and the New Testament would be that the Old Testament detailed what was to come, and the New Testament validated it.

In summary, we see law detailed in both Testaments. We are given detail of how we became and how the world will end through books written by Moses in the New Testament and John in the Old Testament. We see laws given, how they are broken, and how sin was atoned by sacrifice and wiping the earth clean and starting over in the Old Testament. In the New Testa-

ment, we are given Jesus, the son, or a part of God sent to earth in the flesh to be humiliated and brutally crucified to be atoned so that we would not have to go through such brutality for our wickedness. The Old Testament gives eye witness accounts of the life and death of Jesus. The difference being the first covenant of God in the Old Testament and the New Covenant of God in the New Testament of how we are forgiven for our sin. Finally, we are given the prophecies of what is to come in the Old Testament, and we see eye witness account to its fulfillment in the New Testament. Therefore, the Old Testament and New Testament complement one another but differ in their messages. The Old Testament gives the detail of the beginning of the world; the New Testament provides detail of how it will end. Both testaments explain the laws in which we are to live. The Old introduces the laws, and the New reiterates them. Both Testaments give detail to the history of sin and explain the change in covenants from condemnation to mercy. The entire Bible carries the theme of how to earn salvation, with the New Testament validating the Old Testament.

Biblica et al. "What Is the Bible?" Biblica, 10 Aug. 2017, www.biblica.com/resources/bible-faqs/what-is-the-bible/.

"Sin." Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sin...