Redeemer Equips: Introduction to OT & NT Surveys

Pray

Welcome and Icebreaker

Welcome to our Old Testament and New Testament survey class, where we will see God's sovereign plan unfold in history for His glory. Matthew Emerson states, “The Bible contains sixty-six books written by more than forty authors, but is ultimately one book written by one author—God the Holy Spirit.” What we will be doing through the next several weeks is looking at an overview of these 66 books and seeing how they all sort of fit to together. In other words, we will be doing what is known as Biblical theology. This simply means that we will take all 66 books of the Bible and look at the bigger story, that single thread, that flows through each book.

Icebreaker: Share one word describing your view of the Bible ("mysterious" or "inspiring"). I’ll go first: Intimidating. The Bible is intimidating for me because it is such a large and comprehensive collection of writings, from narrative, to poetry, all the way to apocalyptic. I was a bad reader growing up and so the Bible is intimidating for me. Now, what about you?

We kind of explained what are goal for these classes will be. Now let's explore how we will see that the Bible tells one cohesive story of redemption.

Big Picture of the Bible

We believe that Scripture is the infallible Word of God and that it is centered on His covenants and fulfillment of those in Christ. The 1689 says, “The Holy Scriptures are the only sufficient, certain, and infallible standard of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience.” While we will not focus solely on the covenants we will see them as central themes throughout Scripture. It is important to know these themes as they help us navigate the entire story of redemption and the context of the writers. Biblical theology is nice because it brings the entire Bible to life as one grand narrative of God’s love for humanity.

Now, lets think of some of these themes. The Old Testament (OT) is the foundation of creation, fall, and promises/covenants; the New Testament (NT) is the fulfillment of the OT in Christ and God’s promises for a future. Thats one way to picture the big story of Scripture if your a note taker. (REPEAT/USE WHITEBOARD) Some key emphases: Total depravity (sin's universality), election (God's choice), justification, glorification, you think of the five solas which are pulled from Scripture as themes in salvation, and many others. Remember the Bible isn't a self-help book, but it reveals God's glory amid our brokenness. The Bible isn’t a textbook or a list of things to do, it’s a story about God, coming into His creation through His Son, saving a people from the evil one. It is common in our culture today to pick up a Bible, turn the concordance in the back, pick the topic your dealing with in life, and read a bunch of isolated verses for things to do that are supposed to fix it. While that can be helpful, it misses the bigger picture, and it misses Jesus Christ. You can think of the Bible in a Trinitarian sense: The Scripture is given by the Father, to reveal the Son by the power of the Spirit. (WRITE ON BOARD) This is why we try and remind all of you that it is important to read the whole Bible and not just bits and pieces of it. Start with the OT and read through the NT. When I sit down to read an article for research, I don’t pick it up, go to the middle, and start reading from there. No. I start from the beginning so that I don’t miss any important information that helps me figure out the later information. The Bible is the same way. There is not only a story behind it but a purpose as well. Before we continue on, I want to give out a timeline of the Bible.

Engagement: Visual timeline handout. Explain it. Also explain 4 chapters a day reading plan. 2 in the morning and 2 in the evening to build a habit of reading from beginning to end.

Question: What surprises you about the Bible's unity?

Since the main events within the OT have to with the covenants that God has made with his people, we will be looking at the OT through a covenant lens. If anyone wants to go deep into these covenants, I suggest looking up covenant theology and learning more about it. Maybe we will get to cover it soon but for now, since we are doing surveys, we will just look at the OT through the covenants without getting ourselves to deep into them.

OT Overview

The OT can be seen through the lens of 6 covenants: Edenic, Adamic, Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, and finally in the NT the covenant of Grace. What is a covenant? “A covenant was an agreement between two parties that bound them together with common interests and responsibilities.” Typically, there are two parties, and one agreement, and certain responsibilities, followed by a sign (but not always). The Hebrew word for covenant essentially means “contract.” Some of these covenants, people disagree with based on wording or lack of minor details, but we will get more into that later. Each of the covenants tell a part of the story and reveal God’s plan of redemption for his creation. In other words, the covenants show a progressive revelation of grace from God towards his people. One might ask, why so many different covenants? Each covenant was made with sinful man and at the end of the day they couldn’t be kept perfectly. Let’s look at each one real quick. (WRITE OUT THE COVENANTS ON THE BOARD)

Give handout and explain the covenants.

Edenic - God makes a covenant with Adam regarding the garden of Eden and the future state of humanity. (Genesis 1-2). In this covenant God tells Adam that they can eat from any tree in the garden but not of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Once they eat of that tree the result will be death. In this covenant Adam and Eve are responsible to rule over the creation and bare children as the people of God. This covenant did not last long.

Adamic - God makes a covenant with Adam to crush Satan through the seed of woman (Genesis 3:15). Adam and Eve have an encounter with this serpent, Eve is deceived and tricked into eating the fruit of the tree of which was forbidden, Thus the original covenant is now broken. As a result of the failed covenant with Adam and Eve, God makes a new covenant with them, one that promises a future Messiah who would crush the head of the serpent.

Noahic - He then makes a covenant with Noah (Genesis 6–9). Everyone remembers the flood story. Humanity got so bad in their sin that God decided to start over and warned Noah to build an Arc to save himself and his family. With this promise came new life after the flood and a promise to never destroy the earth again. Again, a promise not just for Noah but for all of his descendants as well. Similar to the Adamic covenant, Noah and his family were tasked with filling the world with people and a sign (the rainbow) was given as a reminder that God would never destroy the earth in a flood again.

Abrahamic - Next, he makes a covenant with Abram to bring the Messiah through his line and to make Abram a great nation (Israel) (Genesis 12; 15; 17; 22). Abraham receives the promise of becoming a great nation or a people of God that eventually lead them to the promised seed of the woman. What we begin to see through this covenant is many leaders raised up, the people expect them to be the promised seed, and they fail over and over again. But the promise of God was to make out of Abraham a nation of people blessed by God and an inheritance of a promised land.

Mosaic/Sinaitic/Works - After the Exodus, he makes a covenant with the nation Israel regarding the land and the law (Exodus 19–23). Known as the Mosaic or Sinaitic covenant, or the covenant of works. Moses goes up on mount Sinai and receives the law from God (ten commandments), he returns to the people, and a promise is made between God and the people: if you keep my laws I will give you the promised land that I swore to the others. If you fail, there is death. Eventually the people make it into the promised land but it takes a really long time for them to get there. This law is impossible to keep, and it was intended, not to be the savior but to lead the people to a Savior. It showed people how sinful they really are and just how much they truly needed a Savior.

Davidic - During David’s reign, God promises him that David’s offspring will sit on his throne forever and that God would build his kingdom through the line of David (2 Samuel 7). As time goes forward the people get worse and they become discouraged. All of these leaders have risen up, they think they are the promised Messiah, and they fail. God comes to David, and renews this covenant with him making it known that the promised seed of the woman is still coming and that he would come from David’s own offspring. So you can only imagine what David was thinking at that point.

New Covenant/Grace - And lastly through the prophets God promises that, in the new covenant, Israel, exiled and scattered, will one day be restored and receive God’s Spirit so that they can follow God’s instruction and live under his reign, forever (Jeremiah 31–33). This is the new covenant or better known as the covenant of grace in which Jesus fulfills every other covenant promise by keeping the law perfectly for us. You can see on this chart that the Mosaic, or covenant of works, is the only one that ends, and that is because the covenant of grace nullifies it. It isn’t that the law no longer matters but we are not bound by the law. All of the other covenants end in the kingdom of God as we reach our true promised land.

These covenants help us see the ways that God answers the problem of sin and keeps moving the story forward. As the people of God would fail, new covenants would be made. It isn’t that the promises of God failed, but the people the promises belonged to failed to uphold their end of the bargain. In between these covenants, we see smaller stories take place that begin to lay out central themes throughout Scripture. The Creation/Fall shows sovereignty and depravity; the Patriarchs/Israel emphasize election; Law/Prophets as well as sacrifices point to Christ's atonement. Even some of the central characters are seen as shadows of Christ. Christ is the better Adam, the better Moses, the better David, and so on. So the entire OT is pointing us forward to a future fulfillment of Christ that we see promised in Genesis 3:15 “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.” Something else to notice in these covenants, they are not just about the promised seed, but about God doing something about our sinfulness. They reveal the amazing grace of God towards a sinful people. In all of our sin, from Genesis onward, God has made a way for us to be in right relationship with Him.

Engagement: Any thoughts or question on the covenants or the OT in general? How does God's sovereignty seen in the covenants comfort you in uncertainty?

So what we have seen is that the OT builds anticipation for the NT's fulfillment. Through the covenants, the people, and the themes found, we are ultimately pointed forward to a coming Messiah who changes everything.

NT Overview

Jesus establishes a new covenant. Read together but not out loud Hebrews 8.

How does the New Testament (NT) connect to the Old Testament (OT)? It is not simply that the NT is a continuation in some sense of the OT. Rather, the NT extracts the central themes, covenants, promises, and prophecies, and consolidates them within a singular individual: Jesus Christ. Fundamentally, the NT provides both continuity and fulfillment of the OT. It persistently demonstrates how God is actively working within the lives of His covenant people and outlines His plan for a future devoid of sin. The NT contains approximately 257 direct quotations and over 1,100 allusions to the OT, underscoring the profound unity between the two. It is remarkable to me how anyone could suggest that the Bible comprises 66 randomly assembled books. In the NT, we observe two consistent themes: First, the overarching Old Testament themes—God as creator and sovereign, Israel’s election as the light of salvation, God’s abiding presence with His people, and history progressing toward God’s ultimate purpose—are reaffirmed, often with new development. Second, the authors of the NT identify messianic and other Old Testament prophecies as fulfilled in Jesus and the church, with particular emphasis on prophecies concerning the Davidic Messiah, the Son of Man, the prophet like Moses, and Isaiah’s Servant, which appear frequently.

What is the main message of the New Testament? The central message of the New Testament is centered on Christ, the covenant keeper, who provides salvation and restoration to His people through irresistible grace and perseverance. Building upon the prophecies and promises of the Old Testament regarding the coming Messiah, who would live, die, and rise again as foretold in Scripture—from Genesis 3:15, with the seed of the woman crushing the serpent’s head, to the covenants with Abraham, Moses, and David, culminating in the promise of a new covenant—the New Testament unveils God's plan of redemption.

The Gospels and Acts depict the life, death, resurrection, and the formation of the early church. The Epistles clarify key doctrines in accessible language for believers. Revelation reveals the ultimate victory and the future kingdom in which believers will be united. The New Testament teaches doctrines such as salvation and the church, emphasizes righteous living, forgiveness, eschatology, and offers practical guidance for living out faith in obedience to God.

What is the purpose of the NT? I want to be careful here and not make the Bible about moralism, but the NT helps us learn how to live as God wants us to live. New Testament theology robustly guides Christian living by establishing an inseparable connection between belief and behavior, where doctrinal understanding directly shapes moral practice. Instead of compartmentalizing theology, Christology, soteriology, and ethics into separate categories, the New Testament masterfully weaves these elements together, reflecting how they should be integrated in both thought and action. The NT shows us how to live not out of obligation, but out of the profound transformation we receive in Christ through the Spirit of God working in our hearts. And the NT leaves us with a promise for a future life in the kingdom of heaven with our Savior.

Engagement: Group read Romans 8:28-30 excerpt; discuss: How does predestination encourage perseverance?

Practical Tie-In: Use for daily battles against doubt or sin.

Application and Q&A (10 minutes)

Objective: Connect to life, address questions without moralizing.

Activities: Brainstorm: "One Reformed truth to apply this week." Q&A on topics like election's fairness. Resources: "What Is Reformed Theology?" by R.C. Sproul, Bible apps.

Engagement: Sticky notes for anonymous questions.

Closing and Prayer (5 minutes)

Objective: Reinforce unity and send out equipped.

Activities: Recap God's sovereign story; challenge: Read Genesis 1 with Reformed eyes. Prayer for understanding grace.