Discussions about the amount of continuity between the old and new covenants continue unabated.  The old adage “The Old Testament is the New concealed. The New Testament is the Old revealed” is good so far as it goes.  It does presuppose a connection between the two in Christ, and that there are differences. But it’s not sufficient to explain everything that needs to be said about the subject.  The problem in my mind is that too often our theology drives what we think about continuity questions, causing us to ignore some biblical text in favor of others.

Dispensationalists tend to primarily see a radical discontinuity between the covenants in order to secure their presupposition of the fundamental difference between Old Testament Israel and the New Testament Church.

The Reformed school of thought tends to primarily see a general continuity between the covenants so as to secure their presupposition that the New Testament Church is a continuation and culmination of God’s work through out history.

Often such assumptions tend to ignore the truly biblical continuities and discontinuities that exist on the other side of our theological presuppositions.  It is important to allow the Bible to speak on its own terms without imposing our theological assumptions about the degree of continuity.

An example of this can be found in discussions of the role of the Holy Spirit in the Old and New Covenants. Is His role virtually the same in both, or are their significant differences that the Bible talks about?  This became a matter of discussion at church following a sermon entitled, “Spirit-Empowered Deliverers.”

I see a number of texts that demonstrate considerable difference in the Old and New Covenant treatment of the work of the Holy Spirit.  Primarily, in my view, the Holy Spirit in the Old Covenant is seen as coming upon people for a specific purpose to empower them for a particular function.

• In Exodus we see that certain men (artisans) are filled with the Holy Spirit to have wisdom, understanding, knowledge and workmanship to make and teach others to make various items of for the construction of the tabernacle (28:3, 31:3; 35:31).
• Repeatedly in the book of Judges we see that the Spirit comes upon the judges to become Spirit-empowered deliverers of God’s people (3:10; 6:34; 11:29; 14:6, 19; 15:14, 16:20).
• The Holy Spirit comes upon the kings of Israel to empower them to fight the battles for God’s people. The Spirit came upon Saul for the first time to empower him to prophesy (1 Sam. 10:6, 10; 19:20-23), and then to become aroused to anger and led Israel to defeat the Ammonites (1 Sam. 11:6). 1 Samuel 16:14 says that the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul (the kingdom being torn from him because of his disobedience and unfaithfulness as Israel’s king), and an evil spirit comes and regularly distressed him (vv. 15-23). David becomes the archetypical Spirit-Empowered deliverer for Israel (1 Sam. 16:13; 2 Sam. 23:2).
• The Spirit of Yahweh comes upon the prophets to declare that on the other side of the death of exile the Lord will resurrect Israel from the dead by pouring out his Spirit. In fact, the prophets say that the even the Gentiles will have the Spirit poured out upon them as well.

Thus, in the Old Testament the Spirit primarily “comes upon” people to empower them to do a particular task in service to God and His people. He is not generally described as working in, or filling all believers in the same way that we see in the New Testament.

We are united to Christ by the work of the Holy Spirit, who guarantees that we will receive all the benefits of Christ.  By the Spirit we have all (believers) been baptized into the body of Christ. By the Spirit, we who believe are given understanding of what we could not otherwise understand about God. We are all given power to do great things for God by His Spirit.

Jesus is the great Spirit-empower deliverer, and as those who have received the Holy Spirit, we are made Spirit-empowered workers in His Kingdom.

One element of the significance of the work of Christ is that He has now poured out His Spirit, and is transforming the world in a new and powerful ways – Ways unseen and unprecedented in history. In Christ, and by the Holy Spirit, the whole of humanity is being renewed and transformed so as to be brought into conformity to Christ.

Tags: Covenant, Holy Spirit, New Testament, Old Testament