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On another thread someone wrote of Abraham:

[!--QuoteBegin--][/span][table border=\"0\" align=\"center\" width=\"95%\" cellpadding=\"3\" cellspacing=\"1\"][tr][td]Quote [/td][/tr][tr][td id=\"QUOTE\"][!--QuoteEBegin--]Abraham was saved when Christ died.   \"These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off . . .\" Heb. 11:13.[/quote]

Personally, I have never agreed with the position that everyone before Christ had to wait for Christ to be crucified before they could be saved.

When I look at the OT, I see a God who set up a way for his people to have forgiveness and come into a right relationship with him - the sacrificial system.  It was the way it worked up until the time of Christ's sacrifice.

I see those people in the Old Testament being saved or lost based on their faith in God based on what they knew at the time.  Is there a specific place you can go to that tells me that they were not saved until Christ came?  I have never read that in the Scripture.

Thanks,

Kevin

Kevin, Paul, in I Corinthians 10:1-4 says the Hebrews who passed through the Red Sea were baptized into Moses and drank from the spiritual rock which followed them, which rock was Christ.

Pax vobiscum.

If the OT people were not in heaven, where were they?  If Elijah and Moses appeared at the Transfiguration, they had to have come from somewhere.

Peace.

[!--QuoteBegin--][/span][table border=\"0\" align=\"center\" width=\"95%\" cellpadding=\"3\" cellspacing=\"1\"][tr][td]Quote (s1n4m1n @ Feb. 27 2004,11:59)[/td][/tr][tr][td id=\"QUOTE\"][!--QuoteEBegin--]A guess it depends on one's definition of \"saved\". I don't think Abraham was in heaven until Christ died. However, I think he was in a right relationship with God.

Ken[/quote]
And I guess this is what it comes down to.  It may be semantics.  When I look at the OT I see people who lived by faith (and of course others who did not), but Christ had not yet been born or died.  Were these people in a right relationship with God that led to salvation.  No doubt.  Abraham, Moses, Noah, and more were all judged, not on the basis of what they did with the Christ, but on the basis of what they did with what God had revealed to them at the time.

Kevin

But it is possible to relieve them of their debt - even though Christ paid for it later, they were still relieved (forgiven).

James

You are on it Clifty!   :thumbup:

[!--QuoteBegin--][/span][table border=\"0\" align=\"center\" width=\"95%\" cellpadding=\"3\" cellspacing=\"1\"][tr][td]Quote (s1n4m1n @ Feb. 27 2004,11:59)[/td][/tr][tr][td id=\"QUOTE\"][!--QuoteEBegin--]A guess it depends on one's definition of \"saved\". I don't think Abraham was in heaven until Christ died. However, I think he was in a right relationship with God.

Ken[/quote]
Ken,

So where was he?

So are you all telling me that Abraham was declared righteous, but he wasn't really righteous until Christ made him righteous years later?  Are you saying that Noah was righteous and upright, but he wasn't really made that way until Christ?  

Also, what do you do with verses like these?

Leviticus 4:26:  \"He shall burn all the fat on the altar as he burned the fat of the fellowship offering. In this way the priest will make atonement for the man’s sin, and he will be forgiven.\"

Leviticus 4:31:  \"He shall remove all the fat, just as the fat is removed from the fellowship offering, and the priest shall burn it on the altar as an aroma pleasing to the LORD. In this way the priest will make atonement for him, and he will be forgiven.\"

Leviticus 5:10: \"The priest shall then offer the other as a burnt offering in the prescribed way and make atonement for him for the sin he has committed, and he will be forgiven.\"

Leviticus 5:17-18: “If a person sins and does what is forbidden in any of the LORD’S commands, even though he does not know it, he is guilty and will be held responsible. 18He is to bring to the priest as a guilt offering a ram from the flock, one without defect and of the proper value. In this way the priest will make atonement for him for the wrong he has committed unintentionally, and he will be forgiven.\"

Leviticus 19:22: \"With the ram of the guilt offering the priest is to make atonement for him before the LORD for the sin he has committed, and his sin will be forgiven.\"

Numbers 14:20: \"The LORD replied, “I have forgiven them, as you asked.\"

Numbers 15:25-26:: \"The priest is to make atonement for the whole Israelite community, and they will be forgiven, for it was not intentional and they have brought to the LORD for their wrong an offering made by fire and a sin offering. 26The whole Israelite community and the aliens living among them will be forgiven, because all the people were involved in the unintentional wrong.\"

I could list hundreds of more verses about sins being forgiven in the Old Testament under the covenant God set up.  It happened then, not years later at the time of Christ.  The sacrifices offered were a type of the ultimate sacrifice that was offered for us, but these people were forgiven by those sacrifices - God told them they would be.

Where did this doctrine that they were not forgiven until years later originate?

Kevin

James,

Did you mean Kevin or me?

Ken

James,

I think what I stated accounts for information presented in the Bible. We can all agree that:

1)Jesus went to Hades (Sheol) after He died (Acts 2:31, \"he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption.\")

2)Jesus said in Luke 23:43 to the thief on the cross that \"today you will be with Me in Paradise.\"

From this we can conclude that Paradise and Hades refer to the same place or either one is a part of the other.

3)In the story of the rich man and Lazarus the rich man upon his death was in \"torments in Hades\", Luke 16:23.

We already concluded that Jesus went Hades. Since he also went to Paradise I can only conclude that Hades consists of Paradise (where Lazarus was comforted and apparently Abraham was there too) and torments (where the rich man was tormented).

I'll have to stop there, but can we agree on that much.

Ken

I wonder if our understanding on this isn't affected by how we are constrained by time and God isn't?  Could it be that all those saved are with God as He sees and is in not only the present but the beginning & the end, right now?

Whatever the correct answer, the \"saved\" are or will be with God and time will not be an elementany anymore.  I don't believe the saved will notice any time delay in being with God, if there is any time delay.

Bill

We did not get many responses to this question, so I wanted to bump it up to the top again and ask you to talk about how you teach this subject.  Were they forgiven and put in a right relationship with God through the Old Covenant, or did they have to wait until Jesus?  If so, how could Abraham be declared righteous, right with God, before Jesus?

Kevin

I'm new to this board.

Here are my thoughts on this subject.  My short answer is, yes, they were saved.

1 Cor 10:1-5
1 For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. 2 They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3 They all ate the same spiritual food 4 and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert. NIV

Paul is painting a picture here, to pull a carpet under anyone who would believe that the revelation, the manifestations of God, and the journeying of the children of Israel were any different to the revelation, the manifestations, and the journeyings of the people of God today. There’s only ever been one way of salvation: by grace, through faith, that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. The Bible says Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. It was not to do with genetics, it was to do with faith and belief systems. It wasn’t to do with how his body was formed, it was to do with how his heart was formed. So we have to come to this understanding there was just only one way of salvation, because here Paul is teaching us in 1 Corinthians that what we know as salvation and what we know as the visitation of God is no different to us today, than it was to the children of Israel who we call the Old Covenant children of Israel. And so he paints a picture here and says, ‘I don’t want you to be ignorant.’ ‘Our forefathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea. And were baptized unto Moses.’

The children of Israel were in cruel bondage in Egypt – which of course in the Bible is a picture and a type of our bondage when we are in sin, to the attitude and nature of this world. Now how were the children of Israel delivered from Egypt? Would you agree that it was the power of the shed blood of a lamb? That as the lamb was slain, and they applied the blood, that death passed from them and they came into life and deliverance came. Would that be fair? How did you come to salvation? In exactly the same way. By a spotless lamb, who past the test to be qualified to be the sacrifice so you could be redeemed and set free. That’s why John said, ‘Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.’ So they were born again, released, delivered from their captivity, in exactly, exactly, the same way that you are. Now there were looking forward to Christ, we look backwards to Christ. But it was all through the Lamb. It was all through the Lamb. So they were saved in the same way that we are. It says that they were baptized, unto Moses, in the sea and under the cloud; the moisture of the cloud covered them above, the water of the sea covered them from each side, and they passed through the waters of baptism to be cut off from the land of their enemies. Now when the Bible talks about baptism, it separates us from the place where we used to live into the place where we are going to live.

So these Old Covenant people was saved by the blood of the lamb, they were baptized and they walked according to the revelation of God. So as we begin to read this, Paul is basically painting the picture, verse 3 They all ate the same spiritual food. The same as what? The same that we eat. The same revelationary, manifest Word of God. You know some of us think that the Old Covenant thing was somehow less so, you know – if we listen to the revelations of Moses – the Bible says that he saw God face to face. Friend of God, never been a prophet like him before, the Bible says, so don’t think that somehow he had a lesser revelation than we had. He was a great man of God with revelation; it says they ate the same spiritual food. And they drank the same spiritual drink, verse 4, for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and – listen – that rock was Christ. They were as much into feeding off Christ as you and I.

[!--QuoteBegin--][/span][table border=\"0\" align=\"center\" width=\"95%\" cellpadding=\"3\" cellspacing=\"1\"][tr][td]Quote (Andry @ Mar. 08 2004,2:09)[/td][/tr][tr][td id=\"QUOTE\"][!--QuoteEBegin--]I'm new to this board.

Here are my thoughts on this subject.  My short answer is, yes, they were saved.

1 Cor 10:1-5
1 For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. 2 They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3 They all ate the same spiritual food 4 and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert. NIV

Paul is painting a picture here, to pull a carpet under anyone who would believe that the revelation, the manifestations of God, and the journeying of the children of Israel were any different to the revelation, the manifestations, and the journeyings of the people of God today. There’s only ever been one way of salvation: by grace, through faith, that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. The Bible says Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. It was not to do with genetics, it was to do with faith and belief systems. It wasn’t to do with how his body was formed, it was to do with how his heart was formed. So we have to come to this understanding there was just only one way of salvation, because here Paul is teaching us in 1 Corinthians that what we know as salvation and what we know as the visitation of God is no different to us today, than it was to the children of Israel who we call the Old Covenant children of Israel. And so he paints a picture here and says, ‘I don’t want you to be ignorant.’ ‘Our forefathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea. And were baptized unto Moses.’

The children of Israel were in cruel bondage in Egypt – which of course in the Bible is a picture and a type of our bondage when we are in sin, to the attitude and nature of this world. Now how were the children of Israel delivered from Egypt? Would you agree that it was the power of the shed blood of a lamb? That as the lamb was slain, and they applied the blood, that death passed from them and they came into life and deliverance came. Would that be fair? How did you come to salvation? In exactly the same way. By a spotless lamb, who past the test to be qualified to be the sacrifice so you could be redeemed and set free. That’s why John said, ‘Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.’ So they were born again, released, delivered from their captivity, in exactly, exactly, the same way that you are. Now there were looking forward to Christ, we look backwards to Christ. But it was all through the Lamb. It was all through the Lamb. So they were saved in the same way that we are. It says that they were baptized, unto Moses, in the sea and under the cloud; the moisture of the cloud covered them above, the water of the sea covered them from each side, and they passed through the waters of baptism to be cut off from the land of their enemies. Now when the Bible talks about baptism, it separates us from the place where we used to live into the place where we are going to live.

So these Old Covenant people was saved by the blood of the lamb, they were baptized and they walked according to the revelation of God. So as we begin to read this, Paul is basically painting the picture, verse 3 They all ate the same spiritual food. The same as what? The same that we eat. The same revelationary, manifest Word of God. You know some of us think that the Old Covenant thing was somehow less so, you know – if we listen to the revelations of Moses – the Bible says that he saw God face to face. Friend of God, never been a prophet like him before, the Bible says, so don’t think that somehow he had a lesser revelation than we had. He was a great man of God with revelation; it says they ate the same spiritual food. And they drank the same spiritual drink, verse 4, for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and – listen – that rock was Christ. They were as much into feeding off Christ as you and I.
[/quote]
Andry,

Those were some great thoughts.  I will take some time to soak them in.

Kevin

[!--QuoteBegin--][/span][table border=\"0\" align=\"center\" width=\"95%\" cellpadding=\"3\" cellspacing=\"1\"][tr][td]Quote [/td][/tr][tr][td id=\"QUOTE\"][!--QuoteEBegin--]I am not a theologian, so probably should not say anything, but do you think I AM is probably rather amused by this discussion?  Trying to pinpoint when OT people were saved seems to me to be like when Moses was trying to get an explanation of who God was so he could go to the Israelites and tell them by whose authority he was going to lead them out of Egyptian bondage.  God told Moses to go to the Israelites and say: \"I AM has sent me to you.\"  Not really much of an explanation, but that was it.  Perhaps, if we could ask God this question (When were OT people were saved?), He would simply say \"I AM has come to you\" and that should be enough! :noddingsmiley:[/quote]
Interesting observation on \"I Am\".  Though perhaps not related to the OP, William and Catherine Booth are credited with this phenomenal statement:  \"It is impossible, to change the future, without disturbing the present.\"

Moses spent 40 years in Egypt learning he could do it; and then he spent 40 years in the desert learning that he couldn’t do it.  And then he spent 40 years doing it.  That’s about the course of life.  God touches us and we feel we can do it.  And then we come to a place where we absolutely feel we can’t do it.  And then God says, ‘Now do it.’  But here’s the key.  Do you remember when after Moses fled as a fugitive from Egypt, simply because he’d done right – have you ever feel like that – you’ve done your best, and all that’s happened is you’ve become a fugitive to your own vision.  You’ve become a victim of your own dream.  Just like Samuel when God says in 1 Samuel 16, \"How long will you mourn for Saul… Fill your horn with oil and be on your way; I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king.\"   NIV

You see Samuel felt that he had used up all his anointing on a failed endeavour.  There are times when we feel we’ve used up all our anointing on a failed endeavour; that we’ve become a fugitive to our own vision, and a victim to our own dream.  

And Moses is out in the desert looking after these sheep, and of course, he sees the bush burning that is not consumed.  He goes over to the bush.  Bear in mind now that this man has got 80 years on his back.  He’s not a young man, he’s got some experience, he’s walked a little journey, and he’s kind of got some issues that have happened.  And God turns up to him in the middle of the bush in the desert, and would you believe it, that after 40 years of all this stuff being a fugitive to his own dream God does not give him one single word of explanation about the last 40 years.  Not one single word of explanation about his circumstances.  I mean, you’d think like God owed it to him, you know.  \"I mean God, I tried to serve you, and here I am in this place, don’t I deserve an explanation?\"

No, you don’t’ deserve an explanation, you require a revelation.  I'm of the profound opinion that too many of us are looking for an explanation, rather than a revelation – ‘Why did I get to the place that I’m in?  No – the question is, ‘How do you get to the place that you’re going?’  So the course of our lives are not determined by the circumstances we face, but by the choices that we make.  So God turns Moses away from the circumstances, and pushes him into crises that he might make choices.  ‘Moses, I am the God of your fathers.  I am going to send you back to Egypt, that you would bring deliverance to the people.’  

So many in the body of Christ are locked in trying to understand the circumstances of their life, instead of understanding and grasping all of the things that contribute to making choices which will change us.  

So the reason most of us don’t see our future changed is because we don’t want to see our present disturbed.  So nothing changes.

I think the people who died faithfully during the old covenants were in a saved state, but much was dependant on God's foreknowledge and divine providence.  Christ's sacrifice was still necessary.  No one, from Adam to us today, can be saved without the blood of Christ.  Had He not died, they would not be saved.  No sin, throughout the course of history, has ever been forgiven without the atonement of Christ. Heb 9, Rom 3,

[!--QuoteBegin--][/span][table border=\"0\" align=\"center\" width=\"95%\" cellpadding=\"3\" cellspacing=\"1\"][tr][td]Quote [/td][/tr][tr][td id=\"QUOTE\"][!--QuoteEBegin--]No sin, throughout the course of history, has ever been forgiven without the atonement of Christ. Heb 9, Rom 3,[/quote]
Explain your statements in light of Lev 4:20 [and other similar passages]. All of this appears to me to say plainly that sin was forgiven at that time, not hundreds of years later when Christ died.

I agree.  And I think it's helpful to remember that God Lives (or exists, as we normally put it) outside of time.