"The tragedy of common sense
it that it is not
very common."
(Albert Einstein)

"Politically correct Christianity
is tolerated but despised.
Full Gospel Christianity is
respected but persecuted."
(Unknown)

"If you marry the Zeitgeist
you will soon become widow."
(Goethe)

"To reach the source of a river
you must swim upstreams."
(Stanislaw Jerzy Lec)

"I note that all those,
who are positive to abortion
already are born."
(Ronald Reagan)

The Old Testament, the Gospels and the apostle Paul — are they contradicting one another?

Yes, this headline is bound to excite you? No, not really — right? But irrespective of the headline being exciting or not, the New Testament (NT) is the most important and fundamental amongst all Christian documents. You can in principle be a Christian without knowing the Old Testament (OT), but without NT there is no Christian faith. However, to be able to gain full understanding of NT, you must also have access to, and at least some knowledge, of GT. Large parts of the texts in the NT are basically incomprehensible without knowledge of OT, as the NT texts contain lots of references to OT (the Flood, Abraham, Moses, king David, the Ten Commandments, the Tabernacle, the Temple with the priests, the whole sacrifice system etc, etc). Without the background that OT provides, large parts of the Christian faith will be about names and terms without meaning and blind, mechanic obedience to things you don't understand (you would not understand in what way Jesus' death and resurrection could save man from the consequences of evil, you would not understand the real significance of the Communion, and when Jesus talks about the "Jonah-sign" it would tell the reader nothing at all etc, etc).

Since OT provides a basis for the Christian faith, and while many Christians avoid this significant part of the Bible, it is very important to try to understand the relationship between OT and NT.

Atheists like to talk about the Old Testament's horrifying image of God (this is dealt with more extensively here) and argue that OT is impossible to reconcile with the image of God which Jesus teaches in the New Testament. God cannot be in two different ways, hence the Bible cannot possibly describe one true God. It's all about a god invented by Man himself, and the transformation of god's nature between OT and NT only reflects only how much human mind has evolved in time. Approximately so goes the reasoning. Many Christians have for similar reasons problems with "all atrocities" they believe are depicted in OT, "atrocities" they feel form a sharp contrast to Jesus' image in NT. They cannot be bothered to tackle the problem and pretend that OT does not exist. Which makes them weak Christians wavering in their faith, as they don't fully understand what they believe in (as I explained above).

The Bible reveals with gradual growth who God is. It has never been possible for God to reveal more to humans than they have been mature enough to understand (likened to math education where you cannot introduce conceptions and theories to pupils who have no possibility of comprehending them — you have to step slowly). Therefore, God reveals more and more of himself as time goes on (like a math teacher revealing more and more of the secrets of mathematics to his pupils as their ability of understanding increases). For this reason the image of God in NT is more complete than the image in OT. Which does not mean that OT is totally wrong. It is not about a false, but of an incomplete picture of God, that becomes increasingly complete as we move along in the texts. To be able to comprehend the fullness of God, OT must be supplemented with NT. Through Jesus, God has revealed so much of his nature and his qualities as man has the capacity to understand, spiritually and intellectually. Jesus says in John 14:9, "He that has seen me has seen the Father". God, thus, has not changed. Man has changed. He has increasingly matured and therefore God has been able to reveal more and more of himself to Man.

Atheists (and also Muslims) are in the habit of stating (alleged) differences between Paul's teachings and Jesus' teachings to discredit the Christian faith. That is, the way they see it, there are not only conflicts between OT and NT, but also internal contradictions in NT. For example, Jesus says in Mathew 5:17 onward that the whole law applies ("Believe not that I have come to destroy the law…"), while Paul in Ephesians 2:8-9 says that we are saved by grace ("For by grace are you saved through faith") and not through deeds (that is by following the law). The analysis of the Bible made by atheists is based, to a large degree, on misconceptions. It is very rare that atheists read the entire text of the Bible with the aim to really understand what it says (and if they do, it is not uncommon that they become Christians — that's what happened to me, for example). To really understand you must step into the world that the Bible depicts. Only by reading the whole Bible from first to last page, and with a humble point of view to what you read, (which doesn't mean you cannot think for yourself) you can put everything in its real context. Most atheists may be searching on certain words and then at the very most read a few verses in the places they've found. Or they read, without critical thinking, occasional verses on some atheist website (that is, they use their critical faculties when it comes to the Bible, but not on the content on the atheist website). By tinkering down the entire text of the Bible, and by being negatively biased, they totally miss out on what the Bible is trying to convey to us (no other historical documents are treated as shabbily). The express intention seems to be to find faults, as from the outset they have decided that the Bible is wrong and that God does not exist.

Most atheists are of the opinion that everything can be understood by intellect alone. If they cannot immediately understand everything in the Bible through logical analysis and by reading only selected snippets (chosen by certain criteria) in the Bible text, well, then God cannot exist. By using search programs in a computer-bible (instead of reading the Bible in its entirety) is pretty much like exploring the deep sea with a trawl with one meter large stitches and then proclaim, "After trawl-fishing in the deep seas for 25 years I have come to the conclusion that all living organisms in the deep sea are bigger than one meter". Through the search program you only find what you are looking for, that is what you yourself can imagine, while you miss out on all the unexpected (for example fish smaller than one meter). The atheists elevates basically their own intellects to be on par with God's intellect. Indirectly, they say, "There is nothing in the overall reality that I cannot understand. My ability to understand sets a limit to what can exist and what can be possible and true." In plain language this is called megalomania (delusional fantasies of omnipotence — inflated self-esteem). They cannot imagine that God may have characteristics which they do not have or even understand. By having this attitude, and by studying the Bible the way I described above, the atheists miss the whole context (suppose you read a thrilling or fun book using this technique or you went to a movie or a theatre with that approach).

A good deal of the problems many people experience when it comes to understanding the relationship between the various Bible texts will be removed if you understand the following simple facts:

— The Old Testament points forward to Jesus
— The Gospels are about Jesus' life and ministry, and Jesus as God's messenger to the Jews
— Paul's letters point back toward Jesus and explain the meaning of Jesus' teaching and what the crucifixion and resurrection signify particularly in a Gentile perspective (continued in this text, Gentiles meaning all non-Jews).

All Bible texts consequently point toward Jesus. OT tells us about Jesus to come. The Gospels describe in present day the Jesus who is, and the rest of NT speaks of Jesus who was sent by the Father and who took our sins upon himself on the cross and who defeated sin by rising from death on the third day and now sits on the Father's right side. The letters in NT are also practical instruction directed to the newly established Christian congregations in the Roman Empire.

OT includes also the history of the Jewish people. There are also many practical details, for instance how to dig latrines and not to eat pork, there being a risk of trichinae (of course there is no mention of the word trichinae in the text — but the prohibition probably aimed to stop this disease), you find wonderful songs of praise to God, and in the Song of Solomon we find the most beautiful love poetry, perhaps in history. In OT are also prophesies and symbolic pointing towards the coming Messiah. These prophesies were fulfilled by Jesus Christ. The sacrificial essence in the Old Testament is for example a model of Jesus on the Calvary. By the precise prophesies in OT it's supernatural origin is proven. Much written in OT is not applicable today (as a Christian it is often very easy to understand what is applicable and not applicable today), but by reading OT we understand things in NT, that we would not otherwise understand, yes, OT is, as noted above, quite simply necessary for a complete comprehension of NT.

The Gospels deal with the life of Jesus and his death and resurrection and how Jesus worked amongst his own people, the Jews. Here we learn that Jesus was not sent to the Gentiles but to the Jews. In Matthew 10:5-6 we read:

These twelve (the disciples) Jesus sent forth, and he commanded them: "Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans do not enter. But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel".

In Matthew 15:24 Jesus says to the Canaanite woman (who thus was not Jewish), who begs Jesus to heal her sick daughter, "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel". Jesus then heals her daughter anyway and says in verse 28, "O woman, great is your faith: be it unto you even as you will".

These verses show that Jesus during his life time, in principle, only turned to the Jews, that is his own people. When Jesus speaks in NT, he consequently speaks to the Jews and not to the Gentiles (but his words are eternal and speak simultaneously to all of us). Then Paul explains the content of Jesus' words and what they signify to us, the Gentiles. Obviously Jesus' message has the same significance for all people, but depending on our background (Jew or Gentile) we will perceive Jesus' words in different ways. This is why Paul's explanations are so important. It was surely no coincidence that God chose just him to explain the Gospel to us. He was a personal disciple to the great rabbi Gamaliel and probably one of the foremost theologians of his time.

But even if Jesus, according to some Bible verses, was sent to the Jewish people, there are other verses showing that Jesus' message, after his resurrection, was intended to reach all people of the world, for example Matthew 28:19:

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and of the Holy Spirit and teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.

After his resurrection, Jesus calls one of the budding Christianity's worst enemies, the Jewish rabbi Saul (he was chasing Jesus-believing Jews and sentenced them to death — as noted above he was one of his time's foremost rabbis), to be his disciple and spread the Gospel to the Gentiles. Saul changes name to Paul to indicate that he no longer is a Jewish rabbi but a missionary to the Gentiles.

Paul explains the meaning of the Gospels. You could say that the Gospels contain Jesus' message about the way to salvation, that is "how" (without explaining why you should do this or that), while Paul, in his letters, explains the spiritual processes that underlie what we can see with our eyes, that is, Paul explains "why". His teaching gives us, so to speak, x-rays of the Gospels, that we may understand the underlying mechanisms.

Paul is consistently focused on explaining the meaning of Jesus' teaching and his death and resurrection, and he mentions nothing at all about his birth, childhood, adolescence and life before his crucifixion. The first mentioned is, after all, all that matters for our salvation.

It is vital to understand the above in order to truly understand the Christian faith. When a Jew reads NT, he will not perceive the text in exactly the same way as a non-Jew. But even if Jesus talks to the Jews in the Gospels, and Paul in NT caters mainly to the Gentiles, both OT and the Gospels and Paul's letters (and the rest of NT) is essential reading for both Jesus-believing Jews and Gentiles.

Let me give a few concrete examples. First an example of how OT points forward to Jesus.

The reader knows of course how God commands Abraham to sacrifice his only son on mount Moriah, and that an angel of the Lord prevents Abraham to carry out the sacrifice (read more about this here). Except in the story of Abraham, there is only one other passage in the Old Testament where mount Moriah is mentioned (which is very easy to check in a computer-bible). In the Second Book of the Chronicles 3:1 we find the following passage: "Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem in mount Moriah…" The temple in Jerusalem was thus situated on mount Moriah. It is therefore not impossible, but rather likely if you consider the symbolism that permeates the entire Bible, that Jesus much later was crucified at the exact place where God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son. Thus we see a shadow of the sacrifice of Jesus. Like Jesus, Isaac was born in a supernatural way. Sarah was old and could humanely no longer bear children. And just like Jesus — God's only begotten son — Isaac was the only son. Both was to be sacrificed in the same place, and both were saved — "rose from the dead" — through divine intervention.

And here is an example showing Paul pointing backward to Jesus, and explaining it in such a way that even the Gentiles will be able to understand the meaning of Jesus' teaching:

In Matthew 5:17-18 Jesus says:

Think not that I have come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I have not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you: Before heaven and earth pass away shall not the smallest letter, not one tittle of the law pass away, till all be fulfilled.

Many seekers and many dedicated atheists find this hard to understand. The atheists (and also the Muslims) are using these verses, as mentioned above, trying to prove that the Bible contains contradictions. But also many Jews misinterpret the real meaning. Here Jesus says that the law applies in full, while in other passages he speaks about forgiveness and grace. What you then, as non-Jew or atheist, not understand, is that Jesus, in the Bible quote above, speaks to the Jewish people, who lived under the law and not under grace. Paul then explains how Christians should view law and grace. In Romans 8:1-3 he writes, e.g.:

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who belong to Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. What the law could not do, because it fell short for our flesh, God did, when he sent his own Son to be like a sinful man and sent him as a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man.

The key to the grace of God is, according to the Romans, our faith and not our deeds. As indicated in other articles on this site, the Law was not actually given to man to be kept. God knew that this was impossible. The fallen Man cannot, however much he endeavors, fully keep the Law! Instead it functions as a 'mirror', which God holds up before Man, that he may recoil from his own image, that is, to understand his true nature, and in his despair realize that all he can do is to appeal to God's mercy and loving-kindness. Paul writes in Romans 3:20:

For by works of the law no one will be justified in his sight. The law is the knowledge of sin.

Consequently the law cannot save us. The redeemed Man has the law inscribed in his heart (and not on stone tablets). Even if man sometimes do the wrong things and fall into sin, he knows in his heart that it is wrong and does everything he can to correct what he has wronged. And not because he fears the punishment, but because he, just like God himself, abhors evil and unrighteousness. And not just the wickedness of others, but his own. To be a Christian does not mean being perfect. It is impossible. To be a true Christian entails agreeing with God on what is right and wrong. Someone put it like this; 'To be a Christian is to fight together with God against your own fallen nature. To stand on God's side against yourself'.

Without Paul's explanation of the law and grace, it would be difficult for a non-Jew to truly understand how Jesus can reconcile these seemingly contradictory concepts.

Before Jesus, man was here for the law, but Jesus taught us that the law is here for man. The law is not here to oppress man but to help him to live righteously in a fallen world. In Mark 2:27 Jesus says: "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath".

Luke 6:5 tells us how Jesus' disciples during a Sabbath, when they passed through some corn fields, gathered some ears and ate them (which was in fact permitted). Some Pharisees criticized this, as it was prohibited to gather ears during the Sabbath. Jesus replies: "The Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath". In the 1981 Swedish translation of the Bible, in a footnote to this verse, a supplement is mentioned that you can find in one of the manuscripts that are the basis of the 1981 Swedish translation:

The same day, he saw a man working on the Sabbath, and said to him: If you know what you are doing you are blessed, but if you know not you are damned and breaking the law.

What Jesus means to say is that if you do not know and have not understood grace (like Jesus preached) you are still under the law and you will be damned if you break the Fourth Commandment. But if you know that the Sabbath was made for man, and that man will be saved by pleading for God's mercy, you can openly break this commandment, as there is a higher path to God than being enslaved by the law, that is the path of grace (what Jesus says in Mathew 5:17-18 thus applies for him who does not know the path of grace or for him who believes he can be justified by his own good deeds, like the Pharisees).

When we say that man is saved by grace and not by following the law, many atheists usually (those who always seek for errors in the Bible, without seriously examining the Bible) declare, "Well, as a Christian you can then live like a swine as much as you like; cheat other people, steal, rape etc, and then just turn to the grace of God?".

Not at all! In James' epistle (thought to be written by Jesus' brother James) 2:14-18 we read:

My brothers, what good is that if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister do not have clothes and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them: "Go in peace, dress warmly and eat well", but do not give them what the body needs, what good is it?
So faith is dead in itself, as it is without works.
Now someone might say: "You have faith." — Yes, but I have also works. Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith with my works.

While Paul was so focused on explaining that we are saved by grace and not by law, some Christians began ignoring the law (works). This is totally inconsistent with the spirit of Jesus' teaching (and also with what Paul writes), and the apostle James found it necessary to point out that deeds are a part of being Christian. It is true that we are saved by the grace of God, but our faith must also, if it is genuine, have practical implications in our lives. Christian love is not nice words, it signifies action. Like the Swedish artist Carola sings in "Save the children", "Save them your sympathy, without action it's lost" — e.g. expressing sympathy for the suffering children in this world, without action, is a waste.

One never ceases to be amazed with what great energy certain atheists go about discrediting the Bible. During conversations and mail exchanges I have had with atheists, they have claimed several times that NT is completely schizophrenic. Paul, who they claim, contradicts Jesus (as mentioned above), talks about grace, followed by James contradicting Paul by emphasizing the importance of deeds, making NT a single tangle of confusing contradictions. But then you have not understood anything. This is what happens when you don't read the Bible text thoroughly and see the context. James does not contradict Paul. He (and the other epistle writers in NT) complements Paul's teaching. Because people abused Paul's teaching on grace, James found himself compelled to bring the church back on track. To claim that James and Paul are in disagreement, is like saying that if a driver of a car is driving on a straight road and first turns the steering wheel a little bit left, then a little bit right, he is schizophrenic. The simple truth is that by doing this, he is trying to keep the car on the road! In the same way, Paul and James tried to keep the church on the road.

You can read more on Christian faith in: The fulfillment of Bible prophecy.

Back to problems and contradictions in the Bible