#11 The Gospel's Reliance on the Old Testament

Show Notes

Anthony and Cody explore the New Testament's reliance on the Old Testament, emphasizing how early Christian teachings were rooted in these scriptures. They also discuss the historical dangers of "New Testament-only" sects, like Marcionism, which rejected the Old Testament, leading to theological distortions. Finally, they explain why understanding the Old Testament is essential for framing the New Testament, rather than treating it as an entirely new movement.

Music: Better Day by Oleksandr Stepanov

Podcast TranscripT

Anthony Delgado: This light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen—2 Corinthians 4:17-18. In a post-materialistic world filled with immense spiritual noise, we're here to uncover the ancient Near Eastern context of the Bible and recover the truly mystical faith of our spiritual forefathers. Welcome to the Biblical Re-Enchantment Podcast, where we bridge the gap between the ancient Hebrew story and modern insights. I'm Anthony Delgado, your host for this journey into the often-overlooked mystical dimension of the Bible.

Cody Urban: And I'm Cody Urban, co-hosting this episode.

Anthony Delgado: This is episode 11, titled The Gospels’ Reliance on the Old Testament. Just to remind everyone, we’re going to look at how the Gospels rely on the Old Testament before we get into more specific ways that the Gospels—particularly the gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—rely on the Old Testament. We’ll also explore how the church fathers did that and other related things.

In this episode, we’re discussing the New Testament's reliance on the Old Testament, the problem with "New Testament-only" cults or sects in their historical context, and why framing the New Testament with the Old Testament is crucial—not just for theological reasons, but for practical application in how we live our lives as Christians and interact with each other.

We want to stress more continuity and less discontinuity between the Old and New Testaments. Let's start by briefly discussing the New Testament’s reliance on the Old Testament. In our last episode, we addressed Stephen's sermon—Stephen, being the first martyr in the book of Acts. Essentially, everything he spoke about was based on the Old Testament. He unpacks the Old Testament and then says, "This Jesus—you killed Him." That's also Peter’s sermon at Pentecost: all Old Testament, up to the point where he presents Jesus as the Messiah. We’re not going to rehash that today, but we have examples of how the disciples and Jesus himself thought about the Old Testament.

One famous story is the encounter of the Emmaus disciples after the resurrection.

Cody Urban: Ah, yes, that story.

Anthony Delgado: You want to tell it? Luke 24:45 might be the key scripture, but go ahead and tell the story.

Cody Urban: My version in a nutshell: Jesus has just been crucified, and these disciples are walking on the road to Emmaus, feeling dejected. They thought Jesus was the Messiah, but their vision of what that meant—Him being a conquering king who would overthrow Rome—was different. Jesus approaches them and has the world’s greatest Bible study with them. I wish we could hear everything Jesus said because He walks them through the Old Testament. It’s funny that we keep calling it the Old Testament because for them, that was the Bible.

Anthony Delgado: Yeah, the only Testament.

Cody Urban: Right. Jesus goes through the Scriptures and shows how everything points to the fact that the Christ had to suffer and be crucified. At the end of the study, their eyes are opened, and they recognize Jesus before He vanishes. It would’ve been incredible to hear everything Jesus explained, especially things we still may not fully grasp 2,000 years later, even as we continue making discoveries about how different scriptures relate to one another.

Anthony Delgado: That’s right. And sometimes in fundamentalist circles, you hear people say that the New Testament authors mishandled the Old Testament, but it's okay because they did it under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And then they say, "We can’t interpret the Old Testament the way they did." But that’s sketchy because if you look at the Emmaus account, Luke 24:44 says, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled." Then, verse 45 says, "He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures."

So, we too are called to have our minds opened to understand the Scriptures and do precisely what Jesus did. He had that incredible Bible study with them, revealing how He is present throughout the Old Testament.

Cody Urban: Exactly! Imagine the kind of understanding they gained during that Bible study. People like G.K. Beale and D.A. Carson have written extensively about the New Testament’s use of the Old Testament, but those disciples got to sit with Jesus Himself as He walked them through it. They didn’t need to read all those works; they had the ultimate teacher right there.

Anthony Delgado: Absolutely! Jesus Himself demonstrated how the New Testament relies on the Old Testament, especially since the New Testament didn’t exist at that time. As the Gospel accounts and other New Testament writings came together, they followed a pattern of using the Old Testament to bring light to Christ, the Messiah of Israel.

Cody Urban: Exactly. And if we’re followers of Jesus, who held the Hebrew Bible in such high esteem—even in His moment of temptation in the wilderness, where He quoted Deuteronomy as His defense—then we should also highly regard the Old Testament. If Jesus leaned on the Scriptures to overcome temptation, shouldn’t we do the same?

Anthony Delgado: Absolutely. Jesus might have been reflecting on the Psalms of David, like Psalm 42, where David cries out, "How long, O Lord?" Jesus could’ve drawn strength from those lament Psalms or even the book of Lamentations. Paul echoes this in Romans 15:4, where he says the Scriptures instruct us, teaching us how to live our lives. Jesus, reflecting on the stories and Psalms of the Old Testament, found strength to persevere through His own trials. That’s incredible! And it shows us how we too should handle trials and temptations.

Second Timothy 3:16 says, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." When Paul refers to the Scriptures, he’s talking about the Old Testament, because the New Testament wasn’t complete yet.

Cody Urban: Right. And we sometimes forget that when Paul refers to Scripture, he’s referring to the Hebrew Bible.

Anthony Delgado: Exactly. Paul might not have realized he was writing something that would later be considered Scripture on the same level as the Torah. In fact, Paul wrote more letters than the ones we have in the New Testament. For example, there were at least two other letters to the Corinthians that didn’t make it into the canon. There’s a whole lot we don’t have.

But we do have early Christian records of how they used the Old Testament to refute the Jewish rejection of Christ, as seen in Acts 18:28. Paul’s approach was to point people back to the Old Testament. Take the Bereans, for instance—they examined the Scriptures daily to verify what Paul was preaching about Jesus. They weren’t checking New Testament writings; they were searching the Old Testament to confirm that what Paul was saying was true.

Anthony Delgado: The Bereans were looking for Jesus in the Old Testament, and the Holy Spirit was guiding them to see Christ in those Scriptures. As a result, a church sprang up in Berea. That’s another example of how significant the Old Testament is. If the disciples had seen the Old Testament as something that was over, imagine the chaos. They could’ve said anything, and people might have believed them, but there would’ve been no foundation to argue that it was built upon. And that’s where you get cults from.

Cody Urban: Exactly. And it makes me think about the overall point you make about the Gospel being a story—a God story. To think that the Old Testament is over would be like reading only the final Harry Potter book and trying to understand everything without the earlier ones. You'd miss the buildup and key plot points. Without the journey, the climax would lose much of its meaning.

Anthony Delgado: Absolutely. If you skip to the end of a story, you’ll miss so much context, and you might even invent things that aren't there. And that’s how cults start—by filling in the gaps with speculation. Early heretical groups like the Gnostics claimed to have secret knowledge that allowed them to rewrite the story. But the early church held fast to the Old Testament.

Now, let’s talk about modern-day "New Testament-only" cults. I don’t know if you’ve encountered any of these, Cody.

Cody Urban: I’ve met Christians who don’t reject the Old Testament, but they almost act like the Gospels are the only part of the Bible they need because "that’s where Jesus is." They don’t say they reject the Old Testament, but they don’t really engage with it either.

Anthony Delgado: That’s a good point. Some Christians today may not outright reject the Old Testament, but they act as if it’s unnecessary. This makes them functionally heretical. They may believe the right things and affirm the creeds, but their theological framework and practice ignore most, if not all, of the Old Testament. A prominent example of this is Andy Stanley, who publicly said that we need to "unhitch the New Testament from the Old Testament," essentially advocating that we stop teaching the Old Testament. This kind of thinking leads to all sorts of theological errors and moral ambiguities.

But this isn't a new idea. In the early church, Marcion—who was branded a heretic—rejected the Old Testament and claimed that the God of the Old Testament was different from the God of the New Testament. Let’s talk about Marcionism for a bit.

Marcion believed that there were two gods: a malevolent god, the creator of the physical world, who was the God of the Old Testament, and a benevolent god, the God of the New Testament, who sent Jesus into the world as the Savior. Marcion read the Old Testament very literalistically, rejecting it wholesale as the work of the malevolent god. He even prohibited allegorical interpretations of Scripture, which was contrary to how the early church—and Jesus Himself—read the Old Testament.

Cody Urban: Right. That kind of thinking is dangerous. Even just the idea of dividing the spiritual from the physical doesn’t hold up. For example, Jesus’ bodily resurrection shows that the physical world is important. He didn't just rise in spirit; He had a physical body with scars from the crucifixion. That alone undercuts the idea that the physical is evil and only the spiritual matters.

Anthony Delgado: Exactly. Marcion missed that. He was reading the Old Testament in a way that suited his rejection of the physical world, but he completely ignored the spiritual truth and the foreshadowing of Christ found in those texts.

The early church rejected Marcionism, and Tertullian wrote extensively against it. He cited Luke 6:43-45, where Jesus says that a good tree cannot bear bad fruit. Tertullian used this to argue that Marcion’s teachings were producing bad fruit, drawing people away from the truth. Other church fathers like Irenaeus also wrote against Marcion, calling him "the firstborn of Satan." The church took this very seriously because rejecting the Old Testament means rejecting the foundation of our faith.

Now, let’s consider the practical and theological reasons why understanding the Old Testament is essential for being a member of Christ’s Church. What do you think?

Cody Urban: Well, I think you lose a lot of the richness of the faith if you don’t engage with the Old Testament. Take communion, for example. Without the Old Testament background, it’s just an empty ritual. The symbolism of the bread and wine comes from the Passover meal and the sacrificial system. If you don’t understand that, you're missing out on the depth and meaning of what you're participating in.

Anthony Delgado: That’s a great point. Communion is so rich with Old Testament symbolism, and without it, the practice becomes just a command to follow rather than a meaningful act of worship. And that’s exactly what happens in many churches today. If you don’t know the Old Testament context, communion becomes a mere ordinance—something we do just because "Jesus said so"—instead of a sacrament filled with spiritual depth.

In fact, some Baptist traditions call it an "ordinance" rather than a "sacrament." The term ordinance reflects a belief that we do it simply because it was ordained by God. And when you reduce communion to that level, it becomes something you might only do quarterly or even yearly because it's lost its significance. But when you see the Old Testament context and understand the rich symbolism, you want to celebrate it more frequently, even weekly, as we do at our church.

Cody Urban: Exactly. When you strip away the Old Testament, the practice loses its power. And that can extend to other areas too, like baptism, worship, and even how we understand the kingdom of God.

Anthony Delgado: Right. And it’s a slippery slope. Without the Old Testament, you start to lose sight of the Gospel's full story. When you understand the Old Testament, you see how it builds toward Christ. Without it, Christianity becomes shallow—a religion of rules instead of a transformative relationship.

Now, imagine if the early church had rejected the Old Testament and simply said, "Jesus started a new thing." Without the Old Testament, they could’ve made anything up, and the early church would’ve been divided into all sorts of sects right from the start. There would’ve been no foundation for what they were teaching.

Cody Urban: Exactly. Without the Old Testament, the church wouldn’t have had a unifying story to hold onto. It would’ve been chaos.

Anthony Delgado: So, what do we lose when we treat the Old and New Testaments as completely separate? We lose the story, the meaning behind our practices, and ultimately, the richness of our faith. It’s vital to understand that the Old and New Testaments are part of one continuous story. If we separate them, we risk turning Christianity into something empty and legalistic.

Cody Urban: Absolutely. And we miss the deeper meaning behind so much of what we do. Like you said, without the Old Testament, even something like communion loses its depth and becomes just a box to check.

Anthony Delgado: That’s exactly it. And I want to encourage our listeners: spend time in the Old Testament. Learn to see how it points to Christ and how it enriches your understanding of the New Testament. Read the Bible both forwards and backwards. Study biblical theology and covenant theology to get the full picture of God’s redemptive plan from Genesis to Revelation. It’s all one story, and you’re missing out if you don’t engage with the whole thing.

I’m really excited about the upcoming episodes. We’re going to be diving into the Old Testament and exploring how it connects to the New Testament in greater depth. We’ve got a lot to cover, and I’m looking forward to sharing more with you and our listeners.