How Was There Salvation During the Old Testament Period?

A response from D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones To Mr R. C. Sellers, 24 May 1962.

With regard to your question, the answer is this. It is made clear in Romans 3:25, 26 that God’s forgiving and passing over the sins of people in the Old Testament was in the light of our Lord’s death. Then there is a parallel statement of this in Hebrews 9:5–15, and especially verse 15. You have the same point, of course, in verses 39 and 40 of Hebrews 11. Then there is the crucial statement in John 8:56: ‘Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.’ When you take that in connection with Romans 4:17–24 and Galatians 3:6–29, it is clear that there is only one way of salvation, and that it is always in and through Christ and His work. Acceptance of and submission to the sacrificial teaching under the old dispensation was an acceptance of God's way of salvation. They realised that these were but types of something that was to come. The fact that their understanding and apprehension were incomplete makes no difference.

God announced from the very beginning that there was but this one way of salvation. That is why everything in the Old Testament points forward to this.

posted by john d