After listing the benefits of liberty in Christ in section one, the authors of the Confession remind us that all of these gospel benefits “were common also to believers under the law. But under the New Testament, the liberty of Christians is further enlarged…” (20.1). The benefits that are listed are freedom from the yoke of the ceremonial law, greater boldness of access to the throne of grace, and fuller communications of the free Spirit of God “than believers under the law did ordinarily partake of.” Thus, the Old Testament and New Testament believer enjoy the same Spirit but a difference in frequency, intimacy, intensity, and extent with regard to the Spirit’s communion and thus a different spiritual experience.   

How do we think about the Old Testament saint’s believing experience in relation to our own?  Perhaps we think better of them than we do of ourselves!  Or maybe we use them as an excuse for our bad behavior.  For instance, how many times has David’s name been invoked as an excuse for unfaithfulness?  But even then David is viewed as someone who had a spiritual experience beyond our own and therefore if he could sin, well then, why should I be different?  What we are really saying is, “If David, who had a great spiritual life, sinned, then I, with a lesser spiritual life, cannot be expected to do any better.”  To put it differently and more generally, we, New Testament saints, treat the experience of the Old Testament saint as if it were beyond our own believing experience.  But is it?  Should we think of ourselves as always trying to reach the spiritual level of an Old Testament saint?  Let me ask an objective question.  What does our theology teach us about this question?

Well, first our theology tells us that Old Testament believers were saved in the same way that a New Testament believer is saved, through the gospel.  Consider, for example, Westminster Confession chapter eight and section six, which says, “Although the work of redemption was not actually wrought by Christ till after His incarnation, yet the virtue, efficacy, and benefits thereof were communicated unto the elect in all ages successively from the beginning of the world, in and by those promises, types and sacrifices, where He was revealed…” Yes, in the Old Testament the “covenant was differently administered” yet the “promises, prophecies, sacrifices, circumcision, the paschal lamb, and other types and ordinances delivered to the people of the Jews, all fore-signifying Christ to come…” (WCF 7.5). According to our theology, whether one is under the Old Testament or the New Testament we are saved the same way, which is why Paul says that “the Scripture…preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham” and so called him a believer (cf. Galatians 3:7-9).

However, in chapter twenty of the Westminster Confession, we are told that the spiritual experience from the Old Testament to the New Testament is quite different. After listing the benefits of liberty in Christ in section one, the authors of the Confession remind us that all of these gospel benefits “were common also to believers under the law. But under the New Testament, the liberty of Christians is further enlarged…” (20.1). The benefits that are listed are freedom from the yoke of the ceremonial law, greater boldness of access to the throne of grace, and fuller communications of the free Spirit of God “than believers under the law did ordinarily partake of.” Thus, the Old Testament and New Testament believer enjoy the same Spirit but a difference in frequency, intimacy, intensity, and extent with regard to the Spirit’s communion and thus a different spiritual experience.  Let me put it another way.  Where the experience of the Old Testament believer ends is exactly where the experience of the New Testament believer begins.

Think for a minute about how amazing it is that God gives the gospel to both Old and New Testament believers and neither group will ever come to the end of the treasures found therein.  The Psalms are the same.  Here is a book given by the inspiration of God to the Old and New Testament saints. It is a book infinitely usable by both no matter the era.  This is why Calvin said,

I have been accustomed to call this book, I think not inappropriately, “An Anatomy of all the Parts of the Soul;” for there is not an emotion of which any one can be conscious that is not here represented as in a mirror. Or rather, the Holy Spirit has here drawn to the life all the griefs, sorrows, fears, doubts, hopes, cares, perplexities, in short, all the distracting emotions with which the minds of men are wont to be agitated.^[1]

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