Salvation through faith alone Old Testament style

Isaiah 48:12-50:11

Ephesians 4:17-32

Psalm 69:1-18

Proverbs 24:5-6

The end of today's Isaiah reading goes like this -

 10 Who among you fears the Lord

      and obeys his servant?

   If you are walking in darkness,

      without a ray of light,

   trust in the Lord

      and rely on your God.

 11 But watch out, you who live in your own light

      and warm yourselves by your own fires.

   This is the reward you will receive from me:

      You will soon fall down in great torment.

What's striking about this is the way on which this captures the heart if the Gospel so neatly but does it 700 years before the time of Jesus. Those who are walking in darkness without a ray of light are those to whom God will show his favor but the ones who will bear the brunt of his wrath are those who rely on their own goodness before him.

We make all sorts of false distinctions between the Old Testament and New Testament but while there are differences (and it would be foolish to say that there are not) there are a lot less than you would think. It is not as though God became a Christian in the inter-Testamental period and suddenly found grace and love.  They were always there but can so easily be overlooked.