Is the OT Physical and the NT Spiritual?

[mackbrislawn]

There are many instances in the OT in which physical acts caused benefits to the ones performing them, acts done in faith. Noah is an example. Passover and killing a lamb, eating it, and putting its blood over the door is an example. Forming a bronze serpent and looking upon it healed the bites from the fiery serpents. General Naaman bathed seven times in the Jordan and was healed of leprosy. So these physical activities, or ‘works’ conveyed benefits to those who performed them by faith. Hebrews 11 gives further examples. Obviously these acts were not only symbolic!

But what about the NT? In the NT there are also commands, ordinances, given. Physical activities to be done. What are they for? Do the acts convey any spiritual benefit themselves, or are they symbols or pointers of some kind?

I believe this initial premise of understanding of the nature of the NT causes much misunderstanding between Protestants and Catholics.

 

[Cruxis117]

There are many instances in the OT in which physical acts caused benefits to the ones performing them, acts done in faith. Noah is an example. Passover and killing a lamb, eating it, and putting its blood over the door is an example. Forming a bronze serpent and looking upon it healed the bites from the fiery serpents. General Naaman bathed seven times in the Jordan and was healed of leprosy. So these physical activities, or ‘works’ conveyed benefits to those who performed them by faith. Hebrews 11 gives further examples. Obviously these acts were not only symbolic!

But what about the NT? In the NT there are also commands, ordinances, given. Physical activities to be done. What are they for? Do the acts convey any spiritual benefit themselves, or are they symbols or pointers of some kind?

I believe this initial premise of understanding of the nature of the NT causes much misunderstanding between Protestants and Catholics.

In my honest opinion, I believe that the physical activities to be done are both symbolic as well as carriers of spiritual benefits. Can they not have both qualities? Surely there is always more than one level of meaning to things when we refer to Scripture…

 

[Araninski]

Both OT and NT are Physical and Spiritual.

Yahweh bless.

 

[mackbrislawn]

That’s what I think, too, that both the OT and NT are physical and spiritual. And the acts God asks us to do in both testaments are beneficial as well as symbolic.

However, some groups deny that any physical act, such as baptism, can confer any spiritual benefits, even though commanded by Jesus. It seems that their conviction that the NT is only spiritual causes them to insist these acts are only symbolic or pointers of some kind.

Zwingli started the ball rolling this way in his teaching that the eucharist is symbolic only. The trouble is, this kind of thinking does not stop–as generations go on, more and more of the bible is seen to be symbolic as well. With modern liberals, and even with some modern evangelicals, the resurrection itself is thought to be symbolic! Jesus didn’t actually rise from the tomb, but it was merely a faith happening among the apostles! Just symbolic. Eventually the bible itself becomes symbolic, a collection of myths.