He is the Promise / Genesis 3, Romans 3, Galatians 3
The Artificial Divide of the Testaments
A persistent misconception within Christian thought posits a stark divide between the Old and New Testaments. In popular imagination, the thin blank page separating the two canonical sections is often treated as an impenetrable wall. According to this view, the Old Testament presents an austere deity defined primarily by wrath, legalism, and retributive judgment, while the New Testament introduces a transformed God of grace, tenderness, and love. Alongside this theological distortion runs a soteriological one: the assumption that ancient Israel was saved by the merit of keeping the Law and performing animal sacrifices, whereas modern believers are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
Yet a careful examination of the biblical witness dismantles this dichotomy entirely. Scripture reveals a single, unified narrative of redemption. God has not altered His character, nor has He ever introduced multiple, competing methods of salvation. From the fall of humanity in Eden to the consummation of all things, there has only ever been one way to be made right with the Creator: by grace alone, through faith alone, in the finished work of Jesus Christ alone.
The Unchanging Character of God
The notion that God evolved from an angry deity into a loving Father collapses under the weight of textual evidence. Throughout the thousands of years recorded in the Old Testament, the Lord repeatedly reveals Himself as compassionate, gracious, and slow to anger. When Israel deserved immediate destruction in the wilderness, divine mercy preserved them. God exercised centuries of patience toward pagan nations before executing judgment, and when wicked cities such as Nineveh repented, He freely relented from disaster.
Conversely, the New Testament does not present a God stripped of holiness or justice. The early church in the Book of Acts witnessed severe divine judgment upon deceit and arrogance, and the apostolic epistles alongside the Book of Revelation testify that God remains an unyielding judge of unrepentant wickedness. The God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are the selfsame Lord: immutably holy, entirely just, and abounding in steadfast love.
Justification by Faith in the Old Covenant
The apostle Paul addressed the fundamental unity of salvation across both testaments in his letters to the Galatians and the Romans. Far from presenting justification by faith as a novel mechanism invented in the first century, Paul rooted his entire theological defense in the Hebrew Scriptures.
In Galatians, Paul asserted that reliance upon the works of the Law yields only a curse, citing the foundational declaration of the Mosaic covenant that absolute perfection is required for legal righteousness.
Deuteronomy 27:26 (NASB)
‘Cursed is he who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’
Because no fallen human being attains flawless obedience, the Law cannot justify. To demonstrate how righteousness is truly acquired, Paul quoted the Old Testament prophet Habakkuk, who declared that the righteous shall live by faith.
Habakkuk 2:4 (NASB)
’Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith.
Galatians 3:10-11 (NASB)
For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO DOES NOT ABIDE BY ALL THINGS WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF THE LAW, TO PERFORM THEM.’ Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for, ‘THE RIGHTEOUS MAN SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.’
This principle is further illuminated in Romans through the historical example of Abraham. Long before the Mosaic Law was codified and prior to the institution of circumcision, Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.
Genesis 15:6 (NASB)
Then he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.
Romans 4:3 (NASB)
For what does the Scripture say? ‘ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.’
Paul explained that justification belongs not to the one who attempts to earn wages through labor, but to the one who places faith in the God who justifies the ungodly. David likewise bore witness to this same grace, celebrating the blessedness of the individual to whom the Lord credits righteousness apart from works, forgiving iniquity and covering sin.
Psalms 32:1-2 (NASB)
[A Psalm] of David. A Maskil. How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered! How blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity, And in whose spirit there is no deceit!
Romans 4:5-8 (NASB)
But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works: ’BLESSED ARE THOSE WHOSE LAWLESS DEEDS HAVE BEEN FORGIVEN, AND WHOSE SINS HAVE BEEN COVERED. ‘BLESSED IS THE MAN WHOSE SIN THE LORD WILL NOT TAKE INTO ACCOUNT.’
Old Testament believers did not possess the full historical detail granted to subsequent generations, yet the object of their saving faith was identical. Whether known to Abraham as God Almighty, to Moses as Yahweh, or to the New Testament church as Jesus Christ, faith has always rested upon the only One who can redeem the fallen soul.
Hebrews 1:1-2 (NASB)
God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.
The Singular Offspring and the Eternal Promise
The promise of redemption through Jesus Christ was not an afterthought introduced when other systems failed; it was the original divine decree. Immediately following the initial rebellion in Eden, God issued the protoevangelium—the first proclamation of the gospel—announcing that the seed of the woman would deliver a fatal blow to the serpent, even while suffering injury in the conflict.
Genesis 3:15 (NASB)
And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.’
This promise was subsequently formalized in the covenant made with Abraham, wherein God declared that all nations of the earth would be blessed through his descendant. As Paul underscored in Galatians, the Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and thus preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham.
Genesis 12:3 (NASB)
And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.’
Galatians 3:8 (NASB)
The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, [saying], ‘ALL THE NATIONS WILL BE BLESSED IN YOU.’
The apostle emphasized a crucial grammatical and theological distinction: the covenantal promise was made not to multiple descendants, but to one specific offspring, who is Christ.
Galatians 3:16 (NASB)
Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, ‘And to seeds,’ as [referring] to many, but [rather] to one, ‘And to your seed,’ that is, Christ.
When the Mosaic Law was introduced more than four centuries later, it did not annul or alter the prior covenant of promise. The Law served as an instructional guardian, exposing human transgression and demonstrating the absolute impossibility of self-justification, while the golden thread of redemption through the promised Seed remained unbroken.
Galatians 3:17-19 (NASB)
What I am saying is this: the Law, which came four hundred and thirty years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise. For if the inheritance is based on law, it is no longer based on a promise; but God has granted it to Abraham by means of a promise. Why the Law then? It was added because of transgressions, having been ordained through angels by the agency of a mediator, until the seed would come to whom the promise had been made.
Propitiation and Divine Forbearance
The central theological question arising from this continuity concerns the mechanism of atonement: how could God justly forgive Old Testament believers prior to the actual historical crucifixion of Jesus?
Paul resolved this dilemma in his epistle to the Romans by articulating the doctrine of divine forbearance. In His forbearance, God passed over former sins committed under the Old Covenant without executing the ultimate penalty upon the transgressors. This apparent suspension of strict justice was neither a compromise of divine holiness nor an indication that animal sacrifices possessed inherent cleansing power.
Romans 3:20-24 (NASB)
because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law [comes] the knowledge of sin. But now apart from the Law [the] righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even [the] righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;
God passed over those sins because the true and final payment had already been purposed in His sovereign plan. At the cross, God put forward Jesus Christ as a propitiation—the complete satisfaction of holy wrath—by His blood. Through the cross, the righteousness of God was vindicated for both past and future eras.
Romans 3:25-26 (NASB)
whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. [This was] to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, [I say], of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
At Calvary, the sins of faithful Old Testament saints and the sins of all future believers converged upon the Son of God. Christ absorbed the cumulative weight of human transgression across all generations, demonstrating that God is simultaneously fully just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
The Pedagogical Purpose of Redemptive History
If the redemption of humanity was secured through Christ from the foundation of the world, one must consider why God permitted millennia of human history to unfold before sending His Son. The answer lies in the pedagogical necessity of exposing human inadequacy.
In the Genesis account, prior to the creation of woman, God observed that it was not good for man to be alone. Although God possessed both the immediate knowledge and the power to create Eve instantly, He first brought all the beasts of the field before Adam to be named. God did not engage in this process to discover an answer for Himself; rather, Adam needed to experience the exhaustive search to recognize his own profound deficiency. Only after discovering that no suitable helper existed among creation was Adam prepared to receive God’s perfect provision.
Genesis 2:18-20 (NASB)
Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.’ Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought [them] to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.
In a similar manner, redemptive history functioned as an exhaustive demonstration of human incapacity. Across millennia, humanity was allowed to test every conceivable alternative to grace:
- Following the Fall, humanity lived under the guidance of conscience alone, which culminated in universal corruption and the judgment of the global flood.
- Humanity attempted unified global autonomy at the Tower of Babel, which produced idolatrous self-exaltation and subsequent dispersion.
- God established a distinct nation under a divine theocracy and provided the most righteous legal code in human history, yet Israel repeatedly broke the covenant, proving that external laws cannot cure the internal corruption of the heart.
Through thousands of years of recorded failure, God systematically exhausted every human claim to self-sufficiency. When the fullness of time had come, Christ entered history not as one option among many, but as the solitary, long-awaited answer to an entirely helpless world.
The Unified Testimony of Scripture
The canonical Scriptures tell a single, harmonious story. The Old Testament points forward in eager anticipation to the Redeemer, while the New Testament looks back in joyful proclamation of His arrival and triumph. The ground of justification has never shifted, and the posture required of humanity has never changed.
Salvation has never been a wage earned through legal compliance, moral discipline, or human ingenuity. It remains the unmerited gift of God, received solely through faith in the crucified and risen Christ. To understand the Old Testament correctly is to see that Jesus Christ is not merely the subject of the New Testament; He is the eternal Promise woven into the fabric of the entire biblical revelation.