I like to think of the Bible as God's letter to us. In it, He reveals His character, His creative power, His love for His people, and His plans and purposes for their future. In places, the perceptive reader can almost catch the scent of His perfume. Elsewhere, divine tears surely stain the pages. The narrative is rich and full. The Author did not mince His words to capture some market. Rather, He reveals His heart to capture ours.
Then why, upon completion of the Hebrew Bible, does the reader have the sense that the story is not finished? No doubt, because we are left to ponder prophecies unfulfilled: regarding the Messiah, and regarding the redemption and restoration of Israel.
Is it not true that the writer of a letter has the right to add a postscript? or even to follow up with a subsequent letter to keep the reader up to date as events unfold?
It puzzles me, then, that some are so violently opposed to considering a volume that claims to be the continuation of God's letter. Yes, I am aware of the warning: "Every word of God is pure, He is a shield unto them that put their trust in Him. Add thou not unto His words, lest He reprove thee, and thou be found a liar." [Proverbs 30:5,6] This prohibition is against counterfeit scriptures, letters written in God's name, but without His authorization or signature. There is no shortage of such so-called holy writings, which are false. They are the work of the Deceiver, who is a liar and the father of lies. But, there is nothing in this passage that forbids God from adding pure words to pure. If He were to do so, we would expect His new words to flow from the former. Their purpose would not be to change or correct, but rather to complete the message already transmitted.
The Torah was given to us by God through Moses. It was God's Word to His people: complete in itself, to be kept in the heart, taught to the children, and lived out in every area of our earthly walk. Yet, the Lord told Moses that there would be revelation beyond his writings: "I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put My Words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him." [Deuteronomy 18:18] Moses, the Law giver, would be followed by a greater Prophet bringing God's Word to His people.
In the passage from Proverbs referred to previously, God raises some questions. Don't you suppose He intended to answer them? "Who hath ascended up into Heaven, or descended? Who hath gathered the wind in His fists? Who hath bound the waters in a garment? Who hath established all the ends of the earth? What is His Name, and what is His Son's Name, if thou canst tell?" [Proverbs 30:4]
In a later volume, we read this reply: "No man hath ascended up to Heaven, but he that came down from Heaven, even the son of man which is in Heaven." "No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared Him." [John 3:13; 1:18] This is the subject matter of the New Covenant (often referred to as the New Testament), from which these lines were quoted.
But, you say, we have no need for any new covenant. Sinai's law still stands.
True, the Law cannot be broken. Yet, to the Torah, which also prohibits unauthorized additions [Deuteronomy 12:32], God added the Psalms and the Prophets. They spoke in harmony with, and passed the tests required by the Law [Deut. 13:1-5].
Listen to the words of one of them: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for they shall all know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." [Jeremiah 31:31-34]
It was to this, that Yeshua made reference, at his last Seder before his sacrifice for sin. "This cup," he said, "is the New Covenant in my blood, which is shed for you." [Luke 22:20]
Was what he initiated that day new in the sense of being a departure from God's original intent? Or, was it, rather, the next phase of His plan foretold? David recorded the sound of the son's voice: "Then said I, Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will O my God, yea thy law is within my heart." [Psalm 40:7,8]
His voice has not changed in the later volume. Listen: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill." [Matthew 5:17]
When God fulfills a promise, will He keep secret the news?
You really ought to read the rest of the story.
Sincerely,
A friend