OLD THINGS AND NEW

In Matthew 13:52 we find a rather enigmatic saying of Jesus - "Therefore, every scribe who has been made a disciple in the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who is a householder who brings out of his treasure old things and new." What does this mean? It comes at the very end of a chapter devoted to "Parables of the Kingdom" - The Sower and the Seed, The Wheat and the Tares, The Mustard Seed, The Pearl of Great Price, and The Dragnet.

Jesus did not abolish the Old Testament Law or the teaching of the Prophets; rather, He fulfilled them (Matthew 5:17). The Apostle Paul was well-versed in the Torah, he was "a Pharisee of the Pharisees." He was able to apply many of the stories and teachings of the Old Testament to the new era of the Gospel of Christ. Thank the Lord that we also have many great Church Fathers who can show us how to correctly apply the Old Testament teachings to the Christian era:

Origen wrote that such a scribe "has been made a disciple to the kingdom of heaven, in every word of the Old Testament and in all knowledge concerning the new teaching of Christ Jesus. He has these riches laid up in his own treasure house — in heaven, in which he stores his treasure as one who has been made a disciple to the kingdom of heaven. There neither moth consumes nor thieves break through and steal."

Cyril of Alexandria also explained this verse in a similar way: "A scribe is one who, through continual reading of the Old and New Testaments, has laid up for himself a storehouse of knowledge. Thus Christ blesses those who have gathered in themselves the education both of the law and of the gospel, so as to 'bring forth from their treasure things both new and old.'”

Gregory the Great, however, understood it as the summary of all these Kingdom Parables: "It was the old fate of the human race to descend into the gates of hell to suffer eternal punishment for its sins. But something was changed by the coming of the Mediator. If a person really desired to live uprightly here, one could attain to the kingdom of heaven and, even though earth-born, can depart from this perishable life and be given a place in heaven. The old fate was such that by way of punishment humankind could perish in eternal punishment. The new fate was such that, having been converted, humankind could live in the kingdom.

"And so we see that the Lord concluded his discourse as he began it. First he likened the treasure discovered in a field and the pearl of great value to the kingdom. Then he spoke of the punishments of the lower world and the burning of the wicked. Then he added in conclusion: 'So then, every scribe instructed in the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings forth from his storeroom things new and old.' It was as though he had said, 'That person is a learned preacher in the holy church who knows both how to bring forth new things about the delights of the kingdom and to speak old things about the terror of chastisement, so that punishments may fill with dread those not induced by rewards.'” (Forty Gospel Homilies)

It is certainly true that a "scribe who is a disciple in the Kingdom of Heaven," a follower of Christ who studies and teaches the Holy Scriptures, must delve into the Old Testament as well as the New Testament. The Old Testament tells how the Lord God prepared a special people and a special revelation, the Law of Moses, to make the way ready for the coming Messiah. Although much of Old Testament teaching has been modified by the New Testament, the Old contains many, many sound principles for organization of society that we still practice today, and some we've discarded that we need to restore.

The Apostle Paul compared the Old Testament to the veil that the Israelites asked Moses to put on when he came down from receiving the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai - "to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. But whenever one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away" (2 Cor. 3:15-16). Thus we see he understood much of the Old Testament allegorically. As St. Paul wrote - "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new" (2 Cor. 5:17). We have here a clean break between the Old and the New Testaments.

We have new life in Christ: this is the Pearl of Great Price. But at the same time we have great treasures of "both old things and new," both things in the Old Testament that need to be rightly understood in the light of the Gospel, as well as entirely new things revealed in the New Testament: God as our loving heavenly Father, Jesus the Messiah as the Son of God the Father, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds from God the Father. These were only vaguely hinted at in the Old Testament, but clearly made manifest in the New. We need to become "scribes of the Kingdom" by studying the rich treasures of the Church Fathers, discovering "both old things and new."

(Linked to www.Hosken-News.info of 23 Jan. 2016.)