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(this is in response to a student who needed further clarification on how OT saints were saved)

Hey:

Yeah, to really be ready for serving in His name, our being, our person must be right. That's why He instructs us to take care of that before coming to the Lord's table. I'm doing that right now and trying to get things right before Him.

As for your question, if you take a couple of steps back, you see that the entire Old Testament pretty much progressively points to Christ, Christ as the fulfiller of the Law, Christ, the eternal Lamb that would take away the sins of the world. Do you remember me going over this in my 2nd message this past year? It's in "Why the Atonement?" (though, it was supposed to be in "God Himself Will Provide, but I couldn't get to it).

That's what the whole sacrificial system was about. In my answer on the website, I wrote:

"The sacrifices of the unblemished lambs were 1) a constant (and gruesome) reminder to the people of how they were unable to keep the law - and how grotesque their sins against God really were; 2) a symbol pointing to the ultimate Lamb that would come - sin required death and so the lambs were slain, as instructed, and God suspended death from the Jews for a time. The violent and cruel death of those innocent lambs pointed to the type of death that their Savior would have to endure for them (Is. 53) - how indicting!"

The idea of the coming Messiah was something that was ingrained and taught from childhood.

The Old Testament has many, many prophecies which have come to pass already (one evidence for the believability of Scripture). A good number of those prophecies made to Israel (and the world, for that matter) are about the coming Christ. Please carefully read the prophecies in Is. 9:1-7, and all of Is. 53, written by Israel's greatest prophet, Isaiah. They are not merely factual predictions, but messages of hope, inspiration, and humbling conviction.

As for Abraham, the emphasis on his being reckoned righteous by God is on the fact that he believed God. Now, notice that it wasn't just that he believed IN God, but that he BELIEVED God. This kind of belief was demonstrated in his actions thereafter. This kind of belief is demonstrated in obedience. Start reading Genesis 12 and on through chapter 25, and you see a history of Abraham "giving himself up," to use your words, based on what God told him, from leaving his country on God's command in Gen. 12 to sacrificing Isaac on God's command in Gen 22. That kind of "giving himself up" proves he believed God, and not just believed IN God. Abraham, the father of the faithful, possessed real faith, and didn't merely profess it.

The Bible doesn't tell us everything that God told him. I'm not really sure why it's not worded exactly the way you were looking for, but that doesn't mean Abraham didn't know and believe in the coming Messiah. The first peek at the promise of the coming Messiah comes in Genesis 3:15. I am sure Adam and Eve hung their hope of relational restoration with God on that promise and were sure to pass that on to their progeny, instructing them to make sure to teach that to their children, and on down the line.

As for whether Adam and Eve were saved, my inclination is to say yes, based on what I just wrote, but I couldn't tell you conclusively. That's just my inclination. On a pertinent note, whether they really believed after the Fall then is not based on whether they, in and of themselves (in the flesh), believed God (because they didn't in the flesh), but whether God gave them a new heart (Ez. 32) and the faith to believe (Eph. 2)

Hope that helps. Let me know your thoughts, ok?

Arthur

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