When did the old testament end, before Jesus shed the blood of the new testament ?
On the same day ?
It is written..."And he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many." (Mark 14:24)
The collators of bible scriptures call them the new testament, even though lots of its events happened years before Jesus shed His blood.
It is written..."The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it." (Luke 16:16)
Isn't there a sort of donut hole between John and Jesus' shed blood ?
IMO the data fits nicely into the NT schema.
The old covenant (
testament is traditional but a little weak) ended at the point of Jesus’ death—“Job done” (Jhn.19:30’s τετελεσται). The earlier talk that day (days began about 6pm, and he died about 9 hours later, at about 3pm Nisan 15). That talk was proleptic, a manner of speech when one speaks as if something is done which will soon be done.
Lk.16:16//Mt.11:12 speak of the inbreaking level of God’s kingdom, the messianic to replace the Sinaitic. The Sinai people were in God’s kingdom from the exodus, but awaited its messianic phase, which Nicodemus was told he could not enter as a child of Sinai, unless he were born anew/spiritually (Jhn.3:3).
Matthew focused here on the fact that forceful people had been trying to stop its progress (eg John being imprisoned; Yeshua being opposed). They failed, and it became active by the cross. “From the days of John the Baptist until the present, the kingdom from heaven has been forcefully advancing, and violent people have been attacking” (ISV: Mt.11:12). The more paraphrastic TVB is helpful: “All of the prophets of old, all of the law—that was all prophecy leading up to the coming of John.
Now, that sort of prepares us for this very point, right here and now. When John the Baptist came, the kingdom of heaven began to break in upon us, and those in power are trying to clamp down on it—
why do you think John is in jail?”
Luke focused here on the fact that even from the preaching of John, people were being urged to forcefully enter the inbreaking kingdom, the procession to the throne, or put another way, to get in the queue ready for the door to open. Many indeed were already in that procession, lined up at the door, but although being disciples of messiah, were still under Sinai until messiah took the reins at his death, annulling Sinai like a deceased husband (Rm.7:1-4). Jesus’ death was the death of Sinai.
“The law and the prophets were in force until John; since then, the good news of the kingdom of God has been proclaimed, and everyone is urged to enter it” (NET: Lk.16:16): likewise Darrell Bock. Clearly the pharisees weren’t trying to get in, so it wasn’t everyone! The ‘until’ was the Sinai phase up to and including John, who continued it with his repentance message which spoke in ways he didn’t understand about the new dawn.
The pharisees onsite (Lk.16:14) were opposing God’s kingdom (Mt.11:12), both in its Sinai garb and its new iteration beginning to take shape (that messianic kingdom seed was among them: Lk.17:21), but were urged to repent and enter into it (Lk.16:16).
Note too how Jhn.1:12 speaks of ethnic Jews (such as Mary) who had welcomed Jesus as messiah, himself the dawning kingdom, and who therefore had a right to
become, ie
weren’t at that stage, children of God in the messianic kingdom sense that was soon to rise with his resurrection. There was a partial reality before the cross, an
is, but not the fully
is (Jhn.4:23).
Presumably Yeshua had spoken of both aspects of forceful opposition and forceful encouragement.
The new testament/covenant scriptures cover the backstory of the messianic kingdom by the four Gospels, which all take us into the new covenant switch (Golgotha), whereupon
Acts takes over. Christianity thus began some weeks prior to Pentecost, with the welcoming of Jesus as risen from death (women were the first Christians), and his death being the atonement point which the eucharist wine had been set up those few hours earlier to symbolise.
