One of the most popular questions that comes up when talking about salvation and how one can lay hold of it is, “How were people saved before Jesus? What about the people in the Old Testament?”
If you start with the premise that Jesus is the source of Christian salvation–who he is and what he accomplished on the cross–then what about the millions of people before Jesus’ time who were never fortunate enough to know the significance of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection? Is it just ‘tough cookies’ to all those who were born in the centuries before Christ and ‘lucky ducks’ for all those who were born in the centuries after Christ? How tragic that someone’s salvation should be determined by the century that they were born into!
Well, not so fast!
First, there is no advantage of receiving salvation between centuries; however, it could be argued that there is only the advantage of seeing this salvation more clearly. For example, the people of the Old Testament could only speculate about this salvation by what the prophesies, sacrificial systems, and law foreshadowed. Yet, on this side of the Common Era, however, we can see the substance of this salvation more clearly, Jesus, whom these religious structures foreshadowed.
To say it another way, we have the advantage of a broader vantage. We can see the bigger picture from this era of history. People of the Old Testament saw shadows of this salvation through the prophesies, sacrificial system, and law, but we can now see the Person behind these salvific shadows whom these things anticipated.
However, while the people of the Common Era have the advantage of seeing the ‘bigger picture’ of salvation, and while the people of the Old Testament had the disadvantage of seeing only how this salvation was foreshadowed, there was nevertheless no advantage for receiving this salvation whatsoever. The way salvation was received before Jesus is the exactly the same way it is received now, after Jesus.
Therefore, the question, “How did people get saved before Jesus?” can be answered with the same response to the question, “How can people be saved now?”
The way we get saved today is the same way that people got saved before Jesus: By believing in the promise of God, the Messiah, to save them from their sins. That’s what the prophesies pointed to, it’s what the sacrificial systems foreshadowed, and it’s what the law required for salvation. And so, by trusting in this Messianic figure, salvation was beheld. Abraham, for example, lived thousands of years before Jesus; yet, because he believed in God’s promised Messiah, it was credited to him as righteousness (Gen. 15:6).
Thus, people before Jesus got saved the same way we get saved today. The only difference is that they believed the Messiah would come, while we believe the Messiah has come. Their faith looked forwards to Jesus; our faith looks backwards to Jesus. The direction of our faith is different, but the object of our faith is the same. Indeed, it’s not our direction of our faith (or even our quality of faith) that saves us–it’s the Object of our faith that saves us, Jesus. Regardless of the direction of one’s faith or regardless of one’s existence in history, the source of salvation has remained Faithful and True.
