The Lost World of the Torah: Law as Covenant and Wisdom in Ancient Context (The Lost World Series Book 6)

by John H. Walton

To understand what is important, we have to start by investigating how the Israelites of the Old Testament thought about the concept of salvation. Speaking bluntly, on the basis of the evidence from the Old Testament, we find that they had no hope of what we call salvation.4 They did not know that “going to heaven” was a possibility.5 They did not imagine that one could spend eternity in the presence of God. They did not fear eternal punishment. They did not believe that they needed their sins to be resolved in any way beyond that which was available to the community in the sacrificial system. They did not believe that they could be saved from their sins (in the way we understand was accomplished by the death of Christ) or that they needed to be. They did not think of the Messiah as functioning in the sacrificial system to provide a mechanism for salvation;6 they saw him only as playing a role in the restored order.