Let me explain. It is. Hebrews explains this to us in the context of explaining why Jesus had to die for the sins of man as our Kinsman Redeemer.
In the effort to further explain, God says that just as a man’s testament has no power until the death of the testator, so there was no power in the Law to save until the death of THE Testator, God, in the person of Jesus Christ.
Now men were saved before the death of Jesus, of course, but it was the same way, through the messiah who was yet to come. However…the Holy Spirit (the power, or Dunamis) had not come to indwell the believer until after Jesus’ death and ascension.
So then, the Bible is God’s Will and testament. The Old Testament proclaimed the wishes of the Testator (God) for His dependents, His children. The New Testament is the dispersement instruction for His possessions and people after His death.
1-To whom do His possessions go?
2-How and to what degree are they to be distributed?
3-Who gets what?
4-How are His children to be cared for in His absence?
How incredible is this!
The definition for will and testament is this: written instructions on how and to whom to disperse the possessions and to take care of dependents.
There are those who misunderstand and think the old testament is over and useless. Here is why this os false teaching and why it reveals such lack of understanding…
The Old Testament is God’s Will and Testament. It is fulfilled in the New Testament. It is not canceled. It is fulfilled. Big difference. If it’s canceled, then there is no New Testament, there is no fulfillment. So we can never cancel the old testament. We just have the fulfillment of it the disbursement of it the power of it in the New Testament. That’s why Hebrews tells us that a will is powerless until the death of the testator. The person who owns the will, that is. But once The owner of the will dies, then everything is disbursed. And the receiver of that will gets all that was in the will.
The only thing that is canceled in the New Testament is the need for the blood of bulls and goats. We cannot cancel anything else…that God gave anyway. We see a lot of nonsense added to the Word of God, and some of the little particulars that pertained to Israel alone but those are obvious. God gave us 10 Commandments. They are fulfilled in Jesus Christ they are not canceled. Keeping them is not possible in the flesh, by my effoets (dont do this or that). Hence the need for the bulls and goats. But the blood of the Lamb of God, accomplishes everything. The death of the owner of the Will (God, who is Jesus) unleashes all the power that was promised in the Old Testament but could not send us power to keep them until the New Testament because now the death of the owner of the will has come.
How amazing.