How were people in the Old Testament saved?

Question 7083.

Old Testament believers were saved in exactly the same way we are, by grace through faith, and it is worth saying that plainly at the outset because a good deal of confusion surrounds this question. Some assume they were saved by keeping the law, which would make the Old Testament a different religion from Christianity. Others assume the sacrifices did the work, which Hebrews explicitly denies.

Neither is right, and the truth is more interesting than both. There has only ever been one way of salvation, one Saviour and one ground of acceptance. What has changed across the ages is how much God had revealed about the Saviour at any given time.

The verse that settles the principle

Genesis 15:6 is the foundation of the whole discussion: and he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness. Abraham is standing under the stars with a promise he cannot fulfil and no law to keep, since Sinai is four centuries away, and God credits him with righteousness on the basis of trust.

Paul builds his entire argument in Romans 4 on that verse, precisely because it comes before the law and before circumcision. If the greatest of the Old Testament believers was justified by faith apart from works, then works were never the mechanism for anybody. Romans 4:3 quotes it directly.

The Hebrew verb is aman, to support or confirm, from which we get our amen. It carries the sense of leaning on something reliable, and that is what Abraham did. He leaned on what God had said.

What Old Testament believers actually believed

Here is the point where careful thinking is needed. The object of saving faith has always been God and His promise, and the ground of salvation has always been the work of Jesus. What varied was the content available to be believed at each stage of revelation.

Abraham did not know about Calvary, Pentecost or the New Testament. He knew that God had promised a seed, a land and a blessing to all nations, and he trusted the God who promised. Later Old Testament believers had considerably more: a sacrificial system teaching substitution, prophecies of a suffering servant, a covenant with David, and a growing expectation of a coming redeemer.

So the faith was identical in kind and different in content. A man in 1500 BC trusting God’s promise and a woman today trusting the finished work of Jesus are both resting on the same cross, one looking forward without knowing the details and one looking back with the details in hand.

The sacrifices did not save

Hebrews 10:4 is unambiguous: it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. That verse ought to end any suggestion that Old Testament believers were saved by the sacrificial system, and it comes from an author steeped in the system’s details.

What then were the sacrifices for? They dealt with ceremonial defilement, maintained the worshipper’s place in the covenant community, taught the seriousness of sin through the cost of blood, and pointed forward to the one offering that would actually accomplish what they only pictured. They were credit notes, not payment.

That is why the prophets could speak so sharply about sacrifice offered without faith. Samuel told Saul that obedience is better than sacrifice, Isaiah recorded God’s weariness with offerings from unrepentant hearts, and the psalmist said God takes no delight in burnt offerings but in a broken spirit. The ritual without the trust was worthless, which tells you where the value actually lay.

Hebrews 11 and the pattern of faith

The great chapter on faith is essentially a list of Old Testament believers, and every entry follows the same pattern: God said something, the person acted on it, and that action is called faith. Noah built when there was no rain. Abraham left without a destination. Moses chose disgrace over Egyptian treasure.

Hebrews 11:13 is the verse I find most moving in the chapter. These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar. Greeted them from afar. That is a beautiful description of how Old Testament believers related to a Saviour they would never meet in the flesh.

And the chapter ends by telling us that they did not receive what was promised because God had something better in mind, that they should not be made perfect apart from us. One people, one salvation, one completion.

Progressive revelation, not progressive religion

This is where a dispensational framework earns its keep rather than causing problems. Recognising that God revealed His purposes progressively explains why Abraham knew less than Isaiah and Isaiah knew less than Paul, without suggesting that any of them were saved differently.

I have occasionally met the accusation that dispensationalists teach multiple ways of salvation, one by works for Israel and one by faith for the church. I do not know of any careful dispensational writer who has taught that, and it is certainly not my position. Ryrie was emphatic that the basis of salvation is always the death of Christ and the requirement is always faith. See what dispensationalism is for the framework itself.

What does differ across dispensations is the content of revelation and the stewardship God entrusts to His people. Israel under Sinai had responsibilities the church does not have, as I set out in whether Christians are under the Mosaic law. Responsibility is not the same as the way of salvation.

What about the law then?

If Old Testament believers were justified by faith, what was the Mosaic law doing for fifteen hundred years? Paul answers in Galatians: it was added because of transgressions, functioning as a guardian until Christ came. It regulated a redeemed nation’s life, exposed sin, and pointed relentlessly beyond itself.

Nobody in Israel was ever saved by keeping it, and the Old Testament itself says so through David, whose great psalm of forgiveness appeals to God’s mercy rather than to his own record, and who is quoted by Paul as evidence for justification apart from works. The article on the purposes of the Mosaic law covers this in more detail.

So the law was never a rival plan of salvation running alongside grace. It was a tutor in a household where grace had already been the operating principle since Genesis 3, when God clothed two guilty people with skins that required a death.

Where Old Testament believers went at death

A practical question often follows. Since the atonement had not yet been made, what happened to them when they died? Scripture speaks of Sheol and of being gathered to the fathers, and Jesus describes a place of comfort in the account of Lazarus and the rich man.

My understanding is that the faithful dead were held in conscious blessedness awaiting the work of the cross, and that when Jesus rose He led that company into the immediate presence of God. Ephesians 4:8 speaks of Him ascending on high and leading a host of captives, and I take that as the removal of Old Testament believers from waiting to arrival.

I would hold the details of that with some tentativeness, since Scripture gives us less than our curiosity would like. What is not tentative is the outcome: they are with the Lord, and they got there by the same blood we did.

What the Old Testament itself says about faith

It is sometimes assumed that a doctrine of justification by faith had to wait for Paul to be articulated. The Old Testament writers were clearer than we give them credit for. Habakkuk said the righteous shall live by his faith, and Paul quotes it three times as the summary of his gospel.

David’s fifty first psalm appeals entirely to God’s mercy, with an explicit statement that God takes no delight in sacrifice. Isaiah says all our righteous deeds are like filthy rags. Micah asks what the LORD requires and answers with justice, mercy and humility rather than with offerings, which was a startling thing to say in a temple culture.

So the principle was there from the beginning, held by Old Testament believers who understood their sacrifices better than we sometimes assume. The clarity increased with revelation; the principle did not change.

One people, one hope

There is a temptation, when we distinguish Israel and the church, to imagine two entirely separate destinies with no common ground. I hold that distinction firmly and I would not press it that far. Old Testament believers and New Testament believers are saved by the same blood, indwelt by the same Spirit in the age of the Spirit, and headed for the same presence of God.

Hebrews 11 makes the connection explicit by saying that the ancients were not made perfect apart from us. Whatever else that means, it means we arrive together. Abraham is not on a different plan; he is earlier in the same story, and his faith is held up as the pattern for ours rather than as an interesting antique.

So, now what?

Read the Old Testament looking for faith, and you will find your own experience mirrored more closely than you expect. These were people who trusted God on partial information, in difficult circumstances, often badly and intermittently, and God counted it to them as righteousness. If that is how He dealt with them, He is not going to deal more harshly with you.

And notice the humbling implication. Old Testament believers had a fraction of the light we have and frequently made better use of it. We have the completed Scripture, the finished work, the indwelling Spirit and two thousand years of teaching. What would we do with Abraham’s faith if we had it?

And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness. (Genesis 15:6)