This fulfillment must be seen as an historical necessity for the sake of the realization of God's original and final intentions. Jesus came exclusively for the law, so that the law could be expressed in existence. But it must be remembered that historically a certain alteration has entered the law - the law acts as a pedagogue to Christ and the only legitimate obedience to the law is faith in Christ. This is the restoration of the kerygmatic significance of the law - but this is not the only significance of the law. In Christ we receive the law back, no longer wrapped in a curse, as the guide for a redeemed life.
The law has been restored to power by Christ and this must be understood from the ascension.4.51 Christ's satisfaction of the law is the kernel of his fulfillment of the Old Testament, but from the fact of the ascension we see that Christ's power of reconciliation and redemption lives through all things. All reality is emptied of every demonic depth and burden. It is made clear that the world and all reality does not have its own essence, its own character of being, in opposition to God. All things have their meaning outside themselves, in Christ. All things are set up as signs of the coming kingdom, signs that are filled with the saving power of Christ. All things are made into signs of the coming kingdom and this includes the Old Testament. The fact that God himself fulfills the Old Testament means that he has made it completely into a sign of his kingdom, for all nations and for all times.4.52 We will return to this `sign' character of the Old Testament when we discuss the fulfillment by the Holy Spirit and the cultural-symbolical form of life created by revelation.
In the second place, Christ's fulfillment of the promise of salvation means that this promise is now complete. With the coming of Jesus Christ all God's promises have now been given. This does not mean that a new promise has been added that the Old Testament did not know of. It is more the case that Jesus Christ is the concentration and summary of all the essential promises that were given in the Old Testament. This indicates that the New Testament (which finds its basis in Christ's fulfillment of the law) is an explanation of the Old Testament as well as a validation of it. "It was only in the Messiah and then in the Spirit that it became clear and certain that the promises and the kingdom of God - the things that are at issue in the Old Testament - are not identical to the people of Israel. Israel is no less a means than Jesus Christ. God's concern in Israel is with the nations and the world."4.53
Christ, the evangelists and the apostles lived, thought and spoke in the sphere of Old Testament thought. They continually referred to the Old Testament, explained the Old Testament and argued from it. The Old Testament was the only Bible that the christians had for the whole of the first century A.D. In fact the Old Testament was the only canonical Bible for the first four centuries. "Men kan gerust zeggen, dat de gemeente van Christus restloos op den grondslag van het Oude Testament en van het Oude Testament alleen is opgebouwd."4.54
The New Testament is built on the foundation of the Old Testament and everything in the New Testament is taken directly, and sometimes in a radicalized way, from the Old Testament. In other words Christ's fulfillment of the law, as a concentration of the promise, is an explanation of the Old Testament. This explanation takes place in the New Testament as an exegesis and interpretation of the Old Testament. No doubt the Old Testament can be interpreted in many different ways but by its canonization of the New Testament, the christian church has accepted the New Testament as the only correct interpretation of the Old Testament.
This explanation of the Old Testament is also to be understood in the sense of declaration and proclamation. The New Testament proclaims Jesus to be the Messiah. Jesus is proclaimed as the Messiah of the Old Testament, the Messiah of Israel and as such as the Saviour of the world. The New Testament proclaims that the Messiah has come and that his name is Jesus, that the Word of the Old Testament has become flesh. But we only know what the messiah is from the Old Testament.4.55 Here it must be repeated that Jesus Christ's fulfillment is a concentration of the promise and "that the Old Testament is fulfilled in Jesus Christ especially in its central question, namely, that of guilt and expiation, of slaying and making alive, of love as the untroubled relation between the two - God and man."4.56 Therefore the proclamation of Jesus as the Christ is an explanation of the Old Testament, or rather, it is an explanation and proclamation of the Old Testament. In other words the mosaic law is restored to its integrity by Christ and proclaimed as the law of God. This explanation of the law also means that the Old Testament has not been abolished or done away with but concluded. The New Testament does not abolish the Old Testament and replace it with a new doctrine, the apostles and evangelists did not write a new bible or a new set of ideas that have been added to the bible. "Men kan hoogstens zeggen, dat zij een, of liever de eenige uitleggen van den eigenlijken bijbel hebben toegevoegd. Men kan hoogstens zeggen dat zij een, of liever de eenige uitlegging van den eigenlijken bijbel hebben geschreven."4.57
We have seen that, in the second place, Christ's fulfillment of the promise (of the Old Testament) means that this promise has become complete in the sense that all God's promises have been concentrated and summarized in Christ. We have also seen that this concentration and summary of the promises in Christ is an explanation and proclamation of the Old Testament and that this explanation and proclamation is, in turn, a validation of the Old Testament as the real and only Word of God. "Strictly speaking only the Old Testament is `The Scripture', while the New Testament brings the good news that now the meaning of these writings, the import of all their words, their Lord and Fulfiller, has appeared incarnate."4.58
In the third place, Christ's fulfillment of the promise of salvation means that it has become totally and completely promise.4.59 Before we continue to explain this third aspect of the fulfillment it must be noted that although these three aspects are discussed separately they must not be understood as absolutely different parts of the fulfillment - they are interlinked. The promise is fulfilled because it is made powerful and it is made powerful because it is concentrated and explained and thus made completely to promise. These three aspects are thus intertwined with each other but they do not denote exactly the same thing - they do emphasize different aspects of the same fulfillment.4.60
This idea that the promise of salvation is seen in Christ to be totally and completely promise, is to be understood from the ascension - especially from the aspects of concealment and expectation.4.61 Christ's rule is still a rule in the midst of his enemies. His ascension to the right hand of God is not the revelation of our salvation. Our salvation is still concealed and this is a concealment in the flesh. This indicates that Christ reigns in grace and mercy and not yet in majesty and glory. The concealment of salvation in the present emphasizes its particularity. Thus God's salvation is really present but it exists in the concealment of the flesh. In other words God's salvation is really present but it exists in the modality of promise.
The Bible also contains the certain expectation that this salvation will be revealed - the law will be written on our hearts and thus the promise and command character of the law will fall away - and this indicates the intermezzo character of God's reign in Christ. Therefore all these characteristics of concealed, graceful and merciful, and particularity return us to the Old Testament situation. "Om het in a nutshell te zeggen, ligt dat daaraan, dat de hemelvaart het nieuwtestamentisch kerugma houdt binnen de grenzen van het Oude Testament."4.62
Christ's paradigmatic fulfilment of the law means that this fulfilment took place with saving power. But this reconciliation took place extra nos. Christ's work was primarily a transaction between him and God. On Golgotha God was reconciled to the whole world, but this reconciliation is to be understood as a means to an end. This reconciliation wants to be put into effect in us. In other words this reconciliation must be mediated to us and appropriated by us.4.63This is the work of the Holy Spirit. The salvation that is described in the Old Testament became bodily present in the Messiah, and was given power and validated for all nations and all times and all places. Through the work of the Spirit this salvation is carried to all the nations of the earth and is expressed in history.4.64 The entire pneumatic spreading and expression of salvation lies already enclosed, in seed form, in the paradigmatic character of the messianic work of reconciliation.4.65 We anticipated this idea when we said that the kernel of the fulfilment is to be found in the ideas of expiation, substitution and satisfaction. If we keep in mind what was discussed in chapter three regarding Christ and the Spirit, the relationship between their respective fulfillments of the law will be clear. This relationship can be expressed thus: the fulfilment of the law in the Messiah brings the kerygmatic significance of the law to the foreground, so that the law in its full extent is a proclamation of the salvation that we receive in the Messiah,4.66 while the fulfilment by the Spirit brings its functional significance to the fore. We could also say that the law is fulfilled in the Messiah as the foundation of salvation (extra nos) while it is fulfilled by the Spirit as the expression of salvation in the world.4.67 Therefore the work of the Spirit is sanctification . Sanctification is what the Spirit does in the world with the law and this can be expressed in two qualifications. The first is this, that He maintains the law as law of God and teaches man to let go of the law, so that the righteousness of the law can be fulfilled by God himself "in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit" (Rom. 8:4). This does not mean that the law is abolished for man, but in place of man holding onto the law and trying to justify himself, he is grasped and held fast by the law.4.68 Thus the Spirit fulfills the law in us, in the first place, by showing us that we simply have to accept the law in faith as God's Perfect gift of righteousness. The prophetic criticism of the law, in the Old as well as the New Testament, must also be understood in this context. This criticism of the law is a criticism of man's use, or rather, of man's misuse of the law.
The Spirit shows man his guilt and points him to Christ as his savior. Thus the Spirit fulfills the law in man as the foundation of salvation by leading him to Christ.4.69
The second qualification or aspect of the work of the Spirit with the law can be expressed thus: "De Heilige Geest schrijft realiter de wet Gods in de harten, in de existentie der menschen."4.70(Jer. 31:33; Ezek. 36:26; Heb. 8:10; 10:16). The Holy Spirit fulfills the law in man as the expression of salvation.4.71 This is an act of God and thus expresses the fact that sanctification is a gift of God - it is a synthetic and not an analytic judgment. The Spirit creates the christian existence in which only the doers of the law are justified. The Christian existence in which the law is really fulfilled is a real creation of the Spirit. "Zij kan misschien niet geconstateerd en geanalyseerd, gedemonstreed en bewezen worden, maar zij wordt - in de feitelijkheid der pneumatische daden Gods - geleefd."4.72Sanctification is never to be understood in ontological terms. Sanctification is characterized by the category of mixing and puts itself into effect in the deadly struggle of the Spirit and the flesh. It is a symbolic expression of salvation. "De gansche existentie wordt door den Geest symbolisch en figuratief geleeft."4.73 It must always be remembered that the work of the Holy Spirit is not the eschatological reality itself. The Spirit preserves the world for the redemption that it has received. The spiritual character of the work of the Holy Spirit means that His work does not consist of the introduction of a new being and new powers. It consists of the speaking out of the Word. Therefore the Spirit is called the Spirit of the promise, because it signifies that the work of the Spirit is a work of setting up signs, of the coming kingdom, in this world.4.74
The specifically new in the New Testament is not to be found in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.4.75Certainly the outpouring of the Spirit is an essentially new moment in God's saving acts, and it is the inauguration of the new covenant spoken of in Jer. 31. But the expression `new covenant' must be understood within the context of the series of Covenants with Noah, Abraham and the nation Israel. It must not be understood in terms of an `old', abolished covenant versus a `new', different covenant. The new covenant is the new form of the covenant that was made with Noah, Abraham and Israel. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit is a renewal of the covenant.4.76 The Holy Spirit is not the specifically new of the New Testament. In the Old Testament the Spirit was active in Israel, unveiling guilt and expressing salvation. "Het werk van den Geest is de kern van de oudtestamentische theocratie."4.77
In our discussion of the work of the Spirit it must be kept in mind that this work is not limited to individuals but has an all embracing character.4.78Individuals are not saved from history, but together with history. The Spirit creates history. The kingdom is set up in the flesh and existence becomes historical. Therefore the doctrine of sanctification leads more directly to the doctrine of the apostolate than to the doctrine of the church.4.79
In the course of the apostolic word to the nations the Spirit and the law call forth the `spiritual Israel' from out of the chaos of guilt. The cross is posited in the nation and in the nations, and this cannot occur without the entire Torah returning as the kerygma of the cross. The Word is directed at the nation, particularly at the government, and the nation becomes guilty. Thus the functional significance of the law comes to the fore and the nation experiences history as the permanent syntaxis of guilt and reconciliation. It must be remembered that this is the work of the Spirit and therefore the concept `spiritual Israel' refers to the `whole of Israel' (Rom. 11:26). It includes not only the church but also the christianized culture; not only the corpus Christi, but also the corpus christianum, "want de momenten volk en overheid, welke voor Israel zoo karakteristiek zijn, zijn ook in het geestelijke Israel ten volle aanwezig en constitutief."4.80Thus the fulfilment of the law by the Spirit consists in His realization of christian existence - in the heart and in life, in the church and in the State, in culture and in history - not as the eschatological reality itself, but as shadows of the coming kingdom, as a symbolic-figurative expression of salvation. This symbolic-figurative expression of salvation is described to us in the Old Testament as the "nationaal-symbolische levensvorm der openbaring."4.81 However it is better to speak of a cultural-symbolical structure of life as created by revelation because this emphasizes the fact that the Spirit does not limit himself to one specific national community but in the course of time (and in the course of the Apostolic Word to new nations) moves into new cultures and sets up shadows of the future kingdom.
Thus far we have concentrated on the kerygmatic and functional meanings of the law and stated that the Old Testament is important because the fulfilment of the Old Testament promise does not mean that we no longer live in the dispensation of promise (as presented by the Old Testament). We have seen that the Old Testament is also important because the functional significance of the Torah returns in christianization - the Spirit creates history as the permanent syntaxis of guilt and reconciliation. But with this we have not yet seen the importance of the content of the Old Testament revelation and the concrete relevance this has for a christianized country. In other words we have not yet seen the specific relevance of the material content of the Old Testament for a christianized country. In the following section we will clarify this relationship between the symbolic structure of life in the nation Israel and the cultural-symbolic form of life created by christianization by discussing the significance and meaning of the content of the Old Testament revelation for a christian nation.