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MAJOR DIVISIONS
The Bible is divided into two major sections called the Old Testament and the New Testament. The word "testament" means “covenant.” A covenant is an agreement. The Old Testament records God's original covenant or agreement with man. The New Testament records the new covenant made by God through His Son, Jesus Christ.
What was the subject of these two agreements? They both concerned restoring sinful man to right relationship with God. God made a law that sin can only be forgiven through the shedding of blood:
. . . without shedding of blood is no remission (forgiveness). (Hebrews 9:22)
Under God's agreement in the Old Testament, blood sacrifices of animals were made by man to obtain forgiveness for sin. This was a symbol of the blood sacrifice Jesus Christ would provide under the new agreement with God. Through the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, a final sacrifice for sin was made:
But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building;
Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.
For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh:
How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
And for this cause He is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. (Hebrews 9:11-15)
Both testaments are the Word of God and we must study both in order to understand God's message. The terms "old" and "new" testaments are used to distinguish between God's agreement with man before and after the death of Jesus Christ. We do not disregard the Old Testament simply because it is called "old."