THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF JESUS CHRIST

(Today's “News & Views” is the expansion of “A Thursday Morning Observation” I posted on Facebook back on August 6, 2026).

There are those who say that we should not read the New Testament as if it were a constitution, a blueprint, or a pattern to be adhered to in all respects. They think it should be read with the leeway to change, adjust, and adapt it to contemporary culture and the constant changes that occur in society.

Well, how about this: Since it is a testament, a will, why not read it as such? No one has the right to change another person's will. The New Testament is the last will and testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Once He had died and sealed it with His blood (Matthew 26:28), He has not modified it in the least iota or attached any codicils to it, and no one else has the authority to do so.

During His personal ministry, Christ was modeling and teaching the principles of His will (Acts 1:1). As noted above, at His death His unchangeable will was sealed by His blood (Matthew 26:28). “And for this reason He is the mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant (the Old Testament, hf), that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. For where there is a testament, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. For a testament is in force after men are dead, since it has no power at all while the testator lives” (Hebrews 9:15-17).

After His death and resurrection, Christ gave a synopsis of His will to His apostles. He said, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatever I have commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20). The apostles were appointed by Christ to be the executors of His will under the direction of the Holy Spirit. Shortly before His ascension back to heaven Christ appeared to His apostles for the last time and said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things. And behold I send the promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high” (Luke 24:46-49). Notice that it was necessary for Christ to suffer (die) and to rise from the dead before repentance and remission of sins under His last will and testament could be preached in His name (by His authority) to all nations, and it was to all begin at Jerusalem!

Christ's will was first “read” in Jerusalem on the first day of Pentecost following His death, burial, and resurrection as we see in Acts 2. Throughout the remainder of the book of Acts we observe that will continuing to be declared. What the New Testament said when it was put in place 2000 years ago it still says. Christ's will sets forth conditions, blessings, and benefits, consequences of failure to comply with it, as well as for tampering with it (modifying it). What it originally said about how to be saved from sin and become a child of God it still says. What it originally said about how to receive the eternal inheritance of heaven it still says. Christ has not changed His will in the least, and no man or woman has the right to do so.

How people were saved before the inauguration of the New Testament, including those whom Christ saved during His personal ministry (e.g., the thief on the cross and various others), has no bearing on how people are saved after the last will and testament of Christ came into effect. While on earth Christ had power to forgive sins on whatever conditions He chose (Matthew 9:1-6). But after the New Testament came into effect all sins are remitted on the conditions stipulated in His last will. “He takes away the first (the Old Testament) that He may establish the second (the New Testament). By that will (the second, the New) we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:9-10). Since the death, burial, resurrection and ascension of Christ, people are saved on the basis of the New Testament, not on the basis of the Old Testament.

Let us not look to the Old Testament (under which Christ Himself lived and died) for the the last will and testament of Christ. It will not be found there. We are saved today by complying with the stipulations of Christ's last will and adhering to its conditions in order to receive our eternal inheritance. The book of Acts is a divinely inspired record of how the will of Christ was presented to mankind and how people complied with the conditions of that will in order to become “heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:17). At least nine cases of how people are saved under the last will and testament of Christ are found in Acts: the people on Pentecost (Acts 2), the Samaritans (Acts 8:1-13), the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:26-40), Saul of Tarsus (who became the apostle Paul) (Acts 9, 22, 26), Cornelius and his household (Acts 10), Lydia and her household (Acts 16:11-15), the Philippian jailer and his household (Acts 16:25-34), the Corinthians (Acts 18:1-8), and about twelve men in Ephesus (Acts 19:1-12). It is highly presumptuous for anyone to think that Christ will save people on any other basis! To plead God's mercy and grace for salvation on any conditions other than those clearly stated in His last will is to fly in the face of the Lord's will as set forth in “the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24).

If we want to be saved from our sins today and obtain the hope and promise of eternal life in heaven, we must do what people did in the book of Acts to be saved. Certainly we need to read, study, absorb, preach, and teach what Christ did and taught in the four gospel records. In them He was setting forth the soul-saving principles of His last will and testament. But, it is in Acts that we find His last will and testament being proclaimed. It is then “fleshed out” in the rest of the New Testament. The part of the New Testament that comes after the four gospels needs a lot of reading, study, teaching, and preaching today. Sadly, the denominational world, to say nothing of the secular world around us, seems to know little about the last twenty-three books of the New Testament, the last will and testament of Jesus Christ.

Hugh Fulford