Whereas in the Old Covenant the progress of Redemption covers over a millennium and is concerned with the ongoing process that repeatedly points to the growing understanding of the Messiah and His work, the New Testament is not about process but is concerned with revealing that end point of the progress of Redemption.
It’s the difference between reading a novel in its beginning chapters and discovering and working through the inciting incident (Genesis 3), and the rising action (conflict between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman (Gen. 3 – Malachi), and the climax of the novel where all is resolved (Gospels). Yet, even in the New Testament there remains a progress of Redemption inasmuch as we read and see the movement of the incarnation and humiliation of Christ to the exaltation/ascension-session of Christ. Then from there the progress of Redemption continues with the growth of the body of the ascended Christ (Acts-Revelation).
The OT, thus has a different kind of progress of Redemption theology than the NT because it is process, while the NT progress of Redemption is end point or climax, though as we have seen the idea of redemptive progress is not completely absent from the New Testament. However, it is the progress of Redemption accomplished and applied as opposed to the progress of redemption anticipated.
And yet because the Scripture is written with a proleptic dynamic (the reality is in the anticipatory events) even the progress of Redemption retains a end point feel. Because the Gospel is part of one story that begins in Genesis and because all men throughout history have been saved by the same blood of Christ the Gospel climax that is most illuminated in the New Covenant is already present in the Old Covenant like the promissory spark that will eventually become a five alarm fire.
