NT Citations and Allusions

The following comments are from Dr. John MacArthur from "Grace To You" (here). They are said in relation to his analysis of II Corinthians chapter six (particularly verses 17-18). In that passage Paul alludes to some things that are said in the old testament scriptures, though without citing them completely or word for word. He does this often in his epistles (and other writers also do the same). Sometimes the new testament writers will allude to an OT passage but not quote it word for word. There is a wide difference between "alluding" to a passage and directly quoting it verbatim. In the following citations the highlighting (emphasis) is mine.

Said Dr. MacArthur:

"But in no case are these references to the Old Testament direct quotes.  And I just want to comment on that.  What I told you in our first session is that Paul takes a mosaic of Old Testament teaching and puts it all together to create this particular inspired text.  And it leads me to tell you that when you study the Bible, you need to keep this in mind.  Let me tell you how New Testament writers use the Old Testament. 

First of all, there are times when they directly quote it.  There are times when New Testament writers will directly quote the original Hebrew Old Testament.  Secondly, there are times when New Testament writers will quote a translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, such as the Septuagint, which is a Greek translation.  And there are occasions when they quote the Greek translation of the Hebrew. 

Thirdly, there are many times when New Testament writers give the sense of an Old Testament passage without directly quoting the words of it.  In other words, they take inspired liberties to give the sense of the text without the exact words, which, of course, conveys the same meaning.  Fourthly, New Testament writers will often blend together a combination of Old Testament passages so that you don’t get the sense of one passage, but you get the sense of several blended together to make one point. 

Fifthly, there are times when New Testament writers simply give the general teaching of the Old Testament without referring to any specific passage.  So when you read in the New Testament and it says “The Lord said,” or, “As the prophet said,” it could be any of those usages of the Old Testament.  There are times when such usages aren’t identified by the phrase “As God said,” but are just drawn out of the Old Testament.  But one final note.  New Testament writers never quote as authoritative anything but the Old Testament.  So it is the only authoritative source.

And so, here is the apostle Paul, then, in that fashion, drawing from the Old Testament, basically drawing the general sense of it, a few combined Scriptures, maybe a few specific words and blending them together in a mosaic of absolutely inspired truth to make the point that if we will make the severing and the separation and come out and get away from the unclean, the Lord will throw open His arms to pour out blessing upon us.  And so I say to you, I would be an unfaithful pastor to you if I let this church get involved in any form of violation of this.  I would be accountable to God for having brought you into a situation in which you would forfeit blessing.  Why would I do that?

Others have said the same thing as Dr. MacArthur. Sometimes understanding this instruction about how the NT writers referred to OT texts is important to keep in mind.