Chapter IV of Dei Verbum deals with the Old Testament. After speaking of how God shows himself to Abraham and to the people of Israel through Moses and through the mouths of the prophets it sums up what the initial purpose of the Old Testament is: “The plan of salvation foretold by the sacred authors, recounted and explained by them, is found as the true word of God in the books of the Old Testament: these books, therefore, written under divine inspiration, remain permanently valuable. “For all that was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Romans. 15:4). The quote from St. Paul to the Romans from the New Testament points to the importance of the Old Testament for the church because that is where the first Jews who converted would have looked for hope in God’s salvation.
In nn. 15 and 16 it deals with, “The principal purpose to which the plan of the old covenant was directed…”. We will look at these two paragraphs next week.