Jesus is the Bible Story
What is the story of the Bible?
The shortest answer is: Jesus Christ. He is the Word (John 1:1); you cannot separate the Man and His message. The Old Testament promises His coming and the New Testament proclaims His coming.
But, if you have fifteen minutes, you can go into a little more detail. You might point out the following:
1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1). He created man in His image (Genesis 1:26-27). We are His children.
2. God gave men laws to follow, but men broke His laws (Genesis 2-3). This is called “sin,” “transgression,” and “iniquity” in the Bible. It’s when we fail God’s standard and purpose for us. All of us, since Adam, have made that same choice to do life OUR way and not HIS way. We are all guilty.
3. God punished, but He also promised something good in the future (Genesis 3:14-19). Pain, disease, death, difficulty – these all became our reality when sin entered the world. Sin brings a curse. But God wants to bless even when we sin! Amazing! He called this “grace” and “mercy” and “lovingkindness.”
Responding to the Gospel
4. The Old Testament is a window to the future. God promised over and over to send a deliverer, a king, a savior, a servant who would suffer for God’s people. The light gets brighter and brighter as you read through, but at the end of the Old Testament you still wonder, “Who is this person…or are these several different people…who will deliver God’s people?” Galatians 3:24 says, “Therefore the Law [of Moses - the Old Testament] has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.”
5. The New Testament reveals Christ. It shows us His person and His teaching. We find that He came, not only for the Jews, but for all nations! That’s the good news of the gospel. If we continue in Galatians 3:27-29:
27 For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.
Surely we have just scratched the surface of the Bible Story, but this is a great start. This reveals the great themes of sin and salvation, of God’s justice and mercy. We’ll go into more detail as we progress.
Comments? How would YOU explain this? There are so many ways to do it.
God bless,
Nathan
Question: Why did God give man laws to follow?
That’s an interesting question, Edwin. The funny thing is, the Scriptures may not completely answer that question. You may have your own ideas on this, but I’ll share mine.
We find the Bible story is about God working to have a relationship with His children. We, who are His children, are to be LIKE Him. He created us in His image, we mar that image, but He wants us to be RENEWED back to His image (Colossians 2:9-14).
That being said, I believe God wants us to obey certain laws because HE obeys certain laws. We know that God cannot lie (Titus 1:2). He restricts Himself from evil. He always does what is right. That’s following a law – it’s His character to do these things. I believe the law was given to man to teach us how to be like our Father.
What’s your take, Brother?
Let me take what you’ve said a step further. I Peter 1:16 says, “You shall be holy, for I am holy,” quoting from Leviticus about why folks were to keep the law. So, on the one hand, it was there to teach us how to be like our Father. But there is a problem for us. None of us have done it. In fact, we already know that no one will (Romans 3:23), except Jesus.
Did God give the law just to let us know how to be like Him? Or did He give us the Law to teach us that we would never be like Him through the keeping of a Law? After all, the Law didn’t justify anyone (Romans 3:20), it could not give us life (Galatians 3:21), and it did not make us perfect (Hebrews 7:19).
Galatians 3:21-22 says God gave the Law to imprison us under sin. It seems to me that God didn’t actually give the Law to teach us to be like Him. Rather, He gave it to us to show that apart from Jesus we can’t be like Him. He gave the world an opportunity to try perfecting itself through keeping a law and showed over and over again that method just won’t work.
If we would be perfect, we need Jesus.
It is interesting that this came up this week because I preached on this very topic this past Sunday. Go here: http://www.bburgchurchofchrist.org/BBURG2/SermonList.php?Sort=2 and find the entry for 100725 in the AM.
Edwin, I agree with what you say about the Law of Moses. I’m not sure if it completely applies in the case of Genesis 2, because there was no sin in the world at the time. Everything God made was good and holy – yet there was still a law to follow, still a choice to make. Was God showing mankind in advance that it was impossible to follow any kind of law successfully? Did God make man with the intention of setting him up to fail…so that He could send Jesus later to prove His great love for man? I dunno. All I know is we are SUPPOSED to love good and hate evil – just like our Father. We didn’t do what we were supposed to do. And God had a marvelous plan to save us from our iniquities. Praise Him for that!
I’ll have to think further on these things, for sure