That will go for some time. I know that surprises you. But I would like to begin to approach the subject of how we are saved and what it means to be saved. This is not quite the doctrine of salvation as such, although of course we will be there as well. But it’s larger than that: the biblical presentation of salvation. I’ve talked this over with Pastor Boyd. He encouraged me to do this. We’re going to take our time and look at what it means to be saved and what is salvation, how is it accomplished, how is it presented to us in the Bible, and we’re going to be looking at it through many different kinds of its aspects.
At the beginning of the series, the first several messages, what we plan to do is take the big picture approach and look at the Bible story itself and how that advances this gospel story, how the message of salvation is embedded in the Bible itself, not just taught here or there. And then after we have spent some time working through the big picture to understand the Bible story and how the Bible presents this message of salvation, how the Bible is, in that sense, a redemptive book, then we’ll move on to some specific topics regarding salvation. Hopefully, in the end, we will have some kind of holistic understanding of salvation as it’s presented in the Bible, which we trust in the end will inform our praise.
So let’s begin with Genesis chapter 1. The title of the message this morning is, “The Bible: A Gospel Story.” The Bible: A Gospel Story. You are all familiar, of course, with the creation account in Genesis chapters 1 and 2, and then the fall in chapter 3; we will be surveying that this morning as the setup for the rest of the story of the Bible. Just to pull our thoughts together into this passage that you’re already familiar with, let’s read some of it together, beginning with Genesis 1, verse 1.
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
And God said, ‘Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.’ And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.
And God said, ‘Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.’ And it was so. And God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. And God said, ‘Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit, in which is their seed, each according to its kind on the earth.’ And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed, according to their kinds, and trees bearing fruit, in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.
And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years. And let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.’ And it was so. And God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, the lesser light to rule the night, and the stars. God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.
And God said, ‘Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly over the earth across the expanse of the heavens.’ So God created great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.’ And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.
And God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures each according to their kinds: livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.’ And it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds, and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ And so God created man in his own image; in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’ And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.’ And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.”
Let’s bow together for prayer. Our Father, this is your Word, and we would never presume to approach your Word without asking your Spirit to teach us. We recognize the privilege of it. We recognize our fallenness and our ignorance and often our unteachableness, and so we ask for your Spirit to be our teacher. For your glory, we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
The Bible Is Itself a Story
Anyone who has been to church knows that the Bible contains many important and exciting stories. But what it seems many people have missed is that the Bible is itself a story. It’s a narrative, we might say. Of course, it contains other genres besides narrative, but overall, the Bible narrates. It tells a story—a story that goes from beginning to end, a story that begins at the beginning and proceeds confidently to tell us the whole story of history. It’s a story that has a beginning; it has a plot; it has a protagonist and an antagonist; it has suspense, plot challenges, and threats; and it has a climax and a conclusion. It’s a story from beginning to end.
And in fact, the Bible presumes to tell us through that story not only the story of history, but the very meaning of history through it all: what it’s all about, where it’s going, and why. And we don’t have to notice that very long before we see that the Bible is a gospel story. It’s a story of rescue with a champion, a hero at the center who accomplishes the rescue for us. I’m getting ahead of myself just a little bit, and we will explore that in the coming weeks. But that, in a nutshell, is what the Bible is all about. And in that sense, we say the Bible is a story about Jesus.
Now the Bible begins where it does, and I like to point this out every chance I get, not just for chronological reasons. Now, it begins where it does for chronological reasons also, and very important ones. Why not begin at the beginning? This is where history begins. Let’s start at the beginning and tell the story. But the Bible begins where it does for more than chronological reasons. The Bible begins where it does for theological reasons.
The Bible begins where it does, first of all, to tell us something about God, to tell us something about us, and to tell us something about the world that we live in. In other words, the Bible begins where it does not just because it’s the beginning of a story, but because at this beginning we have the whole setup. Or if you would like the big word that we like to use today, it presents to us the worldview. Here’s the context in which we live. Here’s the reality, whether you’ve recognized it or not. This is the reality that surrounds you. Here’s God. Here’s creation. Here’s you. Here’s what’s going on. And all of that is set up for us at the beginning.
And it does that, first of all, by telling the story of creation, but by telling the story of creation, telling us some very important things about God. I’m sure you’ve heard it pointed out before—I imagine I’ve pointed it out here before more than once—that in the opening words of the Bible, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” we have disabused our minds already of some mistaken notions about God.
Atheism, for example, is ruled out from the very beginning: “In the beginning, God.” The whole idea of polytheism is ruled out. There is God and there’s everything else, and everything else is what he has made and they are not God. Pantheism—the teaching that so blurs the distinction between God and creation that it’s difficult to tell the difference—is ruled out. There’s God and there’s everything else, and the everything else is what he has made. There are these: God and everything else. You get rid of the everything else, you still have God. If somehow you could be rid of God, there would be nothing else. He’s the Creator. He has made everything that is.
The whole idea of naturalism and materialism is ruled out from the beginning. This is anything but a naturalistic environment. This is God at work. Even the idea of fatalism—we have God at work with a purpose. And all of this up front is set up for us so we understand the world that we live in. Humanism is ruled out. Man is not the determiner of all things; the Creator is.
And in fact, it not only tells us these negative things—what is not true—but it establishes some very important truths about God himself right from the very outset. If in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, there was nothing, and he spoke and there was something; he created and it was here. There is God and there’s the creation, this great distinction. If all of that is true, we’re left to conclude some very important things about God.
God Is Eternal
Number one, God is eternal. When the beginning came, he was already there. He’s not only eternal, but we have to see that he’s independent. That wonderful old doctrine—I love to say the Latin way of it—God’s aseity. He exists from himself. God is not dependent on creation. He’s the one that made it. We are dependent on all kinds of considerations within the created order. God is not. He exists from himself, and already we know then that for whatever reasons he has created this world, he didn’t create it because he was lonely. He didn’t create it because he needed it. But we, informed through the rest of the book, find this marvelous picture of God in the eternal contentedness of the three persons of his being—Father, Son, and Spirit—eternally enjoying perfect love with one another, love perfectly displayed, love perfectly received and requited, God perfectly content, and God existing of himself from eternity past, in need of nothing.
We’re told of God’s transcendence. God is exalted above the earth. He made it. He is in control of it. We learn something of his immanence also. I-M-M-A-N-E-N-T. “Imminent” with an “I-N-E-N-T” is close with regard to time. “Immanent” is close with regard to space. He’s not only transcendent and exalted above it, but he’s involved in it.
And not only all of that, we learn something of God’s power. He’s omnipotent. He speaks, just speaks, and the world appears—a God of all power. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Supernaturalism—if you can just swallow verse one, the rest of it’s easy. Isn’t it? In fact, the whole world of the miraculous that we find on occasion showing up in the Scriptures is easy if you can just swallow, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” An atheist might have trouble with miracles. A naturalist might have trouble with miracles. A pantheist might have trouble with miracles. But nobody else can have that trouble if you can just believe “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Floating axe heads are easy. Talking donkeys are easy. The virgin birth is easy. Resurrection from the dead is easy. Making the blind to see is easy. Turning water into wine, that’s easy. All of that is easy if you can just see at the beginning: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” This is the world we live in. This is the world God created, and it is his.
Well, this is the God who is. This is the world that we live in. We didn’t arrive here simply out of a vacuum. We are God’s own handiwork. We were made by God; we were made for God. In the first instance, God is not here for us; we are here for him. We are made for his purpose and for his purposes only. God has made us, and we are here for his pleasure. And this is basic to everything else about us. This is basic to our worldview. This is basic to our understanding of the Bible. This is basic to our understanding of history. This is basic to understand the meaning of history and all of that. God is the Creator; we are his creatures.
And that relationship—God the Creator, we the creatures—that is held tightly throughout the whole story. Throughout all of history, everything shows this structure: Creator, creation, God, and creatures. God in charge, making it all, and we then accountable to him. And that’s the structure of the world that you live in. That’s the reality. Whether you know that yet or not, whether you believe that or not, whether you like that or not, that’s the reality. This is a world made by God, and it’s his. And as I say, that’s basic to everything of our understanding of history and of the Scriptures itself.
And as our Creator, God has rights over us. As Creator, he has authority over us. And that again is basic to the whole story. He made us, and he has authority over us—individuals, nations, societies, the whole world. It’s his. And the whole world and every individual in it is accountable to him. And again, whether you know that or not, whether you like that or not, whether you realize that’s not the point. This is the reality: God made us, and he has authority over us.
And in fact, the Bible—the text itself—makes this prominent from the beginning. In chapter one, in verse 28, for example, God makes man and immediately starts ordering him around. And then we get to chapter two, and he puts him in a garden. What right does he have to do that? He’s the Creator. And he begins calling him into account as though Adam is responsible to him. And what’s made prominent for us in the text itself: God is God, we are the creatures; he’s the Creator, we’re the creation; he has authority, we are accountable to him. And you see how that structure is established from the very beginning. There’s creaturehood and accountability. And so we worship him according to his own terms, and we’re responsible to obey as he has commanded.
The First Test
That’s Genesis chapters 1 and 2. And then we come to the first test, Genesis chapter 3. Satan, the highest of God’s creatures—he’s shrewd, more shrewd than any of the animals of the field—he’s in settled opposition to God, and he comes to ruin the crown of God’s creation: man and woman. And he comes in a subtle way, questioning God, playing to their ego. “Be liberated. Be free. Why should all of life revolve around him? It’s your life. Be happy. Do it your way.” As one theologian put it at one point—I thought it was a great observation of the passage—anytime you hear that (“be liberated, be free, be happy”), you may be sure you are hearing the hiss of the serpent.
And the question that Eve faced is a very basic question. It’s the basic question that every one of us faces every time we’re tempted: Who will be God? It’s the very nature of the situation that you have no right—there is no such thing, even if you pretend—there is no such thing as moral autonomy. And not even intellectual autonomy. You live under God. You are responsible to him. It is self-evident that you have no right whatever to call God’s Word into question. You have no right whatever to stand in judgment over God’s Word. He has spoken; you are accountable. And that’s the issue we all face every time we’re tempted. Eve is faced with that. And the essence of her sin then is the essence of every sin we ever commit: rebellion—fundamental rejection of our creaturehood, as though life ought to revolve around us, as though we were God.
The immediate results of the sin then are outlined for us in chapter 3, beginning with verse 7. And if I can, I’ll group these into basically three immediate results. Number one: estrangement or alienation from God. Fellowship with God is broken, and they run and hide. What a pathetic scene. The scene we’re given is that before that occasion, evidently man has enjoyed perfect fellowship with God, and now he runs and hides. And there is alienation or estrangement because, number two, there’s also moral corruption. They’re ashamed, and they now know good and evil. And they do not know good and evil as creatures trusting God, but now they know good and evil as rebels who have staked out on their own and who have become evil.
The last several years here in our congregation, we have several people who have struggled with cancer. Thankfully, God has been gracious. In each of those cases, they will sit in front of the doctor, and the doctor will explain to them things they didn’t know about cancer. In a very important sense, the doctor is the authority; he understands cancer. In a very important sense, each one of those patients knows cancer in a way the doctor doesn’t. And so we have here: they now know good and evil in a horrible way. They have rejected good and have become evil. They have staked out their independence. They are hiding from God, estranged from him because they themselves have been in rebellion and have become morally corrupt.
And as a result, third: judgment. Alienation, estrangement, and judgment. And God comes on the scene, chapter 3, verses 14 and following. He pronounces, first of all, judgment on Satan, the tempter: “You will crawl on your belly and eat dirt”—the language of utter subjugation. That language is picked up in the Psalms. You might remember two weeks ago we saw that in Psalm 72 in our Sunday evening service. That language is picked up in a messianic psalm speaking of the Messiah who will come and defeat the opposition; they’ll crawl on their bellies, they’ll eat dirt. Utter subjugation. He will be defeated. In fact, his head will be crushed. Figurative language, of course, but utter defeat. Satan, you have brought this mess, but you will be defeated.
He pronounces judgment on the woman as well in verse 16: “You’ll desire to rule your husband, but he will rule over you.” The beginning of the battle of the sexes. There’s disarray now in the created order, even among husband and wife. And then verses 17 through 19, judgment on Adam and on the ground itself—a life sentence of labor and sweat and toil and difficulty and resistance from the created order around us. And the judgment that God brings entails all of the created order. It is now, we call it, fallen, cursed. And every scrap of evil—whether it is moral evil or what we call general or natural evil (suffering, cancer, sickness, Lyme disease)—every scrap of evil traces back to Genesis chapter 3. We have rebelled against our Creator, and now all of creation is reeling from the effects of it. We live under a curse.
This is the answer, by the way, to the problem of evil that you’re asked of so often. Why do bad things happen? Why did there have to be that flood? Why did there have to be that tsunami? Why did God allow that tornado? You hear the questions quite often. We’ve all asked that ourselves. And the answer is right here. We live in a cursed world. God has spoken in judgment. Creator, creature, authority, accountability, rebellion, and judgment has been given, and this is a pattern you will see in the following chapters of Genesis.
We have it in the next chapter: Cain kills Abel. There’s punishment, although it is happily tinged with a measure of grace as well. We find it in chapters 6 through 9: humanity continues in its rebellion against God, and God responds in judgment with a flood. We find it in chapters 10 and 11 with the Tower of Babel: God responds again with judgment. We have human rebellion and God responding in judgment. And this, again, is part of this framework in which we live. God has created us. We have rebelled against him. We have become estranged and alienated from him, morally corrupt, living under judgment. And the whole created order is in disarray because of human sin, rebellion against our Creator.
We find it later through the whole story of Genesis—even good guys like Abraham aren’t so good at times. Israel itself rebels against God and ends up in exile. Because God is a God who keeps his word, he brings them back. But this is the world we live in. It’s been ruined. I have a pastor friend from the South who taught me how to say this better: it’s “ruant.” The doctrine of depravity in one word: ruant. And this is the world we live in. We are creatures of God, we have rebelled, we have fallen under a curse, and the whole created order is in chaos and in disarray because it has fallen under divine judgment.
A Promise and a Hope
There’s also this matter of the threatened death. “Don’t eat of that fruit and the day you eat of it you shall surely die.” Whatever happened to that? Well, it was postponed, evidently. Or should we think of it in terms of spiritual death? Or should we think of it in terms of physical death that has just begun and will eventuate in final physical death? Or should we say simply God relented? I have a suspicion that a few of those things may be involved, but we have to say that that question is really not addressed head-on in Genesis chapter 3. Eternal death—is that what it’s talking about? The answer’s not taken head-on. We’ll have to get through the rest of the story to find out how that plays out.
But not only is there this problem of humanity now in rebellion and estranged from God and morally corrupt and under judgment, the whole created order in disarray, but there’s also a promise. And it’s in Genesis 3, verse 15, where God says that Satan’s going to be a goner. He’ll crawl on his belly and eat dirt. But notice the players, the characters in verse 15. We have: “I will put enmity between you [there’s one] and the woman [there’s two], between your offspring [that is, between Satan’s offspring or Satan’s followers] and her offspring [that’s four now]; he shall bruise your head [there’s a fifth one]. He shall bruise your head and you will bruise his heel.”
We have Satan and the woman, Satan’s seed, the woman’s seed, and then this “he” is introduced. Now there’s one Roman Catholic version that translates it “she.” I don’t know how they got that—I know how, I know why they got that, but I don’t know how they got that. The Hebrew is very clear. It is “he”; he shall bruise your head. Whoever this “he” is—and we’re not told yet; you’re in church, you know the answer is Jesus—but we’re not told yet at this point in the narrative who this “he” is, except that he is some male descendant of the woman’s seed. A champion is coming who will crush the tempter. And here we are given this note of hope, and the first promise of the gospel is of a champion who will come to defeat the tempter.
And the implication is this mess is going to be fixed. And he’ll deal with this tempter and put him away. He’ll crush his head. He’ll crawl on his belly and eat dirt—utter defeat of this tempter. And this again now is the essentials of our worldview and understanding the Bible. There is God and man. There’s Creator and there’s creation. There’s authority. There’s accountability. There’s rebellion. There’s judgment that has come. But there is also promise and there is hope, because God has promised a champion will come and fix this entire mess. And the whole Bible storyline now flows out of this: humanity under a curse, in sin, reeling from the effects of it, and what God has set out to do to restore the whole problem. This is not a story of man seeking God in any sense. This is a story of God coming graciously and redemptively after man.
And so we see hints of it in Genesis chapter 3. We have rebellion and curse and judgment, but we also have promise. We have Genesis chapter 4, and God punishes Cain, of course, and exiles him, but there’s also that tinge of grace as well where God protects him. We have Genesis 6 through 9, where man is in rebellion again against God, and God responds in judgment, but afterwards makes another promise. We have Genesis 10 and 11 with the Tower of Babel, man’s rebellion against God, God coming in judgment, and we turn the page, Genesis chapter 12, and here’s another promise: God’s promise to Abraham.
We won’t take time to turn to it, but we could flip ahead to Romans chapter 5, where the Apostle Paul interprets all of this for us. I think all he’s doing is reading the Genesis narrative and surmising from it. And he tells us, “By one man, sin entered into the world, and death by sin.” Well, you see that in the narrative, don’t you? Adam sins, brings forth man and his son in his image, and we have humanity flourishing in some sense. But yet we read, “he died and he died”—that’s Genesis 5—”and he died and he died and he died and he died.” And as I’ve said, we don’t have to have six theological degrees to get the point of chapter five. Something has infected humanity. Something’s wrong. God has promised death in judgment, and it has come.
And we go through the Old Testament and we find how Adam’s sin has infected all of humanity, just as Paul has said, not only in terms of death coming to all of humanity, but humanity now infected by sin in such a way that this rebellion continues and multiplies and grows. I have a book in my library that sets out to explain the theme of Genesis as this growing expanse of sin. I don’t think that is the theme of Genesis, but it certainly is a theme in Genesis. We see this growing expanse of sin. Even good guys like Abraham, as I say, turn out at times to be not such good guys. Jacob—a good guy. Israel herself, God’s chosen covenant people, rebelling, rebelling, rebelling, and rebelling. We have judges who are the good guys, and some of them not such good guys. Then we have the kings who are supposed to be the good guys, and over and over and over again we read, “he did that which is evil in the sight of the Lord,” “he did that which is evil in the sight of the Lord,” and “he did that which is evil in the sight of the Lord,” over and over and over again. And we get to the prophets, and we find the prophets calling Israel back: “Come back to the covenant. Come back to faithfulness to God. Stop your whoring. Come back to faithfulness to God.” And we get to the end of the Old Testament, and we find that we have no faithful people and we have no faithful king. Sin has ravaged humanity, even God’s own people.
But there is a hope. God made a promise. He said a champion will come, and this champion will conquer the tempter. And after that promise, the story unfolds and we begin looking. Where’s this champion? Seth? Have you gotten a man from the Lord? No, not him. Noah? No, not him. Abraham? No, not him either. Moses? No, not him either. You have these judges that come up? No, not any of them. You have these kings? No, none of them kings either. But God has made a promise. He even makes covenant promises to Abraham, to David; makes a covenant promise to Israel in the New Covenant that he’s going to fix this thing. But there is this growing sense of human rebellion against God and also this growing anticipation of this champion who will come. There’s hope.
And the Old Testament is stamped with this idea of anticipation. “God, we need a king.” He’s coming. He’s coming. He’s coming. And that’s the whole Old Testament story. Every judge, every king—he may anticipate it, but they fail, and they fail. “Is this the one?” No, that’s not the one, but there’s one coming. God has promised. And that’s the story of the Old Testament.
And then we turn to Matthew chapter 1 and verse 1. And he begins his account of Jesus in which, as I’ve said here many times before, in a way that is just terribly boring: “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, the father of Jacob, the father of so-and-so, and father of so-and-so, father of so-and-so.” What kind of a way is that to start a biography? But of course, the point is that if Jesus is, verse one, the promised son of David, son of Abraham, then the first item of business is to establish his genealogical credentials. This is exciting! God promised, and the whole announcement of Matthew, the whole announcement of the Gospels, the whole announcement of the New Testament is: he’s here. God promised and he’s come, and his name is Jesus. The promised champion has come.
So we read on through Matthew. We have these genealogies. And then we have the birth narratives. “And this happened that it might be fulfilled, which is spoken by the prophet saying.” “And this happened that it might be fulfilled, which is spoken by the prophet saying.” “And this happened that it might be fulfilled, which is spoken by the prophet saying.” And you get the point after seven times that this is God’s promise come good. And then we turn the page. We come to John the Baptist: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” That promised kingdom has come. Jesus begins his ministry, starts the same way: “Repent, the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Here it is; the King has come. We find Jesus stamping his ministry with this note of fulfillment: that he has come to fulfill God’s long promise of a champion. The Apostle Paul sums it up in some of my favorite words in the New Testament, 2 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 20: “In him all the promises of God are yes and amen.” God has promised that he would send a champion, a redeemer, and he has come. And at the birth of Jesus, we have God’s “yes” and “amen” to all of the promises he made.
And so if the Old Testament is stamped with the idea of anticipation, expectation—”he’s coming, he’s coming”—the New Testament is stamped with the idea of fulfillment: “he’s here, he’s here.” Now the means of fulfillment turns out to be rather surprising. Well, it was prophesied, but still, it was a surprising way that this ends up being fulfilled. And as the story goes and unfolds for us, we find this Redeemer. He’s born. Immediately there’s opposition against him. But through much struggle, he comes finally to a cross. Well, maybe that shouldn’t surprise us. God said at the beginning that he would crush the tempter’s head, but only at a cost to himself—that his heel would be crushed as well.
And he goes to the cross, as the apostles fill in for us, as Jesus teaches us himself, taking the sin of his people, standing in their place, redeeming them through sacrifice, standing in our place, taking the curse and the penalty of our sin, and thereby destroying the grip the devil holds over humanity. He rises from the dead because he had exhausted sin’s curse. And salvation has been accomplished. Oh, we’ll have to fill that in in the coming weeks. But the story unfolds then and the Redeemer ascends to heaven. He goes to heaven and he pours out his Spirit on humanity in such an abundant way, accomplishing one by one fulfillment of his kingdom, bringing us one by one into that kingdom in union with Christ.
The final culmination of his work, of course, awaits the future at the return of Jesus Christ when he comes in glory and in power at the climax of history. His saving promises then will be brought to their climax. The effects of his return—we read of it in the epistles, we read of it in the book of Revelation—that he comes as a champion, claiming his victory over all of his enemies and restoring the entire created order. And that whole problem of estrangement or alienation and moral corruption and judgment—the whole thing’s taken care of because he bore our judgment and, through bearing our judgment, has brought us to fellowship with God and has renewed our hearts after his own.
We come to the book of Revelation at the end and we have this “return to Eden” theme. We have the crushing of the serpent, the defeat finally of him, but we have the tree of life. We have the fruit growing on that tree every month in abundance. We have the river of life. We have all of these reminders of “back to Eden,” but it’s really back to Eden and beyond. Much better than whatever Eden was. The serpent is destroyed, he’s cast into the lake of fire, and we again are in paradise. Paradise lost, paradise regained. And all through the Bible, there’s this day of new creation coming. We have this new creation and new humanity because we have a new Adam over a new humanity which he has restored. And it’s a day of resurrection, a day in which death is banished, a day in which sin is banished, a day in which we are told there’s no more curse. And God’s creation is restored and brought to its original intent, restored by the Redeemer, promised long and finally come.
And meanwhile, now we live in this in-between time, when he has accomplished the redemption and will come again to claim it. we live in this in-between time with a promise: he’s still coming again. The heartthrob of the church for all these centuries has been, “Maranatha, he’s coming.” And all of this reeling from a curse that we realize in daily living—it’ll be over. Christ has fought and he has won, and he will bring it to a happy conclusion.
I would love to work out in detail—I’ll just say it in brief terms—some observations.
The Bible Is a Gospel-Shaped Story
Number one: the Bible is a gospel-shaped story. You can see that now, can’t you? The Bible is a gospel-shaped story. We love to say that the Bible is a book about Jesus, and I’m afraid we often don’t grasp that it’s not—we mean by that not just that he’s the most important figure there. He’s the one that the whole story rivets our attention to. He’s the one promised. He’s the one who has accomplished the redemption. He’s the one who will bring final victory. And all of the blessings that God has promised to us are caught up in our union with him. The Bible is a gospel-shaped story.
The Bible Is a Gospel-Shaped Book
Number two—and this I would love to unpack at length; I’ll just run through some of this quickly—the Bible is a gospel-shaped book. And I mean literally, not just a gospel-shaped story, but a gospel-shaped book. So for example, we have the books of the law at the beginning: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. And there we have the foundation for Christ. It lays all the groundwork for us. It establishes the human predicament. It makes the basic promises. It gives us the basic institutions and the structures in which the promise will be fulfilled. We have the foundation for Christ in the books of the law.
Then we have the books of history, and we have the preparation for Christ. The nation is established. The need for salvation is demonstrated over and over again throughout the history of the people of Israel. The promises are reiterated. The hope is instilled. The books of the law: the foundation for Christ; the books of history: the preparation for Christ.
The poetic books come next, and we have the aspiration for Christ. Aspiration for Christ, most famously, of course, in the book of the Psalms with its heart panting after God, realized finally in our union with Christ and our knowledge of him. But not just in the Psalms with its promise of a Redeemer and a king and the Davidic son who will come, but also in the other poetic books as well. Job, with its anticipation of a mediator to bring us to God. The book of Proverbs, with its pursuit of wisdom. The book of Ecclesiastes, with its pursuit of contentment. The book of Song of Solomon, with its pursuit of perfect love. All of these are aspirations that are finally realized when we come to know our Redeemer, Christ.
And then we come to the prophetic books. And there we have the expectation of Christ. The promise is amplified, it’s reaffirmed, it’s reiterated, and hope is aflame. Even amidst all of the prophecies of coming judgment, the hope is aflame that the promised Messiah, the promised champion, will come.
And then we come to the Gospels. And here we have the manifestation of Christ. He’s here. And then we have the book of Acts: the propagation of Christ; the word goes out to the world. And then we have the epistles: the interpretation of Christ, which tells us all the implications of all of this. And then finally, we come to the book of Revelation: the consummation in Christ. This is a gospel-shaped story. It is a gospel-shaped book.
And that leads us to two final lessons.
To Understand the Bible, We Must Look for Jesus
Number one: to understand the Bible, we must look for Jesus. Now this is the work we’ll never get done with, and this is the work that I’m sure will be part of the glory of heaven—that for eternity we will be unfolding more of the realization of this. But this is the job of reading the Bible to understand it really well: look for Jesus. And I don’t mean in a silly sense—”well, this represents Jesus and this represents Jesus”—and finding where it’s not, although some of that is there. But in the whole flow of the story, where are we in reference to Jesus? Is this a promise? Is this demonstrating the need of Jesus? Is this interpreting Jesus? To understand the Bible, look for Jesus.
To Profit from the Bible, We Must Look to Jesus
And then lastly, and most importantly: to profit from the Bible, we must look to Jesus. And if we miss that, we’ve missed the whole point—that the Bible has come to proclaim a Redeemer, to fix this whole problem of sin, to bring us out of our rebellion and our corruption and our estrangement, and to bring us into fellowship with God. Without him, we’re hopeless. And there is then this note of urgency that stamps the whole thing. You must come to Christ. You must know it. One day you will bow before him. He’s the King. He offers terms of peace. Come to him now and bow before him today and enjoy the salvation that he alone brings. You miss this, you’ve missed everything. Amen.
Let’s pray. Our Father, again, we’re struck with the grace of our God in coming to us in redemption. This God who is Creator, this God who is independent, this God who exists of himself and is in need of nothing—a God whom we have offended, the God who has no need whatever to come to us in restoration—has come to us in mercy and at such unbelievable cost has brought us redemption. What a great God you are. What a great Savior we have in the Lord Jesus. We thank you for him. In his name we pray. Amen.