The Message of God’s Word

Loading Scripture… Deuteronomy 29:29 (ESV)

If any of you are a Star Wars fan, then you were likely excited over the arrival of The Force Awakens on December 18, 2015. The first movie of the new trilogy sought to bring back favorite characters, introduce new favorites, and mesmerize a new generation with the same cinematic magic as the very first Star Wars released almost 40 years previously. A few glitches happened along the way that led to very few posters of Poe Dameron and Rey hanging in kids’ bedrooms. Instead, fans of the originals called for firing the responsible executives and remaking the movies. For me, the question of whether the new trilogy matches the quality of the first comes down to two facts. First, the four children in my family – aged 13, 11, 7, and 5 at the time of The Force Awakens’ release – claim the new trilogy never existed – out of sight, out of mind. Second, I have been a Star Wars fan since I sat in the theater in 1977 to watch the original, and I had to Google “Force Awakens character names” to remember Poe Dameron. Luke Skywalker, he is not, hmm?

I am not a movie critic by trade, and I haven’t spent nights and weekends over the past several years wondering what went wrong with the sequel trilogy. But knowing a little bit about the screenplay re-writes and directorial changes made between the movies, it feels to me like the plot was underdeveloped at the beginning, the directors were given too much freedom to take each movie in a completely different direction, and George Lucas – the father of the original trilogy – was not involved enough in the decision-making process for the new films. A lot changed in 40 years.

What does that have to do with the Bible? It demonstrates how much can go wrong with holding a story together over 40 short years if the decision-making process is left in the hands of men. Not so with the Bible. The Bible’s 66 books were written over thousands of years, not forty. Yet beginning to end, the story is the same. The plot is unchanged from all eternity. There is not a single flaw in the text. At no point have re-writes been needed. The Father of Genesis 1 is the Father of Revelation 22. And we’re getting ready to read it.

After the first four chapters dealt with which books were part of the Bible, what is true of the Bible, the culture and land of the Bible, and how to rightly interpret the Bible, we’re finally ready to dive into the content of the Bible. What does God have to say to His people and His enemies? Let’s find out, shall we?

What is it and why does it matter?

The message of God’s Word is the hope of eternal life for all who believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ. It is a story of the creation of a perfect world with a perfect couple, their fall into sin through the temptation of Satan, and God’s plan to redeem a sinful people for His glory. Time and time again, when you read God’s Word you will find a people who always fail and a God who never does. Covenants that are always broken when it’s up to mankind to keep them. And a New Covenant which cannot be broken, because all of the requirements of that covenant were fulfilled by Jesus! If you understand that, then you will understand why believing in His name is the only way of salvation. Mankind fails. God succeeds.

There is no more important message for anyone, anywhere. And there is no other source for that message. Allah did not carry that message. Nor did Buddha. Nor did any of the Hindu gods. Our world wants many paths to God. Yet God has a singular, narrow path according to Jesus in Matthew 7:13-14: “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter it are many. For the gate is narrow, and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”

This is not just any book. From it we obtain living water and daily bread. It is our sustenance in this life and the message of hope for the life to come. We are dead without it. So, we should tolle lege, meaning “take up and read,” with an eye to context and understanding of the overarching message. It’s not a mystery novel where we don’t want to sneak a peek and spoil the ending. Knowing the ending is the whole reason you’re at the beginning!

What should I seek to understand about the topic?

• The Bible as one unified story of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation
• How each book ties to all the others
• That all of Scripture is about Jesus – He is the Alpha and the Omega – the beginning and end.

My thoughts on the topic

Understanding the last bullet that just concluded the previous section is a major key to knowing your Bible. Genesis is about Jesus. The Psalms are about Jesus. And perhaps most importantly, all of the writings of the prophets are about Jesus. Knowing that, we will have a much easier time interpreting 2 Corinthians 1:20, where we read “For all the promises of God find their Yes in Him.” Is it possible that the temple in Ezekiel is not a literal one yet to be built, but a shadow of the ultimate temple? In John 2:19-21, Jesus spoke of himself as a temple. In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul repeatedly calls the church a temple. And in 1 Peter 2:4 and following, we are described as living stones being built into a spiritual house with Christ serving as the cornerstone.

Could understanding that all prophecy is fulfilled in Christ, along with understanding what we know about interpreting the prophetic genre of Scripture from Chapter 4, lead us to different conclusions about the prospects of an actual, physical, rebuilt temple in Jerusalem? Or did the work of building the temple start at Calvary and end when the last living stone is placed in the spiritual house?

And all the dispensationalists said “Nope.”

This completes part one of the book. Congratulations on making it this far! In part two, we will introduce you to some important definitions: biblical theology, covenant theology, and typology. And guess what? By chapter 10, we will have covered the biblical theology of the whole Bible. And by the context of that particular “whole”, I do mean every single book. Let’s go!