Getting the Bible from Beginning to End – Part 16
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In our Online Ministry Bible study today we are continuing our discussion on Understanding the Bible from beginning to end. So far in our study on getting the Bible from beginning to end we have developed the following ideas:
God is the Eternal King. He is an infinite, unchangeable, Spirit, perfect in holiness, wisdom, goodness, justice, power and love.
From all eternity He exists as the One Living and True God in three persons of one substance, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, equal in power and glory.
God’s Kingdom is everlasting. From His throne, through His Son, His eternal Word, God created, upholds, and governs all that exists: the heavenly places, the angelic hosts, the universe, the earth, every living thing and human beings. God created all things very good.
Satan, originally a great good angel rebelled against God, taking a host of angels with him. He was cast out of God’s presence, and, as a usurper of God’s rule established a counter-kingdom of darkness and evil on the earth.God created mankind in His image, male and female, for relationship with himself, and to govern the earth. Under the temptation of Satan our original parents fell from grace, bringing sin and God’s judgment of death to the earth. Through the fall, Satan and his demonic host gained access to God’s good creation. Creation now experiences the consequences and effects of Adam’s original sin Human beings are born in sin, subject to God’s judgment of death, and captive to Satan’s kingdom of darkness.
God did not abandon His rule over the earth, which He continues to uphold by His providence. In order to bring redemption, God established covenants, which revealed His grace to sinful people. In covenant with Abraham, God bound Himself to His people Israel, promising to deliver them from bondage to sin and Satan and to bless all the nations through them.
As King, God later redeemed His people by His mighty acts from bondage in Egypt and established His covenant through Moses, revealing His perfect will and our obligation to fulfill it. The law’s purpose is to order our fallen race and to make us conscious of our moral responsibility.
By the work of God’s Spirit, it convicts us of our sin and God’s righteous judgment against us and brings us to Christ alone for salvation.
When Israel rejected God’s rule over her as King, God established the monarchy in Israel and made an unconditional covenant with David, promising that his heir would restore God’s kingdom reign over His people as Messiah forever.
In the fullness of time, God honored His covenants with Israel and His prophetic promises of salvation by sending His only Son, Jesus, into the world. Conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, as fully God and fully human in one person, He is humanity as God intended us to be.
Jesus was anointed as God’s Messiah and empowered by the Holy Spirit, inaugurating God’s kingdom reign on earth,
overpowering the reign of Satan by resisting temptation, preaching the good news of salvation, healing the sick, casting out demons and raising the dead. Gathering His disciples, He reconstituted God’s people as His Church to be the instrument of His kingdom.
Today we will look at the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus and how it relates to the covenants and God’s plan of redemption.
After dying for the sins of the world
John 1:29 (NIV)
29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
John 6:51 (NIV)
51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
1 John 4:9-10 (NIV)
9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Jesus was raised from the dead on the third day
Mark 8:31 (NIV)
31 He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again.
1 Corinthians 15:3-5 (NIV)
3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve.
People often try and attack the resurrection of Jesus. They have come up with all kinds of theories. Some people teach that Jesus just fainted, (called the swoon theory). Some say that He died but the disciples came and stole His body (apparently they bribed the guards who were watching the tomb). Jesus died and rose again. What else could have changed the disciples so radically from a group of frightened, hunted, hiding people, to the courageous band of preachers and healers that changed the world. They saw the resurrected Jesus, they realized He was the fulfillment of all they had been waiting for. They lived the remainder of their lives for Him, filled with His Spirit and doing everything that He had commanded them to do. Which is how we are to live until His glorious return.
Fulfilling the covenant of blessing given to Abraham
Galatians 3:13-14 (NIV)
13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” 14 He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.
In His sinless, perfect life
Acts 3:14-15 (NIV)
14 You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. 15 You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this.
Hebrews 4:15 (NIV)
15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are–yet was without sin.
Jesus met the demands of the law
Romans 5:18-19 (NIV)
18 Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. 19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
And in His atoning death on the cross
1 Peter 2:24 (NIV)
24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.
He took God’s judgment for sin
Galatians 3:13 (NIV)
13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”
Which we deserve as law breakers
Romans 1:18 (NIV)
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness,
Romans 1:32 (NIV)
32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
Romans 2:12 (NIV)
12 All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law.
2 Thessalonians 1:6-10 (NIV)
6 God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you 7 and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. 8 He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power 10 on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.
The Cross demonstrates love in a way the nothing else can. Jesus died the death we deserved. The only One who had never sinned, paid the price for all of us who have. Amazing love, oh what sacrifice, the Son of God given for me. My debt He paid, and my death He died, that I might live.
By His death on the cross He also disarmed the demonic powers
Colossians 2:13-15 (NIV)
13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
Remember in our discussions about the host of angels who had been cast out of heaven along with the Evil One. They are the demonic powers that were disarmed at the Cross. While they still try to oppress us, we can stand against them now because of what Jesus has done.
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Category: Studying the Bible
