In this wonderful book, Scott Hahn traces God's covenant love through the old testament and right down to the new covenant. He reveals the truth of the scriptures and of God's covenant, that God is a father that loves his children (us), and relentlessly pursues us so that we might be a part of his covenant, his very family.
It tells the story of how God lovingly formed the world for Human habitation, placing his creation Adam in the garden who was to defend and guide God's handiwork and offer it all up to God as a sacrifice of loving praise. But Adam failed and plunged the human world into sin. Dr. Hahn follows the thread all through the OT, through Abraham the father of the faithful, and through Moses the mediator.
Along the way, he shows how the design behind all of God's actions is to build the human race into a family, the family of God. Indeed, reality is a love story. The story of God pursuing sinful man to draw him into his covenant relationship.
Finally, he brings the whole story to a conclusion by examining Jesus and the new covenant. He shows how Jesus Christ brought in the greatest stage of God's plan, his worldwide family, the catholic church. He accomplishes this by dying for the sins of men and giving his perfect life as a eternal offering of love to the father. Indeed, the very act of the sacrifice was a fulfillment of the Passover liturgy, as he turned the third cup of blessing into the Eucharist and the fourth cup of consummation into his bloody death, one single sacrifice which is given for us to accept and consume, to unite ourselves with God and hos covenant love.
This book is about God's covenant love - the Gospel. And what is that Gospel specifically? Hahn spells out the Gospel message on page 240-243:
1. God is more than a wise creator, he is our loving father.
2. God has established a sacred covenant with us from the start - a sacred family bond of communion.
3. We have all broken God's covenant.
4. We desperately need our Father's mercy and Grace.
5. The solution to this came when God became Man in Jesus Christ. Jesus took on our weak nature to perfect us and give us a share in the divine life of God.
6. Jesus seals the New Covenant through his sacrifice that began in the upper room and ended on Calvary.
7. Jesus was raised from the dead through the power of the Holy Spirit and the Spirit is his gift to us.
8. Jesus gives us this Spirit through the sacraments. And his own body through the eucharist.
9. Jesus gives us the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church as our family, and Mary as our mother.
10. We are on a pilgrimage to heaven where we will be with God forever beholding his awesome beatific vision.
This is an incredible book and I recommend it to everyone who wants to understand God's covenant love, just what the Old Testament is about, and how it all fits together. This book is a masterpiece.