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August 25 - October 29, 2020
Having redeemed them and brought them into a relationship with Him, God gave them clear rules to help them show their gratitude to Him and keep their relationship healthy.
“Obedience is the only right response to having been saved, and the way to enjoy the fruits of redemption, not to earn them.”22
The Sinai covenant then, rightly understood, was a revelation of grace. Or to put it another way, the gospel of Abraham was the gospel of Moses. And both were the gospel of Jesus.
Was saved-by-grace Moses really going to institute a legalistic system that would turn sinners away from divine grace through the coming Savior to salvation through following ceremonies and trying our best? Never!
When Paul attacked the Sinai covenant, he was not attacking it as it was designed by God, but as it had been twisted and abused by the Jews.
Paul told the Galatians—and us—what to do with every attempt to mix law with grace, human effort with divine promise. Cast it out.
Paul said that the temporary nature of this glory was a parable for the whole Mosaic system. It was temporary and transient, designed to fade away and eventually be replaced by a system that would be far superior due to its clarity and permanence.
Paul, this Hebrew of the Hebrews, viewed Christianity not as giving up Judaism but as embracing true Judaism.
The company name and business were the same—Office Administration—but the product range was now suited to a new age and to the new ways that offices were run.
The Old Testament administered the grace of Jesus in a way that suited the times and the people then—through prophecies, pictures, and symbols.
In other words, the New Testament is not a new business but a new way of administering the same business of grace.
The old management of Grace Administration was glorious, but the new management is far more glorious.
The law was merely given. In Jesus, grace came:
The association between the two is basically one of continuity, of the partial contrasted with the full.
but that grace is superseded, and we have gospel grace instead of it,
All things (not most things) were created (brought into existence) through Him (by the Son of God) and for Him (not for nothing and not for us but for Jesus). Wow! There’s enough here to preach ten messages, I thought.
Although also written for us, these verses were written by Moses primarily to teach the newly redeemed people of Israel about their Redeemer God and to look to Him for an even greater Redeemer and redemption—a Redeemer greater than Moses and a redemption greater than a physical deliverance from Egyptian slavery.
I concluded then that Genesis 1–2 is not so much about science, although it has nothing to fear from true science; it is about the
person and work of Jesus.
There was a plan of redemption before there was a creation.
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit had arranged to redeem the world before they created the world. They created the world with a view to redeeming it.
If the plan of redemption came before the creation, in Genesis 1–2 the Redeemer is creating the arena of His redemption.
“If you want to understand who Jesus is and what He is doing in your redemption, go back to the original perfect image of God, Adam and Eve.”
As a priest, he served as a worshipping worker in the Lord’s garden-temple.
Partly the reason was that He had an eye to using these things, animals, materials, and so on to teach sinners the way of salvation. He was preparing visual aids for future use.
When Jesus picked these up some four thousand years after their creation, they were not just coincidentally helpful to Him; He deliberately created them for the great end of helping to redeem a people.
It was because He knew that sinful men and women would need them. He created them to employ them as ministering spirits to the heirs of salvation.15
He did it to illustrate how salvation advances and progresses.
There is much more here, however, than instruction for redeemed Israel. Jesus and his apostles used the creation theme to explain how God redeems our souls. Paul said that if any man is in Jesus, “he is a new creation.”18
“If you want to find out what your salvation is like, go back to the creation account.”
Creation and salvation produce fruit.
Just as Adam was one man acting for many with such destructive consequences, so Jesus was one man acting for many with saving consequences.
In Genesis 1–2, Jesus instituted the Sabbath and marriage with the redemptive purpose of highlighting the advantages of salvation.
Christ did not create heaven once salvation was seen to be necessary and He needed a place to put the people He redeemed.
What a moment when Abel, the first martyr, became the first believer to enter that place prepared for him from the foundation of the world!
what do they tell me about God? but also with, what do they tell me about my Savior?
Nothing is accidental or coincidental; it is purposeful, always moving toward a goal.
The creation was not dull and boring but full of invention, imagination, and variety.
The stage of redemption is complete, the props are in place, the background is set, the music is playing, and the spotlight is on you.
yet I decided they were overreacting and going too far to the other side by rejecting any exemplary lessons from the Old Testament.
The Bible is a book about God. When you study a biblical text, therefore, you should ask, ‘What is the vision of God in this passage?’ God is always there. Look for Him.”
“The Bible is a book about God.
Statistics seem to support the view that there are far too many man-centered sermons today.
It focuses on what we should and shouldn’t do rather than on what God has done and is doing.
We should read the text and understand it without trying to make subjective personal application.
It isolates the passage from the broad sweep of biblical history by focusing on small, individual atoms of Scripture rather than connecting them with the big picture.
When an Old Testament story is detached from the sweep of redemptive history, it often results in God-sermons but not Jesus-sermons.
Although its message is also for us, it was primarily and originally for Israel. Instead of jumping straight from the text to us, we have to ask, what was the author’s message for Israel?
“employ biblical characters the way the Bible employs them, not as ethical models, not as heroes for emulation or examples for warning, but as people whose story has been taken up into the Bible in order to reveal what God is doing for and through them.”
1 Samuel was teaching Israel that their national security rested on God’s anointed king alone.
