Christ from Beginning to End: How the Full Story of Scripture Reveals the Full Glory of Christ

by Trent Hunter

We are either “in Adam” by our natural birth, or we are “in Christ” by a new, spiritual birth (Rom. 5:12–21). No other options are available to us.

Creation Establishes the Reality and Goodness of Creation

Creation Establishes the Beginning of History

History has a definite starting point with creation, and it moves forward to God’s appointed end.

1. Creation Defines God’s Relationship with His People as Covenantal

Prophets mediate God’s Word. Priests mediate God’s presence as worshipers. Kings mediate God’s rule.

2. Creation Defines Marriage as Foundational for the Story Ahead

In creating male and female, God not only established proper limits to the use of our sexuality but also established the foundational institution of marriage as the building block to human society, a gift for our flourishing and something we distort to our peril. Even further, God created marriage as a type or pattern to point beyond itself to a greater relationship—God’s covenant relationship with his people.

3. Creation Defines Rest as the Goal of Creation

God’s creation rest ultimately points forward to Jesus, who by his work brings salvation rest and restores us to full relationship with our covenant God

In the Bible’s storyline, Genesis 3 is a text of extraordinary significance because it explains what went wrong with humanity and why God’s good world is now so flawed.

The world has been turned upside down. Adam and Eve experienced firsthand the fourfold effects of sin. Vertically, they experienced alienation and condemnation from God. Horizontally, they experienced alienation from each other. Internally (and schizophrenically), they experienced alienation within themselves. Cosmically, they experienced alienation in the world they were created to rule. These four effects of sin play out across the Bible’s story, but they are immediately apparent from the very moment sin enters the world.

While the ground belongs under Adam’s feet, Adam will eventually find himself six feet under, as will every human who comes from him.

God’s Good Creation Is Now Corrupt

1. Adam Is a Failed Prophet, Priest, and King

2. The First Marriage Is on the Rocks

3. Rest Is Lost

Covenant relationship with our glorious God is the goal of our creation, but now we are alienated from him, and the world we live in is a restless and unfulfilling place.

No righteous judge merely clears the guilty without justice being served.

In a promise of death for the serpent is a promise of life for humanity.

Our primary problem—what keeps you and me from personally knowing our Creator—is our sin before God.

The first metaphor God gives us relates to height.

The second image that portrays God’s utter inaccessibility to sinners is distance.

The third image is of light and fire.

The Lord is so morally pure—he is high, distant from sin, a consuming fire whose purity cannot tolerate evil, and sin rightly disgusts him—that sinners cannot stand or defend themselves before God.

First, it teaches us that God is the standard of justice (another word for righteousness).

We also learn, however, that God has come up with a solution to this problem.

Here’s the reason there are so many pages between the problem and the solution: God is providing for our instruction, endurance, encouragement, and, ultimately, our hope.

The story of Noah’s ark is not a comforting story of friendly animals to entertain children—it’s a horror story.

Before we can appreciate the story of Noah’s ark as something wonderful, we must first see it as the Bible does, as something tragic.

It’s best to think of the flood as God’s means to restart the world and his plans for humanity. Noah walked off the boat into a new creation as a new Adam.

God’s creation purposes will not fail. That is what the Noahic covenant teaches us. The Noah story anticipates that the old creation will ultimately give way to a new creation. Noah’s ark is a vessel for passage from the old world to the new one.

God’s covenant with Noah is not a covenant that begins with Noah but a covenant that is extended through Noah, one originally made with Adam.

When we consider Noah’s place in the Bible’s storyline, two themes emerge—judgment and salvation.

the flood is a foretaste of coming judgment, of what humanity will receive.

Positively, God’s salvation of Noah is also a foretaste of coming salvation—a salvation that God will accomplish in the future.

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Abraham did not deserve these promises. They were not based on anything special he had done. Joshua later reminds us that Abraham’s family worshiped other gods before God chose him for this special task (Josh. 24:2–4). God chose Abraham by his grace, and now we learn that the world’s fate is tied to this man!

God alone walks between the pieces, teaching us that God will keep his promise by his own commitment to do so. God binds himself to keep his promise, which entails that ultimately God’s saving promise rests on his faithfulness, not on Abraham’s obedience or on our obedience. God’s covenant with Abraham is unconditional, or unilateral; God alone will fulfill it.

But where will God find a truly obedient seed/son to accomplish all of God’s saving purposes and to undo the work of Adam?

God’s promise will come through Isaac, but ultimately Isaac cannot save. The Savior must come outside of Isaac, by God’s own provision. This is the meaning of the ram that God provides. In sparing Isaac, a substitute must still take his place.

The land promise is God’s commitment to his creation purposes, established at creation to Adam. The land promise is also God working out his promise to turn back the curse through a son of Eve, and it will eventually reach fulfillment in a new creation, something Abraham himself longed to see (Rom. 4:13; Heb. 11:10).

God’s promise of descendants for Abraham was a promise of restoration for humanity.

Kingship is an institution that expresses the royal Adamic role of humanity, showing most fully what it means to be God’s image-bearers in the world.

this doesn’t mean all of humanity will be restored. From Genesis 3 onward, we know that the offspring of the serpent and woman will be at odds with one another.