Christmas 2018 Ahead of Time
Hi, it’s Eric again, and I am taking some time to answer my friends question, “How can I know that the Bible is true?”
To do this I am looking at one of the evidences the Bible gives to answer this question, Prophecy. (Read the previous blog here: http://takingnextstepswithjesus.blogspot.com/2018/11/christmas-2018-how-can-i-know-that.html)
It’s time to look at our first prophecy, and so we are going to go to the very beginning…well, sort of.
If you don’t know the story of the Bible as a whole, let me give you a quick, broad, overview. The Bible tells us the story of how God chose to, and then did create everything. The pinnacle of His creation was humans, yup, you and I. In Genesis 1: 26, 27 the Bible says,
“Then God said, ‘Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.’ So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”
There are a ton of great books about this topic, 'Imago Dei', being created in the ‘Image of God.’ People like to discuss how we, as humans, are able to communicate, to love, to create, to rule over, to have relationship, to imagine—and these are all wonderful and fruitful conversations—but, the heartbeat of this passage is stunning.
If I came over to your house and wanted to introduce you to my best friend, and I pulled a small box out of my pocket, and opened it up and showed you an ant—you’d think I’d lost it. I’m not able to be best friends with an ant. How can we communicate? How can we interact? How can we relate and do life together in a meaningful way? Philosophers would say that we are of different ‘Kinds.’ We are completely unrelated. You’ve heard the phrase, “Two-of-a-Kind” to describe things that are alike—my friendship with the ant is the opposite of that.
This difference in ‘Kind’ only scratches the surface when we talk about God. Jeremiah 10:6 says,
“Lord, there is no one like you! For you are great, and your name is full of power.”
There is no one like God. The Bible takes a lot of time to describe God. God is holy, all powerful, good, just, all knowing, sovereign—God rules all and has all authority; the Bible even says that God is a Spirit, and those that worship Him, worship Him in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). The theological term is, Sui Generis—God is one of a kind. God is in a category all His own. For God to be able to have a relationship with someone, well, it’s even more of a stretch than my best friend being an insect. And yet, this is exactly what is at the heart of Genesis 1: 26,27. God made it possible, by creating humans in His own image—perfect and holy; that we could have true relationship with Him. That is amazing!
Now, in order to have a relationship with someone, you have to be able to choose to be in that relationship. (If I paid someone to be my friend, they aren’t really my friend now are they.) So, God gave our first parents, Adam and Eve, the choice to obey God by not eating the fruit and choosing relationship with God, or to not obey God and choosing not to have a relationship with Him.
There is so much we could talk about here, but I want to highlight one thing for today. Why a choice to obey or not? (Or, I could say, they had the choice to be holy, or sinful.) Why does this matter? Because God is holy. That simply means that God is perfect. God has never sinned and done evil ever, and He never will. In order to be a friend of God, we need to be holy, and Adam and Eve were created without sin. The Bible depicts holiness as a fire, and if you have ever seen someone working with metal, you understand that metal is put into the fire, and the impurities are burned off so that the pure metal remains. God is like this fire, and if we are impure, it would get burned up. The Bible also uses the illustration that sin is like yeast, it works all through the dough—so if I sin, it effects all of me. That means, if I choose to disobey God, I am polluted by sin, and God’s holiness will burn up the impurities…bad news batman.
Here’s the thing: God knew that Adam and Eve would choose to disobey Him—when we choose to disobey God, the Bible calls that sin—and God knew that He would have to deal with that disobedience. The Bible says that we cannot be with God if we are sinful, and in order to be made right, payment would need to be made to sufficiently cover the sin, and the damage would need to be made right. If we can’t make that right, we would need to be separated from God, and all of His goodness, forever. The Bible calls this Hell.
Think about it this way; If we went to the art museum, and while we were there I found a Picasso and wanted to take some home, so I cut a piece of it off and tried to hide it under my coat…what do you think would happen? Yup, arrested and brought before a judge for justice. What would I need to do to make this right? Pay for the damage, and restore the painting to it’s original state. “I can’t do that, that’s why I took it in the first place…only the artist can paint like that.” Only the Artist who created us, can make us the way we were created to be.
God knew that we would sin; And here is the amazing prophecy for us to consider today, and it comes from Ephesians 1: 1-6, (pay special attention to verse 4 which is underlined),
“All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding.”
Even before God made the world... God knew even before He created us, that we would sin—and He had a rescue plan ready. He would come and rescue us from our sin, He Himself; So that, we could have relationship with Him.
So to finish what I started, the Bible tells us the story of God the Creator and what He created. Then how His creation rebelled against Him. And then, how God the Rescuer came to save us, because He loves us that much. This story is true—And you need to know this story and that it is true. So, God made sure to tell you about His rescue plan that He made, and accomplished, literally, ahead of time!
Do you want to walk on this journey with us?
Subscribe here: http://takingnextstepswithjesus.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
—All Bible references from biblegateway.com NLT version—
To do this I am looking at one of the evidences the Bible gives to answer this question, Prophecy. (Read the previous blog here: http://takingnextstepswithjesus.blogspot.com/2018/11/christmas-2018-how-can-i-know-that.html)
It’s time to look at our first prophecy, and so we are going to go to the very beginning…well, sort of.
If you don’t know the story of the Bible as a whole, let me give you a quick, broad, overview. The Bible tells us the story of how God chose to, and then did create everything. The pinnacle of His creation was humans, yup, you and I. In Genesis 1: 26, 27 the Bible says,
“Then God said, ‘Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.’ So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”
There are a ton of great books about this topic, 'Imago Dei', being created in the ‘Image of God.’ People like to discuss how we, as humans, are able to communicate, to love, to create, to rule over, to have relationship, to imagine—and these are all wonderful and fruitful conversations—but, the heartbeat of this passage is stunning.
If I came over to your house and wanted to introduce you to my best friend, and I pulled a small box out of my pocket, and opened it up and showed you an ant—you’d think I’d lost it. I’m not able to be best friends with an ant. How can we communicate? How can we interact? How can we relate and do life together in a meaningful way? Philosophers would say that we are of different ‘Kinds.’ We are completely unrelated. You’ve heard the phrase, “Two-of-a-Kind” to describe things that are alike—my friendship with the ant is the opposite of that.
This difference in ‘Kind’ only scratches the surface when we talk about God. Jeremiah 10:6 says,
“Lord, there is no one like you! For you are great, and your name is full of power.”
There is no one like God. The Bible takes a lot of time to describe God. God is holy, all powerful, good, just, all knowing, sovereign—God rules all and has all authority; the Bible even says that God is a Spirit, and those that worship Him, worship Him in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). The theological term is, Sui Generis—God is one of a kind. God is in a category all His own. For God to be able to have a relationship with someone, well, it’s even more of a stretch than my best friend being an insect. And yet, this is exactly what is at the heart of Genesis 1: 26,27. God made it possible, by creating humans in His own image—perfect and holy; that we could have true relationship with Him. That is amazing!
Now, in order to have a relationship with someone, you have to be able to choose to be in that relationship. (If I paid someone to be my friend, they aren’t really my friend now are they.) So, God gave our first parents, Adam and Eve, the choice to obey God by not eating the fruit and choosing relationship with God, or to not obey God and choosing not to have a relationship with Him.
There is so much we could talk about here, but I want to highlight one thing for today. Why a choice to obey or not? (Or, I could say, they had the choice to be holy, or sinful.) Why does this matter? Because God is holy. That simply means that God is perfect. God has never sinned and done evil ever, and He never will. In order to be a friend of God, we need to be holy, and Adam and Eve were created without sin. The Bible depicts holiness as a fire, and if you have ever seen someone working with metal, you understand that metal is put into the fire, and the impurities are burned off so that the pure metal remains. God is like this fire, and if we are impure, it would get burned up. The Bible also uses the illustration that sin is like yeast, it works all through the dough—so if I sin, it effects all of me. That means, if I choose to disobey God, I am polluted by sin, and God’s holiness will burn up the impurities…bad news batman.
Here’s the thing: God knew that Adam and Eve would choose to disobey Him—when we choose to disobey God, the Bible calls that sin—and God knew that He would have to deal with that disobedience. The Bible says that we cannot be with God if we are sinful, and in order to be made right, payment would need to be made to sufficiently cover the sin, and the damage would need to be made right. If we can’t make that right, we would need to be separated from God, and all of His goodness, forever. The Bible calls this Hell.
Think about it this way; If we went to the art museum, and while we were there I found a Picasso and wanted to take some home, so I cut a piece of it off and tried to hide it under my coat…what do you think would happen? Yup, arrested and brought before a judge for justice. What would I need to do to make this right? Pay for the damage, and restore the painting to it’s original state. “I can’t do that, that’s why I took it in the first place…only the artist can paint like that.” Only the Artist who created us, can make us the way we were created to be.
God knew that we would sin; And here is the amazing prophecy for us to consider today, and it comes from Ephesians 1: 1-6, (pay special attention to verse 4 which is underlined),
“All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding.”
Even before God made the world... God knew even before He created us, that we would sin—and He had a rescue plan ready. He would come and rescue us from our sin, He Himself; So that, we could have relationship with Him.
So to finish what I started, the Bible tells us the story of God the Creator and what He created. Then how His creation rebelled against Him. And then, how God the Rescuer came to save us, because He loves us that much. This story is true—And you need to know this story and that it is true. So, God made sure to tell you about His rescue plan that He made, and accomplished, literally, ahead of time!
Do you want to walk on this journey with us?
Subscribe here: http://takingnextstepswithjesus.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
—All Bible references from biblegateway.com NLT version—
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