Grace For The Journey

  Is it primarily a manual of rules and regulations, designed to tell you how to have your best life now?  Is it a how-to book to help live your life better?  Is it a story book about Bible characters – some who were heroes to inspire us, others who were hellions to instruct us?  Is it a compilation of sixty-six disconnected books, each one telling different stories about a variety of characters, designed to provide us a menu of moralistic lessons?

Well . . . here is how God sees the Bible . . .

1 Supernatural Story

1 Storyteller

1 Savior for man

And His name is Jesus Christ!

Contrary to ever-increasing popular belief, the Bible is not a manual of moral lessons for wise Christian living.

The individual books of the Bible are to be understood

Within the framework of the greater whole,

Which sets forth the Lord Jesus Christ on every page

As the only Savior of humanity.

The Storyteller (God)

Is telling us one epic story,

Which exposes and exalts

The Savior of that story:

Emmanuel, the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Bible records Jesus saying in John 5:39,46, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about Me . . . “For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote of Me.”

Jesus Christ is not only

The Sum, Substance, and Subject

Of all Scripture,

He is the Source of it.

The biblical narrative in both the Old and New Testaments guide us into a greater understanding, knowledge, and experience of the unsearchable riches of Christ.

The Bible tells us in John 1:1 and 14, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” . . . “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.  We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Jesus Himself brought His disciples deeper into this truth

By showing them that what was concealed in

The Old Testament was revealed in the New Testament.

Jesus said to His disciples in Luke 24:44-45, “The He said to them, ‘These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the psalms concerning Me.”  And He opened their understanding that they might comprehend the Scriptures.”

The New Testament clearly sets forth Jesus as the Savior in the story.

The overarching message of the Gospels

Is the birth, life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

The apostles preached Christ.

The epistles teach Christ.

The apostle Paul made it clear

That the New Testament is all about Jesus:

“We preach not ourselves, but Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:5).

Martin Luther said it succinctly: “Jesus Christ is the center and circumference of the entire Bible.”

The New Testament clearly sets Jesus forth as the Savior, but what about the Old Testament?  The Savior in the Bible is not found in the giants of the faith in the Old Testament, including Moses, Joshua, and David.

Jesus is the fulfillment of these men:

The new Moses . . . the new Joshua . . . the better David . . .

All who pointed to and foreshadowed the coming of Christ.

Jesus is the pattern of and the Person in the entire Word of God.  John Calvin rightly observed,

“The Scriptures should be read

With the aim of finding Christ in them.

Whoever turns aside from this object,

Even though he wears himself out

All his life in learning,

He will never reach the knowledge of the truth.”

So how do you see the Bible?  If Christ is not at the center of every paragraph, chapter, page, and book, you are not seeing it clearly.

There really is only one revelation in all of Scripture,

And that revelation is to be found in Jesus.

I do no violence to Scripture whatsoever when I put the words of Colossians 1:16-18 into the mouth of our Lord:

“For by Me all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.  All things were created through Me and for Me.  I am before all things, and in Me, all things consist.  And I am the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things I may have the preeminence.”

This is God’s Word For Today … This Is Grace For The Journey

Rest and Rejoice in this eternal truth!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”