All throughout time, God has been pursuing us in love, by intervening in the lives of men and women. Around 51 A.D. in the city of Athens, a first century missionary known as the Apostle Paul preached the following words to a group of non-Christian philosophers, whose responsiblity it was to discuss and evaluate new religions and foreign gods: "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.' Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that th divine being is like gold or silver or stone -- an image made by man's design and skill. In the past God overlooked such igrnorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead" (Acts 17:24-27).
This message that Paul was preaching is known as the gospel, which means “good news.” The gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ and is explained to us in the written Word of God, known today as the Bible, which is a collection of sixty-six books. This book was written over a period of 1500 years by some 40 different authors. They include Moses who was given the 10 Commandments and lived around 1450 B.C., on down to the followers of Jesus Christ in the 1st Century A.D., who wrote the New Testament. (The Old Testament is the books written before Jesus was born; the New Testament is the books written after Jesus died, rose from the dead, and ascended back into heaven). These authors were led by God’s Spirit in what they wrote, recording the miracles and words of God Himself, and the triumphs and failures of God’s people all throughout history. In terms of the reliability of the Bible, thousands of pages have been written over the years and much could be said. For example, Josh McDowell writes "There are now more than 5,300 known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. Add over 10,000 Latin Vulgate and at least 9,300 other early versions and we have more than 24,000 manuscript copies of portions of the New Testament in existence. No other document of antiquity even begins to approach such numbers and attestation [proof]. In comparison, the Iliad by Homer is second with only 643 manuscripts that still survive" (A Ready Defense, pg. 43, Thomas Nelson, Inc., (c) 1993).
Over the last 1900 years, the Bible has been translated and put into the hands and language of everyday people like you and me. Many times those spreading God’s word throughout forbidden territories and spiritually hostile lands have suffered greatly for doing so. But their sacrifice is paying off, for today the Bible is the most widely distributed and read book in all of human history. In this book, we read about the beginning of the universe and the human race. We also learn about the love of God for all people, the person of Jesus Christ and the abundant life He offers of joy and peace, the origins and problems of evil & suffering, the end of the world, and life after death. So let’s take a look at this story of God’s intervention in human history as recorded in the Holy Scriptures, often called "The Bible."
The Bible is the story or historical record of what God has done, is doing, and will do in human history. All of the teachings and truth that are found in the Bible are best understood in light of this unfolding story that is told throughout its sixty-six books. In this book we learn that God created everything that exists. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). God created the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, in His image, without any faults or shortcomings. They rebelled against God, however, and their fellowship or relationship with God was broken. God called out for them, but they hid from God, experiencing shame and fear for the first time.
Their human nature was corrupted by a spiritual disease the Bible calls sin. Sin is the unbelief, rejection, and rebellion against God. It also includes human acts of disobedience that are contrary to God's moral laws. Because of our sin, we as a human race are under God's wrath (His terrifying anger) and destined to face God's judgment. Also, our sin nature is a like a spiritual cancer, that is hereditary and passed on to every human being. Sin causes us to be spiritually blind and unable to know God and love Him. Our view of God, ourselves, and this world is extremely distorted by sin, and we are unable to see truth objectively. As Adam and Eves descedants multiplied down thru the centuries, the world became filled with evil and humans grew greatly oppossed to the God who had created them. "The LORD saw how great man's wickendess on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain" (Genesis 6:5-6).
The heart of God was grieved over how evil the human race had become. He sent a flood to destroy the world of that time, as God could not tolerate such wickedness which disgraced His honor and glory, and which also created a horrible world of injustice for mankind. This rebellion brought greater immorality and injustice with each passing generation, with no hope in sight. But God graciously spared Noah (and his family), the one man who was found living a godly life. After the waters receeded from flooding the earth, God promised Noah that He would never again flood the earth, and gave Him a sign to mark that promise (a rainbow in the sky).
After Noah's descendants had multiplied, the cycle of rebellion and evil began again. They sought to build a tower to reach the heavens, promoting themselves and their achievements over and against their Creator and His glory. Therefore, God again judged the world, this time by spreading the human race out across this world and diversifying their languages, so that they could not understand each other. This act of judgment was also an act of God's mercy, humbling mankind and restraining (to some degree) our arrogant aspirations and rebellious ways. God limited our ability to work together in self-sufficient means and for self-glorifying goals, that were by their very nature a rejection of God and our dependence upon Him.
Since then, the loving God of Creation has continued to intervene in human history, preserving and protecting the world from destruction, while also raising up a people who would love and obey Him by faith, and be a witness to a lost world in need of a Savior. While God in His justice has judged the world for its sin, He has also been, at the same time, revealing Himself and making Himself available to all who are willing to turn to their Creator by faith. To be sure, there is a day coming when God will again judge the world, but this will not come until the gospel message has been proclaimed to people of all languages in every nation. Throughout the Old Testament (the books of the Bible before Christ), God was not only calling people to Himself through prophets and so forth, He was also preparing the world and His people for the coming of Jesus Christ. [For a more detailed explanation of the origin and problem of sin and answers found in Jesus Christ, click on the "Spiritual Life" link listed at the bottom of this page].
About four thousand years ago (around 2100 B.C.), God appeared to a seventy five year old man named Abraham and told him that he and his wife Sarah would have a son in their old age (even though she was barren). It was God's plan that Abraham's descendants would multiply and become a blessing to all nations, and that one day, God would send His Son into the world as one of those descendants. Abraham believed God to do the unbelievable (have him and Sarah conceive a child in their old age), and his faith has inspired believers down through the ages.
His son Isaac was born 25 years later. After Isaac had grown into a boy or young man, God tested Abraham. He commanded him to take Isaac up to a mountain and offer him as a sacrifice for the Lord. This is recorded in the first book of the Bible, Genesis, chapter 22. "Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, 'Father?' 'Yes, my son?' Abraham replied. 'The fire and wood are here,' Isaac said, 'but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?' Abraham answered, 'God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.' And the two of them went on together" (Genesis 22:6-8).
This story is one of the most powerful foreshadows of the death of Jesus Christ and the forgiveness it would bring. As the wood for the burnt offering was carried by Isaac, so two thousand years later, Jesus Christ carried the wooden cross part of the way up the hill to where He was crucified. Abraham's words, "God himself will provide the lamb" were prophetically symbolic of Christ who would be the lamb (the sacrifice) that was slain to save us from our sins. Abraham's simple words to his son reveal one of the most crucial truths about Christianity to us: that God has provided the sacrifice for our sin through the death of Jesus Christ, who is symbolically referred to as "the lamb."
Isaac married a woman named Rebekah and they had a son named Jacob, who later had 12 sons of his own. Each of them would have their own families and Abraham's descendants began to multiply as God had promised. But their ability to fulfill God's purpose for their lives (to be a blessing to all nations) would be greatly hindered down through the centuries by the unbelief and disobedience of their sin.
God's people became enslaved to the Egyptians for 430 years, and God again appeared to an elderly man named Moses, and used him to deliver His people out of the bondage of slavery (around 1446 B.C.). God's people (the Israelites) however rebelled against the almighty God who had delivered them, and were punished by having to live and wander in the desert for forty years (during which time God gave Moses The 10 Commandments). Joshua succeeded Moses as their leader, but after he died, God's people entered a 350 year period where there was no king, where everyone was doing what was right in their own eyes, and when the word of the Lord became rare.
Around 1060 B.C., God answered the cry and prayer of a barren woman named Hannah, who poured her heart out to God, asking for a son. God granted her request, and she named him Samuel. God raised Samuel up to become a mighty prophet who called the people back to the Lord. Again however, the Israelites sinned and demanded that God give them a human king, so that they could be like all the nations around them. God granted their request, and gave them a king named Saul, who disobeyed the Lord. Then, through Samuel, God in His mercy chose a young shepherd boy named David to replace Saul, who became known as a man after God's own heart. God foretold that He would one day raise up a King through David's offspring whose reign would never end. This long awaited King (or Messiah) would bring the blessing of salvation and peace to the world promised a thousand years earlier to Abraham, and would ultimately change the heart of the people so that they would live in perfect fellowship with God and never again rebell against Him.
The house (or kingdom) of David, however, became divided in 931 B.C., after David's son Solomon's reign, and they were taken into captivity {the Northern Kingdom (Israel) by the Assyrians in 722 B.C., and the Southern Kingdom (Judah) by the Babylonians in 586 B.C}. King Solomon's temple, which was the center of the Israelites' worship, was destroyed at this time. God in His love, however, continued to speak and work in human history down through the centuries. He sent prophets among His people and He also reached out beyond the Israelites to call various peoples of the world to repentance and faith, even those who had wronged His own people {such as the prophet Jonah to the Assyrians (780 B.C.), or the prophet Daniel to the Babylonians (600 B.C.)}. Then the Persians conquered Babylon in 539 B.C., and the Jews (tribe of Judah) were able to return to their land and begin rebuilding the temple in 536 B.C.
Eventually God's people entered a 400 year period of prophetic silence, as God was "silently" preparing the world and His people for the fullness of time when He would send His own Son, Jesus Christ, into the world. During this time, the reigning powers over the Jews changed hands, and under the Seleucid ruler, Antiochus IV, their temple was desecrated (175 - 163 B.C.). Judas Maccabeus led a Jewish revolt, taking back the temple and redicating it in 164 B.C., which is commemorated every year by the Jews at Hanukkah. God used these centuries of captivity and dispersion of His people to prepare the Jews and the world for the coming of the long awaited Messiah.
The Jews had endured centuries of turmoil and were eagerly ready for, and in anticipation of, a King who would deliver them and usher in the promised kingdom. Also, much of the Gentile world (non-Jews) had been unknowingly prepared for the message of God's salvation in Christ Jesus. The Jews had erected synagogues during the centuries of the Diaspora (when they were dispersed throughout the Middle East). Many God-fearing Gentiles came into the synagogues during this time and heard about the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the prophets and kings like Moses and David.
Through these events, the sovereign (all-powerful) and gracious God of human history was preparing the political climate and the hearts of the Jews and the Gentiles for the coming of Jesus Christ, and the rise of Christianity in the 1st Century A.D. Jesus was born around 4 B.C. to a virgin named Mary, in the town of Bethlehem of Judea. The Bible tells us that "when the time had fully come, God sent forth His son" (Galatians 4:4). The time was right for the eternal God to step into time. There was a spiritual readiness among many God-fearing Jews, as well as Greeks whose hearts and faith had been prepared for the Christ through the spread of Judaism. There was a spiritual void and hunger created amidst the immorality, selfishness, and violence of the Greco-Roman world. With that, although the dominance of the Roman Empire would eventually mean great suffering for the Jews and Christians, it also created a world in which the gospel could easily spread. Rome's power temporarily kept the peace, promoted the spread of the Greek language, and ushered in a massive production of highways, all of which contributed to the church's ability to travel abroad and share the gospel with people throughout the expanding Roman Empire.
God is a miracle working God who could have sent forth His son at anytime, yet He chooses to work through the circumstances of this world, and His timing is always perfect. God sent forth His son, and the life of this simple Jewish carpenter, who never owned a home, never went to college, nor traveled more than 200 miles from where He was born, has transformed the last two thousand years of human history and the personal lives of millions of people. His life and message is shared all over the world in what became known in the 1st Century A.D. as the gospel. [The Gospel message is explained on the original web page you started reading. Click on "The Gospel" link listed at the bottom of this page].
This Gospel message reveals most fully what the Old Testament Scriptures all along have been revealing about the character of God. "The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished" (Exodus 34:6-7). God's love, faithfulness, and grace fill the pages of the Old Testament. The problem was that humans, ironically God's own people who knew Him by Name, continued to rebell against their forgiving and loving God. "The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on his people and on his dwelling place. But they mocked God's messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the LORD was aroused against his people and there was no remedy" (2 Chronicles 35:15-16).
But God's loving and powerful intervention in human history will continue as the gospel is taken to every nation, tribe, people and language. This Bible Story will one day culminate in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. "Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him" (Hebrews 9:27-28). After Christ returns, He will usher in a new heaven and a new earth, and all who believe in Him will share in the joy and peace of eternal life with Christ. We will live as God's people in perfect fellowship with Him. Our lives will be complete and fulfilled, as we serve and worship God throughout eternity in a new world free from all sin, evil, and pain. There will be no more fear of cancer, or pain from a divorce, or grieving the loss of loved ones. There will be no more need for hospitals, nursing homes, or funeral homes. All wars, disease, and poverty will be over and gone forever. The last book of the Bible speaks of this time. "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away" (Revelation 21:3-4).
Before that day comes, however, this world as we know it will grow increasingly troubled and overcome by evil. Believers in Christ are not to lose heart, however, as God's grace will protect and carry us through, preserving us in the faith until we die or until Jesus returns. Jesus prophesied about these "end times." "At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickendess, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come" (Matthew 24:10-14).
Some people doubt God's Word, however, because Jesus has not yet returned after 1900 years have passed, even though Christ said He would come soon. Coming soon, however, must be understood in light of God's view of time, which refers to the entire age of church history as "the last days." Also, the reason God seems to be so "slow" in keeping that promise is because He loves people, and desires for everyone to turn to Christ by faith and join in the joy of fellowship with Him.
The disciple Peter wrote the following as a warning to unbelievers to turn to God, and as encouragement to those who do believe to live godly lives. Here Peter reminds us that just as God's word was powerful enough to create the universe, His promise of Christ's return will surely one day come to pass. With that, he also reminds us of the days of Noah when the world was judged the first time, and that God's view of time is very different than ours. "They will say, 'Where is this coming he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.' But they deliberately forget that long ago by God's word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, and being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disapper with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming" (2 Peter 3:4-11).
Perhaps the best way to conclude this summary of the Bible's Story would be to quote from the prophet Isaiah. In these powerful words written 700 years before Christ was born, Isaiah proclaims the coming hope of Jesus Christ for the world (referring to both His first & second coming without distinguising between the two); he speaks of Christ's humanity and deity (He is man and God); he highlights Christ's connection to the unfolding plan of God revealed in the Old Testament Scriptures (mentioning King David's throne); and Isaiah prophesies that Christ will reign forever! "The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned . . . For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this" (Isaiah 9:2, 6-7).
