"For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.... 45 So it is written: 'The first man Adam became a living being'; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven." (1 Corinthians 15:22, 45-47)
The Gospel is all about the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is called the "last Adam" and the "second man." In these verses Paul says Christ did what Adam failed to do. I grew up believing that. The rest of the Bible seemed to be filled with accounts of people trusting God and obeying Him or walking the other way. Added to that were the genealogies, the proverbs, the psalms, the difficult prophecies and end times stuff. It was easy to get lost in it all. That was fine. I knew the important part. Jesus died for my sins, and I was saved through faith. That is still as precious to me today as when I was a small child hearing it explained by my parents.
But over time I found that reading the Bible this way was not good for my faith. I was told "David had courage and faith and defeated Goliath. You too can have faith and courage and defeat the giants in your life." "Jezebel was wicked; don't be like Jezebel!" It turned the Bible into a rule book. Quickly the grace of the Gospel was eclipsed by all the talk about what I was to do and not do!
Then I started to see that when Paul gave applications to his readers, it was always in the context of the grace of who they were in Christ and what God had done for them. There was a huge story from Genesis to Revelation that told of the victorious work of the Lord Jesus Christ. I started to see that Jesus was the subject of all of Scripture. This centrality is seen in such passages as Romans 5:12ff where Paul contrasts the consequences of Adam's sin with the results of Christ's obedience. I started to see a different story. David, a picture of Christ, did what no one in all Israel could do when he defeated the giant and gave the promised land to God's people.
The mission of this website is to assist in seeing the story of Christ clearly from all the pages of Scripture. Now my obedience is the result of my victory in my Savior. I hope you will join me in the journey.
.png/:/cr=t:0%25,l:3.45%25,w:93.1%25,h:100%25/rs=w:400,h:300.7518796992481,cg:true)
From Genesis 3:15 and Genesis 49:8-12 to Revelation 5:5, all of history centers on the Second Adam, the King of the Kingdom. He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David. He has been exalted to the right hand of the Father that "every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth..." (Philippians 2:10)
When Jesus taught His disciples to pray, "Your kingdom come..." (Matthew 6:10) He spoke of the ultimate kingdom of unending glory. Contrasting His kingdom with those of this world, He told Pilate, "My kingdom is not of this world" (Matthew 18:36). His is the everlasting kingdom. The Gospels proclaim the coming of the "Kingdom of Heaven" or the "Kingdom of God." The angel Gabriel promised the virgin Mary her son's "kingdom will have no end" (Luke 1:33).
There is no denying that people’s lives are used as examples (1 Cor 10:6; James 5:17). But there is an all-encompassing metanarrative that provides the context and purpose. This Historia Salutis (History of Salvation) starts with creation and culminates in the everlasting enthronement of the Lord Jesus with His bride in glory. The Gospel is that Jesus has secured this end. The thousands of years between the beginning and ending display the sovereign work of God to bring “many sons to glory” in Christ (Hebrews 2:10).