The California Collection/TheCaliforniaCollection.cdr/his106/biblesum.lzh/BIBLESUM.TXT

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STU:A Summary of the Bible

What am I like?  What's going to happen?  Who am I?  What do I need?

   A SUMMARY OF THE BIBLE

   While the Bible is full of history, poetry, and principles for
living, all are tied to a single main theme. This theme begins with the
very first words of the Old Testament (OT) and is consistent across
both testaments, right to the end of the book of Revelation. This is a
summary of that theme.

   1. The very first words of the Bible (Genesis 1:1) are "In the
beginning God created the heavens and the earth." This can be called in
a word, "Creation." According to the Bible, there actually was a
beginning of time and space, so one can actually know the historic
origin of things.

   This most basic verse in the Bible states more, however, for it
makes plain that at the time of the "beginning", God existed. He is in
fact "eternal." So at the outset the Bible takes into account the fact
of what has been called a "supernatural reality." Everything there is,
in other words, cannot be judged on a materialistic or physical
basis. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit existed
before the beginning, and it was this Trinity Who decided to create.
Which is also another way of saying that we live in a personal universe.

   The Bible therefore begins by assuming God's reality and thus
explaining the origin of the material world. But it also answers a
question troubling many persons: "Who am I?" Rather than just a "speck
of protoplasm floating on a sea of meaninglessness," as one person
described him, man according to the Bible is a creature made by God,
and as such bears His image. Man really is somebody! He has value and
worth! And furthermore, as God's creation, he has been given a purpose.
God designed him with something particular in view, and man despairs
until he fulfills it.

   So God began by creating the first man, Adam, and the first woman,
his wife Eve, and He put them in a beautiful place called the Garden of
Eden. Here the first couple enjoyed their worth and purpose before God.
It really was paradise!

   Now God certainly showed that He loved man, but He also wanted man
to love Him. God is personal after all. He's living. He can be
known...communicated with...loved. So God arranged for the testing of
man's love for Him. Would man choose to maintain his wonderful
relationship with his Creator, or would he go independent? The Bible
states that under the temptation of Satan, a rebellious and fallen
angel, Adam and Eve willfully chose to go independent. In effect, they
rebelled against God and His love. So in this way, sin historically
came into the world. The covenant--God's arrangement with man--was
broken. Man by his choice had brought down on himself and his
descendants all the consequences of his rebellion of which God had
warned him...guilt, shame, misery, and ultimately, death.

   Now the whole story could have ended here. God could have just wiped
everything out and started again. But His plan was to establish
another arrangement or covenant by which He would restore a people
for Himself. In Genesis 3:15, God declared that He would bring this
about through "the seed of the woman," and that's what the rest of the
Bible is all about...how God would do it.

   This promise was first given to Adam and Eve. Later God renewed it
to Noah, the man who built the ark at the time of the Great Flood.
Still later God appeared to a herdsman named Abraham and said that
through his "seed--a person--all the nations of the earth would be
blessed. Abraham's son Isaac was next to hear the promise, and his son
Jacob (later called Israel) was chosen to get this good news. Jacob had
twelve sons, and the choice fell on Judah, the one from whom the name
"Jew" derives. Thus, through the descendants of Jacob or Israel, God
made clear His Messiah, His annointed One, would come.

   2. When you begin reading the second book of the Bible, Exodus, the
children of Israel, you'll find, had become a nation down in Egypt,
and God was going to lead them back to Canaan--what is now modern
Israel--by a man named Moses. Moses led all these people across the Red
Sea and on toward the Promised Land until they came to a place called
Mount Sinai. There on Sinai, a craggy peak you can visit today, God
summoned Moses to meet with Him, and on that historic occasion God gave
Moses his "Law", what has been commonly called the "Ten Commandments."

   Now this Law came from God, Whom the Bible describes as holy, pure,
good, and everything right. And the Law showed that kind of character.
That is why there is a right and a wrong; because of the way God is.
But when man looks at this Law, he discovers that he's not that way
himself...he is unGod-like. This Law, being perfect and righteous,
suddenly makes a man or woman realize how different from God he or she
has become when it comes to character. Loss of temper, depression,
self-centeredness, discontent, hate, murder, war, ...on and on we could
go naming evidences of the stark truth that man is a law-breaker. While
it is often hard for a person to admit this, at least it gives a
plausible answer to his or her question, "What am I like?" The answer
is simply, a rebel against God and His Law, and also suffering the
consequences. Unlike what many people think, God gave Moses his Law in
Exodus 20 so man could know his real condition. It's like what one
reads in the New Testament (NT) in Romans 3:20; "...through law comes
the knowledge of sin."

   With this Law, however, came hope as well, for God also gave careful
instructions to show how such sinful persons could worship and find
acceptance with such a holy God. Since the first sin committed by Adam
brought death and its curse, so it could be only through death
(sacrifice) that God would accept man. That may sound strange, but that
really is the way it is, according to the Bible. Consequently, God gave
detailed directions for offering sacrifices, including a place of
worship called a Tabernacle (or tent), and elaborate duties for a
regiment of special priests. Now the Bible explains that the ritual
itself did not make the people holy or acceptable to God, but rather it
pointed to the coming Messiah--the seed of the woman as pro-
mised--Whose predicted death would make man acceptable to God. The "Old
Testament", therefore, the first part of the Bible with its kings like
David and Solomon, through whose descendants the promise would come,
all looks forward to this Coming One...the seed of the woman.

   3. As one begins to read the "New Testament", he discovers something
is indeed new! The Promised One is coming. Born of a young virgin named
Mary, supernaturally conceived in her by the Holy Spirit, God's Son
came into the world. He was named Jesus for He would "save His people
from their sins." Thus, born in Bethlehem in poor conditions and reared
in Nazareth in his stepfather's carpenter shop, Jesus Christ spent the
first thirty years of His earthly life.

   Now at this point, the Bible tells us He began to carry out His
specific purpose in coming. A man called John, nicknamed "the
Baptizer", introduced Him to the world one day by saying: "Look, The
Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world."(John 1:29) This
title sounds strange, unless of course one remembers what has been said
about the necessity of sacrifice for acceptance with God. The
significant thing about this statement is that God Himself sent Jesus
into the world to be His sacrifice for sin. God in history was in the
act of carrying out His promise or covenant through the "seed of the
woman", Jesus.

   Everywhere Jesus went, He went about doing good. Where Adam had
refused to love God and obey Him, Jesus was perfectly responsive to
doing God's will. He served God by choice. He kept the Law of God
absolutely perfectly. He was in the sight of God really righteous. But
in addition to this, He showed that He had come from God by healing the
sick, curing the crippled, and even on an occasion or two, raising the
dead! Everything about Jesus' character and life pointed men to God. He
was in fact God in the flesh. So the Bible says.

   But Jesus also preached. He told men about God, about themselves,
and about the world...and about why He had come. He showed by His love
and concern that people--men, women, and children--had worth, yet he
spoke plainly to them of sin and the judgment of God on sin. He bluntly
told people, "Repent!" He commanded them to turn from self-centeredness
and independence back to God. But while what He said was true,
lawbreakers usually do not like to hear the truth. So the people with
their leaders drummed up false charges and pressured the Roman
governor, Pilate, to sentence Him to death. There at a place called
"Calvary", outside Jerusalem, Jesus was nailed to a cross, where He
died. People--in the heat of their sin--had actually killed the Son of
God. But their plot fell into the plan of God, for in fact, they had
been the means by which God's sacrifice for sin had been offered. The
Lamb of God had died. But three days later, Jesus miraculously came
back to life, His work on earth completed.

   This is the heart of the Bible's message. In a few words, it can be
said this way (I Corinthians 15:3,4): "For I delivered to you as of
first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins
in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, and that he was
raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures." This focal
point of history, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, points
out the answer to man's question, "What do I need?" Of all the things
that man wants and needs, he basically needs to be brought back into a
right relationship with his Creator, God. It is really of first
importance, because through the perfect life and death of Jesus, God
actually does restore man to His fellowship. And according to the
Bible, that is the ONLY way God does it. But in order to appropriate
the work of Christ, man is commanded by God to put his faith and
confidence in Jesus. In other words, God offers mercy and forgiveness
to all who look to Jesus' death on the cross as the complete sacrifice
for their sins and then follow Christ as their King. And according to
the Bible, such persons receive eternal life.

   A short time after Jesus rose from the dead, and after having shown
Himself to His friends, He returned to heaven. And the Bible states
that He is there today, alive and ruling. When He went back to heaven,
however, two angels told His disciples, "This same Jesus, Who was taken
up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw Him go
into heaven."(Acts 1:11) So, Jesus will, in time and space, come to
earth again.

   4. Unlike His first coming, Jesus' second coming will be with power
and splendour. The Bible states that everyone will see Him, and
everyone will appear before Him in judgment. Simply put, He will
confront every person and pronounce his or her destiny. In John chapter
5, verses 28 and 29, Jesus said it this way: "Do not marvel at this;
for the hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his
voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of
life (or heaven), and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of
'damnation'(or hell)."

   So, when a person asks the question, "What is going to happen to
me?"--a very important question to everyone--the answer in the Bible is
clear. Each is going to meet Jesus Christ; and Christ, as God's
appointed Ruler, will pronounce judgment. Those persons who have put
their trust in Christ's sacrificial death on the cross and submitted
to His rule over them will enjoy everlasting life in the presence of
God. As it states in II Peter 3:13, "But according to his promise we
wait for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells." On
the other hand, those who have neglected or refused Christ's
sacrifice for sin and persisted in their own independence and rebellion
from God...well, they must suffer the consequences. It's simply an
eternal future of hell and God's anger.

   You can see why the person who understands and believes the Bible
knows what is ahead. It's no mystery really. The next great event in
history will be the coming of Jesus Christ and the final judgment. We
today do not know how long it will be from now until then, though we do
know how long it has been since Jesus died and rose. The Bible just
does not give that information. But just like it explains the origin
of all things, so the Bible predicts the end of world history. Every
event is another step toward that moment when Christ will come, the
judgment will be pronounced, and the new heavens and new earth
established. And there you have a summary of the Bible.

   Suggested reading: "Mere Christianity" by C.S.Lewis.

   The original author of this excellent work is unknown, but if you
have made a decision for Christ, or would like free followup materials,
please call or write: Clebe McClary Servicemen's Christian Center John
T. Sargent, Director P.O. Box 10413 Alexandria, VA 22310 [phone]