In order to place our study of salvation in a global context, I would like to start by looking at what I perceive God’s plan for mankind to be from a top down look at the Bible. First, why did God create man? From my study of the Bible I suspect that man was created to be an eternal companion for God’s Son, Jesus.

God created a plan for man which included a means to select a subset of all those who he created who would be worthy of his Son. The plan gave man free will and thereby the ability to choose to either love or reject his Son (Joshua 24:15). God’s plan included two distinct covenants which he would make with man, the old and the new covenants. Why do the scriptures that mention the new covenant emphasize “forgiveness of sins” so much (Matt 26:28, 1 Cor 11:25, Heb 9:15)? If we take a look back at the old covenant I think we’ll see why. Sin has always been man’s major problem. When man was first created he lived and walked in a paradise with God (Gen 3:8). However, since God created man with a “free will” to make choices, he was created with the possibility for sinning (Gen 2:15-17).

God’s plan included a selection algorithm that involved allowing Satan to introduce the temptation to sin into the realm of man. Satan used deceitfulness and lies to make sin look very attractive and tempting to man (Gen 3:1-5). After man fell to the temptation and became a sinful creature, he was banned from the sight of God (Gen 3:23-24).

God’s plan also required that anyone living in his presence be “perfect” in his eyes. God’s perfection criteria meant that men who submitted to temptation would be separated from him and his Son. Unfortunately, once the apparent beauty of sin was introduced to man, every man succumbed to it (1 Kings 8:46, 1 Jn 1:8-10). Again, nobody can be in the presence of God and walk with God unless he is “perfect,” without sin (Matt 5:48, 19:21-26, Heb 10:13-14, 11:40, 12:22-24, James 1:4). From the time of man’s fall, God has been working with man to bring him back to “perfection” so he can reinstate man to Paradise with him and his Son, Jesus. The basic problem is sin. Man cannot be perfect unless he is without sin.

How has God dealt with man to solve this ultra-basic problem? He has dealt with it in two steps, referred to as the old covenant and the new covenant. Since God knew that man could no longer live on earth without sinning, he had to provide a means to remove or to cover-up (Lev 16:6, Ps 32:1-2, Rom 3:25, 4:7-8) the sins that were constantly being committed. Fortunately for us, God had a redemption plan for man. He chose a special people, the descendents of Abraham, with whom he made his original covenant (Gen 12:1-3, 17:1-8, Deut 4:13). When God first dealt with early man on this issue, he was viewing man as young unaccountable children and he called them such (Hosea 11:1, Gal 4:1-7). To help his young children understand what sins were, he gave them a simple but rather extensive list of do’s and don’ts (Ex 20). We do the same for our children. God also gave man hundreds of stories, illustrations, models, prophecies, rituals, ceremonies, etc., which previewed the coming gospel that would finally return man to “perfection” (Heb 8:3-5, 9:6-10, 23-24, 10:1, 11:40, Rom 5:14, Col 2:16-17, Gal 3:6-9, Zech 3:8-9). Along with these basic ground rules God gave man “free will” and then left him largely to his own devices. He did regularly speak to the children through his prophets to warn them of the consequences of not following the rules, especially the rule that required them to be faithful to him and not turn to the man-made gods of their neighbors (2 Kings 17:7-15, Ezek 5:8-10).

God also had to provide a means for his children to be forgiven when they violated his rules and thus sinned against God and man. God wanted to make it clear that there was a very serious consequence for all sin. How did he do this for the young children? He told them that “death” was the consequence for sin! (Lev 17:11, Heb 9:22). That would certainly get their attention. He wanted them to understand that if they sinned and weren’t forgiven they could never be in the presence of God. Again, to drive the point home to the children, he required death for the forgiveness of sins (Lev 4:20, 17:11). The death that he chose was the substitutionary death of the most humble, obeying, innocent and perfect animal that the children could imagine, a sheep or lamb (Gen 22:1-14, Lev 1:1-4, 4:32). The lamb would have to die in their place to provide for forgiveness of their sins. God made it plain that without the sacrifice of blood there would be no forgiveness of sins (Heb 9:22). God thus set up a routine pattern of the sacrifice of innocent animals to cover up the sins of the children. The blood of the innocent lamb became the covering (Rom 4:7-8, Ps 32:1-2) for the sins of the children.

However, God also made it clear that these blood sacrifices in and of themselves did not forgive sins. They only resulted in forgiveness of sins in that they were a model of the coming ultimate blood sacrifice that would really result in their sins being forgiven (Heb 9:6-10, 10:1-4). The promised gospel of Jesus that provided the ultimate forgiveness for sins was presented over and over in various ways in the Old Testament (Gen 22:1-18, Prov 8:32-36, Gal 3:6-9, Eph 3:4-6, Heb 4, 11, 1 Peter 1:10-12, 4:6, Isa 53).

Again, perfection is God’s requirement for entry into heaven (Matt 5:48, and in fact the whole Sermon on the Mount, Matt 5-7). The next lesson that God had to teach the young children was that since they had been introduced to sin, they could not achieve perfection on their own, no matter how hard they tried. So the children became caught up in a never ending cycle of sin, repent, sacrifice; sin, repent, sacrifice, etc. The children were bright enough to realize they weren’t getting very far in the quest for perfection. So, what did they do? They added more details and clarifications to God’s list of laws. This required the adding of more details, ad infinitum. Thus was born “the law.” The purpose for the law was to make man conscious of sin, but through it he became even more sinful (Rom 3:20, 5:20-21, Gal 3:24). Man’s quest for perfection by “self effort” to meet God’s standard was a total failure (Heb 7:18-19, 10:1-4). By the time that Jesus lived and walked on the earth, God had proven his point to a few of his children who understood what he was trying to do. Gal 3:24 says that the law was put into place to lead us to Christ so that we might be justified by faith. However, most of God’s children were enjoying serving the monolith that “they” had created so much that they had totally lost the big picture of what God was trying to teach them (Isa 29:13, Matt 15:7-20, 19:7-9, Mark 1:44, Lk 20:27-38, Acts 15:11, 1 Cor 9:9, Col 2:20-23, Titus 1:13-14). Essentially that’s the old covenant and many (most?) Jews still live under it. God’s desire and intention was never for man to have to work his way to heaven. His plan had always called for his grace to be sufficient for man. Man just didn’t understand (Rom 9:30-33). God had put the law in effect to help the children understand several things including:

• Sin and the difference between good and evil (Rom 7:7-10),
• That they could not possibly be good enough to meet God’s requirements by themselves (Rom 8:1-4),
• To help them understand the coming gospel in simple terms (Gal 3:6-9), and
• To eventually lead them to Christ (Gal 3:24).

What was next for God’s people? In God’s plan the earth was ripe for the ultimate “Savior” for man (Rom 5:6, Gal 4:1-4). God had sufficiently proven his point that man could not possibly become perfect on his own. Man had finally reached the age of accountability. It was time to move to part B of his plan, the implementation of a new covenant with man. There would be no more long lists of do’s and don’ts. Since God had originally created man to be an eternal companion for his Son, Jesus (2 Thess 2:13-14, Jn 17:6), part B of his plan was to send Jesus to earth to rescue man from his endless plight (Isa 49:5-6, 53:1-12). Jesus would come to the earth as a man, walk a mile in our shoes, so to speak, and live the perfect life for us (Heb 2:14-18, 7:28). He would be our substitute (Rom 5:6-9, 2 Cor 5:21). He would do for us what we had proven that we could not do for ourselves (Heb 7:18-19). Then at the end of his perfect earthly life (2 Cor 5:21-22, Heb 4:15, 1 Pet 2:22) he would be sacrificed as the perfect “Lamb” (Jn 1:29, 1 Cor 5:7) to cover all of our sins, past, present and future. He would be the perfect sacrifice for the sins of all man (Heb 10:13-17), done “once for all” (Rom 6:10, Heb 7:23-28, 9:11-15, 23-28, 10:1-18). He would be a sin offering for us (Rom 8:3). He would nail the law to a cross for us (Col 2:13-14). He would bail us out of a certain “eternal jail” by paying a ransom (Mt 20:26-28, 1 Tim 2:5-6, Heb 9:15) for us, buying our pardon (Acts 20:28, 1 Cor 6:19-20, 7:23) for sins by sacrificing himself for us on the cross (Heb 12:2). Now because of Jesus buying our pardon, God looks at us and sees us as innocent, even though we are really guilty (Gal 2:15-16). This is a “free gift” from God, and thus it is by the grace of God that we are saved and not because of anything that we have done (Eph 2:8-9). God now looks at us and sees us as perfect and fit for living eternally with him and his Son in heaven if we accept and follow his Son, Jesus (2 Cor 5:18-21, 1 John 1:7). Thank you God!!!!!!! This describes the new covenant. Just as the old covenant was all about sin, being forgiven for sin, and reaching a state of perfection so that man could go to heaven to be with God eternally, so is the new covenant all about the same thing.

Unfortunately, the children of God in large part rejected Jesus and his New Covenant (Rom 11:13-15). God had told the children over and over through his prophets that he was going to send a “Savior” or Messiah to them (Isa 52:13-53:12, 62:11, 63:8). This Messiah would come in two advents and would have different goals in each advent; in the first he would be a suffering servant for them and in the second he would be their king of kings (Lk 4:16-21, 7:18-23, Isa 61:1-3, Zech 9:9-17, Rev 17:14, 19:26, 2 Thess 4:6-10). Unfortunately for them, they were wanting and expecting the king of kings in Jesus first advent because of the political situation. They were being persecuted during Jesus’ time and had not been a sovereign country for over six hundred years. They misunderstood God’s plan for man and for that reason many have been lost. If that is true, then did God play a bad trick on his chosen people? No, for several reasons. First, God had not intended the Israelites to pursue righteousness by works, but by faith and belief (Rom 9:30-33). They had chosen their path by using their own free will. They had enough information to make the right decisions. Second, in his grace God had left the sins that were committed before Jesus unpunished (Rom 3:21-28). Those who persisted in believing in God and his plan went to paradise (Rom 11:1-6). Those who rejected God and his plan, and those who turned to idol worship were lost and sent to Sheol/Hades (Ps 9:17, 16:10, Prov 15:24, Lk 16:19-31). Paul says that their condemnation was deserved (Rom 3:1-8).

After Jesus had made his ultimate sacrifice for us and made us perfect so we could meet God’s requirement, he went on to make some very important statements just before his ascension. He wanted his gospel story to be told all over the world (Matt 28:18-20, Mk 16:15-16, Acts 1:8) so that as many people as possible could spend eternity in heaven with him as his companions. (Jesus, Paul, John and John the Baptist all speak in terms of Jesus’ companions in heaven being his “bride,” 2 Cor 11:2. We will have an extensive lesson on that in a few months.) Well, the Jews had been the people at the center of God’s plan up to this point. They were the perfect people to prove that man could not become perfect on his own. God describes them as stubborn, hard headed, stiff necked and persevering (2 Kings 17:14, Jud 2:19, Isa 48:4, Ezek 3:7-9). They had been given a task by God and nothing would keep them from doing it, even though the way they approached it made it impossible (Gal 3:10-12). They had accomplished their part of the equation very well.

By nature the Jews are not and have never been mission oriented in their religion. They generally don’t care to make everyone in the world believe in the same God that they do. Furthermore, they rejected the Messiah that God had sent to them. Because of that their nation was dissolved and they were dispersed and scattered all over the world (Zech 13:7, Jer 30:1-2, 15, Hos 9:17, Lk 11:47-51, 12:54-56, 19:41-44, Rom 11:19-20). Thus, to move on the next part of his plan God had to adopt a “new people” (Eph 1:5-6, John 15:1-8, Rom 9:22-33, 11:17-21). He needed a people who would be as stubborn and persevering in spreading the gospel to people all over the world as the Jews had been in their quest for perfection through self effort. He found the perfect man to lead this charge in Paul of Tarsus (Acts 9:15). Certainly Jesus’ 12 Apostles, his brothers James and Jude, and many others also played key parts in the early spread of the gospel. The new people who would then carry the message of the gospel to the world in succeeding generations were the gentiles of the northern Roman Empire. Certainly, we can’t argue with the success of God’s plan in that most of the people of the world today are aware of the gospel of Jesus and about 1/3 say that they believe the gospel of Jesus.

God’s plan is still unfolding and we can only understand what is in the future from God’s prophecies in the Bible. We understand that Jesus will one day return for his believers and rapture them to heaven (1 Thess 4:13-18, 1 Cor 15:51-53). Jesus taught that he was not finished with his original chosen people and that he would one day restore their nation, re-gather their scattered people and finally return to earth to reward them for the key part that they had played in implementing his plan (Isa 66:7-9, Jer 30:1-17, 32:37-44, Hos 3:4-5). That will occur at the end of a period called the Tribulation Period, which results in the Jewish people finally realizing who Jesus is and accepting him (Hosea 5:14-6:3, Zech 12:10, 13:9). It will be a seven year period of great wrath, wars, upheavals on earth, etc. (Dan 9:24-27, Matt 24:21-22, Zech 12-14), with large numbers of people being killed, including 2/3 of the Jewish people (Zech 13:8). Jesus will hear their calls for him to return and save them and he does so at his Second Coming (Zech 13:9-14:3, Hosea 6:2). Satan and his followers will be participants in this end time war (Rev 20:1-3). Jesus defeats Satan and his followers and ends the war (Rev 19:11-21). That will usher in a time of worldwide peace on the earth lasting for 1000 years (Rev 20:4-6), with Jesus himself being on earth as “King of Kings” (Rev 19:16). Satan will be bound in Hades during this period of time (Rev 20:1-3). Sickness, disease, suffering, etc. will greatly subside and people will live very long lives (Isa 65:17-21). There will be requirements for everyone to make periodic visits to see Jesus in Israel (Zech 14:16-21). At the end of the 1000 years, Satan will be loosed upon the earth for a short period of time as a final test to see who he can convince to follow him (Rev 20:7-9). The final judgment will soon follow. Satan and his followers will be judged and sent to hell (Rev 20:10-15). All believers will then spend eternity in heaven with Jesus (Rev 21:1-7). Man will be restored to his place in that he will once again live with God (Rev 21:3).

For other scriptures on God’s purpose and plan for man see Rom 3:20, 5:20-21, 8:28-30, 11:17-36, Gal 3:13-4:6, Eph 2:11-3:16, 4:14-15, and James 1:18.

QUICK SUMMARIES OF THE BIBLE

• The Bible in 10 minutes: a quick summary of God's long range plan for mankind
• The Bible in 30 minutes: a quick summary of God's historical interaction with and plan for mankind