Finding Jesus in the Bible…So We Can Follow Him in Life
Bible Reading Plans
- Plan One: New Testament Only
- Plan Two: New Testament + Psalms
- Plan Three: New Testament + History
- Plan Four: The Entire Bible – Year 1 of 3, Year 2 of 3, Year 3 of 3
Don’t know which plan? Go to A Christ-Centered Bible Reading Plan: Quick Start.
Extras
Verse of the Day, Audio Capsule, and Video Minute
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(Today’s Reading)
The Implications of the Second Coming as Accomplished Fact
(Book Installment 64)
The Plan Behind the Second Coming
Chapter 4 – The Predetermined Plan
The Plan Personified (continued and concluded)
Even the “Recordation” (documentation) element of the plan was through Jesus Christ. It was Jesus’ apostles and their co-workers who produced the New Testament that explains the Old Testament from God’s point of view. As Jesus Himself said after He was raised from the dead and found His apostles slow to think it possible:
Luke 24:25 And He said to them, “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!
Luke 24:26 “Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?”
Luke 24:27 Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.
The record of God’s revelation and restoration are all about Jesus Christ.
Thus are the three elements of the predetermined plan – Revelation, Restoration (relationship, residence, rationale), and Recordation – all centered on Jesus Christ. The plan is that personal.
The four vantage points of God’s plan are also each focused on Christ. Let’s review how central He is to each perspective, this time taking them in the order by which His centrality is most easily recognized.
We’ve already acknowledged that the Second Coming is the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, so there’s no need to say any more about the focus of that view.
No one would deny that Jesus Christ is the central focus of the New Testament, so there’s no need to say any more about the focus of that view either.
As for the Old Testament, the New Testament itself declares Jesus to be the focus of the Old Testament. Further to this point, add these words of Jesus below to what you read above from Luke.
John 5:39 “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me;
Luke 24:44 Now He said to them, “These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”
Luke 24:45 Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures,
Luke 24:46 and He said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day,
Luke 24:47 and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
Luke 24:48 “You are witnesses of these things.”
The only vantage point this leaves is Pre-Creation. Though we have not studied it yet in this book, I can go ahead and tell you there are only two active figures in what the Bible discloses to us about the pre-creation period: God and Christ. And in those passages, they say more about Christ than they do about God!
To sum up the focus of all four vantage points, pre-creation looks to eternity past, and the Second Coming looks to eternity future. The OT and the NT come in between. And from every angle, Christ shines forth.
Thus do all three elements of the predetermined plan, and all four vantage points from which we can learn about that plan, focus on Jesus Christ.
The predetermined plan – the messianic project – was the plan of Christ. He is the anointing balm who soothes and heals a wounded world.
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