What Did God Do To Rescue Us?

As I promised, here is a more detailed explanation of God's plan to save humanity. Even so, I can't include every single point.

Remember what Genesis 3:15 (BBE) said about Satan? "And there will be war between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed: by him will your head be crushed and by you his foot will be wounded."

Lineage is important to our heavenly Father. That's why he promised to Abram in Genesis 12:3 (BBE), "To them who are good to you will I give blessing, and on him who does you wrong will I put my curse: and you will become a name of blessing to all the families of the earth."

The entire first chapter of Matthew and Luke 3:30-38 shows how Christ descended from Abram whom God named Abraham. Matthew records his lineage through the male side and Luke from the female side.

But God wasn't making things up as he went along. We read in Ephesians 1:4 (BBE)how he chose his saints before they were even born. "Even as he made selection of us in him from the first, so that we might be holy and free from all evil before him in love:"

Neither was Christ's choice of disciples haphazard, as he said in John 6:70 (BBE). "Then Jesus said, 'Did I not make a selection of you, the twelve, and one of you is a son of the Evil One?'"

Christ's crucifixion was planned from the beginning of time and the rituals Israel observed were a shadow of the real thing. Hebrews 9:11 and 12 (BBE) explains, "But now Christ has come as the high priest of the good things of the future, through this greater and better Tent, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this world, And has gone once and for ever into the holy place, having got eternal salvation, not through the blood of goats and young oxen, but through his blood."

I'm glad God knows the beginning from the end. It's one point I want to stress in my next book, You Think You're Going to Heaven? Errant teachers claim he has no idea of what will happen in the future. Are they ever wrong!

On Saturday, provided Christ doesn't return first, I hope to post about the man who sold the world.

Why Were the Jews God's People?

I pointed out before why God chose the descendents of Israel. But why would he do that? Couldn't the Messiah have been born into any family?

We see one reason for this seemingly strange way of saving humanity in Genesis 12:3 (KJV) which explains, "And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed."

God chose the most stubborn of all peoples to work his will through in order to display his awesome power. Judges 7:2 (KJV) shows why he worked through the Jews. "And the LORD said unto Gideon, 'The people that are with thee are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, "Mine own hand hath saved me"'."

The preservation of the lineage of Judah is also a miracle. Through the times of punishment, when God let other nations afflict Israel, there were always some left to carry on the line of the Messiah. As Jeremiah 29:10 and 11 state, "For thus saith the LORD, 'That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you,' saith the LORD, 'thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.'"

Furthermore, the nation of Israel was chosen to be messengers of the Lord to the world. Isaiah 66:18 and 19 (KJV)states,  "For I know their works and their thoughts: it shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory. And I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, that draw the bow, to Tubal, and Javan, to the isles afar off, that have not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles."

I'll be writing more about how the Lord worked through Israel to save humanity in my next book called You Think You're Going to Heaven? The entire Bible is the story of how God rescued humanity. Understanding that truth makes the whole of holy scripture make sense.