From Beginning to End It's All about Him

And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

LUKE 24:27

The story of Jesus, the long-awaited Christ, is what the entire Bible is about. Perhaps I should say that again. The beginning and end of everything in the universe and most particularly everything recorded in the Scriptures is Jesus Christ. He declared himself to be the "Alpha and the Omega," the one "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty" (Rev. 1:8). He "is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead." In all that is, he is "preeminent" (Col. 1:18). He is the sun around whom all beings orbit, whether they are aware of it or not. He is the director, the author, the actor, and the finale of every act that has ever been played out on humanity's stage.

The man Christ Jesus is the preeminent message of the Bible. Of course there are other messages and secondary peoples and histories, but he's the point of everything that has been written. He is primary; he outranks everyone and everything in importance, dignity, beauty, wisdom, and honor. And because of who he is and what he has done for our salvation,

God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil. 2:9–11)

I suppose that those of you who have been Christians for any length of time are nodding in assent. Yes, of course Jesus is the main character in the Bible! That's obvious, isn't it? Well, yes, it should be obvious. But while many of us would agree that Jesus is key, the all-encompassing message of his preeminence, although assumed, is not usually the message we hear. No, the message we usually hear is something about us and what we're supposed to do to make God happy, or, at least, about how we can avoid making him unhappy and live satisfying lives. But as we'll learn in the chapters to come, the Bible isn't primarily a rulebook, nor is it a self-help manual; it's not about how we become better people so that we can earn blessings by working hard. It's all about Jesus, God made man, his life, death, and resurrection. It is about his determination to be in union with us.

The message of the Bible is Jesus Christ, the one truly good human person: who he is and the work he's done for our salvation and his Father's glory. Of course, what he has done does intersect with our lives and change us, but we're not the subject of this story — he is. He is the subject, and all the verbs are about his work. But this story didn't start a mere two thousand years ago in Bethlehem.

THE SON BEFORE THE BABY

Way before the Christmas story was written, the Bible resounded with the message of the Son. In fact, all of the Old Testament writings are about Jesus. Every law, every prophetic utterance, every narrative, every psalm is meant to remind us of him, to force us to look away from ourselves and to look to him for salvation.

Adam's, Abraham's, and Israel's entire experience was designed from the beginning to foreshadow the end [that] ... Jesus, the beloved Son, would keep the covenant and bear the curse on their behalf and ours.

In fact, Jesus himself claimed that he was the subject of all of Israel's history. I know that this might be a new thought for some of you, so here are some passages from the New Testament for your consideration. Notice how Jesus identifies himself as the subject of all of Moses's writings:

You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me. ... If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. (John 5:39, 46)

Think of that! Jesus said that Moses actually wrote about him! But that's not all he had to say on the topic. After the crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples on the road to Emmaus and taught them (and by extension, us) the right way to read and interpret all the Old Testament Scriptures:

These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. (Luke 24:44)

And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. (Luke 24:27)

EVEN BEFORE THE AGES BEGAN

Jesus (and the rest of the New Testament writers) made it abundantly clear that all the history contained in the Old Testament was ultimately about him: his person and his work. But even further back, even before Genesis 1 and the first light of creation, he was already involved in our salvation. His preeminence in our salvation didn't start when Adam and Eve were created or even when they first sinned. Although Jesus the Godman doesn't actually appear until his physical birth in Bethlehem around two thousand years ago, God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, had existed in communion with God the Father and God the Spirit eternally. From before the Word was spoken and the Holy Spirit hovered over the womb of the unformed world (Gen. 1:2), God the Son existed in inexpressible light and endless joy in union and loving fellowship with his Father and the Spirit. The Son, the personal Word, was "with" God and was, in fact, God (John 1:1–2; 1 John 1:1).

There, in time, before time began, the Trinity existed in perfect happiness within his person. He was not lonely; he never needed anything. In himself, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit were absolutely complete, a Trinity existing in perfect harmony and unity. But then, in overflowing love, grace, and mercy, God chose to make a covenant within himself, sometimes called the pactum salutis or covenant of redemption. In it the Son agreed to be sent as a redeemer for a race of men yet to be created, but in order to do so, he would have to become a new sort of person, one in the likeness of his fallen brothers and yet immutably God. He agreed to do this not out of necessity, not because he was forced to or lacked something in himself that only the incarnation would provide, but because of God's "own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began" (2 Tim. 1:9).

Now, before we look more deeply at what that means, why not take a moment to think a bit more about it? Consider this: before the ages began it was God's plan to come to you, to call you to himself, to save you and make you...