Tuesday, December 02, 2008

There have been many attempts to summ...

There have been many attempts to summarize the Bible: Here is one:

God has given us a book full of stories,
Which he made for his people of old,
It begins with a tale of a garden,
And ends with a city of gold.

That's not a bad summary. Another way is to understand the Bible as revealing the God who comes to us. In the Garden of Eden, after the Adam and Eve sinned and hid from God, God came to search for them. Similarly, in the parable of the Good Shepherd, Jesus teaches us that God comes to those who are lost, in the person of his Son, to rescue us. At the right time, Galatians tells us, God "sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law." (Gal 4.5)

The Old Testament promises that God will come to us as a prophet to declare his authoritative word, and he will come as the priest to atone for our sins, and he will come to proclaim peace to the nations as the king whose rule will extend from sea to sea. In the New Testament, the one who will be prophet, priest and king is summed up as Immanuel, 'God with us.' The God who is coming is the one who has come.

So, it is not surprising that the God who has come promises one day to return. Rather than a an obscure piece of biblical trivia, the second coming of Christ the 'end game' of the Bible. This is where everything is headed. The Greek word, eskatos, from which we get 'eschatology' means the final things. The Bible is eschatological from beginning to end.

At Christmas, we remember Jesus' coming into the world at a point and time in history. However, we should also remember that this coming of the Lord which was for 'us men and our salvation' through his death and resurrection will be completed at his second coming. His coming again will be physical, visible, sudden and triumphant. As we rejoice over his coming into the world as a baby, we look forwad to the time that he will come again in his glorious majesty to usher in the new heavens and the new earth where righteousness dwells.

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