"The Bible is God's story of what he is doing in his world. It is the story of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. We learn from this story that God created us to have fellowship with him, to serve him, and to glorify him. We learn that Adam, our predecessor, failed in carrying out his role, plunging himself and us into a new world order of sin and death. We learn that God, even in his giving of the curse for Adam's disobedience, offers the hope of redemption through the seed. That seed, as the story unfolds, turns out to be his Son, Jesus Christ, the God-man.
Through Christ's work on the cross, he undoes what Adam did. Through his perfect obedience he makes a way for us who were cut off from God, alienated from him, to be brought near, to be reconciled. We also learn that Christ's work set in motion not only the redemption of sinful humanity, but also the restoration of all things, that someday the new heavens and the new earth will come to pass and the curse and night will be no longer.
This comprises God's grand story that pulses through the pages of God's Word to us, the Bible. It is also the story that God invite us to participate in. He created us in his image and gave us a mandate to subdue and have dominion over his creation. He has called us to work, to cultivate, his world. He also calls us into fellowship with him by taking us from being "in Adam" and placing us "in Christ."
And we are called to a life of transformation into the image of the Son. We bear Christ's image as we proclaim, both through our words and our actions, the gospel, the story of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration.
This is the greatest story of all time."
excerpt from Welcome to the Story, by Stephen J. Nichols
No comments:
Post a Comment