After another year of talking about God’s goodness and grace, Christmas gives us a week to reflect upon the birth of Jesus and the miracle of His birth. But on this week’s program, we also discuss his human boyhood and how He grew in wisdom and stature. Other topics this week include The Three Stooges, Adam’s age when he was first created… also the wise men and how tradition has “photoshopped” them into the manger scene.
We're looking forward to returning in the new year with a whole bunch of brand new Growing in Grace podcast episodes, talking about the Good News of Jesus! We're taking a short break from recording next week, but do come back here to GrowingInGrace.org, as Mike and Joel will reflect on 2018 by sharing a few of their favorite episodes from the past year.
Our final program in the Summarizing the Scripture series takes a quick look back at the past 16 weeks of conversation. There is no reason to be afraid of God’s goodness and grace. Religious rules or a modernized version of the Mosaic law will only slow you down. Jesus came to deliver people from that type of bondage and has gifted us with righteousness and life in a new and better covenant. The ministry of the Spirit within us and upon us will lead and guide into all truth, and He can change your desires because of a new heart which came by believing — grace through faith has made us into new creations — and it is now God working in and through us. Adam fell and sin entered the world… Jesus rose and took sin away.
Part 4 of our series includes some final thoughts about Adam and the fall that took place in the beginning. We often still struggle with the same thing as Adam, but the good news is we’ve been provided with a solution since the cross. We can avoid the tree that forced humankind to live for centuries by The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God always wanted His creation to live by His life, which we can do now that we’ve been placed in Christ. Next week we’ll talk about Abraham and how he made faith possible for a multitude of generations to come.
In this episode we briefly reminisced about our past days in Christian radio, and some of the grace-based songs we used to play. We specifically mentioned these two songs that we both really like.
This week we get rolling with our series of summarizing the Scripture with the purpose of helping us to shrink the Bible into one big picture, so to speak, in order to connect some dots and how the Word is primarily a picture of Jesus Christ. Adam’s temptation revolved around the desire to be wise and more like God. The serpent challenged him on the basis of identity, much like the devil did with Jesus in the wilderness. One chose not to believe God and failed (Adam). The other chose to believe the truth and overcame (Jesus). We are challenged in a similar way today when it comes to our identity in Christ.
We continue to lay the foundation for our series, as we look at some key parts of the Bible that led from Adam to Jesus, and then to the New Covenant. Is everything written specifically to us today or was it simply given as a reference point to help us see the redemptive plan God had for man all along? What motivated Adam to make the wrong choice? Why did God give Moses the law, and why did the Israelites agree to the (old) covenant? Are the Psalms and Prophets telling us how to seek comfort in our lives, or were they more about pointing Israel to the Messiah, who had not yet appeared? What was is it about the Old Testament that had convinced some of the Jews that Jesus was that Messiah? What was the purpose of Jesus’ ministry and when did the New Covenant begin? We’ll be covering some of this and more in future programs, after this week’s second half of our introduction.
This will be the first program in a series where we will focus on key points in the Scripture with the goal of helping us to see the bigger picture when it comes to the Bible. Our primary stops on the route will include Adam, Abraham, Moses and the law, the Psalms and the Prophets, and also Jesus and the New Covenant. The idea is to step back from the many trees (verses) that are often taken out of context in order to gain a better view of the forest and help summarize the Biblical map. Ultimately, our hope with this series is to gain an improved understanding of the gospel and God’s Word as a whole.
The sin condition of the heart entered the world through one man (Adam). This form of the word for “sin” is a noun in the Greek and appears nearly four times more often than the verb in the New Testament. Death entered through this “sin condition” and it spread to all men, because the noun would lead to sinful actions, since all have sinned (verb). Jesus came to destroy and take away the sin of the world, the condition that resulted in everyone being identified as sinners, as inherited through Adam. Through one sacrifice at the cross, God dealt with and resolved the sin problem forever; both the sinful nature and the sinful actions. If this was not the case, Jesus would need to keep suffering repeatedly, and the cross would have to be considered inadequate. Fortunately for us, His one-time shedding of blood was more than enough, and now the issue is simply choosing to believe in order to receive the new nature of righteousness within our hearts.
Part 4 in the series lays more foundation about the law and the Old Covenant and the many differences between the New Covenant which began after the death of Jesus. Most Christian teachings have assumed the commandments were meant to decrease sin, but we find just the opposite is true. It was designed to bring hopelessness and despair. Since fault was found with the people for not fulfilling their end of the agreement, God's grace and mercy would allow for the covenant to end, instead of punishing them for their sins.
This is the third in a series of why Jesus taught two covenants, this week looking at some specifics within the Mosaic law from the first covenant. That was a covenant made with Israel and those of us who are Gentiles were not included. Ultimately the law brought a curse because it required all of it be kept perfectly. The New Covenant would not be anything like the Old. The first covenant resulted in death and condemnation, whereas under the second covenant, we've been removed from that and placed into life. The law was meant to shut mouths, stop boasting, and bring people to the end of themselves.
Our second in the series of why Jesus taught two covenants lays a further foundation on why Adam fell and how the covenant began through Moses with the Jewish people. A covenant must be agreed upon by at least two parties, so the law within the first covenant was not forced upon Israel, but they agreed to do all of it as required. They declared with pride it would be righteousness for them. They would have been better off humbling themselves by saying they couldn't do it. They chose to trust in themselves and their ability.
We continue looking further into the sin and death that came through Adam, compared to righteousness and life that came through Jesus. In the book of Romans, Paul explained through the first several chapters, how the people of Israel were also considered sinners, not just the Gentiles. They fell short because Adam's one transgression came to "all men." On the other hand, the one righteous act of Jesus brought justification to all men. In the context of many chapters, "all men" is referring to both Jews and Gentiles. Through Christ's obedience, "many" are made righteous: those who receive the abundance of grace.
We want to hear from you! In three weeks we'll be celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Growing in Grace podcast! Would you be willing to record an audio or video greeting for us (or write us a quick note), that we might include on our special 10th anniversary podcast? If so, details on how to send it to us are here. Thanks!
Trying to avoid bad and striving to do good. This is what man has been chasing since the first two people were placed on the planet. So what's wrong with this approach? Choosing the tree of the knowledge of good and evil brought death and positioned man in a state of hopelessness. The Mosaic law also brought the knowledge of sin and left the Jewish people in a place of unsuccessfully attempting do right and avoid wrong. The gospel provided us with something entirely different. It removed us from the pursuit of the knowledge of good and evil and placed us into a fruitful tree of life in Christ, where we now abide.
Generally, religion has portrayed the foundation of the Christian message to be about making bad people into good people. But there are thousands of non-Christian religions with a similar message, so what is it that should separate the message of the gospel? The tree that Adam and Eve at from was the morality tree that represented the Mosaic law and man's efforts to pursue God through the command of right living. Both the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the Mosaic law brought death. It was all meant to show us that man could not find life by trying to do good things and avoid the bad. We needed life to be restored in us
Adam was told he may eat from any tree in the garden except the one known as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We take a closer look and this tree and consider the likely motive of Adam and Eve as they ate from it. What did they think they would gain from this action? What did the tree represent? Let's compare all of this to another tree located in that garden, the tree of life and in what way it all relates to the gospel.
