How Jesus Explains the Bible
Luke 24:44
John Loftness
March 22, 2009

Ever think about the role stories play in your life?

Stories make us who we are.  Stories direct us.  Stories explain the world to us.  Stories allow us to make sense of our lives.

They may be stories our parents told us.  Or stories in movies or in biographies or in romance novels, or urban legends or news stories—they all influence our lives.

The Bible is a story—one big unified story developed in 66 books written over 1,500 years.  It’s the story of how God relates to mankind.  It begins with the creation of a garden for a man and a woman to live in and it ends with the re-creation of that garden so that multitudes of men and women can live in it under the blessing and in relationship with God.

HOW we read the Bible makes all the difference. Because we live in a culture that reads stories differently, we can adopt the world’s methods of understanding.  We begin to think that the Bible is primarily about us and so we look for ourselves in the stories and appropriate them for our own purposes.

We come to the Bible to take bits and pieces of the story and see how we can fit them into our life. They might be moral bits or inspirational bits or comforting bits.  But in the end we read them as if the Bible is all about me.

And certainly we must apply what the Bible teaches, but not in the way I just described.

The first thing you must realize when reading the Bible is that the Bible is a book about God.  It is his story.  It reveals who he is.  It’s not about me.  It has implications for me, but I’m not listed in the credits at the end of the film.

So we must look at the Bible story from the right perspective.  The Bible is a book about God.  So the question for me is not how do I fit God’s story into my life but how do I fit my life into God’s story.

Most of us know the story of David and Goliath.  The story is found in 1 Samuel 17.  A nation called Philistia is at war with Israel.  They have a warrior called Goliath.  Goliath is literally a giant.  Warfare in ancient times was primarily hand-to-hand combat and Goliath was invincible.  He challenges the Israelite army to a one-on-one contest to determine who wins the war—better that one man die for only one side that to continue the carnage.  But no one on Israel’s side is up to the task.  The Israelite soldiers are cowering in fear.

Then David arrives—a kid carrying supplies to his brothers.  He’s not even trained to fight.  He tends sheep.  And he’s incensed that this Philistine can taunt the armies of the living God and given his zeal and willingness, he takes on Goliath.  And with his boy’s slingshot he kills the giant.  Israel wins. 

So what does the story mean?  To me?

If I read it as if it’s about me, I try to fit it into my story.  What are the giants in my life?  Is it debt?  Is it depression?  A job I can’t stand?  Boredom?  How am I to kill these giants?  How am I to be like David?

But that’s not God’s story.  His story is that when his people had their backs to the wall with no hope of escape, when it looked like all was lost and they were to become the slaves of the brutal Philistines, God sent a king to save them.  He didn’t look like a king.  He was young and innocent but he had zeal for God and he trusted God to deliver him—not his own wits.  So he used what he had and through his sling shot, God gave his people a great victory.

And as I think about it, I realize that this story of David fits into a larger story, the story of how God sent his king to his people desperate and oppressed.  How he didn’t look like a king, he came from the wrong town and the wrong family and he had no credentials to save anyone.  But he did, and he did it through a very unexpected means.

And that’s the story of our King Jesus.

Whether I’m reading my Bible or any other story, my first question should be: How is God at work here?  How does he evaluate the situation?

If you attend this Sunday meeting for the rest of 2009, you will, God willing, hear how the story of the Bible comes together and how it explains you story and the stories of every human being who has ever breathed the air of this good earth. 

We are going to see how the Bible forms one story and how that story has one message and how that message is focused on a man who is God, Jesus.

How do we know that?

Luke 24: 25-27

Luke 24:44

John 5:39

And here is how Jesus explains the Bible: He says, “It’s all about me.”
• “Adam bears witness about me.
• “And the promise given to Abraham bears witness to me.
• “And Moses bears witness about me.
• “And all those bloody sacrifices of lambs and goats and bulls bear witness to me.
• “And David
• “And the Temple
• “And Elijah and all those crazy miracles
• “And the people of Israel
• “And the Ten Commandments.”

They are all about Jesus.  Somehow Jesus fits into each story that starts at the beginning of this earth and runs through a universal flood and the founding of a nation and captivity and escape from Egypt and commandments and conquest of the land, and the repeated failures of this chosen people and the elevation of a king and his failure and his sons failures and prophets and the destruction of Jerusalem and it’s rebuilding and Solomon’s Temple and a rebuilt Temple.

It’s all about Jesus.  He does more than fit in.  Turn to Matthew 5:17.

He fulfills the stories.  He’s the stories’ ultimate purpose. 

The stories of the Old Testament point to Jesus, they anticipate him, somehow he fulfills them—fulfills them in the sense that he accomplishes the purposes that they point to.

The implication of what Jesus said in these three passages is that someone was controlling all of the history we read of in the OT—events that took place 600 years before Jesus and 1,000 years before, and 1,400 years before and 2,000 years before and all the way back to the creation of the heavens and the earth—someone was controlling it all so that when Jesus came his life—not just his teaching—but his very actions would explain everything that came before and was recorded in Scripture.

The Old Testament is one huge prelude to the main event—the coming of Jesus.

So if you want to understand the Bible, the best place to start is not with Genesis 1:1 but to start with the Gospels and then go to Genesis and then read of the history of Israel and then read the prophets about Israel’s failure and God’s plans dealing with his wayward people and then read the New Testament letters to see how we should put it all together as a new people of God who are joined to Jesus.

Here is how to read the OT.  Here is Jesus’ method:

He says, “Look for me.”
• Look for how God rules people and how they respond.
• Look for the promises he makes to people and how they respond
• Look for how God responds to his people when they rebel against his rule.
• Look for how God how God keeps his promises when his people responded to him faithlessly.
• And then, look at Jesus.  How did he fulfill God’s purposes for the world and for his people?  How does he respond to God’s promises and to God’s rule? 

To do this you have to realize that the Old Testament is largely a book of God sustaining a failed people so that through this people he could send his Savior.

It’s a book of failure:
• Adam failed in the garden, yet God sustained him even as he removed him from the Garden.
• Abraham failed in Canaan, yet God still sustained him in the land with a son to inherit what God had promised.
• The 12 sons of Israel failed, yet God sustained them despite his leading them to Egypt where they became slaves.
• Israel failed in the wilderness, yet God sustained them and brought them into the promised land.
• Aaron failed as priest, yet God still provided a way for Israel to approach him.
• The kings failed—even great king David failed—to obey God’s law, yet God sustained the nation.

And when it looked like the people of God would become just another corrupt Roman province lead by an illegitimate king and a corrupt priesthood, Jesus came.

And as he said in Matthew 5, he came to fulfill the Law—he came to fulfill the purposes to which Israel points.

• He’s the new Adam, who doesn’t sin when tempted.
• He’s the fulfillment of Abraham who trusts God without fail.
• He’s the new Moses perfectly mediating between God and his people—giving them a new a perfect law.
• He’s our high priest bringing a perfect sacrifice for sin.
• He’s the fulfillment of David—he’s the sinless king who leads his people into a perfect righteous kingdom.
• He’s the Temple where God makes his presence known.
• And he’s the Lamb who dies in the place of his people.

So what is the point of this message?  There is only one story that can make sense of this life.  It’s the story of the Bible.  But you have to read the story as the author wrote it and not try to mold it into your story.  The Bible—from Genesis to Revelation—is a story about how God created the world through Jesus and how God loved the world—despite its rebellion against him—by sending Jesus to save God’s people from the penalty for their rebellion and bring them into a new land where life and love and righteousness never fail forever.  That’s the core of the message.  That’s the core of the book.

And by God’s grace we’ll see it in the details as 2009 progresses.

Some questions:

1. How do you look at the Bible?  Is it about you or about God?  Do you read it looking for ways to make the Bible fit your life or do you read it to see how to make your life fit into the story of the Bible?

2. How do you allow other stories to influence your life?  Do you carry family stories or movie stories or any other stories to feed your pride?

3. Are you willing to do the kind of study to deepen your understanding of the Bible, to see how the entire book points to Jesus?