Garden to Glory: The Story of the Bible

Courtney: What we're going to do is we are going to ask and try to answer four questions in this session. 

• What is the Bible? 
• What is the storyline? 
• What moves the story forward? 
• What compels God to act?

So let's just start by asking (and if you were in the pre-conference yesterday I said), we're going to talk more about redemptive historical context in this. This is what we're doing now. So this is what I was talking about yesterday, if you were there.

But we started even yesterday by saying, “What is the Bible?” I want you just to think for a minute how you would answer that question. Is it a list of rules of things that we should do and shouldn't do, a way to live a moral life? Is it a collection of random short stories about people that you and I are supposed to be more like or not be so much like, great examples to be followed? Is it a set of doctrine that we have to intellectually conquer? Or (and I said this yesterday), is it a love note from God dropped specially and specifically for you? 

Well, it has all of those things in it. It does convey God's love to us. There are definitely some rules to obey. There are definitely some stories about people that are meant to be exemplary. And there is doctrine that we need to understand, but it's so much more.

The very first thing that you and I have to understand about God's Word is that it is His self-initiated revelation. He is revealing Himself to us out of His own free will. So, revelation, the Bible, above all else, is an act of God's grace to us.

God is eternal. He is omniscient and omnipotent and omnipresent—all of the omnis. He is incomprehensible, and this is called the transcendence of God. God is high. He is lifted up. He's other than us. He's incomparable, Scripture tells us, meaning there's nothing to which we can compare Him and gain understanding. There's nothing, nothing, no one like Him. He is unsearchable, Romans 11 tells us. This means He's not capable of being sought out, exploring and finding God, which means you and I cannot discover God. He has to reveal Himself to us. It has to be something that He desires. He wants us to know Him.

And so, He is transcendent. He is high. He is lifted up. He is incomparable. He is unsearchable, but He doesn't stay far off. He draws near, and that's called the imminence of God—the transcendence of God and the imminence of God, the nearness of God. The Bible is actually part of God's imminence to us, part of His willingness, His desire, to draw near and to be known.

That's important because it means God wants us to know Him. He's not just telling us what to do. He's inviting us into relationship. It's not just what you do. He wants to know you and for you to know Him. And so, this unsearchable, inscrutable, transcendent God invites us to know Him and to be in relationship with Him. Even just the nature of what the Bible is actually reveals is His heart to us. It shows His love for us.

So first and foremost—and you all should have handouts—that's the first question: “What is God's Word?” It is a book of revelation, and the way He's chosen to reveal Himself to us is through a story. He doesn't just drop a note from heaven, giving us this list of what He wants us to do and what He wants us to know about Him. You know, “I am God. I am sovereign. I am good. I am faithful. Now just believe it.”

Instead, He has chosen to reveal Himself through a story where He progressively—and this is a huge part of our understanding of Scripture—progressively, from Genesis to Revelation He reveals who He is. So He tells us who He is, and then He shows us who He is. And it's through reading the entirety of the story that we start knowing more about who God is. 

Paul knew more about God than Moses did. David knew more about God than Abraham did, and we know more about who God is and what He does at the end of the story than we did at the beginning.

And so because overall it's a story, certain things are true of it. Certain things are true of it because it is so much more than a piece of literature, but it is not less than a piece of literature. So, every story has a plot line, every story has a structure. In every story, because it's a narrative form, it's written in prose, predominantly, as opposed to poetry. It's a narrative account of God working in our world.

Now, we all know that not everything in the Bible is prose. Not everything in the Bible is narrative. In understanding how to better study and teach the Word of God, part of it is understanding the different genres—poetry, apocalyptic, letters or epistles, prophetic literature. All of these things actually take place in the context of the story. Paul's letters are part of the story. The Psalms are part of the story. The Prophets are part of the story.

Have you ever read Sheldon Vanauke’s book A Severe Mercy? Raise your hand. Let me see. If you haven't, put it on your book list. It's an autobiography of Sheldon Vanauke and the story of he and his wife, Davy. Spoiler alert, don't read it in public, because it is a sad ending.

Sheldon and Davy were friends with C.S. Lewis. In this book, the autobiography, there are letters from C.S. Lewis to Sheldon and Davy. As you're reading the story, you're not confused by the letters. You don't think, Oh, these are completely separate from the story. No, they're part of the story. They were actually in real time impacting Sheldon and his wife, Davy. You just intuitively know to read them as such.

The same is true with Scripture. The Psalms are not separate. Paul's letters are not to be read outside of this overarching story. So the first question, what is the Bible?—it is the progressive self-revelation of God in narrative form. The progressive self-revelation of God in narrative form. I hope each of those words means something more to you now. They each matter.

The second question that we want to answer is: what is the storyline? So, not to cause anybody to break out in hives at this moment—and my apologies to every high school English teacher in the room—but do you remember being in high school, learning certain things in English class, in lit class? I remember learning that every good story is structured with four basic parts. Every good story has these four parts.

Every good story is going to have a prologue, or an introduction. And what happens in the prologue? What happens in the introduction is you are introduced to the characters. You now know who the story is going to be about, and you're introduced to the setting—where is this story going to take place?

And then every good story has some type of conflict in it, some type of problem that has to be solved. And then the climax of the story is when that problem is fixed, when the conflict is resolved. And then every good story has a little bit of a conclusion, which is just the closing of the story.

I want you to think of every fairy tale that you've ever heard, and almost every one of them follows this theme: once upon a time, but then an evil witch, then the hero, the knight in shining armor. And then, how do they all end? Happily ever after.

And so what's happening is every fairy tale begins with the way that it's supposed to be: once upon a time. We're given a glimpse of what life looked like before the great disruption occurred. 

And what does once upon a time look like? The sun is always shining; the birds are always singing; the characters are usually skipping. I mean, life is good. In once upon a time, they are safe, they are happy.

Then some type of evil enters in and disrupts this good world. The conflict is introduced. The problem is made known. Evil enters the scene, and what happens to the characters? Well, they're wounded, and they're in danger, and they're in need, and they're helpless.

As the story progresses, you and I are supposed to wonder, How long until things are going to be made right? Who is going to fix this problem? Will the characters be saved?

And then, just at the darkest moment, the hero of the story appears at just the right time, and his job is to make it right again. That's his job: 

• to fix the problem 
• to rescue the helpless
• to restore all things to their intended place. 

The rescue is never easy. The hero is always in danger, but the hero always wins. He rescues the wounded and the helpless. He does what they were unable to do for themselves.

And then every fairy tale ends with this glimpse of what the world looks like when it has been made right again and relationships are restored. The characters are no longer in danger. They have truly been saved by the hero.

What is notable is not that the biblical story follows this pattern, but that these stories—these fairy tales—follow the pattern of the Bible, because there is something about this story that resonates deep in our souls. There is something in us that knows this is our story, this is where we live.

And so when we look at the structure of our story, we can see that it follows these four main parts, the four main parts of any good story. And you probably know, we refer to the four parts of our story as: creation, fall or rebellion, redemption, and new creation. Those are the four main sections. They are the plot movements in the story.

So creation actually introduces the characters and the setting. The main character is almost always the first one introduced. And so who is the main character of our story in the beginning? God. It's going to be a story mainly about God.

And then the supporting actors are introduced, and those are human beings. And the setting is going to be in our world, which means this is a historical account. This is real people, real places, real events.

And then tragically, next we have the fall, or the rebellion, and the great conflict is introduced—the dilemma. We know what it is. Evil enters the scene, and now we know that the characters are wounded, and they are in danger, and they are in need, and they are helpless.

And as our story progresses, you and I are supposed to wonder: 

• How long until things are made right again? 
• Who will fix the problem? 
• Who will rescue the helpless? 
• Will the characters be saved?

The third part of our story is the climax of the story, and we call it redemption—because Jesus is sent at just the right time. Scripture says over and over again, that in the fullness of time, He was sent. His job is to make it right again. It's to fix the problem, rescue the helpless, and restore things to their intended place.

And then new creation is the great conclusion, and we are given a glimpse of what the world looks like when it has been made fully and completely right again, and relationships are restored. The characters are no longer in danger because they have truly been saved by the sacrificial love of the hero.

And so those are the four main parts of the story: creation (introduction); fall (conflict); redemption (climax); and restoration (new creation) as the glorious conclusion.

And so I would even challenge you: take the nine themes that Kevin talked about last night and run them through these four parts, and try to come up with what happened to each one of them in each of these big plot movements in our story.

Herman Bavinck said this: 

The essence of the Christian religion consists in this, that the creation of the Father, devastated by sin, is restored in the death of the Son of God, and recreated by the Holy Spirit into the kingdom of God.

What I want you to see in that is this: this is what Christianity is actually all about. This is the essence of the Christian religion. You not only see the work of each member of the Trinity, you actually see the four main parts of the story: creation of the Father, devastated by sin, restored in the death of the Son, recreated into the kingdom of God.

And so this is the structure we're talking about. It's so important because it actually helps us understand what God has done for us. We see who we are: we are the ones in need. We see who God is: He is the great rescuer, the great Redeemer. We're going to unpack this as we move through, but each part of the story is so necessary.

So often we focus on the middle two. We tell people, “Jesus died on the cross to forgive me of my sins.” True, praise the Lord, but it's more than that. The Lord is redeeming and restoring all things. It is a big mission of God.

And so as we think about these four pieces of the framework, they answer our second question: “What is the storyline?” We can summarize the story in this way: 

• God made it. 
• Man broke it. 
• Jesus saves it. 
• God restores it. 

Those are the four main parts of the story.

But then we come to our third question: “What moves the story forward?” And the answer to that question is the covenants.

And so before we jump into looking at each covenant in the order that they appear, I think it might be important to talk about what a covenant is.

A covenant always symbolizes a relationship—a relationship between two people or two groups of people. Historically, covenants were very familiar to the people of the ancient Near East, those to whom the Old Testament was written, especially in the Pentateuch. And so they were part of the ancient world. This audience was very familiar with the concept of covenant.

I was just reading in Joshua the other day, and remember, the people come and they try to enter into a covenant with the people of God. They deceive them, but they're entering into a covenant.

Well, in the ancient Near East, individuals could enter into covenant with each other, but nations could also enter into covenantal relationships too. And what would happen is the king or the ruler of one nation and the king and the ruler of another nation would come together. They served as the representative heads of their two people groups. The stronger nation would come and promise, or pledge, to the weaker nation: “I will protect you, and I will provide for you.” And the weaker nation would come to the stronger nation, and they would say, “We need that protection. We need that provision.”

And so they pledge and promise loyalty. They promise allegiance. They promise obedience. And then the relationship, or the covenant, was established through the pledging of an oath, through promises made to each other.

And typically, there was a ceremony that accompanied the oaths, the covenants. And the traditional ceremony for a covenant is called Cutting a Covenant, because they would take animals, and they would cut them in two. They would lay half of the broken and bloody animal on this side, and half of the broken and bloody animal on the other side. They would create a path between them. Then each member—the weaker party and the stronger party—would walk through this bloody path of broken and torn bodies of animals. And they were pledging to each other: “If I do not keep my side of the covenant, may what happened to these animals happen to me.”

To enter into covenant was a serious thing. I want you to think about what we even pledge in a traditional wedding ceremony. What do we say? “Till death do us part.” We are binding ourselves to a person for life.

But here's the deal: the world, this room, is filled with covenant breakers. It's actually who we are binding. By nature, Scripture tells us there is no one righteous, no, not one. And so every person who has ever entered into any type of covenant has broken it in some way.

We are the recipients of broken covenants, and we are the initiators of broken covenants, because we are covenant breakers, and we are surrounded by covenant breakers.

But the good news of the gospel is that God is not just a covenant-making God. God is a covenant-keeping God. That's who our God is. And so it is so important to note that as we look at these covenants, we are not looking at covenants made between two people. We are looking at what God, the transcendent God, did when He cut covenant with us on our behalf, when the God of the universe bound Himself to a people and to His own word.

So I want to go back and work through the covenants very quickly.

We start off with the covenant of Adam, the account of creation in Genesis 1 and 2. And we are told seven times that it was what? It was good. It was good. It was good. It was good. It was very good.

What was good about it? The main thing that was good about Eden is that God was present with His people. Adam and Eve had perfect fellowship with their Father. They had perfect fellowship with each other and with their world.

And we have to know this part of the story. We have to know what was good and what was lost, because it is a story about God progressively restoring everything that Adam lost—how Jesus, the second Adam, reclaims for us what the first Adam lost. Because we were not created to live in a world of brokenness, broken relationships, suffering, sickness, death. We were created to live in a world that is full of God's shalom, which is so much more than just peace. It's flourishing because we were created to live in His presence.

And so in Genesis 1 and 2, Adam and Eve are God's people. They're living in God's presence. They're living in the place God had for them, and they are fulfilling the purposes of God.

And so in this covenant, God is the King, and He promises to Adam and Eve provision and protection. “Any tree of the field is yours. I've given you all of this. It's abundant provision and protection. You're going to find life in obedience. If you will, just obey my word. There is blessing.”

Adam and Eve are the weaker party. What are they to pledge? They're to pledge loyalty and obedience and trust.

So in the Garden, they're given meaningful work to do. They are to be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, and have dominion over it. They have this one prohibition: one thing to obey—do not eat from the one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Life in Eden was wonderful. There is so much about Genesis 1 and 2 that helps us understand what our souls long for.

But sadly, we have to turn the page, and Genesis 3 starts off very abruptly. “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field.” And as a good reader, we are meant to know immediately something is not right. The next thirteen verses tell us something horrible happened, something disrupted the way it's supposed to be.

Genesis 3 is all about whether or not Adam and Eve will remain loyal to their sovereign. The question posed to them is: 

• Who will you believe? 

• Who will you obey? 

• Will you be loyal? 

• Will you be a faithful covenantal partner? 

• Who will be your King, who will rule over you? 

• Will it be God or God's enemy?

And we know Adam and Eve broke the covenant. They chose to disobey their good King. And as soon as they do all of these things, enter the story.

Sin enters the story. Shame enters the story. Broken relationships enter the story. Adam and Eve try to hide. They try to cover it up. But of course, they can't. Truly, the first plot twist in the story. We should be asking: “What is going to happen now? Is sin going to have the final say? Is the broken covenant the end of the story?”

Well, in Genesis 3:8, the covenant-making and covenant-keeping God enters this disastrous scene. He comes to them, calls Adam and Eve out of hiding, and He clothes them, and He covers them.

And then He does tell them what the consequences of their sin, of their rebellion, would be. And like we heard last night, He begins with the serpent. But what we read is that even as He curses the serpent, He is at the same time promising redemption for His people from the consequences of their sin.

Why? Because He's going to keep His side of the covenant. He's a covenant-keeping God.

Genesis 3:15: "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring, your seed, or you or her child; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."

This singular promised male offspring—that's what's loaded into that word—is a child. He will crush your head, and you will strike His heel. God is promising that the one who was just defeated will, in the end, defeat. And really, the entire drama is played out in light of this promise and these events as people come on the scene.

Every time we turn the page and a new child is born, a new character is introduced, we should wonder: Is this him? Is this the promised seed who will crush the serpent?We are reading a story where everyone in it was asking: “Who will be able to crush the serpent? Who will be able to rescue us from his rule? Who will be able to bring us back to the Garden and restore the covenant?

Well, let's see how God answers.

So we had the covenant with Adam. The second covenant is the covenant with Noah. Adam and Eve are expelled from the Garden, and then we see sin and death abound in the next eight chapters. Cain murders Abel. Lamech kills numerous men. Corruption overflows.

Genesis 6:5: "The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time."

And so we should be asking again: did sin win? God promised in Genesis 3:15 that he would win. But all we read about after the Garden is sin abounding, and then God sends the flood over all the earth.

And so the question is, “Did His promise survive the destruction? Is our covenant-making God still going to be a covenant-keeping God? Is He going to be faithful to His Word?”

When we read the account in Genesis 6 through 9 of Noah and the flood, we should read these chapters and hear God shouting from the mountaintops that He will forever be faithful to Himself, to His Word, and to His people. He’s going to accomplish all that He promised to do. Nothing is going to triumph over Him—especially not sin and corruption.

The flood destroyed almost everything, but God again saved in the midst of judgment. With Noah, God reestablished the covenant He made with Adam in the Garden. He reestablished His covenant with humanity. They’re still going to bear His image. The things that were true in the Garden—they’re still called to fill the earth with His presence.

And so we say, “Well, was Noah then the promised seed? Was he the one who would crush the serpent?” But sadly, from Genesis 9 to 11, we see: no.

There is again a rapid downward spiral. Noah sins. His sons sin. Then we have the account of their descendants completely disobeying God and attempting to build the Tower of Babel.

And so we ask again: “Has sin won?”

Then we turn the page to Genesis 12. The covenant is our third covenant—now Adam, Noah, Abraham. God called one man out of all the peoples of the earth. He called one man to come and follow Him, and He entered into covenant with him.

He promised Abraham several things: 

• He promised him a seed—which, that word should sound familiar—an heir, actually. He tells Abraham, “You’re going to have descendants. You’re going to have heirs as numerous as the stars in the sky.” 
• He promises him land, which is a major plot in the Old Testament as we see the people finally entering it, only to be exiled from it, and then returned to it.
• But most of all, God tells Abraham that through him, He is going to bless all the peoples of the earth. God’s sights have always been set on the whole earth.

God says in Genesis 12:

Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you. [Abraham] all the families of the earth shall be blessed. (vv. 1–3)

That’s a big promise—and that’s in Genesis 12.

In Genesis 15, we read of a traditional covenantal ceremony. Animals are split in two. A path was made. But unlike any other covenantal ceremony, only one party walked through—only God walked through the pieces. And every reader should wonder, Why? Why only God?

Keep reading.

The story goes on. Abraham had Isaac. Isaac had Jacob. Jacob had Joseph. And eventually, about seventy people—this one man has now turned into a little family of about seventy people—and they go into Egypt because there was a famine. They stay for four hundred years.

And do you know what Scripture tells us? Abraham’s descendants became as numerous as the stars in the sky. While they’re in Egypt, this family group grew into a large people group, and they were enslaved by the Egyptians. But God—always faithful—goes into Egypt. Our story is a story where God is always coming to us.

And so God goes into Egypt, and He rescues this group of people. It’s called the exodus. It’s the single most referred to event in the entire Old Testament. It’s the blueprint of the rescue that is to come.

After Abraham’s descendants leave Egypt and they cross the Red Sea miraculously, the first thing that happens is God calls this people group to Himself at the base of Mount Sinai. That’s when He establishes them as the nation of Israel—Exodus 19. He enters into covenant with Israel through Moses.

This is our fourth covenant. So now it is no longer a covenant with just one man or one family, but with a nation.

Exodus 19, starting in verse 4:

“You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself [meaning, you didn’t do anything, I did the whole thing]. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant [Do you hear what He’s saying? If you will be a faithful covenantal partner, because that’s your part, to be loyal and to be obedient, you shall be My treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is Mine] and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” (vv. 4–6)

And so this covenant that He enters into with Israel through Moses includes the law and includes the tabernacle. That’s where God is beginning the process of dwelling with His people again.

He establishes Israel as His people, and He reestablishes His purposes: you are a kingdom of priests. You’re to mediate blessing. That’s what priests do. You’re to be an entire nation that mediates blessing to the whole world.

And then after that, after He makes them His covenantal partners, He gives them the law, which is their side of the covenant. That’s what they’re to do: keep the law. That’s how they’re going to be faithful covenantal partners.

And so at this point in the story, they are the people of God, and they are living in the presence of God, kind of through the tabernacle, in the place that God has for them. Well, at least almost—the Promised Land is not yet fulfilling the purposes of God. No, they’re supposed to, but they’re not.

So fast forward again, and God’s people make it into the Promised Land. They settle in, and they want a king. Saul is their first king. And then God gives them David, and He enters into covenant with David. This is our fifth covenant—Second Samuel 7.

The Lord declares to you:

The Lord Himself will establish a house for you. When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring [there’s that word again, your seed, your heir] to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my name. (vv. 11–13 NIV)

And as we’re reading that, we’re thinking, It’s Solomon, it’s Solomon. But then God says something, and we know as the reader, there is no way that this is Solomon. He says:

And I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever [an eternal throne, an eternal kingdom]. (v. 13)

So the promised seed is still coming. It wasn’t Adam. It wasn’t Noah. It wasn’t Abraham. It wasn’t Moses. It wasn’t David. 

• We are still waiting for the one who will crush Satan’s head (Genesis 3:15). 
• We are still waiting for the one who will bless all the peoples of the earth (Genesis 12). 
• We are waiting for somebody who will be the perfect Israelite, perfectly keeping the law, being a perfect covenantal partner. 
• And we are now waiting for one whose kingdom and throne will endure forever.

I mean, what expectations! If this is what we need, how are we ever going to get back to the Garden? How are we ever going to be saved? How will we ever be rescued?

Well, before we get to that answer, I want to answer our fourth question. And our fourth question is: “Why? Why would God bind Himself to them—to us? What compels God to act? What compels God to cut covenant with us?”

And I will say, if you do not remember anything else from today, please remember this: if the covenants move the story along, there is a theme that runs underneath all of the covenants. It is a theme that reveals the heart of God, and it is captured in a phrase Kevin shared with us last night: “I will be your God, and you will be My people.”

And it is repeated over and over and over and over: “I will be your God, the God of your descendants after you. I will take you as My own people. I will be your God” (Leviticus 26, remember this one). “I will walk among you and be your God. You will be My people. I am claiming you to be my people. They will be My people. I will be their God. I will be their God. They will be my people.”

The entire biblical story is a story of God making things right for the purpose of dwelling with us again. That is the heart of our Father, who will stop at nothing so that we can dwell with Him again.

But how? How can the holy dwell in the midst of the unholy? How can the righteous dwell in the midst of the unrighteous? How will God accomplish His purposes and keep His covenant?

Because as the story progresses, we see Israel fail their side of the covenant again and again and again and again. They are disobedient. They are rebellious. They are unfaithful. Most of the prophets are during this time, the time of the kings and exiles. And what they’re doing is they’re trying to call God’s people back to covenantal faithfulness.

God eventually sends them out of the land, away from the temple. So when they’re in exile, they’re still the people of God, but they are no longer living in the presence of God. The temple has been destroyed. They are no longer in the place that God made for them. They’ve been exiled out of the land—all because they didn’t fulfill the purposes of God.

After they return from exile, we have 400 years of silence from God. And the silence is broken with the birth announcement to end all birth announcements, which is: “They shall call His name Immanuel,” which means God with us.

John starts off his Gospel by saying, “The Word became flesh and he made His dwelling among us” (1:14) Remember Leviticus 26? “I will walk among you.” Since creation, God’s desire—the heart of our God—is to dwell with His people. And salvation, the great rescue mission, is all about bringing us back so that we can dwell with our good Father again.

God accomplishes His promise of victory and blessing by cutting the New Covenant. When God entered into covenant with Abraham, He split animals in two, and He passed through their torn bodies. In the same way, He enters into the New Covenant with us.

Matthew 27 says, “And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.” (vv. 50–51 NIV) But Hebrews expands on that. Hebrews 10 says this:

Therefore brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened up for us through the curtain, that is, his body. (v. 19 NIV)

His body—that is the cutting of the new and the final covenant. His body torn in two, cut on our behalf.

God not only kept both sides of the covenant, He became the covenant. He became the ceremony. He became the path itself. When Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one [is going to] come to the Father except through me,” (John 14:6) there is no other way.

Jesus is the way back into the presence of God. He is the way into being counted among God’s people. He is the place in which you and I were intended to dwell. Jesus is the hero of the story, sent by the Father at just the right time to rescue His people.

Jesus is the promised seed who crushed the serpent’s head. He was a descendant of Adam and Noah and Abraham and Moses, and David. He was born so that all the families of the earth could be blessed. He’s the truest Israelite who kept the law on our behalf, and He is the King whose throne and whose kingdom will never end.

When 2 Corinthians 1:20 (NIV) says, “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ,” this is what he’s talking about. They are “Yes.” God fulfilled all of His promises in Christ. And so God’s plan to be our God and to dwell with us has never changed. It’s just that the fulfillment of those promises—the accomplishment of those promises—was, as one scholar said, “both more gruesome and more glorious than anyone could have ever imagined simultaneously.”

But there is more. There is still a glorious conclusion to the story. Because after the crucifixion is the resurrection, and after the resurrection is the ascension. And then He pours out His Spirit onto us, and He establishes His Church. And the Church is the newly formed people of God.

This is where we live. This is our place in the story. This is where you and I are called to love and obey God. This is where you and I are called to be faithful covenantal partners.

But what do we have to look forward to? How will the story end? What is our happily ever after?

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. (Rev. 21:1–2 NIV)

“And I heard a loud voice from the throne”—and I love that John tells us it was a loud voice. It’s like God Himself is longing for this day, and He just shouts it. And what’s the word He shouts? “Now.”

“Now”—meaning there is a day coming when the Lord of the universe is going to say that word loudly from the throne: now! And what is He so excited about when that day comes? 

“The dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God.” (Rev. 21:3 paraphrased)

He has accomplished the desire of His heart, which is to dwell with you and with me. And then He’s going to wipe every tear from their eyes—and I love how Kevin DeYoung said, “Do you know how close someone has to be to do that? He will wipe every tear from their eyes.”

There will be no more death, or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. (v. 4 NIV)

And on that day, friends, if you are in Christ—if you have entered into relationship with a holy God through the way that has been made for you and me through the New Covenant—then we will be the people of God, and we will be fully and completely, for all eternity, living in the presence of God.

And we will actually be in the place that God made for us. Jesus even tells His disciples, “I go away to prepare a . . .” what? “. . . a place.” A place for us—fulfilling, finally, the purposes of God, which will be for His glory.

And so Scripture—the Bible—is not a compilation of standalone truth statements. It’s not a list of rules of what to do and what not to do. It’s not a set of doctrines to intellectually conquer. It is the greatest and truest story ever told. It is the story of what God has done for the redemption of His world—how He has worked here for us, for our behalf.

And it’s the story itself that proclaims a God so powerful, so sovereign, so faithful, that He is worthy of your entire life. He is worthy of your loyalty. He is worthy of your obedience.

And so I hope that you have seen clearly that if you have trusted in this God—this covenant-making, covenant-keeping God—that He has fulfilled all of His promises in the death and resurrection of His Son.

I hope you know deep in your soul that God will never leave you or forsake you. He has cut covenant using the body of His own Son so that you and I would never be cut off.

And so, friends, rest deeply in the deep, deep love of our faithful God.

All Scripture is taken from the ESV unless otherwise noted.