The Key to Understanding the Bible
The one great subject which runs through the whole Word of God is Christ, the promised seed of the woman in Gen. 3:15.
This verse tells of the depth by which man had descended in the Fall: and it is the foundation for the rest of the Bible.
All hope for the restoration for man and for creation is centered in Christ:
-who in due time should be born into the world
-would suffer and die for mankind
-after his resurrection, should become the Head of the new creation
-finally crush the head of the Old Serpent (who brought us to ruin)
Christ , therefore, the King, and the Kingdom which he should eventually set up, becomes the great subject which occupies the whole of the Word of God.The contents of the Bible must therefore be seen and arranged with reference to Him. The counsels and purposes of God are all centered in Christ.
1. In the Old Testament we have the King and the Kingdom in Promise and Prophecy, Illustration, and Type. Genesis – Malachi
2. In the Four Gospels – Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John, we have the King and the Kingdom presented and proclaimed by John the Baptist, and by Christ himself.
3. In the early Acts of the Apostles, the Kingdom is offered to Israel by Peter. Christ is proclaimed to Israel as their crucified and ascended Messiah. He is rejected, Stephen is stoned, and Peter imprisoned.
Then Paul, who had been already chosen and called (Acts 9), is commissioned for His Ministry (Acts 13), and on the final rejection of his testimony concerning the Kingdom, he pronounces the third and last time the sentence of judicial blindness of Israel in Isaiah 6, and declares that “the salvation is sent to the Gentiles” Acts 28:25-28
In His final communication to Hebrew believers it is written that while in God’s counsels all things had been put under Christ’s feet, “we see NOT YET all things put under Him”.(Hebrews 2:7-9)
4. In the Epistles we have the King exalted, and (while the Kingdom is in abeyance) made the Head over all things to the Church, during this present interval; the Dispensation of the grace of God and the Mystery is revealed.
5. In the Apocolyse we have the Revelation of the King in judgement; and we see the Kingdom set up, the King enthroned in power and glory, the promise fullfilled, and prophecy ended.