The Three Chapter Bible

Hebrew 10:7, 9

….’Behold, I [Jesus] have come – In thevolume of the book it is written of Me – To do Your will, O God.’…He takes away the first [covenant of condemnation] that He may establish the second [covenant of grace].’ (2 Corinthians 3:7-9)

Genesis 1:1

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Genesis 2:15

Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every  tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’

 

Genesis 3:4-14, 21

Then the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die….’

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ So he said, ‘I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.’

And He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat? Then the man said, ‘The woman whom You gave to be with me she gave me of the tree, and I ate.’ And he Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me and I ate.’

 

So the Lord God said to the serpent:

…And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.

 

Also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics of skin, and clothed them.

 

Galatians 3: 16

Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made…’And to your Seed,’ who is Christ.

The Bible defines God as love, not as merely having love, but as being love ‘itself’. (1 John 4:16)

Too often we define God as Adam did in the garden, as someone to be afraid of, of someone who is angry with us for doing wrong. Our knowledge of the wrong things we do causes us to shy away from a perfect holy God, but this was never God’s desire for man to be afraid of Him or be apart from Him. His desire is to always be near us. (Genesis 3:10, Hebrews 13:5)

 

Even if we only read the first three chapters of the Bible, God shows Himself to be a God of love, a God of justice, and a God of grace. God came to fellowship with Adam and Eve, giving them everything they would ever need because He loved them. (Genesis 2:15, 3:8) He showed Himself to be a God of justice by condemning the serpent for deceiving man. And showed Himself to be a God of grace by planning to send the Seed, Jesus Christ to pay for sin; also clothing Adam and Eve’s nakedness in the first animal sacrifice – a shadow or picture of Jesus. (Genesis 3:21)

If He was only a God of judgment and condemnation, the Bible could have ended there; it could have read, ‘So the Lord God condemned Adam and Eve to instant death for their sin.’  But the Bible continues beyond Adam’s sin, because God loved man. He planned from this very beginning not a cruel punishment for man but a righteous way of grace to reconcile man back to Himself demonstrating His love through sending His Seed – Jesus Christ to die the death that man deserved. (Colossians 1:19, Romans 5:8)

Matthew 26:28

For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission [forgiveness] of sins.

 

Jesus, in Hebrews 10, explains this will of God to pay for the world’s sins from the beginning of creation summarizing the entire volume of the Bible as being about the grace and love of God – Jesus Christ. (Hebrews 10: 7,9) Jesus is the fullness of God’s grace. (John 1:14) And grace is the unearned favour of God. (Romans 4:4, Romans 11:6)

 

The purpose for the old covenant of law, the covenant of condemnation, was not God wanting to demand righteousness from man, but to show man that we are in hopeless need of grace, hopeless need of a Saviour. (Galatians 3:24-25, 2 Corinthians 3:7-9)

You cannot talk about Jesus without talking about the grace and love of God. The entire volume of the Bible is about Jesus; it was written to let us know there is a God who loves us, not a God who is continually angry with us. To see Jesus on the cross is to see the love of God. (Romans 5:8, 1 John 4:10) God was righteous in making us the righteousness of God in Christ. (Romans 3:24-26, 2 Corinthians 5:21) Clothing us in righteousness; placing us in guilt-free standing before God by His abundant grace! (Isaiah 61:10, Romans 5:17)

Thank God the three-chapter Bible doesn’t exist! We get the opportunity to know this loving, just and gracious God. He is grace and grace has been His heart from before time began. (John 1:17, 1 Peter 1:20) Because God loves us completely, He has forgiven us completely. (Ephesians 1:7, Colossians 1:14) There is no sin debt being counted against you. All debt has been paid. (Hebrews 8:12) He loves you. Amen.