Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God.

Script:

For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people.

11 Timothy, Chapter 2, verses 5 and 6, New International Version

VK: Hello! Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. I’m Victoria K. We’re so happy to have you with us today on Anchored by Truth as we continue with the series that we began in our last episode. We’re calling this series “The Bible: Cornerstone and Context.” Our goal on Anchored by Truth is to help people understand that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God. And one powerful way for people to come to that awareness is for them to realize that the Bible is a pre-eminently reasonable book. Some people may come to the Bible and think that the various books and stories contained in the Bible were just sort of randomly assembled. But nothing could be further from the truth. The Bible is a unified revelation. To help us continue this invaluable discovery, today in the studio we have RD Fierro, an author and the founder of Crystal Sea Books. RD, why did you decide to do a series you call “Cornerstone and Context?”

RD: Well, I’d also like to welcome everyone joining us here today as we continue our new series. We’ve talked often on Anchored by Truth that in our day and age there is widespread Biblical ignorance in our culture. And surprisingly that Biblical ignorance extends even into our churches. If you talk to the average person sitting in a pew on Sunday morning and ask them whether they believe the Bible is the word of God the vast majority will say yes. But when you ask them to explain to you why they believe that you get a lot of blank stares. It’s not that they are not sincere in their belief. It’s that all too often they have only a cursory understanding of the faith they claim and even more cursory understanding of the Bible. That’s sad but it’s also perilous – because a Christian who can’t provide a reasoned explanation of what they believe and why they believe it is just chum to the cultural sharks who swarm in school buildings, the media, academia, corporate hallways, and government. Some surveys have said that as many as three-quarters of the kids raised in Christian homes lose their faith when the leave home.

VK: What you’re saying is that our culture is no longer a safe place to be a Christian. While there are a lot of platitudes hurled around that talk about freedom of thought and expression, the truth is that the consistent target for denigration today is evangelical Christianity. Now we shouldn’t be surprised by this. Jesus told us that his people would be a target for the world and the devil. In what may be Jesus’ best-known discourse on the end times he said this: “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.” That’s the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 24, verses 9 through 11.

RD: Yes. Note that in those verses Jesus warned that “many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other.” Since Jesus said that these people would “turn away” that means that for at least some time there would be people who were seemingly His followers, seemingly Christian, but they really weren’t. And the occasion for those people abandoning their false profession of faith was because of persecution. We all need to take Jesus’ warning to heart and make sure that we aren’t among the group that turns away. We need to make sure that we – and our families and friends – are firmly grounded in their faith.

VK: … that they are “anchored by truth” in other words…

RD: Yes - anchored by truth. That’s why we named this show what we did. People with a shallow faith are going to be swept away when waves of persecution come. We’re already seeing that all around us. The fastest growing religious group in America today is the so-called “nones.” These are the people who possess no religious faith.

VK: But that’s really a deceptive label isn’t it. People may say they don’t believe in any religion but they are just lying to themselves. It’s just that they have substituted a false idol for faith in the One True God. And while in our society they are certainly free to do that they are not free to do that without consequences. Because God has been very clear that He will one day call all people to account. The Apostle Paul wrote “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.” That’s 2 Corinthians, chapter 5, verse 10. The consequence of people rejecting Christ in this life is that Christ will not recognize them as His people when they stand before Him at judgment.

RD: Yes – and that’s actually what I wanted to talk more about today - salvation. I’d guess that if you asked a lot of Christians to explain exactly how Christ provides salvation to His people we would get a lot of blank stares.

VK: Well, I think a lot of people would say something like “we’re saved by Christ’s death on the cross” or “we’re saved because Jesus took our sins away.”

RD: I think they would and both of those statements are accurate. But they are incomplete in terms of the basis for our salvation. Both of those statements are essentially statements about the result of Christ’s atoning death – and it is a glorious result indeed. But a complete understanding and explanation of how Christ provided salvation to His people means going beyond just the result to the origin of the need for salvation and the process used to bring about the result.

VK: In other words the cornerstone and context of our salvation.

RD: In so many words yes.

VK: Well, I think many people might say “I don’t need to know how I was saved. I just need to know that I am saved.

RD: And that would be unfortunate for a number of reasons but let’s just mention one for today. Studying scripture is not optional for God’s people. In Paul’s epistle to the Philippians he told them to “work out [their] salvation with fear and trembling.” That’s Philippians, chapter 2, verse 12. Now Paul is not telling the Philippians to be afraid of the work. He is telling them that they must be diligent about being obedient to his admonitions and the commands of scripture because expects His people to do their best. We should be afraid of not doing our best for Jesus because as Paul pointed out earlier Jesus gave up a heavenly throne to provide our salvation. In other words, God and Jesus gave us the greatest blessing possible – eternal salvation – but to do that God had to send His only begotten Son to die for us. It’s incumbent on us then to express our gratitude by at least taking the trouble to understand what God did for us. In addition to the instruction God gave to the Philippians Paul also gave his follower Timothy, and us, an express command to study scripture.

VK: You’re thinking of 2 Timothy, chapter 2, verse 15. In the Amplified Bible that verse says, “Study and do your best to present yourself to God approved, a workman [tested by trial] who has no reason to be ashamed, accurately handling and skillfully teaching the word of truth.”

RD: Right. God commands us to study God’s word, the Bible. And if we do that we will be able to explain not only the result of our salvation but why it was necessary in the first place. And, even more wonderfully, we will be able to explain the true elegance of the plan of redemption.

VK: And one thing that can help everyone with developing a complete understanding of how and why Jesus saved us is by returning to the grand story that the Bible tells. In our last episode of Anchored by Truth we mentioned that the Bible is a single book about a single plan centered on a single man. The plan was God’s plan to redeem a people for Himself. The man who is the center of God’s plan of redemption, and all of history for that matter, is Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus is the cornerstone of the Bible and History. And the grand saga that the Bible relates is a saga of creation, fall, and redemption.

RD: So, one thing that we can immediately see by returning to the big story, the grand saga, is the origin of the need for Jesus to die an atoning death on the cross – the fall of man that occurred in the Garden of Eden. If Adam and Eve had obeyed God’s command to not eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil man would never have fallen. So, the origin of the need for the sacrifice of God’s only Son lies in the fall of man that is reported in chapter 3 of the book of Genesis.

VK: If man had not fallen, sin would not have entered the created order. And therefore man would not have to have been redeemed from the consequences of sin. But once man fell, God had to do something to save His elect because if God had done nothing everyone would have been lost.

RD: Correct. So, let’s work our way through the chain of salvation step by step. In chapter 1 of Genesis we hear the overall story of creation. Then in chapter 2 we get more detailed information about how created the pinnacle of creation, man and woman. At the end of chapter 2 everything is good – in fact very good – within the created order.

VK: Sadly, all that changed in the opening verses of chapter 3 of Genesis – because in the first verse of chapter 3 we start to hear about the serpent. The serpent is really the devil in disguise. We learn about that from chapter 12 of the book of Revelation.

VK: And we also learn from this encounter that temptation is not sin. We can be tempted and still not sin. I think this confuses a lot of people. They think that just because they are experiencing temptation that they have sinned. But just encountering temptation is not necessarily sinful. Now it may be our sin that leads us to rush into places where we will encounter temptation more readily, but we can also encounter temptation even if we haven’t done that. Temptation is all around us – unfortunately. But just because we are tempted does not mean we have sinned. One of Satan’s favorite tricks is to discourage us by convincing us we sinned when all we really experienced was temptation.

RD: I agree. At any rate Eve did ultimately succumb to Satan’s temptations and Adam followed right along with her. That lapse, that first sin changed everything – not just for mankind but for all of creation. So, at that point man was lost. Man had incurred an infinite debt.

VK: Man is finite creature. All creatures are finite. But God is infinite. So, the consequences of man’s rebellion were infinite because man had offended a Being of infinite proportions and attributes. Even in our society we recognize that the consequences of our action are dependent on not just the offender but the offended. Lie to your neighbor and that may or not be a crime. Lie on a loan application and it is likely a criminal offense. Betray a friend and you’re a false friend. Betray your country and its treason. The severity of an action is dependent on both sides of the transaction.

RD: Yes. So, after Adam and Eve rebelled, sinned, in the Garden of Eden they and all of their children would have been eternally condemned had God not immediately began a plan of redemption. But He did. God immediately announced that Satan’s dark plan for the downfall of man would one day result in Satan’s eternal death. God said that one of Eve’s descendants, the “seed of the woman” as the King James Version puts it, would crush Satan’s head. Crushing the head of a serpent is a fatal blow. But defeating Satan wouldn’t come without cost. The serpent would strike the heel of the One who would crush his head – a painful but not fatal blow.

VK: So, immediately, even before the Bible’s account of the first sin has ended we already have 3 elements that help us begin to understand how Jesus accomplished our salvation. Element number 1 is that the coming hero would be the “seed of a woman” but not of a man. Element number 2 is that whoever this hero is going to be it is going to be a man. Most versions that translate Genesis, chapter 3, verse 15 use the pronoun “he” to talk about the person who is going to crush Satan’s head. And third we can understand that for the curse of sin to be reversed it is going to take a Person of infinite value. As we have said the debt Adam and Eve incurred in the Garden was an infinite debt. And a finite man cannot pay an infinite debt no matter how hard he tries or how long he works.

RD: Right. So, even just knowing the beginning of the grand story is of immense value to understanding how Jesus saved us by his sacrificial death on the cross. We leave the third chapter of the first book of the Bible with three criteria that are going to be true of the coming Messiah. And more criteria will be added as the plan of redemption proceeds. Redemptive history began in the Garden of Eden began there but it most certainly didn’t end there. From chapters 6 through 9 of Genesis we find out that the coming Messiah would be descendant of Noah – because only Noah, his 3 sons, and their wives were the only people who survived the worldwide flood. In chapter 12 of Genesis we find out that the Savior will be a descendent of the patriarch Abraham because God tells Abraham that all the peoples on earth will be blessed through him. And in chapter 14 of Genesis we first hear of the mysterious figure “Melchizedek.” We find out in Psalm 110, verse 4 that this figure Melchizedek is a figure who presages the kind of priest that the Messiah will be.

VK: And we find out that Jesus fulfilled this priestly role by three separate references in the book of Hebrews. Those verses are Hebrews, chapter 5, verse 6, and chapter 7 verses17 and 21. And in scripture a three-fold repetition of something is significant, isn’t it.

RD: Yes. There aren’t many three-fold repetitions of words or phrases in scripture they are always used by God as a form of emphasis. In the case of the Messiah God was telling the Jews that the Messiah would be not only be a priest but also a king. He was also telling them that the Messiah would not be from the priestly tribe of Levi. And God continued to add criteria and attributes throughout the Old Testament that would allow the Jews and the world to know Jesus was the Messiah when Jesus arrived in the world. Jesus would be born in Bethlehem, enter Jerusalem on a donkey’s colt, be crucified between two thieves, buried in a rich man’s tomb, but rise again to sit at the right hand of God. All of these signs of the Messiah, and others, were given to the Jews in their scriptures were fulfilled in Jesus’ life.

VK: And the point is that because we know that God’s grand plan and the big story of the Bible is all about creation, fall, and redemption we can trace a consistent path through the Old Testament. Immediately after the fall God told Adam and Eve that a Deliverer would come and God immediately gave them distinctive criteria that would mark the Messiah. So, by getting a firm grasp on the larger context in which all the various events, stories, and prophecies of the Old Testament are set we can see the progress of redemptive history. When God gives a new criteria that will mark the life of the Messiah, like being born of a virgin, we can look and see if we have evidence that that criteria was fulfilled in the life of Jesus. Context keeps the lights on for our pathway. So, by keeping the larger context in mind we can better organize our study to ensure we get the most out of time with scripture.

RD: Yep. So, now let’s start to put all these ideas together and see God’s perfect elegance in both establishing the plan of salvation and then shepherding it to completion. God warned Adam and Eve that if they ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil they would die.

VK: In other words, the consequence of disobedience was death. Or as the Apostle Paul said in Romans, chapter 6, verse 23 “the wages of sin is death.”

RD: Yep. Well, Adam and Eve did eat from the forbidden tree and they experienced death. Not only did they die but everyone who would descend from them would also die. The curse of death, the sting of death, would have been an eternal part of the created order if God had not intervened.

VK: And God had to intervene – because man had incurred an infinite debt to God. And as we have said a finite man cannot pay an infinite debt. The only Infinite Being that exists is God. So, God had to figure out how to pay that infinite debt if any people were ever to be saved. Man’s sin estranged man from God. Restoration required reconciliation. But man couldn’t do what was necessary for reconciliation. Only God could. And God did.

RD: And this is where our opening scripture fills in a key thought. In our opening scripture from 1 Timothy Paul tells Timothy that “there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus.” A mediator must be capable of representing both sides of a transaction. So, the mediator between God and man had to be able to represent both God and man.

VK: Which is why the 2nd Person of the Trinitarian Godhead had to take on a human nature. This is the miracle of the incarnation. Biologically speaking Jesus was born of Mary but the baby in Mary’s womb had actually resulted from the Holy Spirit coming “on her” as most translations put it. Now we don’t understand exactly how the Holy Spirit did but an infinite God who created the entire universe and all life in the universe wouldn’t have any trouble creating a baby in a virgin’s womb. So, Jesus was the Son of a human mother but in a very real sense He was also the Son of a Divine Father.

RD: Yep. Because God brought Jesus into the created order the way He did Jesus came equipped to be the mediator to reconcile man to God.

VK: What remained was for Jesus to live a “spotless” life because a Perfect God can only accept a perfect sacrifice. And Jesus did live a sinless life, a perfect life before God. This fulfilled the Covenant Works which Adam and Eve had violated in the Garden.

RD: Yep. And that sinless Jesus died unjustly on a Roman cross fulfilling the mandated consequence that death be the wage paid for sin.

VK: But Jesus had no sin of His own. He did not need to pay the price for His own sin. That meant that He could pay for our sins. And since Jesus is fully God as well as fully man his sacrificial death had infinite value. And all of this had been clearly set forth in the Old Testament as the way that God would redeem His people. Most of the Jews of Jesus day, including the religious elites did not understand it. A few did but not many. So, in the New Testament the writers began to unpack the Old Testament prophecies in sufficient details to make it clear. Sounds like the religious elites could have done well to understand the cornerstone and context.

RD: Quite possibly. We are fortunate in a way that the elites in 1st century Israel were not. We have the New Testament as well as the Old. We now understand exactly how Jesus fulfilled the role of being a priest forever according to Melchizedek because an inspired writer has spelled it out for us. And we understand that there will be two comings of the Messiah. The first coming was as the suffering Servant, the sacrificial Lamb. The second coming will be as the Conquering Lion. We can see clearly the meaning of ideas and themes that they could only perceive dimly. That’s a huge blessing. But it is no blessing at all if we neglect to use the scriptures that God has provided. But when we do we see that far from our Christian faith being a “leap in the dark” what we are actually doing is placing our faith in the abundant evidence that God has supplied. And if we understand the evidence we can explain it to others. That’s how we fulfill the Great Commission Jesus gave in Matthew 28 to make disciples of all nations.

VK: Well, our thought-provoking journey into the cornerstone and context of the Bible continues. It should be a great encouragement to everyone to know that God never expected us to turn off our brains while we follow our hearts in response to His outreach of love. Hopefully, listeners will let others know about this series. It really can be a valuable resource to the skeptic and the believer alike. This sounds like a great time to pray. Today let’s listen to a prayer for the celebration of the day that our Lord rose out the earth by His own power. In doing so He conquered death for all who would place their trust in Him as Lord and Savior. Because of Jesus’ resurrection we can boldly ask “O grave where is your victory? O death where is your sting?” And the answer we receive is that they are gone and we will live eternally in the light of God’s blessed radiance.

---- PRAYER FOR EASTER

VK: We’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.”

If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not perfect but our Boss is!”

(Bible Quotes from the New Living Translation)

1 Samuel, Chapter 17, verses 5 through 7, New Living Translation

https://www.baslibrary.org/biblical-archaeology-review/8/4/1

https://patternsofevidence.com/2018/10/26/david-battles-goliath/)