In the last article, we explained why good Christians disagree about the bible’s big story. Today, we sketch what we believe the true big story is. At its simplest level, it unfolds in three movements:
- Paradise made. God made everything good and holy, as it was supposed to be. There was no sin, no rebellion, no imperfection. Our first parents and this world were wholesome and untainted. This is why Moses tell us: “And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good” (Gen 1:31).
- Paradise lost. Everything falls apart. Satan tricked Eve into eating fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and she (in turn) persuaded her husband to do the same (Gen 3:1-7). “Our first parents, by this sin, fell from their original righteousness and communion with God.” As our representatives, their guilt was imputed and their corrupted nature conveyed to each of us—their descendants—by ordinary generation. And so, “death came upon all: all becoming dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body” (1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, Art(s) 8.2, 8.3; see also Rom 3, 5).
- Paradise regained. God rescues a community of people, places them in a new land, and gives them a king to rule over them and be a blessing to all the families of the earth. Sin is banished. There is a new creation—a new heavens and a new earth, “and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away” (Rev 21:4). Some Christians imagine eternity as a vague spiritual existence in heaven, contemplating God. The truth is that paradise is a “new creation” existence where God’s people fulfill the creation mandate that went haywire in Genesis 3. Paradise is an “Eden 2.0” that will not fail, because Satan, the antichrist, and sin itself are gone forever.
The key is to see that the story is about God fixing what has gone wrong. It culminates in a new creation paradise, on a true new earth in a truly new creation, where righteousness dwells forever. That’s the goal. That’s the plot.
But that’s the quick version of the bible’s story. We get a deeper sense of the story by following the plot though its various twists and turns. We do this through the different covenants God made with his people. A “covenant” is a formal agreement God makes that has binding obligations. God always seals his covenants with an oath wherein he “solemnly swears” (as it were) to do what he promises to do. Each covenant also has a sign; a symbol that declares something about the covenant it represents. We should think of these covenants as “episodes” in God’s TV series. And, like every good show, it ends by resolving the issues that unfolded throughout the “season.”
Each covenant progressively sketches in what “paradise regained” will look like. Here’s how this deeper version of the bible “big story” shakes out:
Episode 1: The promise in the garden
Though this is not a covenant, it is the big event which follows right on the heels of “paradise lost.” God promises to send a man, descended from Eve, to destroy Satan (Gen 3:15). This descendant will be injured, but he will crush the serpent’s head. In other words, he will smash the snake and destroy the source of all evil. This promise is immediately in jeopardy when our first parent’s only two children are moved off the board—Cain murders Abel and is banished far away to the east (Gen 4). Where, then, are the children through whom this victorious son will come? God has grace and mercy to provide a new son—Seth.
Episode 2: The covenant with Noah and all creation
As generations pass, the growing human population ignores God’s special promise, and a moral darkness descends. God decides to act (Gen 6:5-8) and “reboots” creation with a dreadful flood that destroys all living creatures, except for a precious few. He orders a righteous man named Noah to build a lifeboat of sorts in which to rescue himself, his family, and various creatures (Gen 6:9-22). After this flood subsides, they exit the boat and the “reboot” begins (Gen 7-9). God makes a covenant to withhold another such judgment, so that there will be a people and a world for the Messiah to rescue (Gen 9:1-17; cp. Mt 1:21), according to the promise God made to Eve in the garden.
Episode 3: Covenant with Abraham and family
After the rebellion at Babel (Gen 11), God scatters men and women across the earth. He chooses one obscure man from nowhere to be the source of blessing to the world—the vehicle to make his promise in the darkness (Gen 3:15) come true. God made three specific promises to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3 and confirmed them by way of a covenant in Genesis 15; re-iterated in Genesis 17, and 22, and later to Isaac and Jacob.
This covenant is the fountainhead for all of God’s promises to come. It marks out the Jewish people (those descended from the Abraham-Isaac-Jacob line) as God’s special people, who are promised a specific land of Canaan in which to live, so they can be a blessing to all the families of the earth. This is why the Messiah is the son of Abraham” (Mt 1:1). This covenant is the basis for Mary’s hope (Lk 1:55) and for Zechariah’s, too (Lk 1:72-75).
The raw shape of “paradise regained” is coming into focus—a people, in a land, being a blessing to all the families of the earth.
Episode 3.5: Covenant with Israel at Mt. Sinai
The Lord rescues His special people, Abraham’s descendants, from slavery in Egypt and brings them to their new home to wait for the promise. They agree to a covenant that will teach them how to love him and live holy lives until the Messiah comes (Ex 19:1-9; Deut 18:15-19). Unlike the others, this covenant doesn’t move the story forward. Like an airplane orbiting, waiting for permission to land, God’s people were in a holding pattern waiting for Jesus to arrive. So, God tells them how to live holy lives while they’re waiting.
It established rules and boundaries. Breaking the laws, in and of themselves, did not get you kicked out of the family, but disciplined within it. This covenant taught people about themselves—that they were sinful. It taught people about God—that he is holy and righteous and punishes sin. The ceremonial laws (the sacrifices and such) were object lessons to teach us about Christ. The civil laws (statutes about everyday life) were general principles of righteousness applied to their specific kingdom context. The moral laws were a mirror to show us our true nature, a general restraint on sin, and a vehicle for nudging his people towards greater holiness.
Episode 4: Covenant with David
The conquest and occupation of the Promised Land is haphazard. Many forsake God and go their way, and the High Priest and the judges cannot hold us together. God institutes a monarchy, and prophesies about a better King who will bring true holiness and justice to us and his world (2 Sam 7:1-17; 1 Chr 17:1-15). While they waited for God’s covenant promises to be fulfilled, God gave his people a king to rule over them. He established a dynastic line through a boy named David. He said a man from this line would rule over his people and be his royal representative on earth. God said this king would be like a son to him, and he’d be like a father to the king.
Now, our shape of paradise regained is a people, in a particular land, being a blessing to all the families of the earth, ruled over by a king whose reign would never end.
Episode 5: New covenant in Christ
This is the promise of a new shape to our relationship with God, and Jesus is the one who brings this new arrangement to pass. Generations have passed. A civil war has torn God’s people in two, and the dual monarchies of Judah and Israel have betrayed God again and again. Sin abounds. Externalism reigns. Under the looming shadow of an impending exile, God sends word of a new and better hope, built on better promises—a suffering servant who will set everything right (Jer 31:31-40; Ezek 36-37; Isa 52:12-53:13).
This messenger will love God, lead the people in righteousness, and bring a new shape to God’s relationship with his people—one in which all his people have full legal pardon and an interior renovation of their hearts and minds. Our shape of “paradise regained” now looks like a people, in a particular land, being a blessing to all the families of the earth, ruled over by a king whose reign will never end—and all his people are fixed inside and out.
The polaroid analogy
The bible’s story ends in Revelation 21-22 with new people in a new world. Through Christ, God will have “reconcile[d] all things to Himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross” (Col 1:20). The core of this are the people + land + be a blessing promises God made to Abraham, augmented by the covenant with David (an eternal king) and the new covenant about Christ (legal pardon + interior renovation). Jesus is the domino which triggers the chain reaction of these covenant promises that he fulfills by the very end of the story—a people, in a real paradise land, ruled by a king, having been cleansed by an interior renovation and been given full legal pardon for their sins.
This fulfillment fades in starting at Matthew 1:1 and concludes at Revelation 22:21 in four main stages:
- Gospels. Jesus arrives and announces that he has come to fulfill all the covenant promises—this is the “good news” (Mk 1:15). The right response is to believe and trust in Jesus to be counted righteous by God.
- This present evil age. The Jesus family, the church, declares this good news to the world and works to gather a people for him, while promising full legal pardon and interior renovation for all who repent and trust in Jesus.
- Christ’s millennial reign. This is like a “spring training” version of eternal paradise, where Jesus will reign for 1,000 years. This will be a nearly paradise-like kingdom with its base in the land of Canaan, with a great nation of Jewish messengers and evangelists, who are a blessing to all the families of the earth as they preach the good news abroad, with Jesus ruling as king of the world. As we mentioned in the previous article, the millennium is a lengthy transition period between this present, evil age and the paradise to come.
- Paradise regained. In which the great nation + land + be a blessing covenant promises reach their ultimate fulfillment in the one great people of God, in the land of the new creation, with Jesus the “son of Abraham” as the blessing to the nations.
These four stages are like a Polaroid that slowly develops—the image becomes clearer as time goes on:
Of course, this is not a defense of this premillennial outline; it’s just a brief statement of it. Why do we believe all this—especially the bit about the millennium and God’s promises about Israel’s role in the bible’s “big story”? In the next article, we’ll discuss some basics about how to read the bible the right way, then look at some scripture passages that speak about Israel’s role in God’s plan for paradise regained.
