The Bible Its Subject and Purpose
Roger Henderson · Jul 28, 2002
Major Bible Themes (2002-03), No. 04
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/48262245284676

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. Today we're going to be covering Chapter 3. Let me go ahead and turn on the overhead here. Actually, can I see a show of hands? I'm kind of curious. Who's read Chapter 3 today? Raise your hand. Oh, that's great. That's great. Okay. Well, if you've read Chapter 3, you'll know that it's a pretty important chapter because it covers two issues that people may ask you in your life. What's the subject and what's the purpose of the Bible? Those questions are answered in this chapter, which is pretty incredible.

So actually also on this overhead here is the homework in Chapter 4 for next week. So it's on the handout. And then actually on your handout also, I basically took the outline that Dr. Schaffer provided from the different sections of the chapter. And there's three sections that he has in this chapter.

Jesus Christ is the subject, the history of man in the Bible, and the purpose of the Bible. And basically we're going to spend most of our time on the subject and purpose of the Bible. I'm just going to briefly mention the history of the Bible, just very briefly. So let's go ahead and look at Jesus Christ the subject.

And maybe before we start, let's have a word of prayer then. Dear Heavenly Father, we just thank You, Lord. We thank You for this time, Father. We thank You for Your Word, Lord. We thank You that You have provided it miraculously to us, Father, that we have the very Word of God. And we're thankful that it shows us our wonderful Savior and what He's accomplished and what He's done. We pray as we look into Your Word and as we see the Savior, we'll come to understand Him better and grow in the grace and the knowledge of Him. We ask in His name, Amen. I'm wired for a sleep study here. If I fall asleep, you'll know why.

He makes a statement in the beginning of this section, basically, that the subject of Scripture is a person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. I had a question to start off with. Can someone help me out here? When he talks about the person and work of the Lord Jesus. Can someone give me an example of what he's talking about in terms of the person and the work? I guess the question is, why does he make a distinction between Jesus Christ as a person and Jesus Christ and the work that he's done? Any thoughts or comments on that? I think it's important to see that distinction. Okay, okay. Can someone think of a work that the Lord Jesus has done?

If I were to describe you, let's say you're a software engineer. I work with software engineers all the time. What would you describe as the software engineer's work? What does he do? I mean, hopefully he's not asleep at the keyboard, but sometimes they are. I go by and they're, are you awake? They're staring at the keyboard like this. Nothing's happening. Their mind's going on.

Okay, excellent, excellent. So as we go through here, we're going to look at four aspects of the Lord Jesus' person and work, and as we go through here, look at these and, you know, do they describe something that He is, His very person, like the Trinity, the very nature of God, who He is. You know, He's holy, He's just, He's righteous. or they talk about something he accomplished. He went to Calvary, he died on the cross. So I think that distinction between his person and his work is, you're going to see that through scripture. Okay, so let's go ahead and look at these four aspects, we're going to go through each one, and let's look at the creator aspect first. Okay, so Jesus Christ the Creator.

If you have your Bibles, let's turn to Genesis chapter 1. Genesis chapter 1. And can I get someone to read, I'd like to read in chapter 1, the first verse, and then the 26th verse in chapter 1 of Genesis. If someone could just raise their hand and read those verses. Go ahead. First verse. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

26. And God said, Let us make men in the entire country, and after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing, and keep it upon the earth. Okay, good. Thank you.

So, you know, we see in these verses here, and I think what you're going to see as we look at verses from the Old Testament, we're going to see that, well first of all, in Genesis 1-1, It says, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And if you have some aids, you can look at the original language.

This word for God is the word Elohim. And it's a plural name for God. So it's talking about that God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit were involved in creation. And actually look a little farther down in verse 2. It says that the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. So the Spirit of God is mentioned.

We're going to kind of see in the Old Testament that, especially in Genesis, that creation is described as something that God does, and it doesn't necessarily distinguish the principal agent, I'll call it, in creation. As we go to the New Testament, we'll see much more clearly that Jesus Christ is the principal agent in creation. And then down in 26, this is pretty easy to see, in verse 26 of chapter 1, it says, Then God said, let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and so on. So it's talking about, again, a plural name for God here.

And the author points out that, like I mentioned, you'll see the Trinity involved in creation in the Old Testament. So I'd like to look next, I'm going to go to the New Testament and look at John chapter 1. Could someone read verses 1, 2, and 3 in John chapter 1?

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him, and without him was not two things made, but this one thing." So, as we move into the New Testament, and especially in John and also we'll see in Colossians, the scripture gets very specific on about creation. It really, you know, verse 3, can leave little doubt on who is the principal agent in creation.

It says two remarkable things. It says, all things came into being by him. That's one statement. And that word, I kind of got a little highlight on that, basically, that this is his word. King James is rendered, were made, but it's this word genomi, and it's the idea of coming into a new state of being. It's the idea of a state of being that never existed before. So this is saying that all things came into being by Him, and they never existed before.

So God is able, the incredible thing, God is able to make something out of nothing. Something that man, you know, if you ask someone to do a job for you, and you give them no materials, and you ask them to do something, he's going to be rather disturbed. But God has no problem with that. He's able to make something from nothing.

Okay, now, and what's neat is, then the following part of that verse says, Let me just read, in my translation, I have the New American Standard, it says, and apart from him, this is verse 3 in John chapter 1, apart from him nothing came into being that has come into being. And the least translation has, without him there came into being not even one thing which has come into existence. So everything, scripture is, you know, emphatic. There is nothing that has come into being that the Lord Jesus Christ was not involved with. And we're going to see even more. It's even deeper than that. The Lord goes into even more detail on creation. He just doesn't leave any doubt about space or time or powers or dominions. We're going to see that in Colossians here shortly. So let's turn over to Colossians chapter 1. And if I could get somebody to read Colossians chapter 1. Colossians chapter 1 and verse 16. Okay.

So again here we see kind of some repetition from the verse in John. It says, For by him all things were created. And then we see, and then there's some further elaboration down in the rest of the verse where I thought was just really tremendous. It kind of goes into the details. It talks about, it kind of gives us a list.

It says, In the heavens, earth, visible, invisible, thrones or dominions. It goes through every place that you could think of. There's not a place where God's creative hand, the Lord Jesus, was not involved in creation. There's no place. And then it also goes on to make another remarkable statement.

It says at the end, in verse 17, It says, and he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the glue, the cohesive force. Actually, that word somehow consists. He's a cohesive force that holds things together. Pretty remarkable statement. So whereas the Old Testament is kind of general, the New Testament hones right in and shows us that the Lord Jesus has created all things.

There's no place. Invisible. It's similar to describing to you that they would do a job for you, and they say, well, I'm going to create things that you cannot see. You'd say, well, that's probably not a whole lot of value to me, because I can't see them. Here you've got this floor redone, and they came in and said, we're going to create this other floor you can't see. You're going to say, well, that's nice, but if I can't see it, I can't...

Well, God is able to create things that we can't see. He knows the inner workings of everything. All is creation. So any questions on this part? We're going to go on to the next aspect, but just thoughts or if not, we'll just go on to the next. Actually, we have quite a few to go over here today, so it's probably good that we move on. The next aspect of the Lord Jesus is the fact that he is supreme ruler over the entire world. There are a lot of verses that you could turn to that talk about this. For example, if you look in the Psalms.

As you read through the book, I'd recommend that you look up as many verses as you have time, because really that's where the As Hal pointed out last week, where does doctrine come from? Doctrine comes from God's Word. If you don't look at God's Word, I mean, you can read what the author says, but you say, well, where did this come from? If you don't read the scriptures behind those words, it's not going to become, you'll say, well, Schaeffer says this, and Hal says this, and Roger says that.

Well, we don't, that's not the desire. The desire is, you say, God says this. So you want to go back to the source. So there's, he lists many verses in these passages. I mean, sometimes you want to agree with the verse you list, and that's okay too. But look at the heart, look at what the verses say. So, in this section there's just a ton of verses.

In the Psalms it talks about, I have installed my King upon Zion. And in Philippians, a very familiar verse, at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue should confess. And it says that Jesus Christ is Lord. But the one that just really struck me, and I'd like to read, let's look at Ephesians chapter 1. Ephesians chapter 1.

Could someone read verses 20 and 21? Go ahead, thanks. In this passage, we've been studying this on Tuesdays, this has just really been tremendous. In this passage, back up in verse 18, it says, Paul says, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so you may know what is the hope of your calling, and so on. So that kind of starts this whole section.

So he describes the Lord Jesus, and after he was raised from the dead, he was seated at the right hand of God in heavenly places, and he's far above, or actually that word is over and above, over and above every government, every authority, every power, every dominion, every name that is named. So Jesus Christ is the supreme the supreme ruler of all.

Now, for a while, he's not in that position, at least here on earth. But in heaven, he is the supreme ruler of all things. We don't see that here on earth. We don't see the Lord Jesus. And he said, you know, my kingdom is not of this earth. It's a heavenly kingdom. And he will establish his earthly kingdom at a point in time. So, I thought it was just marvelous.

We're looking through that. Every government, every authority, every power. And then it goes on to say, in 22, and he has put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him as head over all things to the church. So then it's a little more specific in terms of not only is he head over all dominions, powers, authorities, he's also the head of the church. Okay. Alright, so let's go on to the next one. Jesus Christ as the incarnate word.

I have a question for you. Can someone... You know, a lot of times you'll see that Dr. Schaeffer... Actually, my wife, Bonnie, and I were looking at that. His writing is maybe different than what you'll read today. I mean, he uses words and phrases. I mean, he's an excellent writer.

And I use words... And sometimes you'll see words which will say... Those are theological words or whatever, so... Someone... And it's good to kind of define what those words are. Like the word incarnate. Can someone help me out on what incarnate means? Or, you know, it's... So if you think about it, it's like a root of another word, possibly. Can I give you a hint here? Okay, good, good. Like the incarnation. Incarnate means to be invested with bodily form. So this is speaking of the fact that the Lord Jesus is God's word in the flesh. The incarnate word. Jesus Christ is the incarnate word.

And so I wanted to go back to John chapter 1 to kind of look at this, and this is just a tremendous passage. This is one of my favorite passages, of course. You say that after a while that, as I mentioned before, every passage becomes your favorite passage. I guess it should be.

In John chapter 1, we already read this, this is already read, basically, but if you put the statements about the Lord Jesus, about the Living Word, the Incarnate Word, kind of in in clauses or phrases or whatever. Basically you have the word, or the Lord Jesus was in the beginning.

The Lord Jesus was with God. The Lord Jesus was God. So there's three statements about the Lord Jesus. That he was in the beginning, and this is this word, this is E-I-M-I. It's a state in which something continuously exists. The Lord Jesus has, from all eternity, from all eternity, been God. And He's been with God. And He is God. So, this tells us that, you know, as we're looking at Jesus Christ as the subject of Scripture, the simple message is that Jesus Christ, the Incarnate, who came to earth in the flesh, is God. And He's been that from the beginning. In the beginning. And that goes on to tell us in Hebrews, let's go ahead and read that for Hebrews chapter 1. Could someone read verse 3, Hebrews 1 and verse 3? Harry?

Thank you. And he is the radiance of his glory. and the exact representation of his nature, and upholds all things by the word of his power. When he had made purification of sin, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high." This describes the Lord Jesus again.

Let me ask you what we're talking about, his person and his work. What's this describing here? Is this describing his person or his work or both? Verse 3 here. Or are there some parts that describe his person and some parts that describe his work? Everybody's shaking their head. Does anyone want to venture what part, to take a section and say this is his person and this is his work? I'll probably put you guys in the slot here. Go ahead.

And then wouldn't you say down here it says, when he had made purification for our sins, that would be his work, right? His work on Calvary? So I'm just trying to give you a feel for his person and his work. When you go through a verse, you'll say, well, is this speaking about his person or about his work?

That's one of the many things that you, as we'll go through here, we'll see that, and that's what's wonderful about having this in one little bound volume. We'll see what things to look for as you go through scripture. And it's really helpful if you kind of blend those all together, I think you lose a lot. You don't want to miss what God has.

This morning, it's amazing. So about an hour before he left to come here, I said, oh, look at this. I found this other part here. This is wonderful. I mean, I don't know, I get more excited than I should or whatever, but it's incredible. You look at a verse 20 times and the 21st time you'll think, wow, I never saw that before. Where did that come from? It's been there.

So anyway. Okay, so that's Jesus Christ. in terms of the incarnate word. Now let's look at the next one. Okay. Now this next one, you know, we could have spent the whole time on this one alone. So what I tried to do here, I tried to, the author kind of presented four aspects you know, under Jesus Christ as Savior. And I kind of expanded, changed it a little bit.

Basically, there are two aspects that are mentioned primarily in the Old Testament. The fact that He's a promised seed to conquer Satan, and that in Isaiah there were talks about that the iniquity of us all will fall on Him. And then in the New Testament we see, once again, the New Testament kind of more spotlights, where the Old Testament points forward to the Lord Jesus, The Old Testament. The New Testament describes his life, his death on the cross, and talks about a Savior from the penalty of sin, from the power of sin, and from the presence of sin.

And we're going to see that as we go through this book. Later on, there's a chapter that's devoted to largely that topic, or several chapters. And that's an important thing, as you go through and look at Jesus Christ as a subject, particularly the Savior of the world, that you need to look at those aspects of His salvation. And then the other aspect is being our High Priest. So I'd kind of like to just maybe do a few of these so we will have time to get through the whole part of this. So let's look at Isaiah 53. This is a very familiar Isaiah 53. May I just go ahead and read this part, starting in verse 5.

It says, He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities. The chasing for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way. But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth. Like a lamb He was led to the slaughter, like a sheep that is silent before its shearers. He did not open His mouth. So we see in this passage that it's talking about the Lord Jesus looking forward to Him going to Calvary, being scourged, being oppressed, being afflicted for us, basically. So this is looking forward to what would happen at Calvary.

So now let's go back and look at this aspect of the three aspects of salvation, the three aspects of Jesus Christ as our Savior. As you go through scripture, you'll see that many passages, and let's just look at one. Let's look at Ephesians chapter 2 for a second. And it's important to look and see how it talks about the salvation that we have. Ephesians chapter 2. I'm just going to read Ephesians 2, verse 8.

It says, For by grace you have been saved through faith, and now of yourself it is a gift of God. So you'll notice here that if you look at the tense of the sentence, it says, For by grace, it doesn't say you're now being saved, it says you have been saved.

So this is what's talked about as the the past, or the past aspect, I can't talk, past aspect of salvation, that we've been saved from the penalty of sin. You have been saved, it's been accomplished. So as you go through scripture, you're going to notice there'll be verses that talk about salvation from the penalty of sin, and many times they'll talk about that's already accomplished. Christ went to the cross, he paid for the sins of the whole world, talked about in John, He is the propitiation of the satisfaction for our sins, and not for our sins only, but for the sins of the whole world. So that's been accomplished, but that's only the beginning. Unfortunately, many people leave out that middle section, salvation from the power of sin.

They realize they've been saved from the penalty of sin if they trusted Christ as their Savior, and they realize that someday the Lord is going to come and they're going to go to glory. They're going to be caught up. and taken to glory. But this part in between is kind of a big question mark in their mind. Well, what happens in this time period between being saved and going to glory? Well, that's the aspect that talks about salvation from the power of sin. How has God accomplished that? And there's just many, many passages that talk about salvation from the power of sin.

And one good place to go is Romans chapter 6. It talks a lot about that. So if we look at Romans chapter 6 for a second here. And as you go through Romans chapter 6, you'll see that it talks about this wonderful relationship that the believers come into, into this wonderful union with the Lord Jesus.

Like in verse 3 it says, or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death. It talks about this baptism or immersion into Christ, coming into a union with Christ. And then it says, based upon that, that's how we'll deliver Christian life. And if you go through here, there's lots that can be done, lots that can be said. I'm just going to kind of go to the bottom line, if you will. Down in verse 11, it says, Even so, consider yourself to be dead to sin, but alive to God. So, God is designed to see that we died with Christ. We had a death with Christ. That death separated us. That allowed us to... to live in this wonderful new relationship with the Lord Jesus.

We can see that when we look at many verses that talk about that we're going to be caught beneath the Lord in the air. There's a whole number of verses that speak about being removed from this earth, being with our Savior. And then lastly here we have that the Lord Jesus is our High Priest. And in Hebrews it talks about that, that He makes intercession for us at God's right hand. So that's a pretty quick It's a pretty quick survey of Jesus Christ as our Savior. Okay, so let's go on.

I just quickly want to mention here that the author has between the two sections on the subject and purpose, he has a section called History of Man in the Bible, and the Bible looks at It kind of divides mankind into three groups. It divides it into the Gentiles, the Nation of Israel, and the Church. And I think most people would realize that it talks about the Nation of Israel and the Church.

We kind of see that. But the Gentiles is only kind of smatterings here and there. But it's interesting as you see, you'll see it sort of in Scripture in bits and pieces. And you'll see it in the eternal state. You'll see those three classes of people. And we're going to get into that later on too. This is sort of whetting your appetite for those.

And I was going to say, actually, if you're interested in looking, peeking ahead a little bit, if you just jot this down on page 238 of the book, he talks about these three classes of people, three classes of mankind. So rather than, I'm not going to be able to go through it today, but just page 238 in the book, you can look ahead, I guess in chapter 27 or something like that, whatever it is. And that's what's going to be important as we go through and look at scripture.

Okay, so now I want to look at this last section here. This last section, again, could be a—we could spend all our time here. Okay. So in this section, we've looked at the subject of Scripture, the word Jesus Christ, now we're looking at the purpose of Scripture. And the author here says that the supreme purpose of Scripture is the manifestation of the glory of God.

I'm not sure if I'm like you, but when I think of the word glory, I don't often think of what Scripture is really talking about. And I know Hal's taught this a lot, and you guys probably are way, you know, But sometimes I think of glory as being a brightness, and there certainly is an aspect, but that's not the real focus of what glory is speaking of here. Glory is an aspect or God's very essence. And if you look at the definition of the word glory, it's a word doxa, d-o-x-a in Greek. It's of the nature and acts of God in his self-manifestation to his creation. what he essentially is and does as exhibited in whatever way he reveals himself. So it's who he is, it's his very essence. So the glory of God is his very essence. So scripture is desiring that we see who God is, what he's about.

And one thing to note here, the author lists seven things in the book, and many folks And I was there, too. Many folks will look at this and say, well, God's purpose is salvation. They'll focus in. And that's a wonderful, and that brings tremendous glory and will for all time. But that's only part of the picture. I think we do injustice to Scripture if we just limit our view to salvation. And many people have done that. They say, well, salvation's it.

Look at the full aspect of God's desire to show who He is and what He's done. Salvation is a central part of that. The list that he has here, he basically has all things created for His glory. We've been seeing some of that already, looking at the passages on creation.

The nation of Israel is for His glory. You look in the Old Testament. Israel is the apple of His eye. Over and over again, Israel is His focus, His people, His chosen people, and that's for His glory. Salvation is under His glory. All service in Christian life is to His glory. The passion of the believer is that God may be glorified. The believer's death is said to be to this end. And this marvelous aspect, as we were kind of reading there, as we got into Romans there a little bit, that we're to share His very glory.

So what I have here in the center is kind of the seven statements that the author makes in the chapter three. And then I think a really good way to look at this, and our brother Hal has a really neat chart in the overhead, and I'm sure we'll have a chance to see it here. But basically, you can look at this in groups.

You can take these aspects that are mentioned here, and put them into groups, that God is declaring His glory. Like in the Psalms, it says, the heavens declare the glory of God. Every person on this earth, whether believer or unbeliever, can see who God is by His creation. They can look and see all that He's done. They say, wow, look at this. Look at nature. Some people make that their religion, right? I'm going to go out and live out in the wilderness and take in God. I mean, that's their That's only the beginning point.

So the heavens declare the glory of God, God has declared Himself. Then God has revealed Himself. He's revealed Himself to His creation. He came as a man, He came as a God-man. He showed who He was. And then, incredible of all, He desires that we share His glory. Those who know Him as Savior are to share His very glory.

As we're being changed from glory to glory, from one state of glory to another state of glory, we are sharing in the very glory of God. And then the bottom line to all that, when it's all said and done, is that the result of this is that God is to be glorified. So that's the bottom line, that God, as His glory is declared by His creation, as it's revealed through the person of Christ, through his word. And as we share in his glory, the only response that man can have is to glorify God.

And let's just turn here to John 17. I think John 17, in talking about the sharing of our glory, just a tremendous passage in here. I'd like to read John 17. And let's look at John 17, and let's look at verse 22. In John 17, verse 22, it says, And the glory which thou hast given me, I have given them, that they may be one, just as we are one. So it talks about this glory. And the glory which thou, which the Father has given the Son, given me, I have given to them, that they may be one just as we are one.

God desires, the Lord Jesus desires, this intimate relationship with Him. The sharing of His very glory. Who He is and what He's done. This intimate fellowship with Him. He doesn't desire us to be far off. He desires us to be in an intimate relationship with Him moment by moment. So we see God's purpose is much bigger.

Salvation is just the beginning of that. Think about this. If you think about children coming into your family, if you think of salvation as being children being born in your family, you don't want it to stop there. You don't want your children to just be babies. I've often thought about that. Some families lose children at very young ages. They never get a chance to experience their son or their daughter.

The Lord wants us to experience Him, to know Him, not in any mystical way, through His Word, to know who He is and what He's done and what He's accomplished. And that's so much more than just the birth process. He wants us to know Him and come to know Him moment by moment, day by day, as we read His Word. So His purpose is much broader than just the birth process.

So I apologize. What you could do is actually take those seven points and you could put them into each of these categories. You might want to think about that on your own. How would all things created for his glory, which of those categories would that fit into? That's kind of a homework assignment on your own if you want to do it. How would those seven things fit into there? I've kind of done it in the back of my head. If you want to come and talk about it, I'd be happy to do that. But how do those seven things fit into these different categories here? Declaring His Glory, Revealing His Glory, Sharing His Glory. And this list isn't complete. That's not the complete list. There's a bigger list.

Okay, so actually we're ready for questions now. The questions are at the end of the chapter. We told people not to bring their books, and then I said, well we can't have them read So actually I made up an overhead for the questions. Okay, well hopefully we've answered most of these questions as we talk about this.

Okay, the first question is, what evidence is found that Christ participated in creation? So what we've talked about this morning, what you read, what would you say, you know, from the verses we looked at, what would you say, what would be the answer to this question?

And you can read it from your, if you wrote it down, you can read it from that too, that's fine. Or if you didn't, that's whatever you like to do. Excellent. Very good. We had gold stars. Mark, go ahead. That's a good question. Well, you know, actually, I was thinking about that. There's one year that I did a study at Christmastime, you know, you think about... Okay, okay, thank you, thank you.

The question was, how come we don't see Jesus Christ as a focal point of creation in the Old Testament? How come we don't see that? We don't see it in the New Testament. And I wasn't going to answer the question directly, I was going to kind of just point out that if you look The word Savior actually occurs maybe 20, 30 times in the Old Testament.

It talks about God. It isn't specific. It talks about God as our Savior. So I think that the Old Testament is looking forward to the New Testament, just like in terms of salvation. We see that it talks about a Messiah that's coming. It doesn't really name him, right? I was trying to make the analogy between salvation and creation saying that there are more than one thing that are only hinted at in the Old Testament that are further amplified in the New Testament.

Okay, good. Okay. Right. Okay. Right, okay, well thanks. Hal's point is, I'll restate your point, is that because it describes all of God, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, it includes Jesus Christ. So he is mentioned, but he's not mentioned by name. I was just going to offer, I don't think the word Jesus Christ is mentioned in the Old Testament. I could be wrong, but I don't believe it is. But obviously Messiah is mentioned. Many times scripture improves our view, focuses our view in the New Testament. The Old Testament gives us a broader picture, and we focus in the New Testament. So, I don't know, is that heading where you? Okay, go ahead, Josh. We've got, we're the bride and groom. So we've got to find a relationship with the husband. We've got to find a relationship with the bride. The bride is what we deal with. Good point. We've got to find a relationship with the husband. We've got to find a relationship with the bride. The bride is what we deal with. Good point. We've got to find a relationship with the husband. We've got to find a relationship with the bride. The bride is what we deal with.

Good point. We've got to find a relationship with the husband. We've got to find a relationship with the bride. The bride is what we deal with. Good point. We've got to find a relationship with the husband. We've got to find a relationship with the bride. The bride is what we deal with. Good point. We've got to find a relationship with the husband. We've got to find a relationship with the bride. The bride is what we deal with. Good point. We've got to find a relationship with the husband. We I see where you're heading, basically.

Obviously, in the New Testament, we talk about an intimate relationship that didn't exist. There is not this intimate relationship that God desires for the Church. And that's another reason for distinguishing Israel and the Church. I mean, very important. The relationship with Israel is different than the relationship with the Church. The Church has this wonderful relationship that is on an intimate basis. Israel didn't have that intimacy. They had some intimacy, but did not have the intimacy that's described.

Okay, let's see if we can explain how Christ is the supreme revelation of God. I'll give you a hint. Under Savior, there are four aspects that were mentioned. This question deals with the third aspect. That's my hint. If you may, the third aspect was that Jesus Christ is the incarnate word. So I believe that the answer to this question is that he's the supreme revelation of God because he's a God-man, he came as a man, he showed us God. As we read in Hebrews there, he's the exact representation of his nature. He is God in the flesh. So that's the answer to that question, basically.

Okay, what new purpose? is revealed in the New Testament passages? Anybody have an answer for that one? And this question came out of a section on the three kinds of people, the Gentiles, Israel and the Church. I'll give you a hint on answering these questions. If you figure out where the question lies, you look at this question, that question is in Section 1, this is in 2, you can home in and read this section and figure out the question. This is talking about the Church, basically. The Church is not in view in the Old Testament, largely. We're going to have to stop there. So let's just close.

Dear Father, we just thank you so much, Lord. We thank you for this time, Father. We thank you for your Word, Lord. We thank you for all that you've accomplished, Father. That You are the Creator, You are our Savior, You are our High Priest, Lord. So much that You've done for us, Lord. We pray that we would come to know You and that we would give all honor and glory to You. We thank You for that. In Christ's name, Amen.