The Big Picture

Over the past 4 years, I have been studying the Bible in a more regular routine than any time in my life.  I have made it a daily goal to study when I first get to my office.  I keep my study materials in my right-hand drawer and try not to do anything else until I spend time with my Bible.  I am not stating that to brag, but to say that for me, it took a concerted effort to establish this routine.  Now, it is something that I thoroughly enjoy and look forward to.
     I began reading through the New Testament in 2008.  First I decided to read and study books of the Bible that were written down by certain people.  All of John's writings, then all of Paul's writings, etc.. until I finished the New Testament in 2012.  Why did it take so long?  As I read, I followed this procedure:   Read until I learned something new, then write what I learned in a notebook.  Some days I read a few paragraphs and some days I read a chapter.  I didn't really have a goal of when I wanted to be finished.  I now have 5 or 6 notebooks filled with what I learned.  Most of my writing is just a summary of what I read.  Every once in a while I had an insight that I wanted to record as well.
     After I finished the New Testament, I started the Old Testament.  This time, I am doing it a little differently.  I started in Genesis and plan to read straight through.  I addition, I go online to www.biblegateway.com and use one of their Audio Bibles to read it to me as I read.  It has been a really helpful way to study.  I do a chapter at a time and sometimes several chapters.  The audio Bible helps me to keep going.
     I am currently on Leviticus which is an instruction book for the early Israelites on how to establish the Tabernacle and how to offer sacrifices.  It tells everything from how to sew the priest's garment to how to construct the end-caps on the temple poles.  It gives rules to the priest to deal with illnesses of the people and how to live their daily lives.  God was going to teach the people how to live a holy life which is different than what they had seen in Egypt and different from what they would see in the land of Canaan.  They would learn this as they spent 40 years with God wandering in the desert wilderness.
     To me, it seemed like the chapter after chapter of minute details and lists of exacting standards were almost too much.  Then I realized that...... I was right.   Since I had already read the New Testament, I am understanding more deeply that God was not giving them rules for the sake of rules.  And He was not only giving them rules to keep them safe and healthy.  God was giving them an understanding that it is impossible to follow all the rules and be holy, because we are not God.  He was showing them His holiness by showing them their unholiness.  For the next 40 years, they are forced to depend upon God for everything, even their daily food which would appear on the ground in the morning every day.... except the Sabbath.  Yet it only took one act of unholiness to destroy their standing before God.  They fully depended on God for their spiritual standing.  They had to make sacrifices for things they did which were unholy.  For the next several thousand years they tried and tried to obey the rules of holiness and continued to fail.  God provided a way for them to become clean again by sacrificing their best to Him through the priest and then God himself would re-establish their righteous standing.
     Why do I need to know all of this?  This is not the way it is done in the New Testament.  God's word is complete using both Old and New Testament.  Adam and Eve brought a sinful standing of unrighteousness to mankind's relationship with God which we continue today.  Mankind could no longer spend time in God's presence.  God chose to create a new relationship with mankind through Abraham and the Israelites.  Through this, he showed them who He really is.  Holy, Holy, Holy.   He also showed them who they were... Unholy, Unholy, Unholy.   He then demonstrated that the Holy one is the only one who can help the Unholy ones.   They can not be Holy on their own.  Obedience and sacrifice are the ways that they allow the Holiness of God to re-enter their lives and become clean again.
     After God taught them this truth, He started a new relationship based on an old promise to Abraham and a love that went all they way back to Adam and Eve.  I will give you my holiness in order to make you clean and re-establish the loving relationship broken by mankind long ago.
     God sent himself, in the form of Jesus.  Jesus was the sacrifice offered to re-establish the spiritual standing of the Unholy ones.  This sacrifice was not just for the unholy act of a person, but of all mankind for all time.  God promised that for those who approach the priest (Jesus Christ) and claim the sacrifice (Jesus Christ) and re-establish themselves in a relationship with God, His holiness would make them clean in God's eyes.
     11 days from now we will celebrate the beginning of this process as we celebrate the sending of Jesus to Earth.  I am glad that I am able to even more fully appreciate not only the love of Jesus, and God the Father, but that the Bible has helped me to more full understand the Big Picture of God's love.