THE PLAN
God gives us His plan for salvation. In ancient times God spoke to specific people at specific times and in ways that we consider miraculous today. Actually, they were considered miraculous then as well. Great prophets and direct intervention by God didn’t occur frequently. Sometimes the events described in the Old Testament were several hundred years apart. Individuals were chosen as God deemed necessary to pass on the Word of God to the people.
Faith has always been that which God has desired. However, true faith requires obedience. Several thousand years ago, a man named Abraham exhibited such a faith and obedience to God’s instructions. As a result, God made a covenant (promise or contract) with Abraham and all his descendants that they would be God’s chosen people by which God’s Word and our Savior would be presented to the world.
Abraham’s descendants, of course, were the Jews. That’s why the story of the Jews and God’s dealings with them as written in the Bible are so important. In so many unnamed ways, God saw to it that the messages from God to man survived to this very day (in the form of the Bible) for all to read. The predictions and promises made throughout our history are recorded so that they may encourage us that God’s Word is true as prophecies are fulfilled. Many have already come to pass and some have not.
The most important fulfillment of the prophecies foretold thousands of years earlier is that of a Savior that would come into the world, born in Bethlehem, and tell the world of a plan of forgiveness for man’s sins. That person would suffer immensely and eventually be hung on a “tree” until death. The ancient prophecies also said that the Savior would rise from death on the third day, proving that the words of the Savior were true and of God. It is our eternal (and I mean forever - no end) existence after death that is of concern to God. The Savior’s victory over death was the completion of our salvation. This Savior is Jesus. The salvation we have through Jesus ensures us an eternal life with God and an escape from an eternal torment of separation from God.