Part #02 of “The Mystery Of The Rapture”
“GOD always had a plan for the Ages according to His ‘determinate counsel and foreknowledge’.
We saw how this ‘determinate counsel’ was a meeting of minds of the triune Godhead, way back in eternity past.
And it would be the Person of God the Son, Who would step out of the Godhead and manifest Himself.
That was Jesus Christ the Nazarene, born in Bethlehem, and crucified in 29 AD, at the age of about 33 years.
And the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, God the Son, was part of that determinate counsel and plan.
We saw in the last CRUMB 0121, that was what Peter was talking about in the Book of [Acts 2:23].
That God in His ‘foreknowledge’, without infringing the free will of those Jews and Romans, knew they would reject and crucify His Son.
And yet, by His Divine providence, it was ‘the most’ integral and central part of His plan for the ages.
Everything, past, present and future, was, is and will continue to revolve around ‘this part’ of God’s plan for the ages.
God Loses The Human Race
When Adam and his wife fell in the Garden of Eden because of sin, God didn’t just lose ‘them’.
He lost the entire human race that would come through them, for each one would be born with Adam’s sin nature.
When we see the fallen state of this world today, just about whichever we look, we may often wonder why.
And the reason is because of that inherent fallen sin nature that exists in every single one of us.
It’s the reason why we all do things we know we shouldn’t do, and don’t the things we should do.
That’s why the Bible says, “For ‘ALL’ have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” [Romans 3:23].
And beginning with Adam, that inherent sin nature separates us from God.
We all, every single one of us without exception, are born separated from God.
No doubt, in our eyes, there have been and are today, plenty of good men and women out there.
But they still stand separated from God, because of that inherent sin nature.
Plan of Redemption
So, God set in place a plan of ‘Redemption’ to bridge this gap of separation between us and Him.
This plan which was already determined in heavenly counsel according His ‘foreknowledge’.
It is ‘impossible’ for man to bridge this gap of separation.
We think we can, through the thousands of religions that are out there, but it is all in vain.
To bridge this gap of separation would have to exclusively take a ‘Judicial Act of God’ Himself.
And that is where God’s plan of redemption would have to kick into gear.
If you check your dictionary, redemption, or to redeem something, is to ‘buy back’, or ‘regain possession’ for a price.
And since it was God Who lost the human race, only HE could buy it back.
Doesn’t that make perfect and logical sense?
That is why there is not a thing that we can do.
Our attempts to bridge that gap of separation, any which way, are a hopeless and lost cause.
And this is what we ‘ALL’ must come to terms with, before we can accept what God is freely offering us today.
So that is what the entire Bible is about, it’s God’s unfolding plan of redemption.
The Cost Of Redemption
The cost of Redemption for the entire human race would take nothing short of the shedding of Divine Blood.
And according to that ‘determinate counsel’, it would be God the Son, Jesus Christ, to step out of the Godhead.
HE would come to earth by the way of birth, the same way as any of us were born.
And HE would be born ‘sinless’, yet coming through the sinful race of man.
Then identifying Himself with sinful man, at the appointed time, He would pay that price of Redemption, with His Own Blood.
And being born sinless, without that inherent sin nature, and remaining sinless, would qualify ‘Him alone’ to be the Redeemer.
Now right here, the question comes up, “how is that possible?”, since all men are born with that Adamic ‘sin nature’.
And it is a valid question.
To get the answer, please head to straight to CRUMB 0047, “THE ONLY QUALIFIED SAVIOUR”.
We have graphically described it to the best of our ability.
Temporary Symbolic Representations
So, until that appointed time when Christ Jesus would sacrificially shed His Own Blood, there would be temporary symbolic representations.
And God Himself set this underway and into motion in [Genesis 3:21], after the fall.
We pick up from reading between the lines of Scripture, God slayed and shed the blood of an innocent lamb.
And He clothed Adam and Eve, not just physically, but also spiritually with His Righteousness and Garment of Redemptive Salvation.
And God did this to temporarily bridge the gap of separation to restore back the fellowship He had with them.
This was both a prophetic, and a symbolic picture of what would take place on the cross of Calvary 4000 years later.
That would be the real thing, which would happen just ‘once’, paying our sin debt in full.
And its sufficiency, beginning with Adam, would cover the entire human race of all ages, past, present and future.
There would ‘never again’ be the need of a single blood sacrifice of any kind any longer.
And what was a temporary restoration, through symbolic blood sacrifices of animals, would now be eternally sealed, through the cross.
The prophet Isaiah joyfully speaks of this in [Isaiah 61:10].
But until then, this symbolic shedding of blood for sins through animal sacrifices, which the Bible calls ‘a shadow’, would continue.
The Instruction
After God dealt with Adam and his wife after the fall, he left them with an instruction.
And this instruction was to be passed on to their offspring down the line.
Dealing with the consciences of men, God set this instruction in place, to be carried out by “FAITH ALONE”.
Remember that this is one of the two ‘absolutes’ of Scripture.
That “without faith it is impossible to please God” [Hebrews 11:6].
The second is “without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins” [Hebrews 9:22].
And it is these two absolutes that runs consistently throughout Scripture.
So, in so many words, this was God’s instruction:
“Whenever your conscience convicts you of sin, a wrong doing, bring Me a sacrificial blood offering ‘BY FAITH’.
And I will forgive your sins and accept you”.
That was the difference between Abel’s sacrifice which God accepted [Hebrews 11:4] and Cain’s sacrifice which God rejected [Genesis 4:1-7].
Abel ‘heeded the instruction’, while Cain rationalized and disobeyed.
So, beginning with Adam, God dealt with the human race for next the 2000 years based on their conscience.
Time went by, through the flood, through Noah and his sons, and right past the Tower of Babel.
The instruction that God left with Adam eventually got lost in the dust, as men went their own way.
A hopeless race of humanity coming out of Adam, destroyed in the flood, then beginning fresh through Noah, went right back into paganism at the Tower of Babel.
And by the time we get to Abraham, there was not a single believer left on the planet.
The Next Part of God’s Programme
Now God is all set to bring in the next part of his Programme according to that same ‘determinate counsel’ and foreknowledge.
And God does something brand new as He initiates the next step of His unfolding plan.
Out of this vast river of humanity, God is going to pull out ‘one man’, Abraham.
SO, God in so many words, at 2000 B.C. says:
“I’m going to do something totally different.
I’m going to call out ‘one man’.
And out of that one man I’m going to bring to Me a little nation.
Then I’m going to work through that little nation and prepare them.
And then through them I will take Salvation back to the whole main stream of humanity.”
This is what has come to be known as the ‘Abrahamic Covenant’ which Scripture brings out in [Genesis 12:1-3].
God’s Prophetic Plan
Below is a timeline of God’s prophetic plan for the ages, chronologically laid out according to ‘His’ Divine programme.
And ‘this’ is what all the Old Testament prophets and the Jews saw and knew, that’s all.
For this what was God revealed to the nation of Israel through His major and minor prophets.
And it was a ‘complete’ revealed programme, which ‘conditionally’ hinged on the obedience of the nation of Israel [Exodus 19:5-6].
Never lose sight of that!
Let’s take a look at the Abrahamic covenant in [Genesis 12:2], which was in 2000 B.C. on the timeline.
This is where we have the promise of Israel becoming a nation.
God tells Abraham, “And I will make of thee a great nation”.
“And I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing”.
But in the next [Verse 3], God also promises something for the rest of world, which are the Gentiles.
“And in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed”.
This was speaking of us today!
So one way or another God is going to someday reach out to the whole non-Jewish world.
When Israel was fresh out of Egypt, Moses went up to God on Mount Sinai in [Exodus19:3-6].
And God told him that someday ‘the Jews’ (and not the Church) would become a “kingdom (nation) of priests”.
It would be not be just the tribe of Levi, but also all the twelve tribes of Israel.
God gave Israel this wonderful prospect.
The Prospect Not Forgotten
To be certain that the prospect is not forgotten, Isaiah is led by the Spirit to write so in [Isaiah 42:6].
The Jewish people were to be a “light of the Gentiles”.
Again, in [Isaiah 60:3], Isaiah tells Israel that the Gentiles “shall come to thy light”.
And then in [Isaiah 62:2], Isaiah writes that the Gentiles ”shall see thy righteousness”.
But, in order for Israel to attain this goal, God gave them covenants of promise.
After Abraham, they received the covenant of law in [Exodus 19-20], which is 1500 B.C. on the timeline.
Then God gave them the Davidic covenant in [2 Samuel 7:16] in 1000 B.C on the timeline.
“And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever”.
The 70-Year Captivity of Israel
Because of Israel’s constant disobedience and rebellion the prophet Jeremiah spoke of their 70-year captivity in [Jeremiah 25:11-12].
And of course this came to pass in 606 B.C. on the timeline.
It’s when the Babylonian King, Nebuchadnezzar, invaded and conquered the nation of Israel and took them captive.
Both the land and the great temple built by King Solomon was utterly destroyed, and the temple treasures taken.
But God also promised Israel through the same prophet, that after 70 years, He would bring them back [Jeremiah 29:10].
Finally, God gave them the new covenant in [Jeremiah 31:31-35].
The Temple Rebuilt
Moving further up to about 536 B.C. (not shown on the timeline), Ezra got the command to rebuild the temple.
This was then followed up by Nehemiah, who rebuilt the broken down city walls.
For without strong city walls, a city was always vulnerable and open targets to attacks by their enemies.
Then of course, the timeline above, in right chronological order, takes us right on to the cross.
A Brief Summary
We’ll close this part #02, with a brief summary, picking up from the promise made to Abraham.
So, God put that nation of people in one geographical area of land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.
It is what we call the Holy Land.
The ancients even before Abraham, for one reason or another referred to that land as the ‘Divine land’, and they didn’t really know why.
It was evident that God had His Finger on that little piece of real estate.
After this, the promise was of the coming of a government, in the person of a King.
So this was the beginning of God dealing with the nation of Israel, under covenant promises.
And then God gave them the Law through Moses, followed by the Psalms and the prophets.
All this was the highway and the setting of the stage for the coming of their King, and the promised Kingdom.
God would provide their government in the person of the King, the Messiah, who would be the Son of God!
So the whole Old Testament is preparing the nation of Israel for the coming of their King, their Messiah, and Redeemer.
However, there had to be salvation first before any of the rest of their promises could come to pass.
AND FINALLY, always remember, for this is very important, ‘NEVER FORGET’ that this entire prophetic programme was “UNDER THE LAW”.
Click [HERE] for Part #03 of this series.
(Please note, all that is written in the orange colour, are connecting links, so do read them. You will find them to be very useful.)
