Bible Basics
by Bob Burridge ©2011, 2021
Lesson 4: What is God’s plan for his people?
God was not suprised by the sin of Adam. He always knows everything that will ever happen. God made everything to show his glory. God shows his mercy, love, and goodness by rescuing unworthy lost sinners and changing their fallen hearts. He shows his justice and power by punishing and defeating evil.
Way back in Eden, right after Adam sinned, God told this first human that he would send a child to crush Satan. The promised child would not be born for many thousands of years after that promise was made. That promised child was Jesus.
Jesus is called the Christ. Long ago men who were Priests, Prophets, and Kings had oil or water poured over their heads. This was called “anointing”. They did this in a ceremony when they started their job of serving the people. It showed everyone that the person had a special job to do for God.
The Old Testament was written in the ancient Hebrew language. God’s promised child was called the Messiah, “the Anointed One”. That word comes from an old Hebrew word “Me-shi-akh”. Written in Hebrew it’s ﬦשׁיח. The Hebrew people waited through the ages for this Messiah to come.
The New Testament was written in Greek. The Greek word for someone anointed is “Christos” (Χριστος). We take off the Greek grammatical ending on the word (“-os”) and it becomes, “Christ”. So Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, God’s anointed one. He was that child God promised to Adam and Eve.
Jesus came to live a perfectly sinless life, and to pay for the sin and guilt of his people. When he suffered and died on the cross he died in their place. God does not just forget about our sins. He came as Jesus Christ to pay for those sins himself.
Lesson 5: Jesus completed God’s plan
Index of our lessons on Bible Basics
(Bible verses are quoted from the New King James Version of the Bible)
