The Story of God | The Messiah from The Bible Project

The Bible Project | The Messiah is Jesus Who Suffers, Dies, Resurrects and Conquers Our Sin and Death

Recent posts on overviews of the Story of God found in the Bible:

 The Story of God: Our World Belongs to God

The Story of God: Creation, Crisis, Covenant, Christ, Church, (New) Creation 

The Story of God: Jesus as the "True and Better" One

And now I'm posting a video and the manuscript for an Animated Explanation of Jesus as "The Messiah" by Tim Mackie and Jon Collins via The Bible Project, a wonderful new and free video series on YouTube.

Animated Explanation of The Messiah by The Bible Project

Produced by Tim Mackie and Jon Collins

 There's this crazy story at the beginning of the Bible. We have Adam and Eve and they're in the garden of Eden. And everything in this garden is great. It's exactly as it should be. Except there's this one tree that they're told by God not to eat from because it's dangerous and it will kill them. 

So that's it? Avoid this fruit tree and we're fine?

Right. It seems pretty simple. But in this garden, there's a snake. And it starts telling a different story. It says that if you eat of this tree, it's not going to kill you. In fact, it's going to make you become like God. And Adam and Eve, they believe the snake. They eat the fruit. And because of this, the goodness of the garden is tragically lost and evil and death enters into God's good world.

Now, why is there a talking snake in the garden? I mean, this thing is a problem. 

Yeah, it's very strange. And even more strange is the fact that the Bible doesn't say why or how this thing even got there. It just presents the snake as this creature who's in rebellion against God and that wants to get other people to doubt God's goodness and lead them on a path towards death. And so whatever this snake is, it's the source of evil that pervades our world and our lives even still today. 

But there is some hope because right here in the story God makes this really interesting promise to Adam and Eve that someone is going to come in the future – a son of Eve – and this guy's going to come and He's going to crush the serpent's head and destroy evil at its source. However, during this battle, the serpent is going to bite this guy's heel. So it's like a mutual destruction. 

Yeah, so it's like this very strange and beautiful promise. And it's just left hanging there until the next key moment in the story when God singles out this guy named Abraham and says that through his family goodness and blessing is going to be restored back to all of the nations of the world.  

And as we follow this family, we get to meet one of Abraham's great grandsons – this guy named Judah. He receives this promise that a king is going to come from his line, and that the whole world is going to follow this king, and he's going to bring peace and harmony, and they'll be lots of food and wine and milk and vineyards and it's going to be awesome.

The first king we meet from the line of Judah is a guy named David. And he's a hero. Maybe he is the snake crusher. But it turns out that David is infected with the same evil as the rest of humanity. He never crushes the snake, just the opposite. God makes a promise to David that this king is going to eventually come from his line. But as you go on in the story, one-by-one, each generation of his sons, they're just total chumps. They give in to the snake. They choose evil. They go after money and sex and power and following other gods.

Things get so bad that they run the nation of Israel right into the ground and the big, bad empire Babylon takes them out. And so now there are no more kings to even fulfill this promise. So it seems like the whole plan is lost.

But during these dark days there's this crazy group of guys called, "prophets." And they just kept talking about this coming king, reminding us of the promise that he'll come and defeat evil. He'll restore the garden. Now one specific prophet – Isaiah – he tells us more about why this king is bitten. Isaiah says that this promised king receives the wound because of humanity's evil, and that it kills him. But then all of a sudden he comes back and Isaiah says it's because he suffers this wound that he can now become a source of healing to other people. But the Old Testament ends, and the snake-crushing king that everyone's been talking about never shows up. 

And this is why, when the New Testament begins, it introduces us to Jesus of Nazareth, not as some random guy, but as someone who comes to fulfill these specific ancient promises. We learn that he's from the line of David, Judah, and Abraham. And he goes around Israel announcing that the goodness of God's Kingdom is here – now. And he begins confronting the effects of evil on people by healing them, and forgiving them of their sins and evil.

Many people are now believing that this is in fact the promised king. But Jesus began telling his closest followers that he was going to become king and bring peace by taking the full effect of humanity's evil into himself – the fatal snakebite wound.

Exactly.

And so, it seems like the serpent wins. And this story would be a tragedy except for what happens next. Jesus rises from the dead. And now Jesus has the power over evil and death for himself. And so the rest of the New Testament is making this claim that Jesus' power over evil and death has now become available to us to begin confronting the effects of evil in our lives.

But even still, death and evil are real problems in our world all around us. And so the story of the Bible ends by describing this future day when Jesus comes back and he finishes the job. He destroys the snake once and for all and he restores the goodness of the garden here on earth.

Next post: The Story of God | The Covenants from The Bible Project by Tim Mackie and Jon Collins

 – Sully

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