Sin and salvation: From Adam to Christ

n The Bible presents God as the almighty Creator of heaven and earth; he is good, merciful and just. One of his creatures, man, rebels against him by refusing to do his will. This rebellion, which takes many forms, is called "sin." In effect it means that man sets up some created thing and worships it as his God; the true God is rejected or neglected.

But God never gives up on man; he pursues him like a hound chasing his prey, as the poet Francis Thompson has it. In the Old Testament period God sends his prophets to proclaim his word, to call men to return to him in repentance. He sent some very impressive and memorable characters like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Samson, Samuel, David, Elijah, Isaiah, Amos, Jeremiah, Ezechiel, and many others. Each one in his own way represents the love of God for man, his desire to lead him down the path of love and obedience that leads to true happiness. He established a covenant between himself and his chosen people.

Finally, in the fullness of time, God sent his only-begotten Son into the world as its savior and redeemer. By the power of the Holy Spirit and the loving cooperation of the Virgin Mary, God became man; he truly became one of us in order to save us from sin, Satan, and the result of sin which is death.

Jesus Christ, the Word of God-the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, came down from heaven in order to show us the way to get to heaven, which is the goal for which God created us in the first place.

Over the years I have discovered that it is not easy to grasp the main ideas that run through all the books of the Bible. Perhaps the reason for this is that the Bible is more than a book-it is a library, or a collection of books. For there are 45 books in the Old Testament and 27 books in the New Testament. So the Bible is a big book and it takes years of reading and studying it to begin to see the main themes running from Genesis to Revelation.

The four themes I mentioned above-creation, sin, redemption and covenant-certainly run through all of it, either explicitly or implicitly. There are many other themes or main ideas running through the Bible, as a look into any dictionary of the Bible will quickly show. Covenant between God and man is crucial; in fact, the word "testament" is just another word for "covenant," the word from which the two parts of the Bible take their name, Old and New Testaments.

Yes, God has established a covenant with man and the fullness of that covenant is found in Jesus Christ, the fulfillment of all the prophecies. He is the final covenant.

There is great diversity in the Bible in the 72 books which were written in different ages and cultures, in Hebrew and in Greek, over a period of about 1300 years. If there is a certain unity in the Bible, and there is, then where does it come from? It comes from the unity of authorship. We Catholics believe that all the authors of the books of the Bible were inspired by the Holy Spirit. He is the first or efficient cause and they were his instruments. Part of the mystery is that he used them as living, free agents who conceived and wrote down what the Holy Spirit wanted to communicate-that and nothing else. Therefore, since God is the author of the Bible it is without error and is a sure guide in instructing us about God and about what he expects of us.

Every written document is open to different interpretations by the readers. Jesus Christ established his Church as the only authentic interpreter of the Word of God. The Church tells us which books belong in the Bible and, in cases of conflict, what it means and what it does not mean. So when we read the Bible we should keep these ideas in mind: a loving Creator God, sin, redemption, and an eternal covenant between God and man.

Kenneth Baker, S.J., Editor