Thought for the Week: God's Plan Is Broad

I wrote last week of God’s complex “Plan of Salvation” and His advanced revelation of it. His Plan is extremely complex. I most certainly cannot explain it. I do believe it. Two men, living in the present, cross my mind as I write today: Lee Strobel and Josh McDowell. Both were what I would call atheists. Each had a desire to disprove the existence of God. Each in his own way came to believe in God and put their faith and trust in Him.

Today, each has become a Christian and an apologist for Christianity. Strobel has written multiple books with titles beginning, “The Case For…” In them, he lays out carefully researched evidence to support some aspect of the Christian Faith. McDowell’s primary book is “Evidence that Demands a Verdict.” In it he refers to more than 400 prophecies concerning Christ that have been fulfilled. The potential for these fulfillments is beyond human comprehension.

I’d look at a couple of these. First, Scripture tells us our first parents, Adam and Eve, committed sin. A sin nature is passed on to every human ever born through the bloodline of his father. That makes all of us sinners by birth. God tells us the consequence of sin is death. So, because we are all sinners, we all die. God’s Plan of Salvation requires a perfect sacrifice for sin. No normal man could provide such a sacrifice. But, suppose Someone could be born without a human father? That Person would not inherit a sin nature from a human father. Isaiah writing of God’s Plan tells us, “A virgin shall conceive and bear a Son…” It is humanly impossible for a virgin to have a child. Except, that is, if the father would not be human.

When the angel Gabriel appeared to the virgin Mary, he told her she had been chosen by God to bear a Son. Mary noted she had never had a sexual relationship with a man, therefore she reasoned she could not have a child. Gabriel said God’s Power would cause this to be and the Child she should bear would be called the “Son of God.” Hence, without a sin nature, this Child to be born would be without sin and therefore could be the perfect “Sacrifice for sin.”

A second impossibility happens: God promises David one of his descendents would reign on his throne and the throne would be permanent. Yet 18 generations later, David’s descendent, King Jehoakim, comes under God’s curse and is told none of his descendents would occupy that throne. The solution to the impossibility is this: Joseph, the surrogate father of Jesus, was in the regal descent of David though Jehoakim and as legal guardian to Jesus, the throne could belong to Jesus legally. Mary, the mother of Jesus was also a descendent of David, by a son who never occupied the throne, Nathan.

So, with this direct bloodline back to David, Jesus could naturally inherit the throne. So, Jesus, a descendant of David both legally and naturally, would fulfill God’s promise to David of his heir occupying the throne.