“In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him.” Ephesians 1:7-10
One of the most common reasons people give for not engaging the Bible is that they just cannot make heads or tails of it, seeing it as too complicated to grasp. With over 31,000 verses in total, it is certain we have our work cut out for us, but thankfully, there are many simple strategies to help us get a better grasp of its meaning. This discussion focuses on one of the most basic of those strategies, observing the overarching theme of the whole Bible. If we view the individual verses or paragraphs or sections of the Bible as puzzle pieces we must put together, observing the big picture serves as the box top to help us see where those pieces fit into the whole.
The passage above is one of several that highlight the reality that Scripture was moving towards a singular, seminal event. “The fullness of the times” in Ephesians 1:10 also appears in Galatians 4:4 concerning the coming of Christ. There Paul says that “…when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law…” In Mark 1:15, Jesus began His public ministry declaring “The time is fulfilled…” a truth Paul reiterated in Titus 1:3. More could be said in this vein, but this establishes the fact that the whole narrative moves towards the event of Christ’s death on the cross, the central event in human history. To fully grasp the significance, we return to the beginning.
God’s design for humankind was that we bear His image and likeness (Genesis 1:26-28). This is the source of humanity’s inherent value and dominion over nature (Genesis 9:5-7). This image was limited in many ways, the most significant of which having to do with the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:15-17). Upon eating the forbidden fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, they became simultaneously more and less like God.
What I mean is that, upon partaking of the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3:1-7), they became more like God in knowing good and evil as He does (Genesis 3:22-24). Simultaneously, they became much less like Him because they were unable to possess this knowledge without falling into sin: passing blame, hiding their shame, etc. From this point through Genesis 11, we see the consistent degradation of humanity under sin’s influence, the wages of which is death (Genesis 2:17; Romans 5:12; 6:23a). Thankfully, as Paul Harvey famously repeated, from Genesis 12 onward we see “the rest of the story” as God manipulated history to fulfill His promise to rectify the dreadful situation sin introduced (Genesis 3:15).
The promised “seed of woman” who would crush the serpent’s head would be refined in time to a descendant of Abraham through whom all the families and nations of the earth would be blessed (Genesis 12:3; 22:17-18). If we fast forward to Galatians 3:16, Paul identifies this promised seed as Jesus of Nazareth. It seems apparent that the “seed of woman” reference of Genesis 3:15 undergirds Paul’s “born of a woman” in Galatians 4:4. In both cases, the instrumentality of a man is excluded, a fact corroborated by the virgin birth narrative of Jesus (Matthew 1:18-25) and forever confirmed in His resurrection from the dead (Romans 1:4).
Having delivered salvation for all who will come to Him on His terms (Romans 1:16-17), the last remaining piece of the puzzle is His return to judge the world in righteousness (John 5:26-29; Acts 17:30-31; Romans 2:5-11; 14:9-11; 2 Corinthians 5:10) and gather His own to Himself for eternity (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Revelation 21-22). Every passage in between contributes in its own way to this overarching theme, this big picture of Scripture. Now you and I get to enjoy the exciting process of putting the grandest puzzle of all together with the beauty of the box top open in front of us at all times.