Name: The Scandal of Salvation
Price: 12 USD

What does it mean to be saved? What am I saved from? What’s this salvation?

Through this course, you will learn how God interacted with Creation, how He has revealed Himself to Mankind, and His Plan for Humanity and how this leads to revealing His grand plan for salvation.

Course Introduction

The Scandal of Salvation: God's Plan for Mankind 

Leslie introduces herself and gives us a glimpse into her personal background with God and how she came to the realization that God had a plan for salvation from the very beginning.  

Throughout Scripture, we can see the relationship between God and humanity displayed through exchanges of promise and expectation. God gives a promise for a certain thing and the expectation is set forth on how humanity responds to this promise with their lives, their worship, and their focus on the future to come. These promises are shown through covenants. And it is through covenants that God displays His plan for redemption for mankind.

We see the responsibility that was given to Adam and Eve in the garden. They were placed under the command of God and since there was nothing else between them at this time, there was no reason why they would not have obeyed those commands. God was coming to them and giving them the responsibility of being fruitful and multiplying, subduing the earth, maintaining dominion over animals, caring for the garden, and most importantly abstaining from eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Unlike the other responsibilities, the last one was something they were not allowed to do. This period was rather short lived as Adam and Eve were disobedient and ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.” (Genesis 3:6) As a result of this disobedience, God brought judgment upon Adam and Eve. He warned them before about the punishment that would befall them should they disobey His commands. 

God brings about physical and spiritual death to mankind. Adam and Eve were removed from the Garden of Eden and were therefore separated from God. Towards the serpent who deceived Adam and Eve, God cursed him. Towards Eve, God brought about painful childbirth. And towards Adam, God brought about hard labor and the promise of death. This would no longer be the perfect peace they once experienced with God in the Garden of Eden. There is, by Genesis 3 a clear distinction between the formerly perfect state of mankind’s relationship and status with God and the now defiled state of mankind’s relationship with God. The only way that perfect order could be restored was going to be through God’s divine intervention. In going against God, mankind had allowed sin to enter the world and no longer reflected the righteous character of God, Satan was allowed to become the ruler of the fallen world, and humanity needed to be judged for their transgression. While the fitting punishment for Adam and Eve was death, mankind would be preserved by grace. 

The Fall of mankind is the account in Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve disobeyed God in eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. This disobedience resulted in sin entering into the world, which is evil and rejection of God’s authority, and mankind being separated from a relationship with God because of the stain of sin and evil. As a result of eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve were awaked to their own will and conscience. This conscience was set in place since there now existed two standards for living. The first standard would be the perfection they experienced prior to disobeying God when they were living entirely in God’s will. The second standard is the failure and disobedience from their own actions which then let them recognize that actions could be placed between obedience towards God and direct disobedience towards God. Conscience is the exclusive characteristic of this period. From this period, we see how mankind and nature are tainted by the inherited sin of Adam. We begin to see corruption take over and fill the hearts of all men. 
 
Once again, mankind was placed with a responsibility. This time it was the responsibility to do good. Since Adam had eaten from the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, mankind was then held accountable for that knowledge. Man’s failure was they constantly chose evil and disobedience towards God.

Man refused to fill the earth. There are various possible reasons why they refused to follow this command, but none were worthy enough to save them from the punishment of God. The punishment that then befell upon mankind was God’s scattering of all the people all over the earth. He gave them different languages and separated humans by location and could possibly have established different continents and races because of this. Now, oddly enough, the command of God was obeyed only through punishment and mankind was now spread throughout the earth.
 
This constant disobedience is what set forth the plan for redemption that would bring mankind and God together once again in perfect peace and unity. God had this intention for humanity, but because of His nature, He gave mankind the freedom to choose Him if they truly desired. But the first chance we got, we rebelled and disobeyed and rejected Him.

The Fall & The Need for Salvation

The unity and relationship between mankind and God, the Creator, is interrupted by the introduction of sin into the world.  Genesis 1:28-30 “ God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you;  and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to everything that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so.”,  Genesis 3:14-19  The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.” And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  Genesis 11:4 “They said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” 

The Abrahamic Covenant
The initial covenant that sets forth the plan for redemption for mankind can be seen as the Abrahamic Covenant. In the Old Testament, God enters into a covenantal relationship with a man named Abram. The contents of this covenant are accounted in Genesis 12,15, 17, and 22, but the main themes of this covenant are laid out in Genesis 12. Following the events at Babel in Genesis 9-11, where the nations are scattered in judgment due to allowing their pride to lead them to rebel against God, He instead of choosing immediate damnation for the entire world, He chooses grace by developing a personal relationship with one man and ultimately a covenant for the whole world.  God shows a tremendous act of grace when He calls forth Abram and brings him into covenant with Him and renames him Abraham. Since it was already promised that God would not destroy the earth again to Noah, there is still the need for some type of redemptive act to take place in order to restore mankind’s place with their Creator. This covenant is laid out in Genesis 12 as a collection of promises.

The Mosaic Covenant
The future generations of Abraham’s family, through Isaac and Jacob, found themselves in bondage as captives in Egypt. Suffering and separated from God because of their disobedience to Him, they cried out to God to remember them.
The conditions of the covenant can be found in Exodus 20:1-20 and we see the foundation of this Law with the giving of the 10 Commandments.

The Davidic Covenant
The Davidic covenant amplifies the promise God made to Abraham regarding descendants and his name being great. David would be promised a son, securing his royal bloodline to the promise of eternal reign. It is through this royal lineage, that the future Savior would be brought forth and in doing so, the Law is met with the only One able to fulfill it without sin. The Davidic Covenant is an unconditional and eternal covenant with four important elements seen in David’s authority and power as king, and “forever” seals the right for David and lineage to rule can never be taken from them. The son of David would then build the temple and the presence of God could dwell with them. But unable to live in complete obedience, His people would be in need of a Savior who met all the criteria of the previous covenants. “All Old Testament passages that describe the Messiah as King and His coming kingdom confirm the promises of the Davidic covenant. While the covenant was unconditional, the experience of God’s blessing was conditional on obedience. Their protection from losing the blessing of God came from the Abrahamic covenant. This covenant establishes an actual Kingdom on earth through David and that Kingdom would reign forever. Not only would it reign forever, but all would believe as they have been given new minds and hearts able to love and know God. Indwelled with His Spirit so that they could be guided to Him.

The New Covenant
The New Covenant would bring in a transformation of God’s people in their minds and hearts. This covenant would bring about not only transformation, but forgiveness of sins through Christ Jesus. At the time of the promise of the New Covenant, Israel had not lived in the obedience that God had demanded through the Law. They rejected Him and rebelled against Him. Without a perfect king to fulfill the Law, Israel was punished, in exile. Jeremiah comes in the midst of exile, to a disobedient nation, strangers to God and the nations that surround them, and gives them a message of hope and future.

RELATIONSHIP OF COVENANTS
The relationship between the covenants seen in the necessity for each and fulfillment of each. God revealed His plans through each of these covenants and as they were revealed, they proved His Word to be faithful. Abraham was promised a future seed, to be a great nation, have a great name, and the whole world would be blessed through him. The Abrahamic covenant was the foundation, but the experience of these blessings would be conditioned to obedience through the Mosaic covenant. The Law was established as the moral, civil, ceremonial, and worship standard, but needed to be mediated through a king. The Davidic covenant would establish a kingship that would forever reign over Israel. The New Covenant was given so there would be the perfect fulfillment of the required sacrifices of the Mosaic covenant, in the lineage of the Davidic covenant, and the seed of Abraham, a Messiah.

The Covenants 

Through covenants God displays His plan for redemption for mankind.

The future generations of Abraham’s family, through Isaac and Jacob, found themselves in bondage as captives in Egypt. Suffering and separated from God because of their disobedience to Him, they cried out to God to remember them.
The conditions of the covenant can be found in Exodus 20:1-20 and we see the foundation of this Law with the giving of the 10 Commandments.

The Mosaic Covenant 

The Davidic covenant amplifies the promise God made to Abraham regarding descendants and his name being great. David would be promised a son, securing his royal bloodline to the promise of eternal reign. It is through this royal lineage, that the future Savior would be brought forth and in doing so, the Law is met with the only One able to fulfill it without sin. The Davidic Covenant is an unconditional and eternal covenant with four important elements seen in David’s authority and power as king, and “forever” seals the right for David and lineage to rule can never be taken from them. The son of David would then build the temple and the presence of God could dwell with them. But unable to live in complete obedience, His people would be in need of a Savior who met all the criteria of the previous covenants. “All Old Testament passages that describe the Messiah as King and His coming kingdom confirm the promises of the Davidic covenant. While the covenant was unconditional, the experience of God’s blessing was conditional on obedience. Their protection from losing the blessing of God came from the Abrahamic covenant. This covenant establishes an actual Kingdom on earth through David and that Kingdom would reign forever. Not only would it reign forever, but all would believe as they have been given new minds and hearts able to love and know God. Indwelled with His Spirit so that they could be guided to Him.

The Davidic Covenant 

The covenants show God’s power to bring about the fulfillment of the promises He made and His compassion, mercy, and grace by doing it all for a world that constantly disobeys and rejects Him. 

The Law was established as a means to keep Israel in relationship with God despite their sinfulness. Being holy, God could not be near sin and evil without something being done about it. The Law would be the covering of Israel’s sins until their Messiah, the one who was anointed by God to fulfill the Law and Redeem His people, would come in all of His glory!
 
God was establishing His place in the eyes of His people and their responsibility was to keep His commandments and keep Him as their God. In this dispensation we see the establishment of the altar, the temple, and sacrifices unto God. All were designed so that Israel could be in right standing with her God. It should be noted that Israel’s perfect keeping of the Law was not as important to God as was their faithfulness. “For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, and in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” (Hosea 6:6) The future generations of Abraham’s family, through Isaac and Jacob, found themselves in bondage as captives in Egypt. Suffering and separated from God because of their disobedience to Him, they cried out to God to remember them. “And the sons of Israel groaned because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry for help because of their bondage ascended to God. So, God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice of them.” (Genesis 2:23-25) God brought His people out of Egypt through the leadership of Moses, and it is through Moses that He gives His next covenant.

Reiterating the promises of the Abrahamic covenant, the Mosaic covenant only differs in type of covenant. As a covenant that follows the form of a Suzerain-vassal treaty, it was “a treaty between a king (Suzerain) and his subjects (vassals). This kind of covenant is not a grant to a particular subject but a bilateral agreement between the king and the nation subject to him in which the king promises to allow his subjects to enjoy life under his beneficent reign in return for their loyal service to him.” God was allowing the eternal blessing of the Abrahamic covenant to be experienced, but it was dependent upon obedience to the Law.

The Mosaic covenant, which we see in Exodus 19-20 and which Paul refers to in Galatians 3, was a conditional treaty until the first coming of Christ because Israel would faith to keep the Law and thus, experiencing God’s blessing. Though they were disobedient, the nation of Israel was still held in the great vehicle toward total redemption through God’s faithfulness to Abraham’s descendants in the Abrahamic covenant. Their disobedience would be rejection toward all aspects of the Law; moral, civil, ceremonial, and worship. So, while the experience of God’s blessing from the Abrahamic covenant was now able to be experienced, Israel, as a nation, would need a king to be the example of this loyal service to God.

The Law was given to the people to show their dependence upon God and His faithfulness to save them as He had done before. They were called to trust in Him rather than trusting in themselves or false idols. Yet, time and time again, the Israelites would disobey the commandments the Lord had given them and would once again be subject to bondage by their enemies. The entire generation that had left Egypt would not enter into the Promised Land due to their lack of faith and direct disobedience. The Lord had caused them to wander and to become captives to foreign nations all because they could not be obedient. This time continued until after the time of the death of Christ.

The Law 

It is in this period that God would establish His Law for the people to keep. He would name Himself as their God above all other gods.

When all covenants are reviewed, there is one common theme that unites them together. That is the redemptive plan that God had in store for His people. “From the Scriptures, therefore, as a whole, from the New Testament, and from the Old as interpreted by infallible authority in the New, we learn that the plan of salvation has always been one and the same; having the same promise, the same Savior, the same condition, and the same salvation.”

A Hebrew term meaning “anointed one.” The OT people of God came to anticipate a person anointed by the Spirit who would function once again as king and priest over Israel. Hence in Jewish (OT and intertestamental) theology, the Messiah was the person, whether supernatural or earthly, endowed with special powers and functions by God, who would appear as the divinely appointed, eschatological deliverer and ruler of Israel. Although Jesus rarely used the title specifically for himself, the NT designation of Messiah (Greek Christos) belongs only to Jesus, both as a title and as a personal name. Jesus was the one who was truly anointed by the Holy Spirit, and as the bearer of the Spirit he has the prerogative to pour out the Spirit on his followers.

The people of the Old Testament, the ones who were under the Law, were not under or part of a different plan from God. While they were the original recipients of His promises and covenants, there is no different message being unfolded from the time of the Law to the work of Christ in the New Testament. The faith that they had during the period of being under the Law was in the future reality that they would experience as the covenant people to a faithful God. Every covenant and event through Scripture have always pointed to one major thing and that is salvation for mankind, through the Son of God, Jesus. For the sake of this assignment, I feel it necessary to go through each covenant and dispensation to illustrate the common theme of salvation and redemption that gives us the one Gospel.

In the creation account of Genesis 2, the earth was without a ruler and God created man to be the ruler of earth on His behalf. Humanity would then glorify God, from earth, as they filled it and subdued it. But the events of Genesis 3 presented the need for this reestablishment of God’s rule. Led into disobedience through the serpent’s deception, Eve and Adam lost man’s role as mediatorial ruler of earth and the serpent became ruler instead. Now tainted with sin, mankind no longer reflected God’s righteousness as image bearers, but God promised that He would once again reestablish His rule through a divinely appointed human representative, who would come through a Seed of the Woman. It would be this representative who would ultimately defeat the serpent and end his rule over the earth.

In Luke 1, an angel of the Lord visited Mary and announced that she would be the woman through whom “the Son of the Most High” and “the Son of God” would be born. Luke takes this and develops it further in chapter 3 when he traces the genealogy of Jesus back to Adam. In doing so, Luke is giving the implication that Jesus is the representative of all mankind. Continuing in chapter 4, Luke records two accounts of demons recognizing that Jesus is the divinely appointed human representative in referring to Him as, “the Holy One of God” and “the Son of God”. The disciples recognize the same thing when, after witnessing Jesus’ sufficiency in feeding the multitude, they tell Jesus that He is “The Christ of God.” Jesus confirms His identity during His praise to the Father in the following chapter.

The Messiah

God is omnipresent, and omniscient. God is eternal and He is everywhere. Everywhere at all times for all time

Messianism in the Old Testament is the belief in and the anticipation for a Messiah that will come to redeem the Jews, restore Israel, and eternally rule in righteousness. In the New Testament, it is the belief that Jesus was the prophesied Messiah of the Old Testament. The term Messiah in the Old Testament did not mean Jesus to the original audience as they would not have known who the person of Jesus was even though they were familiar with the term Messiah. The Old Testament use of מָשׁיִח†or “anointed” would have referred to an appointment to a high office such as king, priest, or prophet. (Isa. 45:1; 61:1). It was also used to describe an object that had been consecrated for (Gen. 31:3), but it was mainly used for two persons. The first is the anointed king (1 Sam. 24:7) and the second is the anointed priest (Lev. 4:3). The “anointed” was more of a position and status rather than an official title. There is a shift or a pivot point with the Davidic Covenant that the “anointed” not only carried out the divine plans of God, but through them, God was establishing the understanding of what it meant to be anointed by Him. To understand what the Messiah is and who the term was used, there needs to be some type of contextual foreknowledge when the Old Testament sense of the term is used. In the New Testament, the term Messiah, shifts from the Old Testament sense of the word and takes on a new meaning. Χριστός or “anointed one,” no longer refers to a role or status but become a proper name belonging to only one person, Jesus.
 
There is a change in leadership for the Israelites as they went from priest to judge and then from judge to king. “In the day the judges ruled” (1:1) indicates a reality of the broken faith of Israel. In comparison to Judges, Ruth is a contrast between the depravity recorded in the ending chapters of Judges (17-21) and the preservation of faith through unexpected means. The anticipation in OT for a Messiah is from events that happen both in the future and in the past. With the establishment of the Davidic Covenant, the eternal throne was set before Israel and it would be through the bloodline of David, that their long-awaited Redeemer would come. The anointed one of God. “When the House of David lost Jerusalem and the throne, the anointed king, represented ideally in the pre exilic psalms, became an ideal eschatological figure, ‘the Messiah.’” The Messiah would rule Israel and the world in the last days.

Messianism 

When all covenants are reviewed, there is one common theme that unites them together. That is the redemptive plan that God had in store for His people through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The people of the Old Testament, the ones who were under the Law, were not under or part of a different plan from God. While they were the original recipients of His promises and covenants, there is no different message being unfolded from the time of the Law to the work of Christ in the New Testament. The faith that they had during the period of being under the Law was in the future reality that they would experience as the covenant people to a faithful God. Every covenant and event through Scripture have always pointed to one major thing and that is salvation for mankind, through the Son of God, Jesus.

Conclusion 

Leslie gives a brief overview of the lessons in this course and encourages us to see that God’s plan for salvation was there all along.

The Scandal of Salvation 

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There is NOTHING you could ever do to get right with God.

We could spend every single day for the rest of our lives trying to earn a position or place with God and we would fail. We are really starting this series off on a pretty depressing note. But the truth is this, we will never be able to get right with God on our own, but this is where God shows His nature and His grand redemptive plan for mankind; salvation.

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Leslie Kristina Garcia

Theological Student | Ministry Laborer

Leslie Garcia explores the basic principles of salvation and how it displays an amazing love of God for all humanity. This course will explore the need for salvation and how covenant promises that were fulfilled in the person and works of Jesus Christ. In this five part mini course you will learn all about God’s plan to redeem humanity from its disobedience and rejection of God.

How God Has Moved Throughout Time and Worked Out His Plan for His People 

About the Three Biblical Covenants:  Abrahamic, Mosaic and Messianic 

How God’s Plan for Salvation Reveals His Steadfast Love for Us 

Your guide, Leslie Kristina Garcia