The Bible’s Big Message

The Big Message

What is the point of the Bible? What is its big message? As we first begin to read the Bible, we may be overwhelmed at the many different stories and characters. But there is a single big story that is told all through the Bible. That single big story is the story of God’s great love for his people and how he proved that love by sending his own Son to save his people from their sins.

What is so remarkable about this big story is that his people show themselves to be sinful at every point in the Bible. God does not protect and deliver those who are perfect. He protects and delivers the needy, the failures, the sad, the lonely, the sinful. The message of the Bible is God’s grace for sinners.

From Genesis to Revelation

The Bible tells us that God made this world—people and animals, stars and moon, waterfalls and mountains. And God placed people over his creation to rule over it and spread peace and happiness throughout the whole earth.

But Adam and Eve, the first humans, failed. They listened to the serpent instead of God. As a result, a wall went up between humans and God. The peace and friendship they had enjoyed was broken. Instead of peace and happiness, darkness and sadness began to spread through the whole earth.

The rest of the Bible is the story of God working to restore his friendship with his people. Even though his people keep on sinning, God never gives up on them. With patience and love he pursues them time and again. He called Abraham to be the father of a special people, Israel. Through Israel, God would work to bring peace and joy to the whole world once again.

Yet even Israel was sinful! They became slaves to Egypt, but God sent Moses to deliver them and to teach them how to live as God’s people. This teaching was called the “law.” But time and again Israel failed to keep the law. Like Adam and Eve, they chose their own way and continued mankind’s plunge into misery.

So God sent judges and prophets and kings to try to help Israel to honor God and follow his law. But the people refused—and in many cases, these judges and prophets and kings were part of the problem themselves. Sin had infected the whole human race.

But even after all this, God did not give up on his people. How can that be?

The Main Character of the Bible: Jesus

The answer is that the Bible is not mainly about people being good and God rewarding them. It is about people being bad and God loving them anyway. The Bible is not mainly a book telling us how to live, with stories sprinkled in. It is mainly a big Story about God’s unstoppable love, with instructions sprinkled in along the way. But even these instructions are given to those whom God already loves. We do not obey God so that he will love us. We obey him because we know he already loves us.

The Bible calls God’s children to holiness, which means to live for God and to walk in his ways.

How can that be? The answer is Jesus. After sending many different kinds of messengers to save his people throughout the Old Testament, God eventually sent a final Messenger. All the other messengers were themselves sinners. But this final Messenger was sinless. He obeyed the law perfectly. He trusted in the Lord without ever failing. He was God’s own Son. His only Son. Jesus.

And then he died horribly on a cross. Why? Wasn’t he the only one who ever lived who deserved not to die?

Yes! But here is the beauty of the gospel. Jesus was taking the punishment for all of God’s people down through the centuries who had failed but had counted on God to forgive them, and for everyone after Jesus who would ever trust in him. He received the penalty in our place. He, the innocent one, was declared guilty—so that we, the guilty ones, might go free.

And after Jesus died he rose again from the dead, which was the beginning of the end of death, sadness, sickness, and darkness. When we see the risen Jesus, we who follow him are seeing our own future. That is the kind of body and the kind of perfection that we will enjoy one day. He has conquered death and Satan and will return in victory one day soon.

And the entire Bible is about Jesus and this great work of salvation he accomplished. It is not just the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) that tell us about Jesus. It is not even just the New Testament that tells us about Jesus. Rather, the whole Old Testament prepares us for Jesus and anticipates his coming. Jesus himself said so (John 5:39–46; Luke 24:27, 44). And the New Testament describes his coming and shows us what it means.

How Should You Respond?

And what does his coming mean? It means you can be rinsed clean for free. It means that all your sins—even the sins you have not yet done— have been punished already, in Jesus. It means you are safe.

How? By receiving God’s grace. By bringing to God nothing but your need. By counting on God to forgive you because of what Jesus did, rather than trying to get God to love you by what you do. It is hard to learn to do this at first, because we naturally try to get God to accept us by doing a good job of obeying him. But we must keep remembering that Jesus obeyed God perfectly in our place. If you have trusted in Jesus, you are now connected to him. You have been born again. You are a new you. And this is all by the gift of God’s grace.

This does not mean that we should live any old way. The Bible calls God’s children to holiness, which means to live for God and to walk in his ways. But how do we live this kind of life? We can do so only by remembering how much he already loves us. As our hearts are softened and changed by the amazing grace of the gospel, we will find new desires inside us that want to obey God. It is not easy, and it often requires great work. But we will live a life that honors God only as we enjoy his great, invincible love for us that does not go up or down based on how we are doing. Trust him. Thank him for the gospel, which tells us of how God sent Jesus to die for our sins and rise again. Spend some time each day reading the Bible and learning of God’s great love. He will meet with you as you do.

This article is adapted from The Biggest Story Holy Bible for Kids.

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