Well, for 9 months we have been reading thru the Old Testament and we’re DONE! It is so cool to be in the New Testament, to see God’s master redemption plan unfold with Jesus the Messiah! Remember – the cross is not a reaction by God. He didn’t come up with this plan when he saw us sinning…in his foreknowledge he knew all along how this was going to go,(Rev 13:8; 1 Peter 1:20) and he mercifully provided us a way to be reconciled to him.
Another benefit of the chronological read is that now we are reading all the gospels in parallel. We get to compare and contrast them, soak in the details that we don’t often catch when we are reading them isolation.
One such detail I found this morning in Matt 1:21…
…and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.
After all the OT – we finally see how we will be SAVED from our sins, forever, permanently. As Jeremiah says “I will forgive their iniquities, and remember their sins no more.” As the ESV Study Bible note says “Salvation from sins was a repeated promise in the OT.” Look at these verses for more:
Mike Ruel 