Metaphorically speaking, we all use glasses to interpret what we read and how we see our world. This is just another way of saying that we all have a worldview, a set of presuppositions, a mental grid, that we interpret the facts that we read, see, and hear with. When it comes to interpreting and understanding scripture, we must ask the Holy Spirit to make sure the lens we are using is none other than Jesus Glasses. This means that the proper hermeneutic (science of interpretation) for understanding what scripture is all about is not a consistent-literal-rational approach, but a Christ-is-Lord-revelational approach; not dispensational, but Christological. The proper approach to the Bible is to go to the New Testament and get a clear grasp of who the Lord Jesus Christ is and how he fulfilled the Old Testament and then turn to Genesis and read the thirty-nine books that we call the Old Testament with Jesus glasses on. The Old Testament is a God-inspired book, but it is the word of God about Christ who is identified as the Word of God. The Old Testament by itself is incomplete and when one attempts to understand it apart from New Testament revelation they wind up attaching their own ending to its meaning. From this approach we have been given many heresies --especially Judaism and Islam – both radically wrong concerning Jesus.

This is not to say that one must find Jesus symbolized, allegorized, and typified in every plant, animal, and bush and behind every rock and tree, but it is to read the scriptures with the clear perception that the plan of God and all the promises of God are centered and circled in Jesus! Predicted -- He is the Seed of Woman (Gen 3:15); Promised -- He is the Seed of Abraham (Gen 12:3); Pledged -- He is the Son of David (II Sam 7:12); Pictured -- He is the Subject of all Scripture, (Luke 24:44, 45); Presented -- He is the Fulfillment of every Promise (Luke 1:68-79); Positioned -- He is the Exalted Lord and King (Acts 2:29-30); Proclaimed – He is the Sum and Substance of the gospel (Acts 2:36)! Jesus is the criterion by which all scripture is read. (Read Lk. 24:25-27;44; Jn. 1:45; 5:39; Acts 10:43;28:23,31) In other words, Jesus fulfills and interprets all the Bible for us.

The Bible is really one book with sixty-six chapters, (i.e. books). It isn’t two books, about two peoples, two plans, two ways of salvation, and two destinies, but one book with and one main story, one people of faith and grace, and not a favored race. It sets forth one plan, one way of salvation and one final destiny, and all of this finds its fulfillment in ONE PERSON – THE LORD JESUS CHRIST!

The Bible is God’s written revelation of Himself, the story of His coming to us in the full, final, foremost and forever person of the Creator, Mediator, and Lord and Savior -- the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the Big Story (the metanarrative –the Universal Story that takes in all particulars or other little stories) of His redeemed people’s relationship to Him through the Kingdom/Covenant He has established with His Son. In this New Covenant all those persons who, by faith, are “in Christ” are brought into covenant membership and blessings.

The first book of the Bible – Genesis begins: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” The gospel of John begins with the exact language as the Greek version of the Old Testament: “In the beginning…” This was not an accident because the first thing John is going to tell us about who Jesus was and what he did, is that He was God and the Creator of the universe. Genesis 1 and 2 declares that God the Creator accomplished His creative work through His Word. In the NT John explains that the Word of God was a Person and the Agent of creation was the Son of God as he writes, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.” (John 1:1-3).

Paul writes that “all things were created in Christ, through Christ and for Christ” (Colossians 1:16). If this is true, and it is, then the meaning of the universe is not found in atoms, but in the Last Adam – Jesus, the Christ (1 Cors 15:45)! God’s very purpose in the creation of all things was with a view to their redemption in Christ. The gospel is not God’s afterthought because of man’s fall into sin, but His forethought – His blueprint to creation. Jesus was the Lamb of God slain before the foundations of the earth were ever laid (Revelation 13:8) Graeme Goldsworthy says, “If we could imagine God drawing up the plans for the universe before He created it, and if we could examine these plans, we would not see Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, but Jesus Christ in the gospel!”

The God of the Bible chose to create, not out of necessity, or loneliness or lack, but from the endless and self-replenishing overflow of delight in Himself. When God the Eternal Father beholds Himself in the Eternal Son, He is immeasurably happy. The delight that the Three-in-One and One-in-Three God has in Himself overflows in creation so that we might joyfully share, to God’s eternal glory, in God’s delight in His Son by the power of His Spirit!

My dear brother, Dudley Hall, helps us adjust our “Jesus glasses” to see that, “He (Jesus) not only is the second and last man, the ultimate Israelite, but the crown and agent of all creation. He is not just the most important religious figure in history. He is the most important figure in the created universe. All creation is under his authority. All creation has the birthmarks of his nature. All of creation exists to display his full glory. To neglect him is to neglect the key to knowing the full truth about anything in the universe. To know him is to hold the keys to understanding our proper relationship to anything and everything in creation. He is the cosmic Christ. He is not an afterthought of God to remedy the emergency of man's sin. He is not one of a series of moral teachers popping up in history to help mankind be better. He is the master of creation-all of it!”

O come let us adore Him – Christ the Lord!

Spirit of the Living God, fit us with “Jesus Glasses” and help us to never take them off or to let them get out of focus, but always to stay centered and circled in HIM!

We join with the Church Triumphant in Heaven and declare, “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created." (Revelation 4:11)