God’s plan is clear. He saved people from the power of sin through his son Jesus Christ. Hindsight is 20/20. He did this at the right time in history. God couldn’t have simply had Eve bear Jesus and the atonement for sin to happen. Certain things had to be in place before Jesus could come into the world. It is impossible to know all of God’s work through scripture, but with some insight, we can figure out why God did some things the way he did.
There is an advanced argument to be made that the Earth was created in order to defeat evil in Heaven. If Heaven was perfect and without evil at the beginning, God could have just made us in Heaven. Scripture tells us that certain spiritual beings sinned from the very beginning of Heaven. Some liken this to spirits rebelling against ultimate authority, and don’t understand why unity is needed. Unity with God is needed because to do evil in Heaven would make Heaven a less than perfect place. The more spirits rebelled in Heaven, the more suffering of other Heavenly beings would take place. Indeed scripture talks about violence in Heaven. God made Earth for man, but he also made it so that it would be a tool by which evil could be rid from Heaven.
When God created man, man was good and without sin. The serpent told Eve to sin then Eve told Adam to sin. The serpent’s thought to get Eve to sin was sinful in itself, and because God didn’t put that thought into its head, it came from another spiritual being. At this time, Heaven was full of spiritual beings, and not all obeyed God. It isn’t important for us to understand what spiritual being put the idea of sin into the snake, but it is worth noting.
If you have vision and you know your Bible, you can see what evil spiritual beings were thinking. God rules in Heaven and Earth as absolute power, but evil beings wanted to usurp God. By introducing sin and death into mankind, man would enter a downward spiral of hatred for each other. God did not let mankind go unchecked or history would have been much different. If man would have eaten from the tree of life and gotten eternal life and still been sinful, one end result is that man would either enslave his fellow man or be enslaved. Man would have done this because when man discovers that all men are sinful, and he would harbor no honor to his fellow man. The sinful/evil spirits of Heaven would then try and draw conclusions from this to convince other spirits of Heaven to be sinful/evil too. Evil spirits really thought this was their chance to take a shot at God.
God expected this was going to take place. God had a plan to defeat sin on Earth, and consequently defeat sin in Heaven. No where in the Old Testament does God let on exactly how he is going to do this because if God gave the secret of salvation through Jesus Christ away, evil would have done things differently. Some people feel that God was heavy handed in the Old Testament and people suffered and died because of some actions of God, but these people who think that it isn’t justified are wrong. God is going to let us live eternally with him without suffering. In order to do this, God must first defeat evil. The reward of living eternally with God is greater than our mind can conceive. Is it so much of a thing to have temporary suffering on Earth if the prize is eternal life? This is similar to taking a painful medicine to keep from dying. The medicine may be painful, but being able to live out the rest of your life makes temporary pain worth it.
I think most people will agree than any bad thing we can experience on Earth is worth it if we are given eternal life of happiness without suffering. God knows this too, and that is one reason why he allows suffering on Earth instead of intervening at every point. If God played some sort of super hero and stopped evil before it harmed on Earth, so many things would be wrong that it isn’t worth discussing. Let’s just say God had a better plan than that. God’s plan is a total victory and not a cushioned bumper against evil. God’s plan was Jesus’ redemptive death and resurrection, but this couldn’t come about until he set up things and the time was right.
Looking back at the time when Jesus entered the world, we know the time was right. There are two factors that made this the right time. Firstly the Romans were conquering territory and had just recently conquered the Jews. The Romans pushed the idea of enslavement of nations for the benefit of the Roman citizens. The Jews had to take in consideration if they were to follow Roman law or their own Law handed down by God. The second factor was that some of the Jewish religious leaders of the time were out for their own interests and didn’t understand that their religion was out to help people, not make them follow strict rules. The danger of losing the Jewish faith to outside forces was clear and present. It was the like the perfect storm when Jesus came into the world. Of course, Jesus also came into the world to save Jew and Gentile alike, so the Roman Empire which was a threat actually ended up working like a tool in the spread of Christianity.
God had to get to this point before Jesus entered the world, and the stories of how it all came about are covered in the Old Testament. Remember when reading the Old Testament that God’s actions may not make sense to us, but they also were not to make sense to evil powers in Heaven which also had access to scripture. In fact many beings were fooled into thinking that the Messiah’s coming was going to establish a Jewish empire on Earth, and that is why some didn’t believe in Jesus. Jesus will return again, but we don’t know when, then he’ll have a thousand year reign before Heaven and Earth are made new and devoid of evil. Proverbs 25:2 “We honor God for what he conceals; we honor kings for what they explain.” God handed out some harsh punishments in the Old Testament, but we know now that everything he did was not without purpose.
Now that you see that God’s ultimate goal is worth some Earthly suffering, the Old Testament may make more sense. If you don’t read the Old Testament as God’s plan for setting up Jesus’ coming into the world, it seems like just a bunch of stories and God acting in a somewhat random manner. If you have the overarching framework of seeing things why God did it, you can have a more full understanding of the Bible. I’m not going to cover everything (not even major things), but I’m going to explain the Old Testament in a unique way that it may make more sense.
Unique overview of the Old Testament:
God won an early battle against sinful heavenly beings when people spread all over the world. Some of these heavenly beings willingly came to Earth because they saw that the women were beautiful. Eventually the entire world became wicked except for Noah. Noah and his family were saved from the flood while the rest of the people on Earth were killed. The tower of Babylon explains how people got spread across the world and how different languages came into being. The Biblical account of languages is that God gave languages to men, and we know men are constantly evolving their languages. This is similar on how evolution works. God made living things in the beginning of Earth, but things are changing over time.
God picked Abraham because he was faithful to God, and promised him nations. Abraham is the ancestor to all the Jews. Abraham is told that his people will be enslaved for four hundred years. God did this such that his people would stay united as a people, and not be tempted into sin with the local population. All the while sin would spread through the nations that the Jews were to conquer making these nations worse off in sin. Sin is like a virus that spreads. Keeping the Jewish race in quarantine in Egypt makes sense. Killing off the people who fell into deep sin makes sense too because that prevents them from spreading sin.
In Exodus, the Jews are many when Moses is brought to bring them out of Egypt. God calls himself,”I am” which could be meaning that he was about to show that he exists through his miracles. After the plagues, and God bringing his people out of Egypt, the people sinned against God by not trusting him. These people knew God was real, but still fell into deep sin. This is why the generation to leave Egypt was not the generation allowed to enter the Promised Land. God gave Moses the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai and told Moses the Law that was to serve as a guide for his people. The picking of a single race and giving of the Law and the Torah is important for it gave the people a sense of national identity. If God was to spread his prophets around many different nations, the message would be hard to assemble.
The Book of Joshua explains how Joshua led the Jewish people to exterminate the false god worshipers of the Promised Land such that the Jews would have a place to live. Joshua makes a few mistakes and is unable to kill off all the people nearby. Because idol worshipers were near to Israel, God knew that if they traded with one another, the Jews could fall into accepting the sins and false gods of their neighbors. For this reason God said that every generation of the Jews should know war.
Judges is straight forward. After the generation of Joshua fell off, the Jews fell into sin. As they fell into sin, God caused troubles to arise for them. Then after people prayed to God about their troubles, God sent in a judge who was given power by God to help the Jewish people and put them on track with their faith.
Samuel explains how God can favor a man who is dedicated to God and be against people who treat servitude towards God as a cheap thing for personal gain. The kings came about too. First Saul was chosen so the people would be happy with their king because he was taller. If God would have sent David as King first, the people probably would have rejected him as king from his stature. Samuel is a good read, and a lot can be learned from what God wants from a person and the sin he dislikes.
The rest of the Old Testament shows who God is, and it holds proof of his existence through prophecy. There is a lot to be learned in the Old Testament and is not to be ignored. It is just a difficult read if you don’t understand how it is made to lead to the New Testament. I know this overview didn’t do the Old Testament justice. I was just covering some of the overarching framework of what God did.