Many have asked the question, “if God knew man would sin, why create them in the first place?” I’m certain this is a creation that people have been asking for years, decades, and probably even centuries. However, the answer is evident throughout all of creation, and throughout all of scripture. Since the beginning of time, it has been the desire of the Lord to have a people, and it was for a people, that He created man in the first place.

God created Adam and Eve. Through them, He planned on having relationship and communion with others, with His children. But sin came in the way of that, and for thousands of years, God didn’t have an intimate relationship with people. That is until He made a covenant with a person which led to a people. This covenant was not perfect though. A better one had to be made through His son, Jesus. This better covenant marked a moment in history that changed the lives of the entire world. The new covenant made it possible for us all to become grafted into the family of God, thus becoming a part of God’s people.

We can’t stop looking at our history there, though. We must look farther on, to see what God has for us today, as God’s people, and what things are to come.

In this article, we’ll look at the different moments in our family’s history and take a deeper dive into how we can learn from the history of God’s people. In this way, we can better know what to do as the body of Christ now, and how we can live for the life to come.

The Old Covenant

For thousands of years after the fall of man, God didn’t have a designated people. He still used people, like Noah for example, but He didn’t have a set-apart people to minister to and love. This changed when God spoke unto Abraham.

In the book of Genesis, God spoke to Abraham, who had a minimal understanding of God. I gather that most of that time knew of a higher power, but didn’t know Him themselves, nor reverence Him as we do today. But in Genesis 12, as the Lord spoke unto Abraham, he obeyed.

“Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you; and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing” (Genesis 12:1-2).

Here, we see the Lord make Abraham, Abram at the time, a promise, and give him a commandment. The promise that we see is of blessings, and a great nation from him. The commandment is for Abraham to go away from his relatives and his country, and into the land of which the Lord sends him.

Eventually, the Lord makes a formal covenant with Abraham in Genesis 17.

“Now when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him,
“I am God Almighty;
Walk before Me, and be blameless.
I will establish My covenant between Me and you,
And I will multiply you exceedingly” (Genesis 17:1-2).

Here, we see the covenant made. Later on in the chapter, the Lord discusses another commandment, which is that every male must be circumcised. Again, we have a commandment, and a promise. Keep that in mind.

The Ten Commandments

In the next chapter of the Bible, we find Moses in the book of Exodus. By now, the Israelites, the descendants of Abraham, have grown and become what we would truly call, a people. We’ve met Issac, Jacob, Joseph, and more of the Jewish descent, and we’ve seen the Israelites prosper as God promised. But when we meet Moses, the Israelites are not exactly prosperous. In fact, they’re in slavery.

But God is faithful to His promises, and through Moses, saves His people from slavery, and leads them in freedom through the wilderness. Here, He provides for His people, feeding them with manna from the sky, and water from a rock. He miraculously provides for His people, with supernatural provision. However, their response is shocking. Instead of being grateful for the promises of God, they wish to go back into slavery. They would rather be in the chains they used to be in, than in the freedom that God offers. What’s worse is that they reject the opportunity to have relationship directly with God, for communing through a mediator in Moses. Do you see any parallels to our lives as Christians today?

From this point, God draws Moses to a mountain, and gives the Ten Commandments to His people. This also marks a pivotal point in the history of God’s people because it gave the Jewish people a “law” to live by. With the law, which eventually became 613 commandments, God offered intimacy with Him and favor, but for the high price of following the commandments. This high demand eventually became too much for the people to live by, which led to a tumultuous history, with exile, and more slavery. Again, there was a commandment given, and promises made.

The New Covenant

It became very clear that the Jewish people couldn’t follow the law. However, God knew they couldn’t. It was too high of a demand, and nothing that they could do on their own. This lack of ability paved the way in the hearts of God’s people for a deep need, in a form of a savior.

It’s the common Christian belief that God always intended, from the beginning of man, to send His son to die for our sins. Scripture even alludes to this in Galatians.

“But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:4-5).

So, when Jesus came and died, it became the absolute perfect covenant, with a perfect sacrifice, and a perfect savior. It gave us freedom from our sin nature, eternal life, and intimacy with God that’s not based on how we obey a list of laws. He gave us all that He originally wanted to give Adam and Eve, before they fell, only better, because this life can’t be taken away by sin. But this covenant still comes with a commandment, and a promise, just as we’ve seen in all these moments we’ve discussed.

This covenant marked a moment in the history of God’s people, where everything changed. We don’t have to be Jewish to be God’s people. We don’t have to be perfect to experience intimacy. And we don’t need to be in shackles to sin anymore. But it didn’t change the fact that as God’s people, we always have promises to stand on, and commandments to live out.

Final Thoughts

Through Jesus and His sacrifice, we all have the blessing and opportunity to be a part of God’s chosen people. We’ve been grafted in, and become sons and daughters of the living God, with Christ. But with that, there are responsibilities that we must walk in, just as the Israelites had responsibilities.

Jesus told us that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord with all of your heart, and the next greatest is to love others (Matthew 22:37-40). This may not seem like much compared to the 613 that the Israelites had, but to love the Lord is a greater responsibility than we know.

Loving God means that we put no others above Him. It means that we forsake our desires, for His. The promises that Jesus died for was eternal life with Him and great rewards, but the cross we must bear as followers of Him, is a life dedicated strictly to Jesus. Of course, you’ll quickly learn that this is too great of an ask for us as well, but this is a life that we must learn to live, as we look onto the future that the Lord has for His people.

Come back next week to learn how we are to live and function in this world, as Christians, and as God’s people.