What does the Bible talk about?
Answered from the commentary of C. H. Mackintosh, Samuel Ridout, J. T. Mawson and 13 others
The Bible talks about Christ: He is the centre and theme of all Scripture, "the golden chain" that binds every part of it into one whole from Genesis to Revelation. The authors rest this on the Lord's own words. On the road to Emmaus, "beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded … in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself" (Luke 24:27). He also said of the Scriptures, "they are they which testify of me" (John 5:39). So the Old Testament shows Him in type, shadow and prophecy, and the New shows Him in substance. He is therefore the key that opens the whole book: leave Him out and it becomes a dead letter, but bring Him in and it is "a living unity, because it reveals a living Person". Through Him the Bible is God's revelation of Himself, given in part in earlier times and now fully declared in the Son.
Alongside this one leading subject runs the history of man, which tells in every age "the sad tale of his antagonism to God". Man was made innocent and set over a creation God called very good. Through Satan he fell, sin and death entered, and the whole creation groans. Yet even then God promised the woman's Seed, who would crush the serpent's head (Genesis 3:15), so that all blessing turns not on the first man but on the Second. The law then set out a perfect rule of what man ought to be. Because man was a sinner, it could only expose and condemn him, becoming "a ministration of death and condemnation". Christ answers that need. By His death and blood He redeems, reconciles to God and brings the believer to God. Scripture is written "that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may have life in His name" (John 20:31). Looking forward, it speaks of His appearing to judge the living and the dead, of His reign over the earth with Israel restored and the glorified saints on high, and of the eternal state when God is all in all. Darby sums up two great subjects beside personal salvation: God's government of the world with the Jews as its centre under Christ, and the sovereign grace that gives believers the same glory as Christ. All of it, being inspired of God, is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction and for instruction in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
Verses: John 20:31, 2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Timothy 3:17, Luke 24:27, Luke 24:44, Luke 24:45, Luke 24:46, Luke 24:47, John 5:39, Genesis 1:1, Genesis 1:27, Genesis 3:15, Genesis 12:1, Genesis 12:2, Genesis 12:3, Exodus 20:2, Exodus 20:3, Deuteronomy 6:4, Deuteronomy 6:5, Psalms 119:105, Isaiah 53:5, Isaiah 53:6, Jeremiah 31:31, Jeremiah 31:32, Jeremiah 31:33, Jeremiah 31:34, Micah 6:8, Mark 1:15, Mark 12:29, Mark 12:30, Mark 12:31, John 1:1, John 1:14, John 3:16, Romans 3:23, Romans 3:24, Romans 6:23, Romans 15:4, 1 Corinthians 15:3, 1 Corinthians 15:4, 2 Corinthians 5:17, 2 Corinthians 5:18, 2 Corinthians 5:19, Ephesians 2:8, Ephesians 2:9, Ephesians 2:10, Hebrews 1:1, Hebrews 1:2, 1 John 5:13, Revelation 21:3, Revelation 21:4, Revelation 21:5
The above is AI generated summary based on the writers below.
What the commentators say
The passages the answer is drawn from, the most direct first, with the words that bear on the question marked.
Christ is the grand subject of the Bible. He is the object of God, in type and shadow, in the Old Testament, but in real substance in the New. Hence, when on earth, He said, "Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of ME." There is blessed food for the soul in reading the Old Testament in this light. Christ is the key which unlocks the treasure to us.
Christ is everywhere the theme of the Spirit in Holy Scripture. Not only in the Gospels, which tell of His past humiliation; not only in the Epistles, which speak of His present glory; but throughout Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, Christ is the one theme of the Spirit of God. Happy the man who has eyes to perceive this, and a heart to appreciate it. It is the fruit of the gracious work of God Himself within.
The typical instruction in the Old Testament having its accomplishment in the New Testament, gives a remarkable complexion of unity to the whole Bible. Take, for instance, Abraham offering up his loved and only son Isaac; what an accurate fulfilment of the type we have in God's delivering up His only-begotten Son as a sacrifice for us! In this one instance we have shadowed forth divine love and grace in laying our iniquity on Him; divine righteousness in judging unsparingly our sins on Him instead of on us; and divine power to usward in raising Him up from the dead, and giving us risen life in association with Him.
The unity of the Bible is further shown by the one leading Subject throughout, being Christ Jesus, the Son of God, full of brightness and blessing; while the history of man, side by side, tells in all ages the sad tale of his antagonism to God, and unbelief in His goodness and mercy.
It will be a further assistance, if it is pointed out that Christ Himself is the key of the whole Bible. For He is the object of all God's purposes, whether in respect of the earthly or the heavenly people; and He is, moreover, the centre of all God's ways. It is, therefore, around Him that all the facts of revelation gather, and to Him that all type and prophecy look, and for the reason that for the administration of the fulness of times it is God's sovereign pleasure and purpose to head up all things in the Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth. If Christ, therefore, and the glory of Christ, be not before the soul in our scriptural studies, we shall not profit because we should not be in communion with the mind of God. Leave out Christ, and the Bible becomes a dead letter, and provocative of criticism and controversy at every turn; bring in Christ, and the Book is instinct with life and power, a living unity, because it reveals a living Person, and the reader is filled with adoration and praise.
The bright line which runs from Genesis to Revelation, and gives the whole Book a unity which nothing else could, is its testimony to the infinite glory of the Person of the Son, the eternal efficacy of His one sacrifice for sin, His moral worth and excellency beyond all thought, the glorious offices on our account He now sustains, as well as His glories yet to be revealed when He comes with clouds, and His saints accompany Him, to put down all that is contrary to God, and fulfil all the promises to Israel, and much more, which assure us of the verity of our Saviour's words when speaking of the "scriptures," "they are they which testify of me." (John 5:39.)
Does not the narrative of how science is taught in the Bible many centuries before man by searching discovered these matters, not convince us of the Divine authorship of the Book, of its wonderful inspiration? And if that be so should it not lead us to a reverent and daily searching of this wonderful volume? And above all to a firm and full belief in its central message, that is the revelation of God in Christ, the atoning character of our Lord’s death, His resurrection, is ascension, His living ministry on high, His coming again? Everything in the blessed Book circles round and is subservient to this great central theme, even God in Christ, “the one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave Himself a ransom for all” (1 Tim. 2:5-6).
222 There are two great subjects in the Bible, after personal salvation; the divine government of the world with the Jews as centre, under Christ; and the sovereign grace that has given those who are content to suffer with Him the same glory that Christ enjoys as Man, predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He may be the first-born among many brethren. Already we enjoy the same relationship with His God and Father. "Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." Already children and heirs here below, when Christ comes we shall rejoice with heavenly joy with Him, and we shall reign with Him.
God has from the first of Genesis been making Himself known, and He is now fully declared in Christ. God is first presented to us in the Bible in view of ruin, and what we know of God in that relation is (however it occurred) that He is superior to it!
God never made man, the earth, and the lower creation as they are. "He saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good." It is now a ruin; mortality works in animated nature, as sin pervades mankind, and the whole creation groans together and travails in pain together until now. Bible or no Bible, the world is in a state of departure from God; Bible or no Bible, man is a sinner and unable to stand before the God Who judges sin and sinners. But the Bible alone in its own inimitably simple, holy, and dignified way tells the truth how it came in. The myths of men in their little measure testify here, there, and everywhere, to that truth which scripture alone sets out so profoundly that the deepest plummet has never sounded it, so helpfully that the least draught has ever refreshed a truly thirsting soul. Here is not a word to puff a Jew more than a Gentile. Here man reads God's just sentence on his own inexcusable sin. "Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived; but the woman, being beguiled, is involved in transgression." What a key to the moral history of man! What a ground for divine order in God's church! Yet all in a fact which the O.T. records, and which the N.T. applies, as only God could reveal in either.
God's eternal power and divinity may be known in creation, Rom. 1:20; but He has revealed Himself in the person of Christ, the Son, the eternal Word. God has been pleased also to reveal Himself in His written word. His purposes, His ways, and what He has done for sinful man, all demand universal reverence, adoration, and worship.
Verses
- John 20:31but these are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life in his name.
- 2 Timothy 3:16–1716Every scripture [is] divinely inspired, and profitable for teaching, for conviction, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; 17that the man of God may be complete, fully fitted to every good work.
- Luke 24:27And having begun from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
- Luke 24:44–4744And he said to them, These [are] the words which I spoke to you while I was yet with you, that all that is written concerning me in the law of Moses and prophets and psalms must be fulfilled. 45Then he opened their understanding to understand the scriptures, 46and said to them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved the Christ to suffer, and to rise from among the dead the third day; 47and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all the nations beginning at Jerusalem.