God’s Plan for Salvation: The Big Picture

The Goodness of Creation

 Genesis tells us that God created the world out of love, because he is Love.  God is revealed as the one, true God who sustains the whole universe.  The creation accounts are in a part of Genesis called “The Primeval History”.  primeval history – symbolic accounts about things that happened long before we have any historical records  Written through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit from ancient Jewish sources

 The primeval history in the Sacred Scripture teaches religious truth, not science.  Written in figurative language, which uses symbolic images, stories, and names to point to a deeper truth.  Not meant to be scientifically or historically accurate.  Ex. God created with world in six days

 Creation reveals the power of God.  Faith and reason tell us that God created the universe through his love.  He exists outside of space and time.  Creation is the work of all three Persons of the Trinity.

 Scriptures and Tradition teach that part of God’s creation includes things unseen too.  God’s spiritual realm is just as real as the visible, earthly realm.  Angels are spiritual beings who are the servants and messengers of God.  They exist in the spiritual realm but interfere in the earthly realm and appear to human beings at key moments.  Genesis 22:11-12  Matthew 1:20  Matthew 28:2-7

 Soul – our spiritual principal created by God that makes us most like God  Only at death will our body and soul separate.  Only our soul will live on until it is reunited once again with our resurrected body.  God created humans to have a unique role and very special place in his plan.  Genesis 1:27  No other living being is created in God’s image.  Humans are the only creature God created with a body and an immortal soul.

 Both males and females are made in God’s image.  Men and women were created with equal dignity, yet distinct characteristics.  God created men and women for each other.  We are not meant to be solitary creatures, but in communion with each other.  Men and women were brought together to create human life.

 Humanity’s unique role in God’s plan has two dimensions:  To be in communion with God and to respond to his love by loving him in return.  To serve him, particularly as stewards of his creation  We are the only creatures who can freely choose to return God’s love.  God has given us free will and self-knowledge.

 God has given human beings all the other creatures for our benefit.  We are entrusted to care for the earth and everything that lives on it.  We must respect every creature’s goodness and place in the order of creation.

 God breathes life into Adam and creates a very intimate relationship with him.  God walks with Adam and talks to him as a friend.  God wants to make the perfect partner for Adam.  Adam and Eve were in the state of original holiness, or in direct communion with God.

 Adam and Eve were one mind and one body because Eve was made from Adam.  Deeply connected to each other.  Cared for the Garden of Eden and produced food shows their relationship with the rest of creation.  The state of complete harmony between Adam and Eve and the rest of creation is called original justice.

The Fall from Grace

 Genesis 3:1-24 Genesis 3:1-24  How does the Bible express that Adam and Eve feel guilt and shame after they eat the apple?  God never planned for humans to feel guilt nor shame.  Do Adam and Eve take responsibility for their actions?  How does the Bible show that Adam and Eve have lost their original holiness and justice?  How do Adam and Eve’s actions affect future humanity?  No human being will be born with original holiness intact.  Makes it hard for us to make moral choices.  The Fall of Adam and Eve is the origin and the result of Original Sin

 The full knowledge of good and evil (that could be attained by eating fruit from the tree) belongs to God alone.  The tree symbolizes that humans can never be God.  Eating the fruit from the tree symbolizes Adam and Eve rejecting God and his commands.  Adam and Eve’s sin was a misuse of human freedom and a lack of trust in God.

 Original Sin has two definitions:  1. the sin of Adam and Eve, who disobeyed God which caused them to lose their original holiness and became subject to death.  2. the fallen state of human nature that affects every person born into the world.  Original Sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand.

 Because of Original Sin human nature is weakened.  We are more inclined to sin, which is called concupiscence.  It is harder for humans to make the correct moral decision.  Our relationship with God is clouded and hidden and we struggle to find him.  Humans now experience death.  Original sin does not make us lose our goodness or become corrupt.

 The deceiving serpent in the account of the Fall depicts Satan.  Satan and his demons are fallen angels who used their free will to reject God.  Satan is powerful but Jesus Christ has won a victory over Satan through his death on the cross.  Today, Satan tempts us to sin, but we are protected by Christ.

The Path to Restoration

 God delivers a special consequence to Adam and Eve.  Genesis 3:15  The literal sense explains why snakes and humans do not get a long.  The spiritual sense explains God’s first promise to send a Savior to free humanity from the effects of the Fall.

Literal SignSpiritual Meaning The serpentSatan The womanMary The woman’s offspringJesus Christ Enmity between the serpent and the woman, between the serpent and her offspring The spiritual battle between Satan and God for the future of humanity “He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel.” Jesus Christ will win the battle with Satan. A strike at the heel is a position of weakness, but a strike at the head is a death blow.

 The accounts after the Fall serve two purposes:  They show the growth and worsening of sin.  They show that no matter how bad humanity fell, God remained faithful in finding a way to keep his plan of salvation going.  Cain and Able – Genesis 4:1-16  Noah and the Flood – Genesis 6:5-22  The Tower of Babel – Genesis 11:1-9

 Story of jealousy and fratricide, or the killing of one’s own brother or sister.  Cain and Able are Adam and Eve’s first two sons.  One is a shepherd and one is a farmer which portrays the two ways people fed themselves in biblical times.  Cain kills Able out of jealousy – the first sin after the Fall.  God marks Cain to prevent anyone from killing him in revenge.  God continuing his promise to save the descendents of Adam and Eve.

 Humankind has greatly increased in number and in sin.  God wants to being over again.  Through Noah and his family, God is able to continue his promise to save the descendants of Adam and Eve.  God makes a covenant with Noah and with all of creation that there will never be destruction by flood again.  Marked this promise with a rainbow.

 Babel is another spelling of Babylon.  Where Israelite leaders were sent as captives.  Built tall towers called ziggurats for politics and religion.  Israelites saw these places as places of idolatry, or worship of false gods.  This story tells of people who tried to made themselves like God.  God’s punishment is to make them speak different languages so they could not understand one another.

 A covenant is a solemn agreement between two parties.  God made many covenants with the Israelites to communicate the love he has for humanity and his desire to restore our communion with him.  These covenants point us to the Paschal Mystery, the redemption of all humanity through Christ’s Passion, death and Resurrection, and Ascension.

 Genesis 12  God calls a Chosen People to be in a unique relationship with him.  God establishes this special relationship and its purpose in the Covenant with Abraham.  God promises Abraham 3 things:  To make of him a great nation by promising Abraham many descendants  To provide Abraham and his descendants a land of their own  To make Abraham and his descendants a blessing for all the nations

 Abraham descendants will become Hebrews, Israelites, then the Jews.  These people will be an example to all other people of how to live in right relationship with God.  Abraham’s descendants must commit to three things:  To recognize God as the one, true God  To live lives without sins  To practice circumcision as a physical mark of the Covenant

 Harsh weather shows God’s presence on the mountain and foreshadows the importance of what will happen.  God calls Moses to the mountaintop and renews with Moses the Covenant he made with Abraham.  Exodus  The Covenant with Moses is made during the theophany at Mount Sinai, or God’s breaking through into the human dimension so the understanding of God can be deepened.

 God gives Moses a set of laws that the Israelites must follow as their part of the Covenant.  The Ten Commandments  Keeping this Law is the most important sign of faithfulness to the Covenant.  The Jewish people compile the Law into the first five books of the Scriptures called the Torah.  Through these laws God teaches the Chosen People how to be in right relationship with him and with one another.