God sees to it that the history of mankind will have a glorious ending

Whenever people read the Bible, they should bear in mind what God wanted to achieve when He created earth and man. He wanted a paradise-like earth, inhabited by perfect, totally happy people who, in full freedom, have made the choice to submit themselves to their creator and who, out of love for Him, have made up their mind to obey Him.

How could God achieve His end after the rebellion of Adam and Eve? If Adam and Eve, who had started their life as persons with a perfect body and mind, had turned against their God, what would be the destiny of their descendants? They would be children of imperfect, sinful parents who had been sentenced to death. They would have to cope with unpleasant living conditions with imperfections in their bodies and minds.

The sinful desires that Adam and Eve had allowed to grow in their minds affected all their physical and mental qualities and capacities. They also affected their reproductive organs and the genes that they passed on to their children.

Besides the children were raised by parents who were physically and mentally imperfect and consequently made mistakes in the way they brought up their children. These children were brought up by parents who had been sentenced to death, thrown out of paradise by God, and had forfeited their original perfection.

This fate of being born with inherited imperfections and being raised by imperfect parents has affected the lives of all descendants of Adam and Eve, up to and including the people who are living now. This fate has made it impossible for all descendants not to sin. And this sinning, which all descendants of the first human pair have done because they have been affected by evil, has also resulted in the death penalty for all human beings. God is very outspoken on this matter - the consequence of sin is death. Only those people who never sin deserve not to die and may claim a place in the paradise - like earth that God had in mind when He created the earth and man.

When Adam and Eve sinned and were thrown out of paradise, God knew that all descendants of Adam and Eve would also sin and consequently could not be admitted to the paradise earth that He had in mind. Faced with this reality, how could God's plan still be brought to a good end?

God sees to it that mankind will have a glorious ending.

This is the most important theme of the Bible: how does God see to it that in spite of the fact that all people cannot meet His requirements to be admitted to His paradise earth, this place will still be realized and that it will still be populated by millions, perhaps even billions, of descendants of the first human pair?

It is obvious that when God removed the first human pair out of His paradise, He already knew what He was going to do to achieve the ends for which He had created the earth and man, in spite of the opposition of Adam and Eve. Right away He mentioned a seed, a person who would be born later in the course of human history. He would annihilate both Satan and his work. About 2000 years later, God gave some further details as regards to this seed. For instance, He said to Abraham: "Through you, all the nations of the earth will be blessed." This statement indicated that the seed that would repair all the damage Satan had brought upon mankind would be a descendant of Abraham.

About 800 years after this promise to Abraham, God made a similar promise to King David. The seed that He had promised in paradise would be a descendant of this great king. At the beginning of our Christian era, the promised seed really came to earth. This created the possibility for humans, even if they were sinful, to get a place in the paradise earth that God had in mind with His creation and which is sure to come. This seed is Jesus Christ.

Adam and Eve failed to have the appreciation that their creator deserved. They refused to submit themselves voluntarily to their creator and to obey Him out of love. They thought that He denied them something that He could have given them and that could have made their lives better. By adopting this attitude, they defiled God's name and showed that they distrusted Him.

Jesus Christ cleared and sanctified God's name and reputation among people by submitting himself voluntarily to his creator, obeying Him out of love, and showing through his words and actions that he trusted God completely.

With their refusal to obey God, Adam and Eve demonstrated that they did not want to entrust Him with the leadership over the earth and mankind. They refused to acknowledge God as the one who has the natural right to decide what people should and should not do. They rejected God as their ruler and desecrated His name.

Jesus Christ has come to demonstrate that it is possible for a human to acknowledge that the creator has the right to be the king and the ruler in the universe created by Him. God also has the right to demand from people (who were endowed with common sense and intelligence) both submission and obedience to His commandments.

Adam and Eve have desecrated God's name and they have rejected the ends that He had in mind when He created the earth and man. Jesus Christ has come to clear and sanctify God's name (and thereby His essence, qualities, and the ends that God wants to achieve). In essence, for all people who believe the Bible and want to live as followers of Christ, there is every reason to pray to God every day:

Hallowed be thy name
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

These prayers will surely be answered. The central theme of the Bible is how these prayers will be answered and how the ends that God had in mind when creating the earth and man will certainly be achieved. The paradise-like earth with perfect and totally happy people inhabiting it will eventually become a reality. The people who will inhabit this new earth will live on it forever, without suffering and pain. This earth will be filled with people who, in complete freedom and out of love for God and His intentions with His creation, acknowledge God as their king and their law-giver. These people are willing to obey His commandments. In this earth, there will be no place for Satan and his demons.

Neither will there be a place for Adam and Eve, nor for those descendants of Adam and Eve who use their free will to side with Satan, Adam, and Eve - not with God and Jesus Christ.