Biblical Sin-Redemption Chronology
God's main focus had always been on providing a solution for our sins, so He could reconcile us to Him. Thus His redemption plans:
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- Old covenant - Jewish - Animal sacrifices & other offerings.
- New covenant - Christian - Jesus the Christ.
Both covenants provided a substitutionary atonement for our salvation. God made it clear throughout the Bible that the person that sins must die. God in His nature cannot be a Holy God without this requirement being met. So He devised a substitutionary plan to keep people from death when they sinned. It's a substitutionary redemption plan.
In the old covenant, a perfect unblemished animal had to be killed in place of the human that sinned. Before you start complaining about killing animals, note that the sacrificed animals provided food for the Jewish priests and their families. This substitutionary redemption started with a provisional implementation using animals as substitution.
Then later the final substitution plan came through the death of Jesus the only perfect sinless human. God Himself provided the way for us to reconcile with Him. The prophet Isaiah prophesied this thousands of years before the coming of Christ:
Isaiah 59:16
He saw that there was no one, He was appalled that there was no one to intervene; so His own arm achieved salvation for Him, and His own righteousness sustained Him.
Summarizing from the Bible, with focus on the sin-redemption parts:
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Adam & Eve, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob - Daily animal sacrifices & other offerings, for daily forgiveness of sins.
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Moses - Daily animal sacrifices and other offerings; the Law defined on tablets, for daily forgiveness of sins.
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Jesus - The perfect sacrifice on the cross - The Lord's Prayer daily to receive the Bread of life, for daily forgiveness of sins.
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In the old covenant, God started His sin-redemption drive with Adam and Eve after they were expelled from the Garden. He showed them how to present animal sacrifices to Him for the forgiveness of their sins, then made clothes for them from the sacrificed animal skins. Genesis 3:21, The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. Implying that animals had to be killed instead of them, as sacrifices for the forgiveness of their sins. That was when the provisional redemption plan started, and lasted until Jesus came, who provided the real and final redemption plan.
The old-covenant endured all the way through the days of Noah, Abraham, and Jacob. Then God further legalized it by giving Moses more specific and detailed instructions on how to present sacrifices as a substitution for all types of sins. Hundreds of commandments, that Moses documented in the old-testament books of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. This was the official proxy provisional law of God in preparation for the final covenant through the Messiah, Jesus Christ.
Jesus came and died on our behalf once and for all. And eliminated the need for old-covenant sacrifices etc... Then, only 10 commandments remained because Jesus' death fulfilled the rest of them. And now we live in the new-covenant with God, as described in the New-Testament books of the Bible. We, Christians view the Old Testament as the first part of Christian history. Although the Old-Testament is actually the Torah, the book of the law for the Jews, we consider it as a part of the Christian Bible. Jesus Himself often referenced scripture from the Old-Testament. The Old Testament is also full of stories that teach us about God's personality and His ways of dealing with people.
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Related Reading
Christianity & Judaism - A Parallel
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