When we understand that the Jesus-story is the long-awaited fulfillment of Israel’s story, our faith immediately takes on a deeply historical, ancient, prophetic, and shared dimension.
We need to quickly realize that faith didn’t begin with us. This is the faith that was once for all delivered to us from those who have gone before us. It is a faith that we have received. Christian faith is a received tradition.
Because of this reality, we don’t get to make Christianity up. Yes, we innovate, learn anew, and contextualize faith for the day in which we live, but we do not create something brand new. We do not manufacture a new faith. We receive it. We live it. We become it.
The Echoes of Faith
Faith echoes back all the way to Eden and God’s promise to one day put all things right (Gen. 3:15). Faith then moves and meanders through Abraham and God’s promise of a seed through whom all the nations of the earth will be blessed.
It flows through Moses, finding temporary resolution in Israel’s freedom from exile. It travels through David and the promise of an eternal King. And, it moves through the prophets, all the way to Jesus – the ultimate resolution of Israel’s story; a story for the whole world. It then travels through the apostles, through the centuries after them, to us.
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