The facts...

27 books → one Saviour → one sacrifice → one new people → one living hope.

The story...

A Saviour: Promised → Born → Teaching → Crucified → Risen → Ascended → Spirit given → Church sent → Coming again.

• The New Testament is the 27 books that form the final part of the Bible.
• Written by about nine authors over roughly sixty years — fishermen, a tax collector, a doctor, a former persecutor of the church, and others, including James and Jude, the half-brothers of Jesus.
• Written mainly in Koine Greek, the widely used everyday form of Greek in the eastern Roman world. This meant that the Gospel, the good news, could spread quickly.
• It tells the story of Jesus Christ — His coming, His teaching, His miracles, His death and resurrection — and of the birth and growth of His church.

The New Testament story moves in stages.

The Gospels. Four accounts of Jesus — Matthew, Mark, Luke and John — each written to a different audience, all telling the same story: Jesus of Nazareth, the promised Saviour, born of a virgin (the promise of Isaiah 7:14 kept), teaching with authority, healing the sick, forgiving sins, and claiming to be God the Son.

The Cross and the Resurrection. Jesus was betrayed, tried and crucified — the innocent dying for the guilty. On the third day He rose from the dead, appearing to His disciples and confirming that He is the Christ and that death could not hold Him. (The resurrection is not a nice idea; it is the hinge of everything. "And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins." 1 Corinthians 15:17 KJV — but He is risen.)

Acts. Before He ascended, Jesus promised the Holy Spirit. At Pentecost the Spirit came, and Jesus' followers were equipped to be His witnesses. Acts follows the good news spreading from Jerusalem to Judea, to Samaria, and to the ends of the earth — through Peter, then through Paul, to the Gentiles.

The Letters. The New Testament's letters (Romans to Jude) were written to real churches and real people facing real questions and problems. They teach the faith, correct error, encourage the suffering, and show what following Christ looks like in everyday life. (If the Bible were written today, these would be Paul's emails or his YouTube vlogs.)

Revelation. The last book pulls back the curtain: Christ reigning, evil being judged, God's people finally vindicated, and the new heaven and new earth where God dwells with His people forever. The story that began in a garden ends in a city.

• The New Testament was written in Koine Greek — the everyday language of the Roman Empire, not the classical Greek of the scholars. The good news was written in the language of ordinary people.
• Its books are arranged into groups: the Gospels (Matthew to John), the History (Acts), the Letters (Romans to Jude), and the Prophecy (Revelation).
• The gospel — "good news": the announcement of what God has done through Jesus Christ. Not good advice; good news — news of something already done.
• Grace — God giving us what we could never earn, the free gift of salvation.
• Faith — trusting Jesus Christ rather than simply knowing facts about Him.
• The church — the people of God, called out from the world, everyone who belongs to Christ, wherever they live.
• The Holy Spirit — God present and at work with His people, showing them their sin, pointing them to Christ, changing their lives and empowering the church.

So what is the New Testament really about?

It is not primarily a collection of religious teachings, or a biography of a good man, or a set of rules for living. The New Testament is the announcement that the Old Testament promise of a Saviour has been kept: and Jesus is that Saviour.

The good news is:

• Good news for the hurting
• Good news for the lost
• Good news for the poor
• Good news for the sinner (what you might call the bad person, but really that is all of us.)
• Good news for you

Everything in the New Testament presses towards one fact: God has done, through Jesus Christ, what we could never do for ourselves. He offers rescue to those who rebelled against Him and is restoring His creation.

What does the New Testament say about...

The fulfilment of the promise

• Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the longed-for Saviour, and he has come.

"... how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus..." — Acts 13:32–33 KJV

• He came to fulfil the Law and the Prophets, not to replace them

"Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." — Matthew 5:17 KJV

• The prophets spoke of this salvation

"Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you." — 1 Peter 1:10 KJV

• All the promises of God are yes in Christ

"For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen." — 2 Corinthians 1:20 KJV

The New Testament doesn't start a new faith separate from the Old; it fulfils it; it declares that the one promised from the beginning has arrived. The law is fulfilled (the moral law remains as our rule of life), the sacrifices are complete, the King has come.

• Jesus Christ is the centre of the New Testament.
• The Gospels tell us who He is: the Son of God made flesh.
• His death paid for our sins. [see Substitutionary sacrifice below]
• His resurrection defeated death.
• His ascension seated Him at God's right hand.
• His return is our certain hope.

Jesus Himself explained that the Scriptures — beginning with Moses and the prophets — were pointing towards Him: "beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself" (Luke 24:27). The New Testament is the answer to the Old Testament's question.

Substitutionary sacrifice

Big, weird-sounding words, but simple in meaning.

Substitutionary sacrifice of Christ. He substituted Himself for us. He took our place. He gave His life for ours. He sacrificed his life for us.

Jesus took our place. He bore our sins and gave His life for us, so that we could receive forgiveness and life.

Key biblical references:

• Isaiah 53:5–6 — "he was wounded for our transgressions" [Isaiah is an Old Teatament book, but the fulfilment is New Testament]
• Isaiah 53:11–12 — "for he shall bear their iniquities." [iniquities = wrongdoing]
• Mark 10:45 — Jesus gives His life "a ransom for many"
• 2 Corinthians 5:21 — "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin..."
• 1 Peter 2:24 — He "bare our sins in his own body"
• 1 Peter 3:18 — "the just for the unjust"
• Galatians 3:13 — "being made a curse for us"

Jesus dying in our place, bearing our sin so that we can be forgiven.

The New Testament reveals God as:

• The Father — who so loved the world that He gave His only Son.
• The Son — Jesus Christ, the Son of God made flesh, who lived a sinless life, died to take the punishment for our sins, and rose from the dead so that we could be made right with God.
• The Holy Spirit — God present with His people, convincing, comforting, and transforming them.

The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct persons, yet the Bible teaches they are one God. God who is love within Himself, and who has opened the way for sinners to know Him.

"That he [God the Father] might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." Romans 3:26 KJV

God is holy and just — He did not overlook sin, but poured out His judgement on His Son. He is loving and merciful — He did not leave us in our rebellion, but made a way back to Him. The same God who was faithful through the Old Testament kept His greatest promise in the New.

The New Testament is not ancient history to be admired from a distance.

• It announces good news — not what we must do to earn God's favour, but what God has already done through Jesus.
• It calls us to respond — to repent of our sin and trust in Jesus.
• It teaches us to live — the letters show how the gospel changes our relationships, our work, our words.
• It gives us hope — whatever this life brings, the resurrection and the promise of eternal life give us hope beyond this life.

"But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name." John 20:31 KJV

The New Testament gives us the very words of Jesus, the testimony of Jesus' apostles and other early Christians, the story of the first churches, teaching for those who follow Christ, and the promise of what is still to come. It is not a book to be admired; it is a message to be believed.

• When many of Jesus' followers found His teaching too difficult and turned away, Jesus asked the twelve, "Will ye also go away?"

  "...Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God." — John 6:68–69 KJV

  Peter's answer is striking: Jesus has the words of eternal life, and He is the Christ, the promised Saviour.

• If that is true, how should we respond to Jesus — follow Him, or turn away?