Christianity was provided a most gracious, miraculous history at its very foundations which not only possesses great meaning, but without which, it not is not even likely it would have survived. The New Testament, particularly in the Gospels, but no less so in the epistles, routinely presents to its readers historical events and actions of God that are at once gracious divine interventions, but at the same time, miraculous, and then given serious meaning which our faith is designed to be based upon. The factual history of the New Testament is thus not only real, objective, personal, but also miraculous, as well - hence potentially life-changing since it deals with life itself in a much more serious way than is usually appreciated.

The incarnation, life, death, and resurrection/ ascension of Messiah, is/are the greatest miracle(s) the world has ever known or witnessed - all of which was historically eyewitnessed by the disciples so that the gracious good 'news' they propagated is akin to being a correspondent on the scene who reports to his readers/ listeners what they experienced - which then becomes the basis for their doctrinal content and apostolic authority, "What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life -- and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us --- what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also .... (1 John 1:1-3)."

Dr. Karl Lowith writes, "What is particular to the Christian time-reckoning is that it counts from a central event, which occurred when the time had been fulfilled (Romans 5:6; Galatians 4:4). For the Jews, the central event is still in the future, and the expectation of the Messiah divides for them all the time into a present and future aeon. For the Christian the dividing line in the history of salvation is no longer a mere futurum but a perfectum praesens, the accomplished advent of Jesus Christ. With regard to this central event the time is reckoned forward as well as backward. The years of history B.C. continuously decrease while the years A.D. increase toward an end time. In this linear, though double-faced, chronological scheme the biblical view of history is delineated as a history of salvation, progressing from promise to fulfillment and focused in Jesus Christ.

Man's sin and God's saving purpose - they alone require and justify history as such, and historical time. Without original sin and final redemption the historical interim would be unnecessary and unintelligible. The interim, i.e., the whole of history, is neither an empty time in which nothing happens nor a busy time in which everything may happen, but the decisive time of probation and final discrimination between the wheat and the tares. Its constant content are variations of one single theme - God's call and man's response to it. To experience history as an interim means to live in a supreme tension between conflicting wills, running a race, the goal of which is neither an airy ideal nor a massive reality but the promise of salvation."