Messianic Prophecy #2 Revelation in the time of Adam

INTRODUCTION Genesis 3:15.

I want to begin by reminding you that Messianic Prophecy has two primary intentions, to reveal the person of Messiah, or the reveal the work of Messiah.

Every Messianic Prophecy contains one or both of those types of revelation.

Last time we went over that.

Messianic Prophecy is dependent upon our understanding of the concept.

Messiah means anointed, that is the translation.

The Messiah means the Anointed One.

The primary intent of Messiah, is King.

Messiah is King.

But we also learned He is Prophet and Priest.

The anointing comes from YHWH alone.

Messiah is the Hebrew equivalent to Christ in the Greek.

Both are transliterations, not translations.

So when we say Jesus is Messiah, or Jesus is the Christ, we are saying in force, Jesus is the Lord’s anointed King.

I know I am repeating myself, but these terms are essential to future lessons, so we have to get it down rock solid.

I shared with you last time also about direct Messianic Prophecy, but there are also some indirect prophecies.

Indirect prophecies are really vague, almost subliminal.

The earliest Messianic insights are of this type.

MESSIANIC REVELATION THROUGH CREATION

In Genesis 1:1 we read

Genesis 1:1 LSB

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

The term translated God is the Hebrew word Elohim.

Elohim is the name of God that refers to His eternality.

The insight we gain from that name is that God is, and always has been.

He has no beginning and no ending.

But here is why this is important to our study, Elohim is plural.

It is plural, and it describes the plurality of God.

Now again, that is vague, very sublime, but at the same time it hints at the reality of a plurality within the Godhead, one that we believe is Trinitarian.

Now I admit, there is nothing here to make a first time reader say, oh, there is Messiah.

But to a careful student of God’s word, that should make us begin to think, that God is more complex than meets the eye.

So even though the Son of God and the Spirit of God are not mentioned, the foundation is laid for their later introduction.

Of course we don’t have to wait long to be introduced to the Spirit of God, that comes in verse 2.

So at this time it would be reasonable if you assumed the plurality of Elohim consisted of two.

There is really no way to see Jesus in Genesis 1 alone.

Then in verse 26 we have another statement of plurality in YHWH.

Let Us create man in Our image.

Just for the record, if you are wondering why did the Jewish Rabbi’s resist the Trinitarian view of God, let me explain.

First they had Deut 6:4

Deuteronomy 6:4 LSB

“Hear, O Israel! Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is one!

That seems pretty definitive, at least it was for them.

This drove their view of God.

Second, when it came to Gen 1:26, their answer to the us and our, was that YHWH and angels cooperated in the creation of man.

Sounds plausible to the untrained mind.

But there is serious breech here, angels and YHWH are not of the same nature and essence, therefore they have a different image one from another.

For us as Christians who hold to a Trinitarians view of YHWH, we believe that all three persons in the Godhead were involved in Creation.

Now again, some might be asking but why, only the Spirit is mentioned, so why do I think this has Messianic implications?

Remember, Messianic Prophecy defines the person or the work of Messiah, or both.

There are many Messianic passages in the OT that are so obscure, so veiled, and so sublime that there is only one reason we know they are Messianic, the NT says so.

There are many texts in the OT that when we read them in the OT, it would be impossible to say they point to Messiah if the NT was not there to do so.

So why do I see Messianic implications in the creation account?

Colossians 1:16 LSB

For in Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him.

The Him in this great text of scripture is Jesus.

Jesus participated in the creation.

Jesus is part of the us and our in the creation of Adam.

Col 1:16, is just one NT verse that affirms Jesus as Creator.

Therefore, since Jesus is the Messiah, the Creation account has Messianic implications.

Hebrews 1:2 affirms the same truth.

Hebrews 1:2 LSB

in these last days spoke to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds,

The creation was a cooperative effort within the Godhead.

Therefore, it hints at Jesus in Genesis, and therefore has Messianic implications.

So the very first Messianic truth we discover is that Messiah is the Creator.

For those of you that were in the John study, now do you see why I was so careful to point our that those miracles John records were for the most part creation miracles.

Jesus created wine our of water, He changed the molecular structure of the water.

Jesus created new eyes, muscles, and organs.

Jesus created bread and fish.

Jesus proved He is the us and the our in Genesis 1.

So we see Jesus in Genesis 1 and 2.

Now let me ask you a question, who wrote Genesis?

God did, through the person of Moses.

Jesus would scold the religious leaders of Israel in John 5:46 saying….

John 5:46 LSB

“For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me.

But wait a minute, the name Jesus does not show up in the book of Genesis?

In fact the closest you get to that name in the entire OT is the book of Joshua.

Joshua, or Yeshua as the Hebrew pronounce it is the OT Hebrew equivalent to Jesus.

How then can Jesus say Moses wrote of Me?

Because Jesus was intimately involved in the creation for starters.

MESSIANIC REVELATION THROUGH THE FALL

In Genesis 3 we read of the sin and subsequent fall of Adam.

And just for the record, Romans 5 :12 holds Adam responsible, not Eve.

Romans 5:12 LSB

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—

Through one man, Adam, sin entered the world and infected the entire human race.

It was a dark day in human history.

But then YHWH steps in, and as the scene unfolds I need to develop it so that the Messianic implications are clear.

YHWH begins the process of restoration by calling out to Adam, where are you?

Now YHWH is omniscient, so He isn’t wandering around the garden trying to find Adam who is in hiding.

YHWH who is omniscient, knows the exact spot Adam is hiding.

YHWH wants to know, where are you spiritually Adam?

What has happened to you, why are you hiding from Me.

Now again, YHWH is not seeking the answer to the question, as the omniscient God He also knows what Adam has done that drove Him into hiding.

What the question is meant to produce is confession.

YHWH wants Adam to admit he has sinned.

This is important to our study.

Adam evades the question, and in verse 11 YHWH gets to the point, did you eat from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?

Adam continues t evade.

Now we all know, Adam plays the blame game.

Adam blames God, it was that woman You gave me.

Lord it is not my fault, I went to bed single and woke up married.

It is your fault this happened

Then Eve follows Adams lead, the serpent deceived me.

Neither party are willing to admit their guilt.

In typical fallen human passion, evasion is the plan.

Now, at this point I have to say, YHWH was not surprised by what happened.

In fact, not only did the Lord know what happened, He knew in eternity past what was going to happen, and had already formed the plan to deal with man’s sin, not just in the garden, but in totality.

And that plan is focused 100% on Messiah.

You might be wondering, how do you know that?

Well, I have a verse, you know I do.

Revelation 13:8 LSB

And all who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain.

Acts 2:23 LSB

this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of lawless men and put Him to death.

Put them both together and you realize the eternality of the plan of redemption.

YHWH planned the redemption of humanity through His Son in eternity past.

Foreknowledge means that YHWH knew what He wanted to do.

Predetermined means He ordained what He wanted to happen,

Jesus did not die because the Romans crucified Him.

Jesus did not die because the Jews condemned Him.

Jesus died because the Father planned for Him to die, and not just die, but die a horrible death on a cross,

It is vital that we understand this, because much of Messianic Prophecy is nothing more than YHWH putting down in writing in the OT exactly what and how Messiah is going to die, among other things.

So as YHWH begins to deal with Adam and Eve and their sin, the Messianic concept is implied.

The fall of man brings us to the curse.

It is important to note, that YHWH came searching for Adam and initiated the restoration of Adam.

MESSIANIC REVELATION THROUGH THE CURSE

YHWH intervenes in the garden and addresses all three participants in what we refer to as the curse.

The sin of man brings about the curse of God upon the serpent, upon Adam, upon Eve, and upon the creation.

We live in a fallen cursed creation because of sin.

But even within those words of cursing, we find the Messianic Hope.

Genesis 3:15 LSB

And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

Genesis 3:15 is the first direct Messianic prophecy.

In this one verse we see in part the person and work of Messiah revealed.

We see revelation that defines Messiah as a person.

We also see revelation that defines the work Messiah will fulfill.

The prophecy begins very vague, but then turns more specific.

Enmity between you (satan) and the woman, between the seed of Satan and the her seed is vague.

Seed here in both cases refers to offspring.

Simple enough when it comes to Eve, it refers to her children, and descendents.

But not so simple when it comes to Satan.

Angels do not procreate, they don’t have children.

So again for clarity we must turn to the NT.

John 8:44 are the words of Jesus spoken to His enemies.

John 8:44 LSB

“You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

The truth is, all who are enemies of Christ, ie unbelievers, have Satan as their father.

So seed has spiritual implications, it refers to the persons spiritual leanings.

If that is true, then the seed of the woman is more definitive than just children and descendents.

The seed of the woman are only her children and descendents who believe God, love God and are born again of God,.

So right off the bat, we learn that there are only two types of people, those who belong to YHWH, and those who belong to Satan,

And the message is, there will be enmity, war and hatred between the two, forever in human history.

There is a twist though, seed is singular.

That isn’t a problem because we also talk of groups of people as being singular.

For example we could say church and it be singular, even though we know it is comprised of many people.

In the next line, the text becomes more specific.

Seed here is a He.

This in fact may be the primary reason the seed is singular.

He shall bruise you on the head, and you (Satan) shall bruise His heal.

The implication is this, there is coming someday a seed of this woman.

There will be enmity between this seed and Satan.

Satan will injure the seed of the woman.

But the Seed of the woman will crush your head.

Have you ever heard the phrase cut off the head of the snake?

What does it mean?

It means to kill or destroy the snake.

That is the idea here.

The Seed of the woman will destroy the serpent, because of the serpents part in the fall of man.

This is Messianic.

In this text we learn a few things about Messiah.

First Messiah will be human.

Right, the Messiah has to have humanity because He is a seed of the woman, her descendent.

There are two genealogies in the NT for Jesus, and both are related to the Messianic claim.

Matthew’s genealogy only takes us back to Abraham.

Later in our studies we will get to the Messianic concept revealed in the life of David.

But for now just know, God promised David his thrown would endure forever, and he would never lack a man, a descendent to sit on the thrown.

Matthew shows that Jesus is qualified to satisfy that prophetic truth, for Jesus is a descendent of David, and a descendent of Abraham.

Luke’s genealogy is different, and is much longer.

It travels back through all of human history, all the way to Adam.

Jesus is related to Adam and Eve.

He has humanity, Jesus is the He in Genesis 3:15, that next to last line.

This is why Luke goes all the way back to Adam, to show us that Jesus is the fulfillment of Genesis 3:15,a human descendent of Eve.

Luke wants us to know, Jesus is the seed of Genesis 3:15.

So the first thing we learn about the person of Messiah is that Messiah will be human.

Second, Messiah will be a male.

Pretty straight forward, the human descendent of Eve, the Seed is a He.

The Seed by itself, in it’s humanity could have been male or female.

But then YHWH defines the person of Messiah further, Messiah will be a male of the human race.

It is important we take note of these things because the purpose of Messianic Prophecy is so that we can recognize the Messiah when exposed to Him.

Initially we knew Messiah would be human, anybody male of female.

Then the second revelation pertaining to the personhood of Messiah, eliminates half of the candidates, because no woman can be a he.

Therefore, no woman can be Messiah.

This is important to grasp.

With every new revelation pertaining to the personhood of Messiah, the field of possible candidates is narrowed.

Let me say that again, every time we learn something new that pertains to the personhood of Messiah, the field of candidates is narrowed.

I will remind you of this many times in future studies.

So at this point we know a bit about who Messiah will be, and just a bit about what Messiah will do.

Messiah is a human, a male, and He will defeat Satan.

REVELATION THROUGH A LIVING ILLUSTRATION

The Messianic Revelation is expanded in the next few verses following the curse.

This may sound odd to you, but even as the man and the woman are cursed by YHWH, we also see the grace that we all cherish so deeply.

You see the consequence of sin was death.

Adam and Eve and been warned.

But they sinned anyway, listening to the voice of the serpent and then Adam listening to his wife.

The implication there is that they did not listen to YHWH, but to another voice.

But though they died spiritually, they didn’t die physically, and they didn’t die eternally, ie perish, and that is due to the grace of our loving God.

We are not going to look at the full curse, but only a pertinent portion to our study.

YHWH said to Eve, I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth.

Eve, you are not going to die, you are not going to perish, in fact, you are still going to fulfill My plan for you, and you will have children.

That is grace.

Sin did not destroy God’s plan for man to multiply and fill the earth, because sin was not a surprise to YHWH.

The reason this is so important is because we are entering into what is know as the proto euangelion.

The proto euangellion is first gospel.

Remember, Adam evaded and would not admit his sin.

But YHWH exposed his guilt, and forced confession.

Now, we see the promise of children, and that is grace.

Adam believed YHWH.

Previously, Adam believed his wife who believed the serpent, but now he believes YHWH.

Now Adam is listening to YHWH.

Belief which is faith, is the foundation of salvation and restoration.

Abram believed YHWH, and it was credited to him as righteousness.

You might be thinking where, how, I don’t see faith here, ahh but it is here none the less.

Adam named his wife Eve. vs 20.

Up until now, she had only been called woman.

Now Eve has a name and it means the mother of all living.

Adam called his wife mother, when as yet she had no children because He believed God who said He would multiply her pain in childbirth.

And in this we have the first act of grace, and the first act of faith in that order.

In the very next verse we see sacrifice.

Folks, whether it was goat or sheep or cow, the only way an animal skin can be taken from the animal is if it is slaughtered.

So in Genesis 3, we see the first penal substitutionary atoning act.

Penal in that is was a legal action in response to sin.

Substitutionary in that it was not the sinner who died, but one died in his place.

Atoning, in that at removed the stain and guilt of sin.

Hebrews 9:22 LSB

And according to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

Adam and Eve received the forgiveness of sin that day, because by grace through faith they were saved.

So in a very real sense we see a foreshadow of Messianic things to come.

I get it, we don’t see a real strong connection to Jesus explicitly stated.

But the parallels are striking.

All the most basic elements of the gospel of Jesus Christ are here.

The Bible says no one seeks after God. Romans 3:11

Romans 3:11 LSB

There is none who understands, There is none who seeks for God;

Jesus also said in John 6:44

John 6:44 LSB

“No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.

Is this consistent with what we see in Adam’s story?

Did Adam seek God?

Did Adam seek restoration?

No, Adam hid from YHWH and Adam evaded the sin issue.

YHWH came down and sought Adam.

YHWH virtually forced Adam to admit sin, He drew Adam into salvation.

Adam then rightly responded to YHWH.

And when Adam named the woman Eve, he demonstrated both faith and repentance.

Previously Adam did not believe YHWH and he ate the forbidden fruit.

Now he believes YHWH and name the woman Eve, that is by definition repentance.

Next the Bible says every sacrifice has to be perfect without flaw or blemish, which means in one sense, no sinner can ever atone for himself.

That is why we need a substitute.

Now here is the deal, Hebrews 10:4

Hebrews 10:4 LSB

For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

And I would add any other sacrifice.

Though I am confident, that the skins in Genesis 3 came from an animal that was later defined in the word as an acceptable sacrifice.

But those animal sacrifices had to be repeated continually.

You see they were not the real deal, but a picture of the real deal.

Every sacrifice is what we call a type of Christ because they foreshadowed Christ.

In layman’s terms, a picture of Christ.

So when YHWH slaughtered the animals, it was a sin sacrifice, and it was an imperfect picture of the future perfect Christ.

In the garden, we have illustrated for us, the work of Messiah that would crush the head of the Serpent.

Genesis is very parable like.

Now when I say that I do not mean to imply it is just a story of fiction like some parables were.

This was real historical activity.

But it is parable like in that the message is a bit unclear.

When Jesus told parables, it was not to make a story easier to understand.

Quite the opposite, it made the truths being taught almost impossible to understand.

Then Jesus would pull the disciples aside, and teach them in private the meaning of the parable.

Speaking in Parables was a form of judgment against the unbeliever.

So think of Genesis 3 in that manner.

YHWH handed out curses which in part were prophetic and in some Messianic.

But they were vague, cloudy at best.

Then YHWH illustrates vividly the gospel of Jesus Christ.

First comes information, then comes explanation, like in a parable.

Scholars have long understood this which is why this is referred to as the proto (first) euangelion (gospel).

It is the first time the gospel is shared, albeit through illustration.

CONCLUSION

No some of you may not as yet be convinced.

So let me make a bold statement, all Saints, both OT and NT Saints are saved in the same manner.

It is summed up in the 5 solas of the reformation.

We are saved according to the scripture alone, sola scriptura.

By Christ alone, sola Christus , by grace alone, sola gratia, through faith alone, sola fide, for the glory of God alone, sola deo gloria.

The letter to the Hebrews makes this clear.

Hebrews 11 is the hall of faith, where we find that awesome list of OT Saints.

A OT Saint is a person who was saved during the time of the OT.

Hebrews 11:13 LSB

All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.

The promise is Christ.

They were promised Christ, but the promise was not fulfilled in their lifetime, but they believed the promise of Christ and were saved.

John 8:56–59 LSB

“Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.” So the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple.

Abram was saved by God’s grace through his faith in Jesus Christ, who’s day he saw, or understood, and believed and rejoiced.

We will talk more of this next time.

Here is something important to remember, the Bible does not tell us explicitly everything that happened, only what YHWH deems we need to know.

But when the scripture is viewed as a whole, I believe if a person in the OT was saved, it was because they looked forward to the promised Messiah.

We know for sure this is true of Abram.

I believe it is also true of Adam and Eve.

They understood, the illustration of YHWH in the garden, that it pointed to Messiah.

So the picture of Messiah is taking shape..

Messiah is Creator, God.

Messiah is human.

Messiah is a male.

And Messiah will defeat Satan.

And we have the proto euangelion to show us how.

And as we progress through future passages, the picture of Messiah will get clearer and clearer.

The descriptive list I just shared, will get longer and longer.