The Prophesied Savior.

Opening:

It is a beautiful thing to open the Word of God on the Lord’s Day.

Introduction of the Passage:

This morning we will really be all over the Bible. Since it is Advent, we will be examining the prophesies in the Old Testament about Jesus. But perhaps our central passages will be Genesis 3:15 and Isaiah 7:14. We will be spending a larger amount of our time on these two passages. I have included in your notes all the passages we will be covering if you are wanting to follow along as we walk through the Old Testament. While it may seem like we are covering a lot, in reality, we are examining only a small sample of the prophesies regarding Christ’s first coming. With this in mind, would you stand with me out of reverence for the Word of God as read from Genesis and Isaiah.

Reading of the Passage:

Genesis 3:15 “15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.””

Isaiah 7:14 “14 Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.”

Behold, these are the very Words of God. Let’s pray.

Prayer:

Our gracious heavenly Father we ask that Your hand would be upon us today. We commit this time in Your Word to You this morning. May You be glorified, and may we be edified. We pray this in Jesus name, amen.

Introduction: What is Advent? Examining the Old Testament prophesies of Christ’s first coming.

This morning is the second week of Advent. But what is Advent? Advent means “coming.” It is the time of year where we prepare our hearts to celebrate Christmas, the birth of Christ. A little bit of history, the church has celebrated Advent since around 400 AD. It is the four Sundays prior to Christmas and is the marker of the Church new year. This means it is the beginning of the church calendar. And specifically there have been roughly three main focuses for Advent through church history.

First, It is a time where we study how Christ was prophesied in the Old Testament. We focus on how the Old Testament saints longed for Christ to be revealed. They longed for the Savior that was promised to come and redeem them. And there has been a focus on the prophesies in the Old Testament about Christ.

Second, it is a time where we longingly look forward to Christ’s return. His second advent. Christ will return bodily and will set all things right. Now, we do not know the day or the hour of His return, but we know for certain He is coming. And during advent, it has been traditional for us to examine this hope that we have of Christ’s coming return.

Third, advent is time where we study the incarnation. The incarnation is God the Son, second Member of the holy Trinity taking on flesh to save us. Why is it so important that God the Son took on flesh to die for us? What is so important about this?

Really, if I were to sum up Advent, I would say that it is a time where we as Christians are to prepare our hearts to celebrate the birth of Christ. Christ being born is one of the two most significant moments in history. When we think of all the history of reality nothing is more important than when God took on flesh and walked among us, and when He died to pay for our sins and was raised to life again conquering death itself. These are the single most important moments in all of reality. And we should take celebrating them seriously. This is why Christmas and Easter are so important.

Primarily, Christmas is our celebrating the birth of our savior. Now, I love all the pageantry. I love the songs we sing. I love giving gifts. I love drinking hot coco while watching snow fall. I love all of it. But the primary reality of this holiday is Christ. It is to celebrate Christ’s coming to earth.

Why do we celebrate? We celebrate because John 1:14 “14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” Beloved, Christ has come. And this is cause to celebrate. May all our celebrating be enriched by the reason we celebrate this season, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Need:

So let us examine the Scriptures and pray that the Holy Spirit would prepare our hearts to celebrate Christ with all the more joy!

Sermon Idea:

The central idea this morning is that Christ is the prophesied savior of the Old Testament.

Interrogative:

But we will not have time to cover all the Old Testament prophesies about Christ. There are hundreds of them. And Christ fulfills them all. So we are going to be examining just a few. My goal is to examine the meta-narrative of the Bible. Remember, God is telling a story. This story is completely true. Every sentence God is writing in reality is true. But all of it is telling a story. And so today, we are examining the main points in the story of redemption.

Transition:

So let’s dive in. First thing we see is that the promised savior would be the Seed of the woman.

The Seed of the Woman. Genesis 3:15.

Explanation:

Way back at the beginning of Scripture God created man. Male and female God created mankind in His image. He established a covenant with them. That they would live as long as they did not eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But you know the story. Satan tempted Eve. Eve ate of the tree and gave some to Adam. As soon as they had eaten they knew they were naked. They had become sinners. And worse than this, our father and mother had plunged the entire human race into sin.

All those descended from Adam are under sin because Adam is our covenant head. He was our representative in the garden and he fell. Our covenant head fell into sin damning all his descendants. What we need now is a new representative. We need a new covenant head. We need a new and better Adam.

After the fall, God pronounces curses. You remember the account. God confronts Adam and Adam blames Eve. Eve then blames the serpent. And God presents the curses for their disobedience.

But in Genesis 3:15 we receive the very first promise of a coming savior. “15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.””

This is what is commonly known as the protevangelium. This is the first prophesy about Christ. There would come the Seed of the Woman. There would be enmity, that is hatred, between the seed of the serpent and the Seed of the woman. And the serpent would bruise His heal but He would crush the head of the serpent.

Argumentation:

There is so much here. We could spend the entire sermon just on this one verse. But I will try to cover it quickly. In this promise we have the promise of a coming one who would be the Seed of the woman. Now this is an interesting phrase. Every other time in Scripture this idea of “seed” is used, it is always used in relation to man, not woman. This is the only time where the Seed of the woman is used. Why is that?

That is because this is clearly a reference to Christ and the virgin Mary. Christ was not the seed of a man. He was not the seed of Joseph. He was not the seed of Adam. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit overshadowing Mary. He is this new and better Adam that we need. He is our new covenant Head.

All the way back in Genesis, the very first promise of the Messiah, we see He will be the Seed of the woman. Not the seed of man. And this is fulfilled in Luke 1:30–35“30 Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus. 32 He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. 33 And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.” 34 Then Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I do not know a man?” 35 And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.”

Think of the intricacy of the words here. The virgin birth is foreshadowed here four thousand years before Christ was born. But that is not all that there is. The crucifixion and the victory of Christ is also promised here. Satan will bruise the heal of this promised Savior. This is prophesying the cross. On the cross, Christ is bruised but not defeated. He dies but is not destroyed. For in three days, He would raise from the dead and would crush the head of Satan. Here is the promise of the total victory of Christ. As Satan bruised the heal of Christ, Christ stomped on the head of Satan and defeated him forever. The very instrument of Satan’s attack on Christ, the cross, was the ultimate undoing of Satan.

Christ has conquered Satan. Satan is crushed. His head has been crushed and Christ, the Seed of the woman, is victorious forevermore! amen!

Transition:

But we must continue. Christ is the Seed of the Woman. He perfectly fulfills this first prophesy. But now, let’s examine this a bit further. Let’s look at:

The Promised Lineage of the Messiah.

Explanation:

So God promises that the Seed of the woman would be our savior. And yes, the woman there spoken of is the virgin Mary. But this idea of seed speaks to lineage. And Immediately Genesis begins to give genealogies. Often we can be bored by genealogies, but I assure you, they are in Scripure for a reason. Remember, God is telling a great and perfect story. The Messiah would descend from a very specific line. And many of the Old Testament prophesies about Christ deal with this. God set out to be very clear on what family line the Messiah would come from. Many of the genealogies in Scripture are tracing this seed, this line that the promised Seed of the woman would come from. It begins with the line of Seth. The Messiah came from the line of righteous Seth, not corrupt Cain. But we see the first promise to a family line right after the Flood.

God floods the earth because of the evil demonic sin of mankind. Only Noah and his family escape. Noah, his three sons and their wives. And here we have the division of humanity. The very first split after God resets Humanity to being one family. All of humanity is descended from Noah. But now, there are three family trees that will begin. There is the line of Ham, Shem, and Japheth. And all humanity will come from these three men. Ham is cursed. He is sexually immoral and obtains a curse on his line. Specifically on his offspring Canaan who will be the father of the wicked Canaanites. So where will the line of the Messiah come from? Which one of these three will be the one to carry on the promise of the coming Seed of the Woman. From Shem.

Shem. Genesis 9:26.

Genesis 9:26 says “26 And he said: “Blessed be the Lord, The God of Shem, And may Canaan be his servant.” God is said to be the God of Shem. God is here promising to be the God of Shem. Canaan is cursed. God will enlarge and bless Japheth. But only Shem receives these words. The Savior will come from the line of Shem. Many theologians agree that this is a covenant promise God makes with Shem. And I agree.

And we see the evidence of this in the New Testament, namely that Christ is descended from Shem the son of Noah in Luke 3:36. Again, the genealogies are important.

But next we see the promise that the Messiah will come from Abraham.

Abraham. Genesis 12:1-3.

You remember the story. God calls Abraham out of his homeland and out of his paganism. God covenants to be Abraham’s God. And God makes repeated promises to Abraham that the Messiah, the Savior of the World, the promised Seed of the Woman, will come from his line. The Messiah will be a descendant of Abraham. We could look at a number of verses promising this. But let’s just look at the very first one.

Genesis 12:1–3“1 Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you. 2 I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.””

That last line is the first Messianic prophesy stating that in Abraham’s descendant all the earth will be blessed. And we see in both Matthew and Luke’s genealogies that Jesus is descended from Abraham. He is the One from Abraham who blesses all the World.

But the promise continues. God’s promise goes to Isaac, not to Ishmael.

Isaac. Genesis 17:19.

Listen to Genesis 17:19 “19 Then God said: “No, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him.”

This covenant is the covenant promise to be the people of God and that one day the Savior will come from this line. And this covenant promise will come through Isaac.

But then Isaac has two children. Jacob and Esau. And God promises that the promise will go to Jacob.

Jacob. Genesis 25:23, 28:13-15.

We see this first before these twins are even born. God says this to their mother Rachel. Genesis 25:23 “23 And the Lord said to her: “Two nations are in your womb, Two peoples shall be separated from your body; One people shall be stronger than the other, And the older shall serve the younger.””

The younger would be greater. God would bless the younger and not the older. And Jacob was the younger. And we recall the story from here. Isaac intends to pass on the blessing to Esau in direct rebellion against God. But Jacob and his mother trick Isaac and Jacob receives the blessing. He them flees because Esau is angry and wishes to kill him. Jacob them meets God in the wilderness. And we read this:

Genesis 28:13–15“13 And behold, the Lord stood above it and said: “I am the Lord God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants. 14 Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. 15 Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.””

Here we see the same promise given to Abraham. And God eventually changes Jacob’s name to Israel. And from Israel shall come the Seed of the woman, the promised one who would save the World. And Israel has twelve sons who would become the twelve tribes of Israel. So from which tribe would the Messiah come?

Judah. Genesis 49:10.

Judah would be the tribe from whom the Savior would come. And we read this in Genesis 49:10 “10 The scepter shall not depart from Judah, Nor a lawgiver from between his feet, Until Shiloh comes; And to Him shall be the obedience of the people.”

The scepter would never depart from Judah. A scepter is a sign of a king. The Kingship would endure in Judah until Shiloh comes. Now, that word Shiloh is so interesting. It is a personal word. In reality it is a name. Shiloh literally means He whose it is. Or He who it belongs to. He who what belongs to? The Kingship. The scepter, the kingship will not depart from Judah until the true and eternal King comes. So who is this Shiloh? The one who will command the obedience of all people. This Ruler of all will come from the line of Judah. You could accurately say of this verse that it is clearly saying a King of kings and Lord of lords will come from the line of Judah.

But there are many people in Judah. Which family will Shiloh come from? Saul is anointed king first. Is it from Saul? No, God rejected Saul in favor of David. And from David, the Messiah, Shiloh, would come.

David. 2 Samuel 7:12-16.

Here is where it gets interesting. David, through his entire reign really does not know if God will reject him like he did Saul. This must have been so stressful. Will God keep me as king or will I too be rejected? But then God makes this promise to David later in his rule. We read it in:

2 Samuel 7:12–16“12 “When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be his Father, and he shall be My son. If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men and with the blows of the sons of men. 15 But My mercy shall not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I removed from before you. 16 And your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever.” ’ ””

This is clearly a two fold promise. 1. David’s son, Solomon would be on the throne. And David’s line would always be kings in Judah. But more than this. 2. David’s house would be established forever. He would have a descendant on the throne forever. It will not end. This is so significant. The Messiah, This promised Seed of the Woman who would be King of kings, will come from the house of David.

Argumentation:

Do you see how specific this is? God is telling a story. He would send a Savior. And God spells out exactly where this Savior would descend from.

All of this should teach us something.

God is Sovereign Over Everything.

Think of the intricacy of this. All of these people were planned out from before time began. God had set this in motion from eternity past. And He is clearly guiding all of this. We can learn from this that God is in complete control. Everyone was born exactly according to His divine decree. It is all His plan. Even the family heritage is planned out by God. And Christ is descended from this line perfectly.

Transition:

But this is not all God says. See, the Bible describes which families the Seed of the woman would come from and then from there it begins to describe who this coming savior and King would be. And we really don’t have time to get into all of these prophesies. As I said, there are hundreds of them. But as we began with Genesis 3, and because this is Advent, I think one of the most important prophesies for us to cover would be that of Isaiah 7:14. You see, this coming Messiah would not have a normal conception. He would not be just a man. No, He would have a miraculous birth.

The Messiah Would be Born of a Virgin. Isaiah 7:14.

Explanation:

I already touched on this in Genesis 3:15“15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.””

Christ is the Seed of the woman. He is not the seed of a man. He is the Seed of the woman. But Scripture is even more clear in Isaiah.

In Isaiah 7:14 we read this, “14 Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.”

The Messiah would not be born according to the natural way of human birth. There would be no human father. He would be born to a woman who had never been with a man. And indeed this is exactly what happened. Jesus was born to Mary who was a virgin. We already read this from Luke 2. But Matthew also makes it abundantly clear that God is fulfilling this promise in Jesus.

Matthew 1:22–23“22 So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: 23 “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.””

Argumentation:

But sadly, this is one of the most attacked doctrines in our “modern” day. We somehow think we are too advanced to believe this. I have lost count of how many times I have heard professing Christians say that they cannot believe in the virgin birth because virgins cannot conceive. They think they have stumbled on some great philosophical insight. They push up their glasses and say condescendingly “Mary could not have been a virgin because virgins cannot give birth! It’s physically impossible.” Yes. That’s the point. It is physically impossible. God had to divinely intervene.

But beloved, make no mistake, Jesus was born of a virgin. Isaiah prophesied this hundreds of years before it happened and then it literally did happen. Mary was truly the Virgin Mary. God supernaturally conceived Jesus in her womb. Anyone who believes the Bible cannot deny the virgin birth. It is central to our understanding of redemption.

Christ was not born the seed of a man. He born of the power of God. It was a miraculous birth. And I say this with the most gravity I can. Anyone who denies the virgin birth does not truly confess the Christian faith. There is a reason that when we confess the Apostle’s Creed, we confess He was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary. This is one of the clearest teachings in Scripture. And to deny this is to deny the truth of Scripture and the person of Christ.

But there is one more thing I want you to notice in this prophesy. Notice what Christ would be called. The One Born of the Virgin is Immanuel.

The One Born of the Virgin is Immanuel.

That literally means, God with us. The Seed of the Woman, descended according to God’s plan, would be born miraculously of a virgin, and would be God with us. The Messiah would not be merely a man. He would truly God and truly man. He would born a true human bring. But He would also be God. Here is perhaps one of the most clear prophesies that says that the Savior to be born would not be merely an earthly king. He would be God Himself, come to save us.

Transition:

But there is one more prophesy I want you to see. We know who the Savior is, who He is descended from, and even how He will be born. But where will He be born?

The Messiah Would be Born in Bethlehem. Micah 5:2, Luke 2:1-7.

Explanation:

Again, hundreds of years before Christ was born, the prophet Micah said this in Micah 5:2 “2 “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me The One to be Ruler in Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, From everlasting.””

The Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. A small town, so small it was not even listed in the inheritances. It was a nowhere town whose only claim to fame was that David was raised there, would be the birthplace of the God-man who would come to save us from our sins. And notice again that ending. The one to come would be from everlasting. Literally this means that the one who is coming to be born in Bethlehem is eternal. He is the Eternal God, the maker of Heaven and Earth. And He shall reign forever and ever. He shall be the King of kings and Lord of lords. He is justice incarnate. He is love and wrath. He is the Lord of all, who by the power of His will holds all reality in existence. He would be born in Bethlehem.

Argumentation:

And think of all that had to happen in order for Jesus to be born in Bethlehem. Just listen to Luke 2:1–7 “1 And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. 3 So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city. 4 Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, 5 to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child. 6 So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. 7 And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.”

Can you even imagine the incredible hand of God bringing all this about. I want to paint this picture for you. Caesar Augustus had to be born at the perfect time, had to come to power at the perfect time, had to win all the right wars at the right time in order to establish peace and enable travel across his empire. He had to call for a tax at the right time to call Joseph and Mary back to Bethlehem, their hometown. Can you even contemplate how specific this is? God had to enable Joseph and Mary the exact timing and strength so that Jesus would not be born on the road to Bethlehem but there at Bethlehem.

What else could we say but that God is sovereign. God is in complete control over all creation. And He sent Christ into the World at the perfect time to fulfill every single one of these prophesies.

Conclusion:

We do not have time to show how Christ fulfilled Hosea 11:1. How He fulfilled all of Isaiah 52-53. How He fulfilled Isaiah 61:1 or 53:4, or Psalm 78:2, Or Psalm 2, or Psalm 22, Or Isaiah 11, or all the prophesies of Daniel.

This morning has just been a taste. A mere sampling of how Christ perfectly fulfills every prophesy about the Messiah in the Old Testament.

He is the Seed of the Woman who crushed the head of the serpent. He is descended from Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, and David exactly as God said. He was born of the Virgin Mary. He was born in Bethlehem. Jesus Christ perfectly fulfilled all of these.

Visualization:

God promised a savior, and that Savior is Jesus Christ our Lord. All through the Old Testament, God prophesied this coming Savior.

Application:

And Jesus Christ is the Prophesied Savior.

Jesus Christ is the Prophesied Savior.

My challenge for you is this. See that Christ is the Savior. See that Jesus is the Seed of the Woman promised at the beginning of all creation. See that God orchestrated all of history to point to Christ and fulfil these promises. See that Jesus is the fulfilment of all God has been doing.

Do you see this? Jesus is who He says He is. He is the Lord of all, the Savior of all, the Promised One of old. He is King, He is Lord, He is God. Do you see this?

Do you see who it is we are celebrating? Christmas is about Him. It is about His coming to earth to save us from our sins. If you see this, there is only one response.

Come, Let Us Adore Him.

This is the only response. This is why we celebrate. Jesus is the Lord of all. We must worship Him. He is the one who is promised all through the Old Testament. He is God. This demands our worship.

Do you adore Him? Is Christ what you are celebrating? He is the only One worth celebrating. So I challenge you, I implore you, adore Him. Worship Him. He is Christ the Lord. As you celebrate Christmas this year, remember who it is you are celebrating. Remember who it is we worship. And may we worship well.

Let’s pray.

Closing Prayer:

Offering Hymn:

Offertory Prayer:

Benediction:

2 Corinthians 13:14“14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.”