The Promise Before

The Gospel is God’s Promise

Passages

Genesis 3:15

Genesis 12:1-3

Isaiah 53

Big Idea

The Gospel was not a reaction to our failure; it was the plan from the beginning. The Gospel was not Plan B – It was promised long before Christ arrived.

Introduction

Over the last three weeks, we have covered a lot of ground! We saw the blinding holiness of God, the beautiful design of humanity, and last week, the devasting reality of the Fall.

When we read Genesis 3 and see humanity rebel against God, we tend to project our own human anxieties onto the Creator. We imagine God pacing the floors of heaven, looking down at the wreckage of Eden, and saying, “oh no, oh no, oh no! they broke it! What do I do now?!” We often treat the Old Testament like God’s “Plan A” – an attempt to make people good through rules and laws. And when that failed, we think God scrambled to come up with “Plan B,” which was sending Jesus.

But God doesn’t improvise. God doesn’t panic. The Gospel is not a reaction to our failure; it is a covenant that was established before the foundation of the world.

Ephesians 1:4

4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

Today, we are going to look at four pit stops in the Old Testament to prove that God saves by promise before He ever asks for our performance.

I want us to trace the “Red Thread” of the Gospel through the Old Testament. We are going to see that the Gospel didn’t start in Matthew; it started in Genesis. We are going to travel today, so hope you are all ready!

The Seed: The Promise in the Wreckage (Genesis 3:15)

Let’s go back to the garden, the scene of where the treason occurred and a crime was committed. Turn with me to Genesis 3 again but we are focused on verse 15.

The mirror has turned, Adam and Eve are hiding in the bushes, covered in their shame. The world is broken…

God enters the Garden to judge the sin. But right in the middle of the curse, God drops a nuclear bomb of hope. He turns to the Serpent (Satan) and says:

Genesis 3:15

15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.

Now, I don’t know about you, but this is where I put my fear of snakes. This is where I blame Adam and Eve for such an odd fear.

But in other portions, theologians call this, this moment in Genesis the Protoevangelium – The “First Gospel.” The news of the Serpent’s defeat.

Notice what God is promising here. He promises a Seed  or an offspring. He Says, “One day, a Son will be born. You, Serpent, will strike his heel – you will wound him. But in that very act, He will crush your head.”

John MacArthur

God is speaking here of the seed of a woman who will be a man. This is the only place in the Bible where it talks about a seed of a woman. It talks a lot about the seed of men, because the seed is in the man, it’s not in the woman. But there was One born without a human father, and the seed was in the woman, and that is the virgin-born Christ, the Son of God. He is the only human who was not produced by the seed of a man, the only time a woman had the seed of her own. He is virgin-born. Clearly that is the testimony of the gospel of Matthew. Clearly that is the testimony of Galatians 4:4, “born of a woman.” Born of a woman, Isaiah 7:14, “born of a virgin.”

Galatians 4:4-5

4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

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.

Why is this a “Plan A”?

Because God promised the cure before Adam and Eve even said, “I’m sorry.” Before they offered a single sacrifice, before they did a single good work, the Savior was already promised. The Gospel is not a reaction to our apology; it is a provision of His grace.

John MacArthur

God delights in mercy. Before He pronounces a curse on man and woman, before He expels them from the garden, He gives them salvation hope, hope of regeneration that they will hate Satan and see him as an enemy, and they will love God – regeneration – that there will come a Savior, that there will come One who will conquer Satan and therefore conquer sin. Even though He in the conquering will be bruised, He will crush that deadly enemy. What an amazing promise. What a gracious God. And it is here that the gospel begins.

The Call of Grace (Genesis 12:1-3)

But how does this “Seed” going to come into the world?

To answer that, we fast-forward to Genesis 12. To understand the grace of Genesis 12, you have to remember the rebellion of Genesis 11.

In Genesis 11, the people build the Tower of Babel. They are trying to reach up to heaven to make a name for themselves. It is the ultimate picture of human religion and works-righteousness. And it ends in judgement and scattering.

But in Genesis 12, God reaches down. He picks one man, Abram, who was living among pagan idol-worshippers, and God speaks to him:

God doesn’t pick Abraham because he is some moral giant. He picks him to be the vehicle of the Promise.

Genesis 12:1-3

1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

Something to think about; this is the first recorded “appearing” of God after the banishment (A.W. Pink).

Notice the contrast. Babel was humanity saying, “We will make our name great.” Genesis 12 is God saying, “No I Will make your name great.”

In fact, in these verses, God says “I Will” six times. This is not a contract that says, “If you do this, I will do that.” This is a unilateral promise of God.

And just in case we think this is just ancient Hebrew history, the Apostle Paul tells us exactly what this moment was in Galatians 3:8

Galatians 3:7-9

7 Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” 9 So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

The Gospel was preached in Genesis! God was promising that the “Seed” of Genesis 3 would come through Abraham’s family to bless the entire globe.

The Covenant Path (Genesis 15)

But human beings are terrible at keeping promises. So, Abraham ask God, “How will I know that I will possess this land? How do I know you’ll keep this promise?” (Genesis 15:1-7).

This lead us to Genesis 15:7-21, one of the most vital chapters in our Bible.

God tells Abraham to bring: a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon. And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. (Genesis 15:9-10).

In the Ancient Near East, this was how kings signed a treaty. It was a blood covenant. The two parties would link arms and walk through the bloody path of animal pieces, effectively saying: “May I be torn apart like these animals if I break my promise to you.”

But look at what happens in Genesis 15:12. A deep sleep falls on Abraham. He is completely paralyzed; he cannot walk the path.

Genesis 15:12

12 As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him.

Continuing reading down towards verse 17:

Genesis 15:17-20

17 When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, 19 the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.”

Did you catch the Gospel occurring? God is saying, “Abraham, you are asleep. You cannot keep your end of the deal. If you walk this path, you will fail and you will die. So, I am walking it for both of us. If you break this covenant, I wall pay the price. I will be torn apart.”

Now turn to Hebrews 6:13-18

13 For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, 14 saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” 15 And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. 16 For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. 17 So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, 18 so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.

Do you see the Gospel message? Hebrews elegantly portrays this! That two unchangeable characters of His purpose, He guaranteed it with an oath…two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie! What a message! That God had a plan from the beginning because He knew what would happen. God isn’t surprised but prepared. That Abraham was a tool that God used to bring the red line through him in order that we can trace it to the beginning.

The Substitute (Isaiah 53)

For centuries, the nation of Israel waited for this Promise. They waited for the Seed. They remembered the “cut animals” of Genesis 15. They knew the penalty for sin was death.

But they got confused. They thought the “Seed” would be a political conqueror. They wanted him to be a political conqueror. They thought he would come with a sword to slaughter their enemies. They wanted a King! They wanted another King David! They were still longing for the days of old glory when they should have been looking for the Messiah…

Then, 700 years before Christ, the prophet Isaiah clarified exactly how God was going to keep the promise He made in Genesis 15. The Hero isn’t coming to kill; He is coming to die. He is the Substitute.

He was “crushed for our iniquities.” – Isaiah 53:5

He was “lamb led to the slaughter.” – Isaiah 53:7

Isaiah 53:8

8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?

Do you see the connection?

In Genesis 15, God said, “I will be cut off I the promise is broken.”

Isaiah 53, the Servant is cut off.

This is the “bruised heel” of Genesis 3 and the “torn flesh” of Genesis 15.

The Promise was never that God would just wipe out the evil “out there.” The Promise was that God would send a Servant to absorb the penalty for the evil “in here.” God walked the path of blood so that we wouldn’t have to.

R.C. Sproul

He made satisfaction for our debt, our enmity with God, and our guilt. He satisfied the ransom demand for our release from captivity to sin. However, there is another significant word that is often used in descriptions of the atonement: substitution. When we look at the biblical depiction of sin as a crime, we see that Jesus acts as the Substitute, taking our place at the bar of God’s justice. For this reason, we sometimes speak of Jesus’ work on the cross as the substitutionary atonement of Christ, which means that when He offered an atonement, it was not to satisfy God’s justice for His own sins, but for the sins of others. He stepped into the role of the Substitute, representing His people. He didn’t lay down His life for Himself; He laid it down for His sheep. He is our ultimate Substitute.

Historical Anchor: Irenaeus

In the 2nd century, an early church father named Irenaeus explained this through a beautiful concept called Recapitulation. That word simply means that Christ “sums up” or “re-lives” the human story. That Jesus is the “New Adam,” who had to comprise in Himself that original man so that as we went down to death through a vanquished man, we might ascend to life through a victorious one.

Irenaeus saw Jesus as the New Adam. Think about the symmetry: The First Adam was test in the Garden by the Serpent and failed. But in Matthew 4, Jesus is tested in the wilderness by Satan and succeeds (Luke 4 and Mark 1 as well). Adam brought death by eating from a tree. But in Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22 and John 18, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus submits to the Father – sweating drops of blood – so He could bring life by dying on a tree.

Jesus is not Plan B, He is the Champion who came to retake the test we failed, and He passed it for us.

According to Irenaeus, that it would have been unjust for God to use His divine power to simply zap the Devil. It would have been an injustice to humanity. In his writings, Against Heresies, Irenaeus uses the phrase, “For indeed the enemy would not have been fairly vanquished, unless it had been a man [born] of a woman who conquered him, For indeed the enemy would not have been fairly vanquished, unless it had been a man [born] of a woman who conquered him. For it was by means of a woman that he got the advantage over man at first, setting himself up as man’s opponent. And therefore does the Lord profess Himself to be the Son of man, comprising in Himself that original man out of whom the woman was fashioned, in order that, as our species went down to death through a vanquished man, so we may ascend to life again through a victorious one; and as through a man death received the palm [of victory] against us, so again by a man we may receive the palm against death.” he is arguing that:

Symmetry is required: The defeat happened through a human (Adam) and a woman (Eve); therefore, a victory must happen through a human (Christ) and a woman (Mary).

The “Palm of Victory”: This is a Roman athletic metaphor. In a race or a fight, the winner received a palm branch. Irenaeus is saying that because Adam lost the “match,” humanity lost the branch; Christ re-enters the same arena to win the branch back for the same team.

Hebrews 2:14-18

14 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. 16 For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. 17 Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. 18 For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

Conclusion: Resting in the Promise

Why does this ancient history matter for us in the 21st century? Because if our standing with God depends on our performance, we are doomed. We are like Abraham – asleep, paralyzed, and totally unable to keep our end of the bargain.

But if our standing with God depends on God’s Promise, we are secure. He saves by promise before performance. God didn’t panic when we sinned this week. He is not up in heaven trying to figure out a backup plan for our life. He has a promise that is older than our problem.

He is the Seed who crushes the enemy.

He is the God who walked the path of blood alone.

He is the Substitute who was cut off for you.

Next week, we are going to see that Promise take on flesh and blood.

Before we pray. I want to offer up a moment of prayer to those here today. I am going to ask our newly encouraged prayer team to come up with CC and myself. Every Sunday, thus far, I have offered you three ways to react in a manner that you may deem fitting. I want to continue that.

If you want to know more about this Promise, about this Promise that God gave to us. We would love to tell you more about Christ than we could ever be. We love to have you come and talk to us about our Lord, our Messiah.

Secondly, if you are just in need of prayer, we have people down here eagerly waiting to pray for you. There is nothing much more powerful than prayer, and these people want to pray.

Lastly, if you are looking for a church home. I’d love to pray with you and tell you how FBC Tehachapi can be that home for you.

Let’s pray.