BIBLE TEACHINGS MADE PLAIN, part 11
Jesus, the promised Messiah
In lesson 9 we learned about “What Went Wrong in the Garden of Eden”. The Bible taught us that Adam and Eve disobeyed God by way of listening to the intruder who deceived and lied to them. The intruder used a serpent to deceive them. In lesson 10 we established who was behind the serpent, or who is the real serpent and we learned that the Devil or Satan, a fallen disobedient angel in heaven, is the real serpent, Rev.12:9.
Satan is the arch deceiver of mankind and the murderer and liar from the beginning, John 8:44
This lesson will deal with the issue of God’s response to what happened in Eden and how God treated Adam and Eve after they fell in disobedience to God. In the last part of lesson 10 we learned about Jesus fighting the Devil on earth and that He overcame the Devil. In this lesson we will explore further about Jesus as the promised and coming Messiah.
When Adam and Eve sinned against God, God was placed before a dilemma to execute them and take their life away as He had told them would happen upon eating from the forbidden tree or do something else. (Gen.2:17). They deserved death according to what God had told them and what we read later in the Bible in Rom.6:23, the wages of sin is death from which there is no return or resurrection. Read also Eze.18:4, 20, 24 and 26. God is the Lawmaker and in that position He is also strict and unchangeable, James 1:17. But God is also merciful as we have learned in previous lessons and is written in Exod.34:6, 7.
If the execution had taken place immediately on the spot in Eden, it would have created fear and God does not want to be served and worshipped out of fear but out of love with freedom not to love, because God is love, 1John 4:8. Jesus challenged us to obey Him out of love, John 14:15; 1John 5:3. From that point in God’s character He treated Adam and Eve and they were not executed on the spot. What God did can be dealt with in three steps:
First, God came down from heaven to look for Adam and Eve. He called them “Where are you” Gen.3:8, 9. God knew where they were, but He wanted to hear how they would respond and thus exposing them to themselves. God also had to come down because sin separates us from God and we cannot go up to Him, God comes down to us. Isa.59:1, 2. God is still looking for us and inviting us to come to Him, Isa.1:18; Matth.11:28-30. This means that when God comes down to us He still wants us to respond, we are not supposed to come to Him under force, and we still have our freedom not to come.
Second step God took was to offer forgiveness and providing a second chance. A deliverer was promised in spite of the fact that Adam and Eve had to live with the consequences of what they had done. The death we die now is part of the consequences, not the penalty. We will learn in another lesson that the death Adam and Eve died and we will also experience is the death of sleep from where there is a resurrection,1Cor.15:22. Adam and Eve were driven away from the Tree of Life, Gen.3:22, 23 and thus were placed in a dying process from that point onward. Gen.3:15 reveals the coming of a Deliverer, there would be enmity between the two seeds and that the serpent would be crushed to death. Before they were told anything else they were filled with hope for the future.
The third step God took was to provide for them better coverage than they had made themselves. Gon.3:21. When they saw they were naked after they had sinned, they covered themselves with fig leaves. Here is a symbolic lesson for us. When we sin we cannot cover ourselves, we cannot cover our wrongdoings not even with good deeds. What we do is not good enough to cover our sins. We cannot be saved and we are not saved by our own works, not even our works of rrighteousness, Isa.64:6. Loosing the glory of God, Rom.3:23, requires a better coverage then what we try to provide. The tunics from skins God made for them must have come from animals and most likely two animals, one for each person. In our next lesson we will learn more about this, but briefly it means that two innocent animals had to die in the place of Adam and Eve and they were covered with the innocence of those animals.
That gave them in a forward look about what God would do in the future through Christ. We also know that Christ is symbolised by a lamb, John 1:29. Christ is also that seed of the woman, God spoke about to Adam and Eve, read Gal.3:16, 29
And the seed of the serpent is the Devil, Satan or the dragon, Rev.12:9. These two seeds would be at war with each other, but the seed of woman, Christ the Messiah would win and gain the victory. Rev.17:14. To be on the side of the Lamb, which is Christ, is the best choice we can make.
Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden with hope in their hearts of a coming deliverer who would crush the serpent to death. We read in Gen.4:1, 2 that two sons were born, Cain and later Abel. After Cain was born Eve said “I have gotten a man from the Lord”.(Literal Hebrew: “A man, the Lord”) A man means in this case a “deliverer”, she thought Cain was the promised one, not knowing the world would have to wait 4000 years before the real Deliverer, Messiah would come. Cain became involved in the first actual battle between true and false worship, good and evil and became the first murderer. Adam and Eve also did not realise that God had in mind to reveal the coming Deliverer, Messiah, step by step unfolding more and more about the Messiah’s mission, when He would come, where He would be born, what He would do and how He would overcome the Devil.
The next time we read in the Bible about the seed as spoken of in Gen.3:15 is in Gen.12:7 and 13:15 and what this means is later explained by the apostle Paul in Gal.3:16, 29. Christ is that Seed which would come from the line of Abraham. Then we read in Gen.49:10 what Jacob had to say about this coming Deliverer and that he would come just before the Jews would loose their independence. Shiloh also means offspring or seed. He would come from Abraham and then from one of the offspring of Abraham, Judah, son of Jacob. In Jer.23:5 it says from David, and in Ps.132:11 He is called the fruit of my body, another expression for offspring or seed. Thus we learn that the Messiah would come out of the house of David. Jesus, the Messiah was called the Son of David, Matth.9:27. Both Mary and Joseph, not his biological father, were the offspring of the house of David, Matth.1:20. That Jesus was of the line of David is stated also in Rom.1:3 (Acts 2:29, 30; 13:22, 23; 2Tim.2:8) It also has been revealed where the Messiah would be born, in Bethlehem, read Micah 5:2 and out of a virgin, Isa.7:14 because the Holy Spirit would overshadow that virgin, Matth.1:18-23
In Daniel 9:24-27 we read more about the exact timing of the Messiah. From Gen.49:10 we learned that Shiloh, the Messiah would come before Judah or Israel would loose its independence
The Messiah also would terminate the sacrificial system of animals that was only an interim system pending the coming of the real Lamb, the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Animals cannot save us or take away sin, Hebr.10:4, Jesus is the One who does this, Matth.1:21; Luke 1:35
The timing giving in Dan.9:24-27 is part of the 490 days or years time span which started in 457BC and part of it would lead to the Messiah or the anointed One. Jesus was anointed in 31AD, Luke 3:21-22 and Acts.10:38. This is not to time to work out exactly the 490 days/years time span. We will do that later, but you may go in advance to the Daniel section of my website www.bereanbiblecorner.com and study chapter 9.
We have learned so far that Jesus, the Messiah would be born from the house of David in Bethlehem before the Jewish nations would loose its independence and become taxpayers under the Roman Empire with Augustus as emperor, Luke 2:1.
Then Jesus would be anointed and become Christ the Messiah in AD31.All this has been fulfilled as predicted.
There are many more messianic prophecies of which we will not speak now, but one I like to mention and that is Isa.53, this is an outstanding description of what the Messiah Christ (Both names means the Anointed One) would be like and what He would do. We have learned that in Eden two animals took the place of Adam and Eve which had a forward look that Christ would be that real Lamb to take the place of sinners and die in their place. If Christ would not come to take our place, we would have to die ourselves for our sins and be lost for ever. Isa. 53:4, 5 shows how Christ or the Messiah, the Servant of God would take our sin problem on Him self. He would bear what we suffer, He would suffer our penalty, be bruised for our iniquities, our sins. Remember Gen 3:15, the seed of the women would be bruised. He would be wounded for our transgressions and iniquities, Isa. 53:8. Read the whole chapter yourself and start by Isa. 52:13 which is the beginning of chapter 53. Christ has been made sin, 2Cor.5:21 while He never sinned. In this manner God was reconciling the world, us, through Christ unto Himself. 2Cor.5:19. This is what divine forgiveness means, far different from human forgiveness. We forgive but we do not take the guilt of the offender upon our shoulders and suffer for it. God forgives and takes our guilt, our sin and its penalty upon Himself through the Messiah our Lord. This is something beyond human understanding. Because Christ took our sins and our penalty He came to the point where He cried, “My God, My God why hast thou forsaken me?” Matth.27:46. For a moment Christ on the cross was forsaken by His Father because of the sins exposed through Him and which separates us from God, so Christ bearing our sins experienced in reality to be separated from God,Isa.59:1, 2 an immense mental and physical suffering. But this sacrifice of Christ is God’s gift to us, and in this manner we have a second chance to show our trust in God, believe Him. It is a gift, Rom.6:23; John 3:16 and we are placed before the choice to accept or reject it. Again we have to choose as Adam and Eve had in the Garden of Eden the first time.
Today not between eating or not eating from the forbidden tree, but now choosing if we are willing to accept Jesus Christ as our Saviour or refuse to accept Him. God always comes first with a gift, a love gift, not a bribery gift, and then asks for obedience and believe Him and trust Him. The Ten Commandments also do start with what God has done first and then follow the Ten Commandments, Exod.20:1, 2. In the next lesson we discuss this further.
We have learned that God did not execute Adam and Eve on the spot, because He wanted to give them a second chance through the promised Deliverer, the coming Messiah. Would they, would we trust God again, anew, in a fresh start, or remain stubborn and still turn away from Him? Christ on the cross as the real Lamb is the crucial point about which we all have to make our decision. The best is to trust God, believe Him, and accept His love gift offered to all of us.
Commitment: Knowing that all of us are sinners before God and that Jesus came to save us from our sins, dear reader are you willing to commit yourself to God and say Lord I am a sinner but I do accept your love gift and accept Jesus, the Messiah as my personal Saviour.
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