Scripture Introduction
Singer and songwriter Michael Card calls his Christmas album, “The Promise.” The words to the title song are:
The Lord God said when time was full
He would shine His light in the darkness
He said a virgin would conceive
And give birth to the Promise
For a thousand years the dreamers dreamt
And hoped to see His love
But the Promise showed their wildest dreams
Had simply not been wild enough.
The Promise was love
And the Promise was life
The Promise meant light to the world
Living proof that Yahweh saves
For the name of the Promise was Jesus.
Christmas is preeminently about God’s promise (first made in Genesis 3) – the promise of a Savior, born of a woman, who would, in the words of the beautiful advent hymn:
“O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny;
From depths of hell Thy people save,
And give them victory o’er the grave.
To prepare for Christmas, let’s review the promise which remains our enduring hope, which first appeared in Genesis 3.
[Read Genesis 3.14-15. Pray.]
Introduction
A 2001 newspaper article explained that President Bush celebrated many faiths during the holidays – not only Christmas, but also presiding over a Jewish Hanukkah celebration and commemorating the end of Ramadan in a Washington mosque. Ari Fleischer, presidential spokesman, said, “The purpose is not to preach a particular faith. The purpose is to celebrate faith itself.”
Christianity offers something different. Christmas preaches a very particular faith, because it is God’s specific fulfillment of a very precise promise.
In Mark’s account of the life of Jesus, his first sentence is: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” The word for “gospel” could also be translated, “good news.” Mark says, “I have good news for you! The promise has arrived.” So that we might again appreciate Mark’s announcement and Jesus’ birth, please notice from Genesis 3 how God shows us…
1. Our Need for the Promise
Three reasons are given. First…
1.1. mBecause of Satan (Genesis 3.1-5)
In C. S. Lewis’ book, The Silver Chair, the evil witch appears as a most beautiful lady. Her voice is of an angel; her charm disarms; her words soothe. She weaves an entrapment around her victims, and they are defeated – until Aslan’s name is given them. When the children finally break from the witch’s control, her rage reveals her true form as she seeks to crush them – a hideous serpent coiling around Prince Rilian.
Neither does Satan appear in his true form. His craftiness means that he “disguises himself as an angel of light” (2Corinthians 11.14), even using good things to tempt us to rebel against God and destroy ourselves. He lies and deceives, hating both God and God’s people. His power is far greater than I have hope of resisting. I need a Savior who stands between me and the evil one. I also need the promise…
1.2. Because of Sin (Genesis 3.9-19)
Our first parents rebel against God, and devastation immediately blasts out from the center of paradise. In verse 10, Adam and Eve are afraid and hide from God. In verses 12 and 13, they blame others. In verse 16, childbearing becomes terribly painful and a woman’s relationship with her husband will always be a struggle between loving leadership and demeaning dominion. In verses 17-19, the ground itself is cursed so that only with great toil and sweat do we pry from it the very food we must have to survive. And then our bodies rot and return to the mud from which we were made. Yuck!
As sad as are the physical consequences of sin, the spiritual reality frightens us far more. For God tells us that mankind is now a slave of sin. Many people suppose they are sinners because they sin. If that were true, then deliverance from being a sinner would be obtained by not sinning any more.
But God insists that we sin because we are sinners. The nature is prior to the effect. When Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, they took sin into themselves, fusing its power with their very humanity. Even if they had never sinned again, they would still be sinners! Only the promise of God can free the enslaved heart – I cannot rescue my own soul from the dark grip of sin anymore than I can cause myself to be born. I need a Savior who frees the soul from sin. I also need the promise…
1.3. Because of Self (Genesis 3.6-8)
Though sin and Satan are mighty foes, this passage shines light on what I believe to be an even greater threat I face – my own heart. Notice the self-centered thoughts and actions of our representatives.
First, Eve looks at the tree and sees that it is “good for food” (v. 6). Really? What tree in Paradise is not good for food? In lusting for this fruit, Eve tells us nothing about the tree – and everything about her heart. She wants the autonomy of eating what is forbidden, rather than submission to God’s definition of good.
Then, second, as she contemplates the fruit’s qualities, she sees that it is a “delight to the eyes.” Of course it is! No sights in Eden repulse our sight! Everything is beautiful, except the lust of Eve.
Third, she realizes it would make her wise. God already offered wisdom, his perfect wisdom, to guide and protect them from evil. But our parents reject what is mediated through God’s words. They wanted it their way, embracing evil so as to take the knowledge of it into their very souls. So she took and ate, and Adam ate with her. Then (and the pronouns are important here) they “make themselves loincloths” (v. 7), and they “hid themselves” (v. 8). Until this point, the world of Adam and Eve has been God-centered; now they will be in charge.
This same heart problem which began in the Garden of Eden remains our great danger today. Part of the curse of humanity is imagining that we would be much better if our circumstances were different. Yet even in paradise, people sin. The things I want to do, I do not do; and the things I want not to do, I do. And when I have done them, like my first parents, I excuse them, blame others, and tell God that I have no need for his intervention—for I will cover myself with fig leaves. I cannot be bothered with God’s righteousness; I am busy being good and getting better every day and in every way.
But on Christmas, in a stinking feeding trough, God said, “You may work hard to be good, but your works drive you far from me. Hear the promise: I will save you from yourself. My Messiah will give your soul rest.” I need the promise of God!
2. The Result of the Promise (Genesis 3.15a)
Satan, sin, and self have conspired to bring humanity down. But into the midst of a desperate situation, God places Messiah. We live in a fallen world where examples of depravity shock us with their terror and evil. And yet, God’s mercy and grace prevent the world from complete degeneration. God gives his people a sense of disgust with evil and a resistance to the lures of sin. Even apart from the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, by what we call, “common grace,” people are not devils. Within even fallen humanity, there is some vestige of a natural hatred of evil and love of good. Such is a result of the promise of Genesis 3.15.
3. The Nature of the Promise (Genesis 3.15b)
Martin Luther said, “This text embraces and comprehends within itself everything noble and glorious that is to be found anywhere in the Scriptures.”
Why such an extravagant claim? Because here is described in symbols the purpose and goal of the entire universe. Notice carefully the words used: The Promise will bruise Satan’s head. The head represents authority and power. Christ Jesus will beat Satan’s reign over humanity. No longer will we remain powerless before the great enemy of our souls – his rule and dominion will be defeated – and were at the cross.
At the cross, Satan must have thought he had reversed the promise. Yes, Jesus had stuck some blows at Satan while he was here – casting out demons and freeing some captives; but in the end, his heel was merely bruised. Then at the cross it appears that Satan has bruised – not Christ’s heal – but his head! Satan wins the far greater victory!
But the resurrection reveals that Satan has played the fool; Christ turns the cross into his victory. The promise here in Genesis 3.15b that Messiah will bruise the head of Satan is a victory won through death, the bruising of Christ’s own heel! Such is the nature of the Promise: victory through suffering; holiness through struggle; godliness through persecution; following Christ through taking up a cross. We all want glory; will we tread the path of humility to get it? We all want life – will we walk the way of dying to self to get there? Will you?
4. The Receipt of the Promise: Faith Genesis 3.20
This is not all that faith in God means. Nonetheless, Adam reveals his belief in God’s promise.
Verse 19 reveals the climax of his curse on mankind: death. We might Adam expect to respond with something like self-pity: “Woe to me. My punishment is greater than I can bear.” Such is the despair of unbelief.
But Adam looks past his pain to God’s promise and names his wife, “Eve,” which means, “Life” for she will be the mother of the living. “Yes, I am cursed,” admits Adam, “my work will be toilsome, and I will even die! But God promised that of my offspring will come One to break the head of my enemies. Because I believe God, I name my wife, ‘Living.’”
What an amazing act of faith! Faced with the certainty of his own death, Adam says to his wife, “You are, ‘Life’ because our God has promised to bring life out of death.” So Adam becomes for us a type, an example of receiving God’s promises by faith.
5. The Means of the Promise (Genesis 3.21)
We have several crèches, nativity scenes, Helen has collected over the years. I am interested by the way in which manufacturers depict the Christ child. One Jesus is a chubby, happy, blond-haired, blue-eyed, northern-European baby. Mary would sure have been shocked to birth that baby!
Another baby Jesus, made in Italy, has crossed legs and little arms spread wide, and he is dark, gaunt, and sad. It is a baby crucifix, without the cross. That image is closer to reality. If we could add one thing to every nativity scene to correct them all, we should add the cross. Jesus was born to die.
Such is prefigured and promised when God kills an animal to clothe Adam and Eve. God spills their blood, for “without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin” (Hebrews 9.22). Fig leaves cannot cover, for justice demands death for sin. God places his promise on the cross to deliver his people from Satan, sin and self. Such is the means for the promise’s fulfillment.
6. The Application of the Promise (Genesis 3.22-24)
All religions fit into one of two main categories. The first attempts a return to Eden. One religion says, “Obey this rule and you will gain admittance.” Another insists: “Die fighting infidels and you will be restored to paradise.” They may say, “Meditate on your navel and you will feel as if you are there”; or “Get in harmony with nature and we will remake the world into another Eden.” No matter which form it assumes, a return to Eden is the goal.
God does not promise a return to Eden; in fact, he keeps us from it. After the fall, there was, within the Garden, the possibility of eternal life. You could see the tree which enabled you to live forever! In the other direction, away from Eden, there is desert. There is the valley of death, the way of humiliation, the path of suffering, the cross.
Oh, what a choice! All other religions promise a return to Eden; God warns about the danger of living forever with sin. Instead, he says, “The way to new life is through death to this old one.”
Please notice, those who turn from Eden have but one hope: faith in God’s promise. We do not walk by sight, for the promise does not become reality until the journey is complete.
Hebrews 11.13-16: “These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.”
Many people see the suffering and pain of this world, and decide that the only hope is to make the best Eden they can for themselves while here. They live to please themselves. God’s people, instead, take up a cross and follow Christ to a heavenly country. Will you embrace suffering, knowing that such is the way of the Christ, the way of the Promise, the way of God?
The Lord’s table sets that choice before us. There is nothing here for the flesh. This is the food of death to self but the promise of life for the soul. Will you come and share Christ’s death for you, and your death for his promise?
