A Savior From Before Eden
I introduced this series about a savior, Christ Jesus, who had confirmed to the religious authorities: “Before Abraham was, I AM!” Our evidence in Disaster From Disobedience, A Savior From Before Eden – 1 points back toward Jesus, our personal savior, who was here before the first adam.
We then examined Adam’s relationship with God both before and after original sin. Disobedience and consequence of sin follows. Brief glances at scripture will confirm man’s disobedience to the Lord God. Just from part 1 of our series scriptures about disobedience include: Exodus, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel and the Gospels of Luke and John.
Scripture – Reading, Study & Application
We have spent nearly a month [June 2018] just scratching the surface of man’s disobedience to God. Although I have touched on topics preceding the narrative of Genesis, we have much more to consider.
Our most recent look at Noah brings us only to Genesis 9, on page 15 of 1804 in my HCSB. I could easily envision a ‘Disaster from Disobedience – 30,’ but this is neither a novel nor exhaustive commentary. Today our brief attention spans require both an end to this series and connection to the next.
I trust the Lord will lead you deeper into scripture, revealing personal application of good and evil. I encourage you to study books of the New and Old Testaments in depth. To remain obedient to the Lord, we must apply the truth of scripture to our daily lives. Pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
These serial scriptural posts designed to incite specific study contain frequent links to Bible verses and study. Take a look as you read.
Before Israel, Before Abraham and After Noah
Moses’ five books do not and cannot explain everything. Yet in addition to creation, good and evil, sin, law and some subsequent history, parts of the Pentateuch provide God-given foundation to scripture’s purposeful truth. I would point you to a handful of concepts not to be missed in these scriptures.
Noah demonstrates one principle on dry land related to knowing good and evil, after the Lord’s cleansing and recreation of mankind. Although related to worship by Abel and Cain, this principle of good remains more important than any historical detail of the flood.
The rainbow becomes symbol of the Lord’s agreement. Sacrifice by Noah to the Lord is man’s continuing evidence of faithfulness, gratitude and obedience. Worship of the Lord always requires sacrifice. And right relationship with the Lord becomes a most-personal committed relationship.
The principle of this solemn agreement is known as covenant.
Covenant, consequential promise to inviolable truth.
We cannot study it in any detail here, but covenant always connects a sacrifice to an action with a sealed approval.
There is no good without God and no disobedience without disbelief.
Therefore, inviolable truth always relates both to the Lord and our relationship to others of mankind.
Truth has no foundation without God and human life no purpose without relationship to both our loving Creator and our fellow man.
Israel, Abraham, Joseph and other Jews
One concept important to our understanding of the Lord and promise involves the who, what, where and why of God’s chosen. It is a promised land, you are a chosen people. Again, concepts too important to slight, yet this series’ focus is on broken promises, followed by inclusion of others in the Lord’s redemptive plan.
(You can learn much more about God’s redemptive plan by study of adoption; an inclusive personal demonstration of God’s love we will not explore here.)
Moses explains nations and outlines their genealogies. Israel had been redeemed by the Lord from Egypt, where Joseph became powerful in the land. Understand that Joseph’s father Jacob holds promise of the Lord’s inheritance for his twelve sons.
Genesis 28:
Isaac summoned Jacob, blessed him, and commanded him: “Don’t take a wife from the Canaanite women…
3 May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you so that you become an assembly of peoples. 4 May God give you and your offspring the blessing of Abraham so that you may possess the land where you live as a foreigner, the land God gave to Abraham.”
Doesn’t this blessing sound somewhat familiar, like the Lord’s command to Adam and also to Noah?
But Jacob is a liar and a deceiver. For he has purchased the blessing of the firstborn, Esau, who had no regard for the Lord. Now Jacob fears the fate of Abel, murdered at the hands of his brother.
Although the Lord will drive his descendants into Egypt from the promised land, Jacob will receive an inheritance.
10 Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. 11 He reached a certain place and spent the night there because the sun had set. He took one of the stones from the place, put it there at his head, and lay down in that place…
“I am Yahweh, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your offspring the land that you are now sleeping on. 14 Your offspring will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out toward the west, the east, the north, and the south. All the peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. 15 Look, I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go. I will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
There it is: God’s promise, as Jacob flees this ‘promised land,‘ an oft-repeated scenario in Israel’s history.
Does it seem a familiar story, a middle-east refugee fleeing danger in one land and living as an alien in another?
Israel’s Serial Soap Opera
So Jacob’s story gains in complexity (once again, not examined here) and the drama continues. He has four wives (not recommended) and twelve sons. (Daughters receive no inheritance and seldom receive mentions in these genealogies).
Many years pass and a married Jacob with children hears of and fears Esau’s approach. Once again Jacob hears from the Lord. In fact, he wrestles with the Lord (a most personal encounter).
Genesis 32:
Here is first mention of “Israel,” because the LORD makes Israel Jacob’s new name.
27 “What is your name?” the man asked.
“Jacob,” he replied.
32:28 וַיֹּאמֶר לֹא יַעֲקֹב יֵאָמֵר עֹוד שִׁמְךָ כִּי אִם־יִשְׂרָאֵל כִּֽי־שָׂרִיתָ עִם־אֱלֹהִים וְעִם־אֲנָשִׁים וַתּוּכָֽל׃
28 “Your name will no longer be Jacob,” He said. “It will be Israel because you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed.”
29 Then Jacob asked Him, “Please tell me Your name.”
But He answered, “Why do you ask My name?” And He blessed him there.
Before Israel, God Prevails
Jesus the Messiah proclaimed, “before Abraham was, I AM!” His reference means more than genealogy, place, Law, leadership or religion, per se.
Israel’s father was Isaac, יִצְחָק Yitschaq (laughter), given by the Lord when a childless old couple doubted any possibility of fulfillment of a promise in their old age. In fact, controversy yet remains about the first born of Abraham and Hagar, the Egyptian.
The continuing drama of Genesis 17 could warrant much more study; but let us concede the meaning of Israel’s name. God prevails. Yes, God prevails even when life drives us in a direction away from God’s promises.
The Lord’s covenant though Abraham is confirmed:
18 So Abraham said to God, “If only Ishmael were acceptable to You!”
19 But God said, “No. Your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will name him Isaac. I will confirm My covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his future offspring.
Before Abraham, many descendants of Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth chose between good and evil as they populated God’s creation. And we will see in our next series a continuing theme of disobedience to God by Israel’s descendants as well.
Why would the Lord choose Israel as a people led by Him? Remember Jacob’s new name means, God prevails.
Joseph and Israel’s Eleven Other Sons
We have not yet spoken of the Law of Moses and its defining choices of good and evil. The sojourn of Israel into Egypt and back is yet another story and illustration that God prevails.
If you have never noticed a connection between Genesis and Exodus, you may want to focus on Joseph. We tend to see Israel (Jacob) and then Moses and later David as most important to Israel’s history. Yet we often overlook the role and connection of Israel’s preeminent son, Joseph.
A continuing theme of man since Adam has been disobedience, a theme which we will continue. Moses will give us God’s Law and Joseph will demonstrate God’s goodness.
May the Lord walk with you in the wilderness of your heart.
To be continued in our next series, God willing…
Interestingly enough, Luke uses the same word in describing the certainty of the security of a prison in Acts 5:23
The church endured suffering at the hands of those rejecting the truth of the Gospel. Rome was world power of the day. Christian witness in the mid first century AD takes place just a generation after Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. Witnesses still lived and preached the Good News of Christ as they had personally encountered the risen Lord.