Why We Believe
7. Christ in the Old Testament (Part 1)
7. Christ in the Old Testament (Part 1)
"But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?" (John 5:45-47 NIV)
No discussion of apologetics can be complete without addressing prophecy concerning Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. We must consider at least two issues concerning prophesy. (1) Are the prophesies accurate (have they been tampered with through the centuries), and (2) are they old (that is, were they recorded in their accurate form BEFORE the Christian era). The discussion of Christ in the Old Testament actually begins in Genesis at the fall of Adam and Eve and continues throughout the book.
Genesis 3:15
“The seed of the woman” is a promise of the Messiah. The Genesis account of the “fall” into sin by Adam and Eve and the subsequent pronouncement of judgement upon the snake evokes, at least to this author, other Old Testament stories and parables of Jesus. A modern reading of Genesis Three prompts the ultimate discussion of historicity: Is Genesis Three mythology or historical fact, or somewhere in between? Leaving the question of historicity for another discussion, I would guide the reader to William Lane Craig for a good evangelical treatment of this issue.1 My interest here is in the stories, or parabolic motif of the Messiah introduced here in Genesis 3:15. According to Robert Candlish in his Commentary on Genesis “Though the language here employed is applicable literally to the serpent, as a mere beast of the field, doomed to a groveling life, and destined, from its venomous rancour, to be ever the object of man’s more powerful resentment, -- the sentence must have been intended and understood in another sense also."2
If you go to Old Testament stories like Nathan’s rebuke of King David (2 Samuel 12) or the parables of Jesus in the Gospels, you will find perfectly plausible stories that may or may not have happened, but with an ulterior motive for telling them. The interest is not in the mechanics of the story, but what theme is being taught in the story. Here in Genesis 3:15 we see the Serpent or snake consigned to an existence of “eating the dust of the earth” as partial punishment for involvement in the downfall of Adam and Eve.
First, the passage says a state of hostility3 will always exist between the snake and the woman. Viewed literally, Genesis 3:15 appears to be about enmity between Eve (perhaps as a representative of all women) and the snake (maybe representative of all subsequent snakes?) However, we need to look at the larger context. To see the larger context, we must look at how this hostility plays out in other scriptures. Second, in this hostility, the snake is driven to “eat the dust of the earth.” This phrase appears a few more times in Scripture. In Psalm 72:9, the enemies of the eternal Son (v. 5) will “lick the dust” and in Micah 7:17 the enemies of God will “lick the dust like a serpent.” The struggle between the woman, representing the Body of Christ, and the Serpent or dragon, representative of Satan is spelled out in detail in Revelation 12 and 13 where we have a culmination of events: Christ and his Church triumphing over Satan as prophesied in Genesis 3:15! Finally, in Romans16:20 Paul identifies Satan as crushed by God under the feet of His Church.
Genesis 9:25-27
The promise of the Messianic line is first given through the woman (cf. Revelation 12), then continues with Noah through Shem (Genesis 9:25-27). In the story, Noah’s son Ham humiliated his father by uncovering his father’s nakedness while his father was drunk. Like the moral failure of Adam and Eve sparked a series of judgements against Adam, Eve and the serpent and a prophecy of redemption, so this event sparked condemnation of Ham’s descendants through Canaan and promises to Shem and Japheth. In this prophecy Shem is given greatest honor. What could this mean? In the broader context we will discover that the Messianic line is narrowing! In Genesis 3:15 we discover that an ultimate victor will bring down Satan. In Genesis 9:25-27, the focus moves to Shem and his descendants, the Semites. The Lord YHWH is the God of Shem. Later, we will find that the narrowing will continue through Abraham, a descendant of Shem.
