BS1C - GOD'S DILEMMA
But why didn’t God just fix it all? If He really is God, wouldn’t He have the power and the knowledge to fix the mess? That answer is No and then Yes. Stay with me…..
To whom did God give the rulership (or dominion) over the earth?
Genesis 1:26-30 / Genesis 2:15 / Psalm 8:6
In other words, God made us kings and queens over this part of God’s universe called earth. In a kingdom government, whatever a king decrees can’t be taken back.
Here is an example of that in scripture.
Daniel 6:7,12, 15
The original plan was that we -- men and women -- would rule over our part of the earth in partnership with God so that we would have all the resources and knowledge we needed to rule wisely. But…… we cut God out of the picture…… and decided to rule on our own. This means that what we see in the world today is of our own doing. We have no one to blame but ourselves and Satan who deceived us in the first place. When we hear someone say today, “Why did God let this happen?”, we are asking the wrong question. We should be asking, “Why did WE let this happen?”
The result of this first sin by Adam and Eve was catastrophic and set in motion a curse that is still going. Sin always brings consequences that ripple out from the sinner to affect others and even the environment around us.
Genesis 3:13-19
However, tucked inside of this terrible curse is a promise.
Reread Genesis 3:15
God, as King of the Universe, won’t take away our free-will. (Numbers 23:19) If He did, we’d merely be his puppets – only “free” to act when we agreed with God. It therefore follows that God would not disregard Adam and Eve’s decision to rule the world without Him.
God first took action against the perpetrator. The foe or serpent in Genesis 3:15 is Satan. He was once God’s chief angel, and the one now wanting to be “god” himself. Here in this rather cryptic promise (Genesis 3:15) God is saying that the “seed of the woman” would crush Satan’s head and in the battle, Satan would only be able to strike his heel”. When a snake’s head is crushed, he dies. This is the very first prophecy that someone would be coming to deal with this enemy.
The fact that this man was from the “seed of the woman” suggests 2 things:
A. Whoever God would be sending would be from the seed of a woman and NOT a man
Galatians 4:4 / Revelation 12:5
B. He would be born human
John 1:14 / Philippians 2:7
About 2,000 years after this first prophecy, we have another one. It came from God himself speaking to a man named Abram. He told Abram that “in you will all the families of the earth be blessed.” In other words, this man that God was going to send to redeem us from the consequences of sin, was going to come from “the seed of Abraham”.
Genesis 12:3
And then….from “the seed of Isaac” (Abraham’s son by his wife Sarah but NOT the first son that Abraham had with Sarah’s maiden Hagar).
Genesis 17:19
And then….from “the seed of Jacob” (the youngest of two sons that Isaac had with Rebekah instead of the oldest son Esau).
Genesis 28:14 / Numbers 24:17
The “star” spoken of in Numbers 24:17 is a poetic symbol of a brilliant person.
The “scepter” further describes the star as a ruler of men.
And then….from “the seed of Judah” (the 4th son of Jacob and Leah).
Genesis 49:10
And then….from “the root of Jesse” (Isaiah 11:10). And who was Jesse?
Matthew 1:6
Jesse’s son who became the famous King David was called “a man after God’s own heart”. He was far from perfect, but he loved God and lived for God’s interests. His reign was a highlight in the history of God’s people. WHAT did God say He would give to this man who was coming?
Luke 1:32
And how long was his reign to be?
Luke 1:33
“This man” that was coming started having a name around 550 B.C. (See 1 Samuel 2:10) He began to be called by a Hebrew word “messiah” – meaning an “anointed one”. In the Greek language the word for Messiah is “Christ”.
And so, we can see that God was all the time shepherding the coming of a man who would be able to reverse the terrible consequences of sin that were playing out century after century.
The fact that this man called the Messiah was going to be born a human meant that he would have a genealogy. Let’s look at this in the next section.
Next Study: BS1D-The Geneology of the Messiah