genesis

Christ in the Old Testament: Christ in Jacob’s Wrestling (Gensis 32)

July 17, 2023 by Matthew Goldstine Leave a Comment

One thing that’s become increasingly clear to me over the years is that most characters in the Bible were way worse than we thought as kids. People we have a tendency to put on pedestals were actually sinners undeserving of God’s grace, not A+ humans. There are a lot of examples to give, and it’s not really useful for us to try and rank them, but for what it’s worth I think that Jacob is pretty high (or low, for that matter) on that list.

I really appreciate how much of the Genesis narrative is devoted to telling Jacob’s story because he… well, he wasn’t the best of people. There’s not much I can do to sugarcoat it. He was named heel because he came out of the womb grabbing onto his twin brother Esau’s heel (Genesis 25:26). And he sure lived up to his name. He was the kind of guy who would grab your heel and trip you up in order to get ahead. Not a great role model.

Up to the point in the narrative that we’ll be looking at today (chapter 32), Jacob most notably had manipulated Esau into selling his birthright and stolen his blessing from their father. His actions led him to flee from Esau to Paddan-Aram, the area where Abraham’s father settled when they were journeying from Ur in Babylonia toward Canaan (what was the Promised Land). His deceitful actions led him to literally leave the Promised Land and “go backwards” to where his ancestors had come from; this is a picture of how sin reverses God’s good plans.

In Paddan-Aram, Jacob met up with his uncle Laban, a heel-grabber on par with Jacob himself. A couple of decades passed, and Laban’s trickery had resulted in a lot of familial turmoil. God eventually instructed Jacob to return to the Promised Land (31:1-3), and so he left with his wives and livestock to return to where his brother was. Understandably, he was pretty fearful of how Esau was going to react. He figured that the 20 years apart only served to cement the grudge. Oh, how Esau would have dreamt of this day of vengeance.

Jacob’s great plan was to coax Esau into kindness by sending him a bunch of gifts. Eventually, out of rope, Jacob prayed (32:9-12). He prayed to the God of his ancestors, to his God. He confessed his unworthiness of God’s love and praised God for his provision. He asked God– on this basis of God’s character and not his own– to spare him from Esau’s wrath.

In true Jacob fashion, though, trusting God’s promise was not enough. He still went through with his original plan to send gifts, and so he sent three groups of herdsmen ahead of him while he stayed at the camp.

In verse 24, the story gets weird. Left alone, we’re told that a man wrestled with him until the morning. This is certainly an odd moment. Who is this man? Where did he come from? Why is his instinct to get into a wrestling match with Jacob?

The story continues. Jacob holds his own, and the man then touches his hip socket and pops it out of the socket. Jacob asks the man to bless him, something I can’t imagine asking in the middle of a wrestling match with a stranger– though, to be fair, I’ve never been in that situation. The man makes him identify himself– essentially making him admit to his heel-grabbing– and changes Jacob’s name to Israel. The last we hear of the man is that he ended up blessing him (v.29).

So… where is Jesus?

Well, given the context clues, I’m sure you can guess that the man Jacob wrestled with points to Jesus somehow. That’s correct!

Let’s walk through it to make sure we understand how this is clear in the text.

For starters, within the passage itself we see a few hints. After Jacob is blessed, he names the place Peniel, which means that he has seen God face to face and lived. The only person he’s seen face to face in the narrative is the mysterious man, and so Jacob makes it clear that this man is God. This is a theophany. To solidify this, it makes sense for the man to be God since Jacob asked him for a blessing, something he wouldn’t have asked of a random man.

The prophet Hosea bolsters this view when he claims that Jacob “strove with the angel and prevailed” (Hosea 12:4). Hosea adds extra context to inform us that Jacob wrestled with the Angel of the Lord, the interesting figure we looked at last week. This angel– this messenger– of God, points to Jesus!

So it is God himself wrestling with Jacob in Genesis 32. One of the first questions that pops up after making this connection is to ask… If this man is really God, why couldn’t he win against Jacob? Why couldn’t the creator of the universe– of Jacob himself– defeat him? Obviously, he could have. So we have to ask a different question: What is this story pointing to? Is there another time you can think of where man seemed to defeat God? Where God seemed to lose the battle in the moment, but what would ultimately result in the greatest blessing of all? See, this is all pointing us to the cross of Christ! Surely, Jesus could’ve stepped down from the cross at any moment. He was not powerless against the Roman guards. His loss was voluntary, for our ultimate good.

No matter how much of a heel-grabber you are, Jesus offers mercy through his death and resurrection. In light of the cross, we have more of the picture painted for us than Jacob did when he wrestled with God. When you find yourself in those through-the-night, exhausting, stalemate-inducing battles with your King, don’t ever forget that your striving is not in vain. Even when you walk away with a limp– and Lord knows, you will– this newfound dependence on God through his mercy will be an even greater blessing than whatever you sought from him on your own terms.

Christ in the Old Testament: Christ in the Binding of Isaac (Genesis 22)

July 10, 2023 by Matthew Goldstine Leave a Comment

Genesis 22 is a common passage people wrestle with. God is supposedly good and loving, and yet here he point-blank asks Abraham to kill his own son. How do we reconcile that reality with the truth about God we see throughout the rest of the Bible? Is this story an ancient tale revealing God as a brute or is it a beautiful picture of God’s character? I’m arguing for the latter.

After promising Abraham many descendents (12:2), entering into a covenant with him (15:1-21), confirming this covenant (17:4-14), and determining that Abraham and his wife Sarah will bear a child themselves in their old age (17:17-21), Isaac is finally born (21:1-7). It’s a joyous occasion worth celebrating. God has delivered on his promise. So far, so good.

But then things take an abrupt, confusing turn as we enter Genesis 22. In the first two verses, God commands Abraham to take this son and sacrifice him. I’ll admit, this tends to make me raise my eyebrows and squint a bit. Thankfully, with a careful reading of Scripture we can see the beauty of this text.

For starters, there’s a piece of information in verse 1 present for the reader but absent from Abraham as he’s given the command: this is a test. The implication is that God never intended for Abraham to actually sacrifice Isaac. It’s all about Abraham’s faith. God has promised him repeatedly that he will make a great nation out of him through which he will bless the world; will Abraham stand firm in trust? One writer summarized the dilemma well, saying “Abraham had left his home in Ur and given up his past for the sake of God’s promise. Now he was being asked if he would trust God by apparently surrendering his future as well.”¹. God understood the gravity of the request, emphasizing not only that Isaac is the fulfillment of a promise, but that Abraham deeply loves Isaac (v. 3).

Abraham, in faith, trusted God. The next morning, he got up and took Isaac and two servants on a multi-day journey to a mountain in the region of Moriah. It’s crucial to notice Abraham’s words to the servants in verse 5. There, he affirms that he and Isaac are going to worship God, and they will both return soon. Whatever happens on top of the mountain, Abraham believes that God will intervene. If he must sacrifice his son, he believes that God will raise him from the dead (Hebrews 11:19).

This truth is solidified further in verses 6-8. Isaac astutely notices that everything is present for the sacrifice… except the sacrifice. Abraham answers that God will provide. Consider that to be strong foreshadowing.

Finally, on the mountain, Abraham prepared the altar, and then tied Isaac to it, pulling the knife on him and preparing to sacrifice him. No dialogue between Abraham and Isaac is recorded here, but I can’t imagine the tension present as Isaac was bound to the altar. Dad, if you’re reading this, don’t get any ideas!

Finally, in the height of the tension, the angel of the Lord stopped him, affirming his faith and obedience to God. The story ends with Abraham seeing and sacrificing instead a ram caught in a thicket. He praises God as Jehovah-Jireh, the Lord who provides, and is then reassured by the angel of the Lord that God’s promises to him will come true.

It’s time we ask our key question: where is Jesus in this story?

I would encourage you to take a few moments and reread Genesis 22, looking for the various connections to the life and work of Jesus. If you’re up for the challenge, try to find at least five connections before reading the rest of this post.

Now let me point out a few that stick out to me.

Starting in verse 2, God’s request for Abraham to sacrifice his only son, the one whom he loves, is a sentiment echoed in perhaps the most famous Bible verse, John 3:16. Jesus is God’s beloved son (Mark 1:11), and yet God is willing to walk the very path he calls Abraham to walk in faith. The contrast here is that Jesus willingly offered himself as a sacrifice; Isaac was not active in the decision in Genesis 22.

Abraham and Isaac traveled alongside two servants, which can be reminiscent of the two criminals accompanying Jesus on the cross. Isaac carried the wood on his back as Jesus carried his cross. They were both raised (Jesus, literally; Isaac, figuratively) on the third day.

The sacrifice took place on a mountain in the land of Moriah– interestingly, this is the same location where Solomon would eventually build the temple (2 Chronicles 3:1). Burnt offerings, according to Leviticus, were to be male animals without blemish whose death would make atonement for the offerer. We know that Jesus is ultimately the spotless lamb who offered once for all for our sake on the cross (read Hebrews 9:1-10:18).

On the mountain, Jehovah-Jireh gave Abraham a ram (an adult male sheep) to offer instead of his son. God has likewise provided a spotless ram in our place, his head caught in a crown of thorns (Matthew 27:29).

There’s one more connection I want to bring to light, one that will show up repeatedly throughout the Old Testament. In verses 11-12, we’re told that it’s the angel of the Lord who stops Abraham from killing Isaac. A few verses later, in verses 15-18, this angel of the Lord reconfirms God’s covenant with Abraham that he’s established in the preceding chapters. I find it interesting that it’s God who talks to him directly at the beginning of the story, but then relegates the rest of the interaction to one of his angels. Why is this? Why has God gone silent?

The answer? He hasn’t! If you remember the introductory post to this series, I referred to theophanies– visual appearances of God that point to the incarnation– as one way we see our Messiah in the Old Testament. This is one of those times! See, the Angel of the Lord is best understood to prefigure Jesus!

The Angel of the Lord is a unique messenger of God who appears numerous times in the Old Testament. But this angel is not just a messenger. He’s also the Lord himself. This messenger of God communicates God’s words, but also speaks and acts in ways that are exclusive to the Lord himself. Read the story of Hagar in Genesis 16 and Moses in Exodus 3 to see a couple other examples of the angel of the Lord appearing to also be the Lord himself. This distinction provides a basic framework for our understanding of the Trinity, that Jesus is both God and yet distinct in personhood from the Father.

Praise be to God that he is willing to do all that he asks of his people, that he has given up his beloved Son for our sake, that we may be reconciled to Him! Praise be to God that he knows the purity of our relationship with Him is more important than the blessings we receive from Him!

Christ in the Old Testament: Christ in the Flood (Genesis 6-9)

July 3, 2023 by Matthew Goldstine Leave a Comment

My grandma was an eccentric art collector whose house was more like a museum than a home; one of the few rules I remember from my childhood was absolutely no running ever. As a kid, I never quite appreciated her style and regret that I never was able to share my present love of art with her.

Except for one piece. In front of her living room window, always catching the light from her front yard, was a stained-glass bowl depicting Noah’s ark. I always loved it. It felt comfortable to me. As a young believer in a house of art that didn’t make sense to me, it was familiar. When she passed, I found out that she had made sure to leave that piece to me in her will, and I love it to this day.

What’s interesting about the bowl, though, is that it doesn’t quite depict the severity of the flood story. And, come to think of it, as I’ve aged, I’ve started to notice that most depictions of Noah’s ark and the flood present it as more of a cruise for wild animals than God’s severe judgment on the earth for sin.

Over the last few years, I’ve found myself wrestling with the story of the flood. I’ve asked questions that I’m sure are not unique to me: Did God really need to go that far? Why did the animals have to be punished, too? Was God really caught off guard by humanity’s sin?

These are good questions, and ones I won’t be able to exhaust here. But to ensure we have the correct foundation, we have to remember how bad sin is. Only people who think that sin isn’t that big of a deal are people who object to God’s punishment of it. When the severity and reality of sin is grasped, punishment may not be desired, but it is understood.

The truth is that sin is serious, and God not only hates it but is grieved by it. I appreciate the clarity of the NLT’s rendering of God’s reaction to the extent of human wickedness: “It broke his heart” (6:6).

So God decided that he would undo his creation. The passage doesn’t allow for us to view God as a cosmic dictator wiping out innocent civilians at will– no, we cling firm to the truth that our wickedness truly breaks God’s heart. The resulting flood is not God’s rageful temper tantrum, it’s the solemn reversal of God’s good creation to the chaotic waters of the formless, void earth (1:2). This is the nature and severity of sin. The flood reflects how sin undoes the good order of creation until it is reduced to what God sees as wicked (6:5).

In his grace, the Lord chose to save Noah and his family on account of his righteousness (7:1). This is not a righteousness that implies Noah’s moral perfection; rather, it is an imputed righteousness on the basis of Noah’s faith, his walking with God (6:9, cf. 5:22-24, 17:1). Noah built the ark according to God’s specs and then entered with his family and the animals. The flood waters came, destroyed, and receded, Noah’s family exiting a year later to repopulate the earth under the umbrella of the new Noahic covenant.

Now, where’s Jesus in this?

In the introduction, I mentioned that one way we see Christ in the Old Testament is through something called typology. The Old Testament is saturated with types– symbols– of the coming Christ. This story is one such example. Take a second and reflect on the passage and see if you can see who or what is the type of Christ here…

Got it?

It’s the ark! The ark is a type of Jesus. Noah and his family entered the ark, the single option graciously provided by God as the means to survive divine judgment, and were sealed from the outside by God (7:16). Similarly, Christians enter into Christ and are spared from the eternal death awaiting sinners (John 5:24). Jesus alone is the path of salvation (John 14:6). Jesus, like the ark, bore the full wrath of God in judgment, with all the waves beating ceaselessly against him while those inside remained unscathed. When the flood waters finally receded, Noah and his family exited the ark to fill the earth again. When the final judgment has passed, Christians will spend eternity with God on the renewed earth we see described in Revelation 21-22, eternally secure under God’s new covenant (Hebrews 13:20).

The flood story instructs us about the nature of our salvation. It is wholly a work of God’s divine grace (he has provided the warning of coming judgment and the means for us to survive it); nonetheless we have the responsibility to enter the ark (7:1). It’s not enough to look at the ark. It’s not enough to recognize that ark exists. The ark must be entered for you to survive the flood waters.

There’s also an assurance of salvation present in this passage I find beautiful. The ark is sealed from the outside by God, reminding us of the truth of Romans 8:38-39, that nothing within all creation has the power to separate us from the love of God. As I’ve heard it said, we shouldn’t put too much stock into our feelings when, as Christians, we periodically wrestle with doubts about our salvation. It is not our feelings that save us, but whether or not our feet are in the ark.

Jesus, discussing the final judgment, referenced back to the flood in Matthew 24: “For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man” (v.37-39). Don’t ignore God’s word. Live with purpose, helping bring as many people into the ark as you can, not living for the fleeting pleasures of this world that is passing away.

Christ in the Old Testament: Christ in the Fall (Genesis 3)

June 19, 2023 by Matthew Goldstine Leave a Comment

There’s a popular kind of media that I struggle to watch– the kind that fosters skin-crawling secondhand embarrassment. You know the type. You desperately want to look away but can’t. That’s how I feel sometimes when I read Genesis 3. It’s a horrific story that causes me to cringe, but I can’t look away.

The curtains close on Genesis 2 to a joyous melody; the curtains reopen for Genesis 3 and the atmosphere has noticeably shifted. The serpent is present; the serpent tempts; Adam and Eve sin. It’s tragic, truly. Paradise is now paradise lost.

The reader is invited into the story, to see that this is the common story of humanity. It is as much my fall as it is Adam’s. The secondhand pain of failure is inescapable as each of us is brought into the plot. And now, we’re all in search of rescue. Where is our help? Will there be good news for us, or are we doomed?

Thankfully, we don’t have to wait long for an answer. The first mention of the Gospel, contrary to what many might think, is not in the early pages of the New Testament. It’s in the early pages of Scripture as a whole. You might not notice it immediately if you’re on the lookout for words like “Jesus” or “cross” or “resurrection.” While all of those words are crucial to our understanding of how God’s plan to save sinners has unfolded, they aren’t the words that we see in Genesis 3.

Here is the earliest Gospel message recorded in Scripture: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (v.15).

Tucked in a set of consequences that God is outlining to the serpent, Eve, and Adam is this verse. Some people question why God didn’t intervene right when they sinned; I think the text is clear that he did. Although the details themselves are sparing at this point in the story, God is clear: the serpent will be defeated. Evil will be overcome by good. And this defeat will come at the hands of Eve’s own offspring, who we will later see is Jesus himself.

Let me walk you through how we see this.

The serpent, Satan, is promised that there would be future strife between his offspring and Eve’s offspring. On face value, this seems a bit vague, admittedly. Does this really point to Jesus, or is it a more vague promise that humans in general will defeat evil? With the latter view, our whole understanding of the Gospel would be undermined, as it would mean that we have the ability within ourselves to overcome evil.

But that’s not what the text is saying. The offspring of Eve here is not referring to all human beings in general. What we see throughout the entire Biblical text is that there is not only a physical element to the idea of offspring, but a spiritual element. Later, for instance, both Jesus and Paul will emphasize that Abraham’s descendents are descendents by faith, not blood. Look at Jesus’ words to the Jews in John 8: “They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did, but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did… You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires” (v.39-44). Paul adds this in Galatians: “Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham” (3:7). The message is clear: the wicked are the serpent’s offspring and the righteous (by faith) are Eve’s offspring.

So, at the very least now, it’s evident that there will be a triumph of the righteous over the wicked, but the question remains if this is a collective victory of all righteous. Will the good people one day band together in one last hurrah– the few against the many– and win? Is this a story of the underdog sports team beating the best team in the nation off the power of friendship?

No. It’s not.

It’s the story of a single descendent rising up to defeat the serpent in combat. The underlying Hebrew sentence structure strongly suggests that this promised offspring is referring to an individual. This means that a manhunt has been set in motion the second we read Genesis 3:15. From that point forward, as we read our Bibles we ask the question, “Who will be this serpent-crusher?” By the time we get to the stories of Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David, among others, we should be looking eagerly to see if they will be the promised one. With each one’s failures, our senses of both hope and desperation heighten as we scour the Bible’s pages, asking, “So where is he?”

This is the buildup of the entire Old Testament. God, in his grace, provides more and more details as to who this individual will be as the story unfolds. He will be a descendent of Abraham (Genesis 22:17-18); he will be a prophet like Moses (Deuteronomy 18:15-18); he will be in the line of David (2 Samuel 7:16).

When Jesus arrives on the scene, we hear the triumphal announcement of Mark: “The beginning of Jesus Christ, the son of God” (1:1). This is who we’ve been waiting for. This is our serpent crusher.

As the Gospel story unfolds, we see our serpent crusher crushed by crucifixion. Surely, this was a shock to all the onlookers of the day– even to us today who are appalled at the notion of a crucified savior– but here is where the words of Genesis 3:15 must echo in our ears: “He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” Jesus was bruised. The cross was a fatal wound, but it wasn’t a final wound. But as for the serpent, he would be totally crushed.

The Revelation of John bookends the story. In chapter 20, we hear that Satan will be thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where he will be tormented for eternity (v. 7-10). In chapters 21-22, in the great Garden City, there is no longer any serpent, but only God and his creatures in eternal bliss. Praise God.