I love to read and I love to learn more about the Bible, so preaching a sermon series through a particular book gives me an excuse to indulge my hobby and then turn it into something, hopefully, that brings benefit to you and glory to God. One of the things that I’ve been reading as pertains to the Genesis series on Sunday evenings is a delightful little book called The Gospel of Genesis—Studies in Protology and Eschatology. It’s not exactly beach reading, at least not for normal people, but I’m not normal and I haven’t been to a beach in two years anyway. Its author is Warren Austin Gage and he is Assistant Professor of Old Testament at Knox Theological Seminary in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I bring him up because I ran across a wonderful paragraph from chapter 5 of his book that I wanted to share with you. The chapter is titled “Judgment, Salvation, and the Oracle of Destiny,” and the topic is God’s judgment on the Serpent, the woman, and Adam in Genesis 3:14-19. Here is that quotation. At the bottom I’ll link you to the book and also to the Genesis sermon series from Sunday nights. Here’s the quote:
But the woman and the man are subjects of grace as well as wrath, and the prophetic oracle contains a pronouncement as well of restorative irony. There had been demonic irony in that the woman whose life was derived from man should become to him the minister of death. But there is divine irony in the appointing of the woman to be the mother of all living (Gen 3:20). The promise is given of a seed to subdue the serpent (Gen 3:15), and by restorative irony God ordains that the weak will conquer the strong. The Son that would vanquish the serpent would have a maid for a mother (Gal 4:4), and woman, who had delivered man to sin, would deliver him a Savior. The one who cries in the cradle will subdue the principalities of darkness (Matt 4:1-11), and he who sucks the breast will defeat the power of death. Only the wisdom of God could appoint death as the way to life (Gal 2:20), the ultimate irony of curse transformed into blessing (Gal 3:13-14). It was by the death of the last Adam that the serpent of old encountered death and the first Adam found life. The nails that pierced the feet of Christ would bruise the heel, but they would crush the head of the serpent (1 Cor 2:8). The last Adam wore the thorns of the first Adam, but by these wounds he was healing his people (Isa 53:5). Christ knew the nakedness of Adam, but by this shame he was clothing his people in righteousness (Gal 3:27). For the first Adam the tree of knowledge brought death. But the last Adam knew death upon the tree bringing life (1 Pet 2:24). Adam had made a grave of a garden, but Christ would make a garden of a grave (Luke 24:5).
Just reading that over again gives me chills. Since that didn’t make it into a sermon, at least not in its entirety, I wanted to share it with you here. Last Sunday we finished Genesis 3 and this Sunday evening we will be entering chapter 4. I hope you will make plans to attend.
Here is the link to the book: Gospel in Genesis
And here is the link to the sermons in Genesis: Genesis Sermons