Let’s start this study on Easter Sunday, the day God raised Jesus from the dead in Glory, at the beginning, which is not His birth in Bethlehem nor on His cross dying for us but rather in the distant past before anything at all was created and before time began.
In eternity past, God in His wisdom and foreknowledge foreordained His Son, The Word of God to redeem us to Himself and this was hidden from everyone, even the Angels, Cherubs and Seraphim.
The Lord through the Apostle’s letters explains this “hidden” mystery (secret) thing that God had done in eternity past:
1 Peter 1:18-21 “Forasmuch as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God.“
2 Timothy 1:9: He “who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began,”
From these scripture verses we begin to understand what God purposed when he foreordained His Son, the Word of God to redeem us to Himself: In eternity past, God proclaimed that His Son would make us holy and blameless before Him.
Now, let us fast-forward from eternity past to the earth which God had created through His Son, the Word of God. Our Lord made all living things and at the right time, created man and woman and put them into His Garden, in Eden.
We see that God’s secret plan begins to unfold in the Garden of Eden:
God intended for Adam and Eve to be caretakers of the Garden and to have fellowship with Himself and live forever by eating of the “Tree of Life”.
To test their obedience though, He gave them one simple command: You can eat of all that is in the garden except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and they were warned that in the day that they ate of that fruit, they would die.
Note that with God, a thousand years is as a day.
All went well until things suddenly changed with the appearance of the subtle-talking serpent. He first deceived Eve when he lied to her in saying that she wouldn’t die by eating of that fruit but rather by eating of it she would become like God, knowing good and evil (or right and wrong).
He tempted and enticed Eve to corrupt those attributes which God gave them: To see His creation and to give Him glory s for it, eat and be satisfied both by food and by every word out of God’s mouth and instead of taking pride in themselves, to give praise, honor and glory to God for what He did for them.
Instead of using these attributes to honor God, Adam and Eve became corrupted by using them to honor themselves.
God knew that Adam and Eve had disobeyed Him, and he confronted them about it. Although God sentenced them to separation from Him and ultimately to die, all was not lost as He created hope in Eve when He said to the serpent, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall crush thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.“
Notice that God did not use the word “seeds” but seed, singular and that a future male seed of the woman would bruise the serpent’s head, eventually killing him and He, Himself would only be bruised in his Heel and recover.
This is the first hint of the promise of a Redeemer and what he would do but it lacks hardly any detail. Many dismiss this as non-prophesy or wishful thinking on the part of theologians but is it?
I would argue that God has purpose in everything He says. If this was of no importance, why would He have remembered to have Moses write about it in Genesis.
When the now mortal Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden, God made them coats of animal skins which means that the animals had to have their blood shed and die to cover Adam and Eve’s sin.
In God doing this, He put into the hearts of those that sought to please Him that a blood sacrifice was needed to atone for sins and make things right with God if only for a season.
Now, in hindsight, we see that God was starting a sacrificial practice using blood to atone for sin and that would continue until the appearance of The Redeemer who Himself was to be sacrificed. His blood was shed and He was killed so that the payment for our redemption would be complete.
We read next of Abel’s burnt offering on an altar which did in faith had upon it the blood and flesh of the firstling of the sheep in his flock and it was pleasing to God but God had no respect for Cain’s offering from his garden produce because he lacked faith in God and because of this, Cain killed his brother Abel out of anger, jealously and contempt because Abel was accepted by God and he was not.
Eve conceived again and bore another son and called his name Seth and it is written, “For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the LORD.“
You can see from this that she did not forget what God had said to the serpent and believed it – a seed would come forth from her that would reverse what the serpent did to them.
This line of descent beginning with Seth’s son Enos was to produce the SEED called “The Messiah”.
Noah was a righteous descendant of Enos and after about 1500 years of tolerating all the wickedness in the world, God commanded Noah to build an ark to save the animals and just the few souls of his family from the destruction of the wicked by the flood.
Once Noah’s family were safe and upon dry land again, Noah built an altar to God and sacrificed a burnt offering to Him of one of the clean animals God commanded him to take aboard the ark.
In his old age, Noah blessed his son Shem with, “Bless the Lord, the God of Shem”. Nine generations later, Abraham was born through Shem’s line of people and God called him to Himself and sent him away from his family into a land of inheritance that He would show him (Canaan).
Abraham was faithful to God and believed Him. God told him that he and Sarah would have a son and to name him Isaac and Abraham believed God and had faith that He was capable of doing this even though they were both very old.
Later, God asked Abraham to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac on an altar as a test of his obedience and he would have followed through with it had not God sent an Angel to stay the knife in his hand.
Abraham obeyed God because he had faith that God could raise Isaac from the dead so he was willing to sacrifice him and God saw his faithfulness in that and counted him righteous for it and made a covenant with him and promised that in his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed.
Now we are getting somewhere – the hint of a future blessing. The seed born of Eve to replace the righteous Abel was indeed the ONE to bring blessings from G0d.
Abrahams son Isaac begot Jacob who was renamed Israel by God and his 12 sons formed the nation of Israel. After their exodus from Egypt, God set Israel in the land promised to Abraham even though it was occupied at the time by Canaan’s descendants. God’s prophesy through Noah that Canaan would serve Shems descendants was coming true.
God gave Israel laws and ordinances to follow including the plans for the construction of a tabernacle for His glorious shekinah to occupy. It was in this tabernacle that the yearly blood sacrifice for the nation’s sins would be presented to God but within it remained a veil separating God from sinful man.
God was leading Israel towards the time when He would bring forth His own Son from the seed of Abraham to bless all the nations and tear apart that veil!
This blessing on Abraham is the beginning of a long line of prophecies concerning the coming Messiah which becomes more and more detailed as we read through the old testament and once we get to Isaiah 53, where he, by the Holy Spirit is speaking about the Messiah’s life hints back to what was said to the serpent in the Garden of Eden.
Isaiah 53:2-10:
When Satan encountered Eve’s “SEED” Jesus, he reasoned that by killing Him, he would ensure that Israel and the world would remain in sin and under his control but the real purpose of the death of Jesus was hidden from Satan and his demons.
1 Corinthians 2:7-8: “But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.“
Why would Jesus’ death at the hands of Satan prove to be a victory over Satan?
The power that Satan held over us was through our sin as it caused continual separation with God. We were forever chained to sin through our fallen nature and there was nothing we could do to help ourselves.
But, the power of Satan was destroyed when Jesus’ blood was sacrificed and died for us. In one fell swoop, He redeemed us from our sins and removed our separation from God.
God proclaimed this when Jesus died by tearing the veil in the temple in two from top to bottom indicating that the separation between us and God was removed.
In Jesus, God had completed His secret plan which He had started in eternity past by ordaining His Son to redeem us. The blood sacrifice of His Son in His death paid for our sins and by it reconciled us with His Father so that we could be deemed righteous or “right with God.”
But, what of the resurrection of our Lord?
The prophesy of the bruising that Jesus sustained in being put to death was not to His end as God then raised Him from the dead on the third day with a glorified body and Jesus Himself called His own resurrection the firstfruits from the dead and it created the hope we have in us of holiness in eternity with a glorified body like the one Jesus has.
The Lord Jesus, through the Apostle Paul said of our saving faith and hope of glory:
2 Corinthians 4:14-18 “Knowing that He which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you. For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God. For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day (by the Holy Spirit in us). For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but (in faith) at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.“
So, if we put together what God accomplished through His Son on the cross and in His resurrection three days later, we now find ourselves in a position to be reconciled with God through His Gift which we know as the “Salvation of the Gospel of God’s Grace”.
The Lord proclaims how we receive the gift of God’s grace through the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans.
Romans 10:9-10 “That if you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.“
We should encourage all those reading these words and realizing that they are living in a fallen state separated from God and unable to save themselves, to say this verse out loud with a sincere faith in God and with a true and humble heart. God will deem you righteous or “right with Him”. You shall receive the promised Holy Spirit who is sent by our Lord Jesus to renew you day by day and transform you into His own image so that when you die, you’ll be raised up with a glorified body like our Lord has and if you follow Him to the end, you shall stand before the Lord holy and blameless and above reproach.
How can we know that we will be able to live our lives to God and follow Him through to the end?
The Apostle’s Paul’s letter to the Philippians confirms that our fellowship in the good news of the Gospel will not fail in us so as to bring us great comfort and joy.
Philippians 1:6 “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:“
Thus the accomplishment of the secret hidden from the ages which is the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ to redeem us has been fulfilled and as a further blessing on us, God will ensure our salvation through to the end.
Jesus reveals our hope through Paul’s letter to the Colossians:
Colossians 1:26-27 “Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:“
Lord, come, tabernacle in and with us!
All Honor and Glory to God our Father and to the Lord Jesus Christ!
Let us Pray!