I occasionally need refocus time. When I am preparing messages or working on something that demands all my attention I oftentimes have to stop, walk around while drinking my cup of coffee, and reset. Holidays like Christmas and Easter work in that way. They become a time for me to think on the glorious salvation that has been achieved on my behalf.
I lead music and minister to students, so I get a double dose of this resetting in a lot of ways. I choose music fitting to the occasion, choose a Scripture reading fitting to the occasion, while I am writing a message for students fitting to the occasion. I also try to think on these things in private devotions and with my family. I inundate myself on holidays like this…and it is a good thing.
One of the things that has really stuck with me this year is the outworking of God’s salvation that culminated in Christ. The story of our salvation goes back much further than Jesus at Gethsemane…or even His birth. It reaches back to the Garden of Eden and the rest of the book of Genesis.
Curses And Redemption In The Garden
Looking back at the Garden of Eden we see that God created all things good. There was perfect fellowship between man and His Creator. There was also perfect fellowship between people. But, this did not last forever. Man sinned against God and this brought God’s curse upon the earth (Genesis 3:14-19).
The curse brought pain and struggle to work. It brought pain and struggle to child bearing. It brought pain and struggle to the relationship between men and women. It brought with it sickness and death. But, in the midst of the pain that it brought God promised redemption. To the snake God says in Genesis 3:15 ESV,
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.
God promises to one day crush evil through the offspring of the woman, Eve. In the midst of the curses that plague mankind there is a glorious promise that is made. It is a promise of redemption.
Eve believed that the promise was imminent rather than thousands of years in the making. She gave birth to a child in Genesis 4:1 and named him Cain. The name meant “acquired”, or “I have gotten”. And here is what she said,
Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD.
Eve, it seems, believed that immediately following this tragic even God would deliver her. Little did she realize that her redemption would be years in the making. I can’t imagine the disappointment when this son killed her other son Abel. The heartache of a child lost through the murderous attack of the other child must have been a terrible burden to bear. And, at this point her hopes of immediate redemption were dashed into a million pieces. God was, however, just beginning.
An Eternal Promise Given To Abram
After the Flood we find God dealing with a man named Abram. All of a sudden God says to Abram,
Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. – Genesis 12:1-3 ESV
So, God decided that He would make a covenant with Abram. Of great interest to you and I is the fact that God promises that “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed”. But how would this be?
Paul tells us in Galatians 3:14 that it was through Jesus Christ that the blessing of Abraham would come to the nations. He actually says that Jesus died on a cross to save us from the curse of the Laws to bring about the blessing promised to the nations through Abraham.
Think with me here. God created the nation of Israel, making a covenant with Abraham, and eventually from that nation would come the One who would accomplish our complete salvation for us. This is amazing stuff. For me this is reading Chapter 3 of the greatest story ever told.
Chapter 1: Paradise Made
Chapter 2: Paradise Lost And A Promise Made
Chapter 3: The First Step In Redemption
Chapter 4: Joseph: A Foreshadowing Of What Is To Come (Alright this is a horrible chapter title…I’m not a great writer, but you get the point.)
Joseph And The Technicolor Foreshadowing
A few generations removed from Abram, now Abraham is Joseph. He was the sort of younger brother that should get picked on a lot…if you don’t believe me reread the story again without editing out in your mind how agitating some of the things that he did were. But it was through Joseph that God did something incredible. God would use the suffering and exaltation of Joseph to save His people.
Joseph’s brothers became more than a little angry with him one day and put him in a hole. He was then picked up by some folks who sold him into slavery where he became a servant in Potiphar’s house. Joseph became a trusted servant, but Potiphar’s wife had a thing for Joseph. When he fled from her rather than sleep with her she claimed that he had attempted to sleep with her. Potiphar then had Joseph thrown into prison. What rotten luck it seems that Joseph had, but he remained faithful to the Lord. Through an interesting series of events Joseph was brought to Pharaoh to interpret his dream (Genesis 41). Joseph rightly interpreted the dream and it seemed that God was delivering a message to Pharaoh. Drought was coming. Joseph told Pharaoh and Joseph was left in charge of seeing to it that there would be enough food to survive the drought to come.
Joseph was exalted to a place of high power in Egypt after years of suffering. And through this suffering and exaltation was allowed to help his family, who is of the lineage of Abraham survive the famine that had fallen upon them. God used the suffering and exaltation of Joseph to save His people.
After the death of their father the brothers feared that Joseph would have them killed. It makes sense. Joseph has power and a good reason to bring revenge upon them. But instead this is what he said.
Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” – Genesis 50:19-20 ESV
God used the evil of Joseph’s brothers to save His people. Many years later God would use the evil of Jewish leaders, Romans, and a slew of other evils to have His Son nailed to a cross where He would suffer and die to bring about the salvation of God’s people.
Peter, in quite a parallel to this account states that God used the evil of “lawless men” to bring about the salvation that had been long planned by God.
Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves know-this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. – Acts 2:22-23 ESV
What an unbelievable foreshadowing of the suffering of Christ found in the story of Joseph! The path of salvation for many was through the suffering of one.
The Greatest Story Ever Told
I really do believe this to be the greatest story ever told. And there is something that makes it even better. It is true, not make-believe. God has worked out His perfect salvation over a period of thousands of years. And now evil has been defeated, and will face ultimate defeat at Jesus’ return. The promise to the nations has come in Christ. Now, trust in Him.
R. Dwain Minor
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