We turn in your Bibles to Genesis chapter three for our meditation this evening prior to participating in the Lord's Supper. Genesis chapter three, I suppose, is a very familiar chapter to everyone here. And well, it should be foundational for not only creation, but for redemption, specifically the The first promise of the gospel is found in Genesis chapter 3 in verse 15. That's where we will focus our attention this evening.
If I do want to read the chapter, we'll have cause to reflect on several portions this evening as we seek to look at and investigate more thoroughly Genesis 3.15. So I'll pick up reading in verse 1. Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, as God indeed said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden.
And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die. Then the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die, for God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.
And the eyes of both of them were open, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
Adam's Evasion and Blame
Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, Where are you? So he said, I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself. And he said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?
Then the man said, The woman whom you gave to be with me She gave me of the tree, and I ate. And the Lord God said to the woman, What is this you have done? The woman said, The serpent deceived me, and I ate. So the Lord God said to the serpent, Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle and more than every beast of the field.
On your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. To the woman he said, I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception.
In pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you. Then to Adam he said, because you have heeded the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, you shall not eat of it. Curse it as the ground for your sake.
In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you. And you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground.
For out of it you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you shall return. And Adam called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living. Also, for Adam and his wife, the Lord God made tunics of skin and clothed them.
Then the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us, to no good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever. Therefore, the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So he drove out the man and he placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden. and a flaming sword which turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
Amen. Well, let us pray. Our Father, we thank you for this, your word. We pray now for the ministry and the guidance of your spirit.
God, as we consider this scripture, as we consider specifically the promise of verse 15, may we rejoice to call Jesus our Lord. May we rejoice in the fact that this announcement in the garden is so blessed and so wonderful and so inclusive as it has brought us out of darkness into marvelous light, confessing Jesus as Lord and Savior, tasting and knowing that He is, in fact, good. How we praise You for the Gospel, how we praise You for free grace, how we praise You for redemption through the blood of the Lord Jesus. And it's in His name that we pray.
Amen.
Introduction
The Bible essentially presents to us three overarching covenants. Genesis chapter 2 indicates the covenant of works. There was an agreement made by God with Adam concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. There was a positive prohibition, though the word covenant is absent.
We see in other instances that the word covenant doesn't have to be in place for an actual covenant to take place. One instance is 2 Samuel 7, what we call the Davidic covenant. The word covenant is absent, but in Psalm 89 it describes that arrangement as the covenant with David. So covenant is absent here in chapter 2 as well as chapter 3, but what we see in chapter 2 is a covenant of words, and then in chapter 3 is the first promise of the covenant of grace, our confession of faith describes it this way.
The covenant of grace is revealed in the gospel. First of all, to Adam in the promise of salvation by the seed of the woman and afterward by farther steps until the full discovery thereof was completed in the New Testament. So what the confession accurately understands or depicts or summarizes is this statement of Genesis 3.15, being the promise of a deliverer, the promise of a redeemer, the promise of one who would come crush the head of the serpent, to render the death blow to the devil himself and to vindicate and to save his people from their sins. It is truly a wonderful passage of Holy Writ, one I hope that finds its way into our hearts and into our minds and into our meditation as we consider our Lord Jesus Christ.
Background to the Promise
Before we get to Genesis 3.15, let's just briefly look at the background to this particular promise. I've already indicated there was a covenantal arrangement made by God with Adam. in the covenant of works in chapter 2. The Westminster Confession defines it this way. The first covenant made with man was a covenant of works wherein life was promised to Adam and in him to his posterity upon condition of perfect and personal obedience.
So Adam in this state, in chapter 2, stood as a public person, as a representative of all of his posterity. He was given this prohibition. He was told the day that he ate, he would surely die or dying. He would die.
So, God puts forth stipulations. He promises blessings. He promises cursings. There are parties.
All the elements are there concerning the covenant of works. Now,
The Fall and Its Anatomy
notice their fall into sin in verses 1 to 6 in chapter 3. Again, this is hopefully familiar ground for all of us. Just a couple of interesting points along the way as we sketch the background to this first promise. Remember that the devil comes and his initial challenge is on the veracity of God.
His initial challenge, the subtlety of the serpent, is just to introduce an element of doubt to the woman. Now, this is very instructive for us. Most of the time, you're not going to hear a knock on your front door or hear your doorbell ring. And you're going to open your door and you're going to see a man. or in a red suit holding a pitchfork with horns and with a long tail saying, you know, I'm the devil and I've come to collect your soul.
Generally speaking, it's not an overt onslaught like that. Generally speaking, for the most of us, it will be a subtle temptation along the way. And it's how we resist that, or if we choose to entertain that, that will mean life or death ultimately. We see that subtlety expressed in verse 1.
Has God indeed said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden? Again, he doesn't come to the woman and say, God is a liar. You can't trust Him. He isn't worth anything.
Just disregard everything He says. It's introduced subtly. Has God indeed said? It's a challenge.
It's a subtle weaving His way in. He knows good and well what God said because the language that the devil uses reflects specifically what God has said. When he says, you will not surely die, he uses the same convention that God used. On the day that you eat, dying you shall die.
That's precisely how the serpent expresses it, so he understands the nature of the command. But he is a deceiver. He comes in subtly. He weaves his way in to try and challenge the authority of God's Holy Word.
This is why we need to be on our guard. This is why we need to understand the truth. We need to know good doctrine. We need to study our Bibles.
We need to study our confession of faith. We need to know the truth so well that we're able to spot the counterfeit. We need to know the truth of God's holy word and standards so well that we can resist the challenges to it by the devil and by his minions. So notice the devil weaves his way in.
The woman reports in verse two, we may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden. She minimizes the privilege. I already see some problems here with E's thinking. Was this the privilege that God had said we may eat?
No, God says, you may freely eat. You may enjoy. Go for the bounty. Except, of course, that one tree.
So, she's minimizing privilege here. Notice, the woman said to the serpent, we may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden. Then she minimizes judgment when she says, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, you shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die. It wasn't a let you die, it was a dying you shall die.
And then she maximizes the prohibition. She says we can't eat and we can't touch. God never stipulated that. So already there's something wrong in thinking at this particular juncture and the devil seizes upon this and he's capitalizing upon it.
Now notice, after making this statement, the serpent again challenges, goes right for the juggler and says, God knows, verse 5, that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. God doesn't want you as fellow gods. God wants to keep you down. God wants to keep you in a position of inferiority.
See, here the devil has moved from a subtlety to a direct challenge upon who God is in terms of his authority and in terms of his character. Notice in verse 6, So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and the tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. Kind of an interesting thing, isn't it? She took of its fruit and ate.
She gives it to her husband and he ate. What do we do tonight in the supper? We take and we eat. This taking and this eating was rebellion against the living and true God.
This taking and this eating resulted in God's condemnation. This taking and this eating plunged Adam and his posterity into sin and depravity. It would take the deliverer of Genesis 3.15 to take that terminology of take and eat and bring it to a place of blessing, to a place of joy, to a place of happiness, to a place of great celebration. She took, she ate, she gave to her husband with her, and he ate.
Verse 7, the eyes of both of them were opened. They knew that they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.
Great picture of blessing. The cool of the day. Right? God would come and commune with His creatures in the cool of the day.
The implication seems to be after their daily labor, after engaging in that task that God had given to Adam, to extend that garden temple, to subdue the earth, to make it a place of consecration and worship unto God. When he was finished with his labor, the Lord God would come and would fellowship with them, would commune with them, would enjoy His creatures, not because of anything lacking, in God, not because God was somehow empty. That's this idea that is foreign and contrary to biblical data. We actually have this idea that God made us because he was lonely or because God needed something to complete him.
God has eternally existed in blessed blissfulness as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When John defines God as love, That is not first and foremost God is loving toward His creatures. God is love among the persons of the Trinity. The Father loves the Son.
The Son and the Father love the Spirit. The Spirit loves the Father and the Son. God created according to His sovereign good pleasure, and now He comes to visit with His creatures in the garden. And we notice what Adam does.
Adam and his wife hit themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Adam tries to hide himself from God in the sanctuary of God. It's an unfortunate reality of our sinfulness. It's an unfortunate reality of man's attempt to deal with his wickedness.
He sows fig leaves together and then he hides himself among these trees as if the sovereign of the universe can't find him. Sin is madness. Sin is folly. Sin is being reported here to us for what it really is.
Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, where are you? Now, kids, you need to pay attention here. God's not asking for information. These questions are for Adam.
They're not for God. It's like when you know your father or mother knows you've done something wrong and they say, did you take that? Are they really investigating for their own knowledge? No.
They want you to acknowledge what you've done, own it, and come clean. The questions posed to Adam are for Adam. It's not as if God is inquisitive. It's not as if God doesn't know.
It's not as if God did not witness their rebellion and their attack upon his authority. These questions are designed to elicit a response from Adam. The Lord God called to Adam and said to him, where are you? So he said, I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself.
This, in the language of Meredith Klein, is an evasive half-truth. Why or how is Adam now conscious of his nakedness and fear? Because of his rebellion against God. See, that's what he should have said.
I hid because I sinned. I hid because I rebelled. I ran because I have violated your holy covenant. But no, he's evasive.
I heard your voice in the garden and was afraid because I was naked and hid myself. And God said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat? And here we see the exact opposite of Colossians chapter 3.
Remember in Colossians chapter 3, the person focusing upon the Lord Jesus treats his wife with love, with respect, and with dignity. The person focusing upon the Lord Jesus Christ submits to her husband. She seeks to live in a manner that is consistent with God's will and God's Word. What we find in this fall of man is the complete reversal of all that is good and holy.
God makes man to rule his family. He makes Eve to submit to her husband, and he makes both of them to exercise dominion over the lesser creatures. Here in chapter 3, we see that turned on its head. We see the lesser creature via the serpent on top, addressing the woman who then takes and gives to the man.
It is a complete reversal of God's created order, and I think the author wants us to understand something of the gravity of sin. It is no light matter. It is no small thing. It is calm, and it has wrought havoc upon the created order of God Most High.
It will take nothing less than the Deliverer promised in verse 15 to right the wrong, to reverse the criminal activity, to change things for the betterment of humanity. As you read through this chapter, you're supposed to read meditatively and contemplatively to realize just how bad sin really is. We know Adam's response. He plays the victim.
The first person he blames is God himself. The woman whom you gave me, Lord. How many times has that risen up in our hearts? I'd be the holiest man in the world if it wasn't for that woman who God gave me.
I'd be the most accomplished specimen of a woman if God hadn't hitched me to that drag or that one that drags me down. Adam's the victim. This is so rampant today. Everybody's a victim.
Everything is everybody else's fault. No one is accountable. No one is responsible. A man can walk into a movie theater and open up fire and more than likely plead not guilty by reason of insanity.
That is insanity. Sin is bad. We're not victims. We are perpetrators.
We are criminals. We are cosmic assailants upon the good order of God Most High, the woman whom you gave me. If you hadn't have given her to me, Lord, I wouldn't be in this mess. I'd be able to commune with you, God.
I'd be able to enjoy the cool day after having done my work. I wouldn't have had to make fig leaves. I wouldn't have had to run and hide in these trees because you gave me this woman that has made all this happen. But not only does he blame God, he's holding his wife up too.
What a wimp. Men, if you've got problems, you've got problems. Don't blame your wife. This is evading responsibility at its core.
There's nothing new under the sun. Some people might say, why revisit Genesis chapter 3? It's as relevant right now as it was back then, isn't it? I mean, isn't this what man does?
God, you shouldn't have given her to me. Well, that's not going to work. God, this woman, she's a real piece of work. She listened to the devil.
She took the fruit. She ate, and then she handed it to me. Of course I'm going to eat it, Lord. What do you mean, of course you're going to eat it, Lord?
Exercise manhood. Man up, as they say, and deal with yourself and your family responsibly. Do not allow this inversion of the created order to take place on your watch. You're not a victim, Adam.
So what happens next? We know the story, right? Eve's a victim. It wasn't me.
I didn't do anything. It was that serpent. God, if you had protected the garden a little bit more discriminately, that serpent wouldn't have woven his way into my heart. It was the serpent's fault that all of this has befallen us today.
I'm just a victim of circumstance. If I hadn't have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, I would have maintained uprightness and holiness. We know that's a lie. Our sin is such that it does not depend upon being in the right place at the right time.
You know as well as I do, you'll find out sin. You will find it. We're like pigs in mud. We just find it.
We're just like skunks in state. We just find it. It's there. We will roll in it.
You see, they're passing the buck from one to another, throwing each other under the proverbial bus, as is common to say today. Adam throws his wife under the bus. The wife throws the serpent under the bus. No one's going to man up and say, Lord God, we sinned against you.
Forgive us. But it's on that foundation, it's on that basis that the promise of grace comes. That it doesn't just end there, we ought to stop right now and sing Amazing Grace, really. You created, you're God, in perfect order, and this chaos has come.
What is your first temptation? Again, I'm speaking as a man. God doesn't have temptation. We just say, forget it, let's start again.
But on the heels of this tragedy, on the heels of this rebellion, on the heels of this continual plunge into sin, the Lord God undertakes.
God Initiates the Covenant of Grace
He then addresses the players in a similar order. He deals with the serpent, He deals with the woman, and He deals with the man. He undertakes and he initiates this covenant of grace, this promise, as our Confession says, that is revealed in the Gospel, first of all to Adam in the promise of salvation by the seed of the woman and afterward by farther steps until the full discovery thereof was completed in the New Testament. I submit to you that London Baptist Confession of Faith, chapter 7, paragraph 3, is a wonderful statement of covenant theology.
The covenant of works is there, the covenant of grace is there, the covenant of redemption is there. The covenant of redemption is the pre-temporal agreement between the Father and the Son to save and elect people. The Father chooses, the Father gives to the Son, the Son is sent into this world as the eternally begotten son of the father sent to redeem those who had been given to him. But I digress.
Let's look at what God says to the serpent. Says, So the Lord God said to the serpent, Because you have done this, you were cursed more than all cattle and more than every beast of the field. On your belly you shall go and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. The Lord rightfully curses the serpent.
This is Robertson. More than all the other creation, he is humble. The snake must crawl. As tool of Satan, he bears in himself the symbolic reminder of ultimate defeat.
But it's very interesting. After he curses the serpent, he then makes this statement that we're going to consider in verse 15. And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.
Divine Initiative in Salvation
The first aspect to realize is that God initiates this plan. So we need to understand that about the covenant of grace. We didn't initiate it. You know, men like to celebrate free will.
Free will got us into the mess we're in. It's free grace that brings us out. This is grace I, God says. I will put enmity between you and the woman.
I will put enmity between your seed and her seed. That one, that seed, that singular one will bruise your head and you shall bruise His heel. More on that in just a moment. But never forget the divine initiative in the salvation of our souls.
Adam and Eve did not rescue themselves. Adam and Eve did not establish the covenant of grace. In fact, when God comes to deal with them personally and privately, it's God who kills the animal. It's God who clothes them with skin.
It is God who atones for their sin. It is not them. They did not say, we need to fix this. Man by his own works, man by his own doing, cannot cover for his sin.
It must be grace. It must be sovereign initiative. And that's what is highlighted in this particular instance. God says, I will put enmity.
And notice the specific areas of this enmity between the devil and the woman, between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, seed collectively. You ever notice there's a big difference between the children of God and the children of the devil? Oh no, I hadn't noticed that. It's a God-wrought enmity.
It's a God-wrought antithesis. The sons of the world despise the sons of God. Why is that? It is by divine arrangement.
This enmity has been imposed upon the creation. By God the Lord, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. It doesn't take long to see that fleshed out. Turn over to Genesis chapter 4.
You see the enmity between the seed. You see the enmity between Cain and Abel. You get to Genesis chapter 6. You see the godly line of Seth. and the ungodly line of Canaan.
And you see that antithesis grow. You see it culminate ultimately in the fact that the Lord of Glory is crucified and is murdered. You see that ultimately as well as subsequent to Christ's death in the persecution of the church. Why is there a voice of the martyrs?
Why is there prayer for the persecuted church? Why are we bidden in Hebrews 13 to remember the prisoners? It is this God wrought enmity that is Genesis chapter 315. I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed.
So there is this collective or generic application in the words, but there is also a singular. There is an individual. There is a particularization. And that's what the end of verse 15 specifies.
He, talking about the seed, shall bruise your head and you shall bruise His heel. Now, just to cut to the chase, because this isn't the cool of the day, I'm speaking of Jesus. He's the seed of the woman that crushes the head of the serpent. And in that crushing of the head of the serpent, he sustains damage to his heel.
The contrast is sharp. At Golgotha, there was suffering on behalf of the Savior. But in terms of the cosmic application, it was as if he bruised his heel. In the execution of this redemptive plan, he took that heel and he crushed the head of the serpent.
You see, Israel, way back, is taught to look for a man who would come to execute judgment. Genesis 3.15 indicates in the first place that the deliverer or the redeemer would be a man.
First Point: The Deliverer Is a Man
He shall bruise your head. It is the seed of the woman. Interesting that only the woman is indicated in the verse. Now it's not a fully developed virgin birth, but it certainly foreshadows that reality in that only the woman is mentioned in terms of this seed coming forth.
But Israel of old was taught to look for a man who would come and effect salvation on their behalf. As we turn the pages of Scripture, we learn of his birth. He would be born in Bethlehem, Ephrathah. This was a test.
I hope that you would mark bubble A for Micah chapter 5 verse 2. It is from Bethlehem, Africa, that a ruler will come forth whose origins are from everlasting. It is Jesus Christ the Lord. This man, according to the scripture, would be a prophet.
Deuteronomy 18, God says to Moses, I will raise up from among your brethren a prophet. It is the Lord Jesus Christ. This man would also function as a priest. Psalm 110, they were taught to look for a redeemer who would be a priest in the order of Melchizedek.
And he would ultimately be a king. The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool. But as redemptive history has opened up, as revelation progresses, this man will be like no other. You see, he won't simply be man, but he'll also be God.
He'll be the God-man in what's called the hypostatic union, the one glorious person of Jesus Christ who exists in two natures, human and divine. This is the promise that is here in substance, in sort of a seminal form. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise His heel.
Second Point: Redemption Through Suffering
That indicates, secondly, that the Deliverer would accomplish redemption through suffering. It says and indicates there that his heel will be bruised. Again, I would rather have my heel bruised than my head crushed. I think most of you would opt for that.
But the language is typical. The language is anticipatory. The language is highlighting what will be fleshed out in passages like Daniel chapter 9. Messiah will be cut off.
Fleshed out in passages like Isaiah 53. He is a man of sorrows. He is acquainted with grief. The chastisement of our peace is laid upon Him.
There would be suffering associated with this Deliverer. Of course, in the midst of this suffering, in this bruising of the heel, He would deal the death blow to the serpent himself. He would destroy the devil. He would bring to naught that kingdom of darkness.
But nevertheless, the Messiah they were taught to look for would be man, and the Messiah they were taught to look for would accomplish victory through suffering. That's what we celebrate tonight. his broken body, his shed blood. The New Testament fleshes this out even more fully. One only needs to turn to the Passion narrative to understand something of what this indicates.
You shall bruise his heel. We see the Son of Man, the Son of God, the Man of Sorrows, and acquainted with grief at every step of the way, suffering to accomplish redemption. You know, oftentimes we talk about salvation is free. It is free for the one being saved.
But for the Savior, it cost him everything. It cost Him His lifeblood. It cost Him communion with His Father. Remember that particular scene, that fourth saying of the Savior from the cross, where it's difficult to get in there and to do exegesis.
It's difficult to get in there and look at the hypostatic union and to look at the triune God when we hear the Son say, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? Murray says, it's a wonderful statement. It is an amazing reality. God forsaken of God.
Again, exegeting that's very difficult. All the ins and outs of Trinitarian theology and Christology and all those particulars notwithstanding. When we hear the cry of the Savior on the cross, why hast thou forsaken me? Hopefully we're reminded that his heel was bruised, that this man would accomplish victory through suffering.
Third Point: Total Victory
And then the third observation from our text. Not only would the Deliverer be man, not only would the Deliverer accomplish redemption through suffering, but the Deliverer certainly would accomplish total victory. Total victory. Absolute.
Skull-crushing. Devil-stopping. Kingdom of darkness closing. Victory on the part of our Redeemer.
You understand, brethren, when you eat this bread and you drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death, not in the sense of, oh, our Savior died, but, oh, our Savior died and He rendered toothless that great fiend of hell itself and He is brought to frustration, the kingdom of darkness. He accomplishes total victory. He accomplishes total conquest.
Victory Traced Through Redemptive History
This idea of bruising your head to trace through redemptive history. There are incidents in the life of Israel where certain foes are met with this sort of destruction. Remember Jael and her handy tent peg. What did she do with that?
She preached Genesis 3.15. She drove that tent peg right into the head of Sisera. What about the various instances where people got their heads crushed? It was an announcement to Israel that there is a Deliverer coming who will crush the serpent himself, will bring him to naught, and will defeat him completely.
Yes, it will bruise his heel. He will accomplish it through suffering, but with reference to atonement and the covering for sin, sacrifice and blood are absolutely crucial and essential, and this is the means by which Our Savior delivers. It is based on this reality of Christ bruising the head, crushing the head, destroying the head of the serpent that Jeremiah 31 is in our Bible. And God says, I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.
Not like the covenant I made with their fathers that they broke. No, this one is going to be such. that they will know the Lord. This one will be such that my laws will be in their hearts. This one will be such that I will forgive their iniquities.
This one will be such that I will call them my sons, and they shall call me Father." All those specifics that we read concerning Christ's redemptive plan in Daniel chapter 9 tonight, those were all glorious statements concerning His work. You get to the New Testament accounts.
Christ's Complete Accomplishment
How does Jesus operate? Does He bring partial fulfillment? Does He bring partial salvation? Does Jesus pay some of it?
Praise God that when we open the Trinity Hymnal, the 590, we don't sing, Jesus paid some of it, and I will pay the rest. That's not what we sing. We sing, Jesus paid it all. We sing, my sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought.
My sin not in part, but the whole is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. We sing things like, Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to thy cross I cling.
We sing things like, Foul I to the fountain fly, Wash me, Savior, or I die. Jesus accomplished victory at Calvary. When He said, It is finished, He meant it. Any sinner out there who has undealt with sin is bidden to come to Him.
Christ is a Savior who saves to the uttermost all who draw nigh unto God, through him. Believe his gospel, you will receive pardon, you will receive righteousness, you will receive everything that avails with God, because he is the man that accomplished victory, total victory, total conquering, through his redemptive death at Calvary. He was raised from the dead, he's now stationed at the right hand of the Father, and he has bidden us to come to the table, to take and to eat. Not to plunge ourselves into the curse and condemnation of sin, but to take and eat to remember Him who delivered us, who redeemed us, who saved us from the condemnation and curse of sin.
Christ has taken eat and has brought it into a place of great blessing for the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Application: Take and Eat in Remembrance
So my dear brothers and sisters, never forget Genesis chapter three, verse 15, that first gospel promise. This covenant is revealed in the gospel, first of all, to Adam in the promise of salvation by the seed of the woman and afterward by farther steps until the full discovery thereof was completed in the New Testament. Again, I'm quoting our confession. And it is founded, this covenant of grace, in that eternal covenant transaction. that was between the father and the son about the redemption of the elect.
And it is alone by the grace of this covenant that all of the posterity of fallen Adam that were ever saved did obtain life and a blessed immortality, man being now utterly incapable of acceptance with God upon those terms on which Adam stood in his state of innocency. The covenant of grace founded on the covenant of redemption because we can't keep the covenant of works. God most high sent his son to die and in that death he rendered the devil crushed, defeated, and cast out. Praise God for that blessing.
Praise God for the destruction of the devil in his kingdom. Praise God for the dealing with our sins, our unrighteousness, our wickedness, our filth, that it has been blotted out through his precious blood. And praise God that he's given us the righteousness in him that ultimately avails with God the Lord. Genesis 315 is a wonderful passage for the people of God in the church to encourage us and to strengthen us.
Well, let us pray.
Closing Prayer
Father, how we thank you for this wonderful statement concerning the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. We know it was the first promise fleshed out the rest of biblical history and ultimately fulfilled by our Lord Jesus when he inaugurated the New Covenant in his blood. How we thank You that You've made us partakers of this. How we thank You that You've brought us nigh.
How we thank You for that great transaction wherein the Father chose a people, gave them to the Son. The Son comes in time. He comes in the fullness of the times according to the Apostle, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those under the law. How we praise You that You have blessed us so richly and as we take and eat tonight, May it be for your glory.
May it be for our own well-being. May it confirm and strengthen that faith that is in our hearts. May you cause us to grow through this means and may you build us up and may you strengthen each and every one here. And our Father, how we praise you for the blood of Jesus, how we praise you for his death and for his resurrection and for the way that he dealt with the devil at the cross.
We pray in his most blessed name, amen.