Series: Broken
Message: Potential
Preacher: David Smith
Daily Walk: David Smith
Refresh: Open with prayer. Read or listen to Psalm 78:26-31.
Read: Genesis 3 (ESV). As you re-read the text for the final time this week in the English Standard Version, what new insights did you discover about God’s character?
Reflect: In the midst of the disappointment, heartbreak, and sorrow that we find in Genesis 3, there is also a glimmer of hope. The first glimpse is the promise of “the seed." The language here is ambiguous. It could be referring to an individual or a group of Eve’s descendants. Regardless of how Adam and Eve understood it, the promise was that this descendant or descendants would one day have victory over the serpent and crush his head.
Today as Christians, we recognize this to be the first Messianic promise. The beauty lies not only in the effectiveness (a true solution to the sin problem) but the immediacy of it all. The moment Adam and Eve fall into sin, God is there to offer hope.
How much of this Adam and Eve were able to comprehend remains unknown. However, before the chapter ends, God provides another foreshadowing of the cross, but this time in a very practical manner. Recognizing the ineffectiveness of the fig leaf garments, God provides Adam and Eve with new garments made of animal skins. He literally covers their shame, but this requires death—the sacrifice of an animal, perhaps even a lamb. Many scholars see this as the first sacrificial offering.
It would be many years before the depth of this would be truly grasped. However, from the very beginning, God made it clear that He intended to deal with this sin problem, even if at great cost. Isaiah 53:5 says:
But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.
Recalibrate:
Respond: Pray for the ability to accept God’s sacrifice on your behalf.
Research: Where in the New Testament do you find references to the “bruised heal” and “crushed head”?