One of the great Christmas passages of the Bible comes in Isaiah 9:6, “For a child will be born for us, a son will be given to us.” Each December, this verse is preached in churches around the world. The hope of a child is upon us. Christ has come!
But in the early pages of the Bible, the coming of Christ is just a hope. Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, leading God to banish them from their perfect home. They didn’t leave, however, before God promised to send an offspring of the woman to crush the serpent’s head. When would that offspring come? Adam and Eve must have carried the anticipation heavy in their hearts.
Two paths
Fast forward some time and here comes Cain. An offspring! Would this be the one? Shortly after, his brother Abel appeared. Perhaps this is he!
As the brothers grew up together, they took two different paths. As we enter the opening verses of Genesis 4, we see where those paths lead. They both come to God with an offering, but God receives Abel’s and not Cain’s. Abel looked to God by faith. Cain did not. Instead, he gave into temptation and, ignoring God’s warning, invited his brother out into the field and killed him. If the savior was to come, it would have to be from Cain’s line now. But how could such hope spring from such evil? Is Cain really the promised son?
Anticipation grows
No, Cain was not the promised one. Neither was Abel. It was another yet to come. Eve conceived again and bore Seth. Here was the offspring!
But Seth lived and died without the serpent’s head being crushed. Sin continued to spread wherever people went. Nothing changed. People were born, got married, had kids, and died. When would God’s promise come true?
From generation to generation, the hope remained. The son was still to come. No one knew when. As the Bible progresses, there are reaffirmations of the same promise. The offspring is coming. Just wait. A child will be born. A son will be given.
The Serpent Crusher
With every turning of the page in the Bible, with every recorded sin, with every birth and death, God’s people wait for the Savior. Then, one day, he comes. His name is Jesus, born from the line of Seth. So many years after the first sin, the serpent crusher appeared. God’s promise came true.
Each Christmas we celebrate the birth of Jesus, our Savior. But if we forget how the story began, we lose a lot of the meaning of His birth. Jesus’s family history matters because His history is our history, His descendants are our descendants. We all came from one man, and through that one man came death. But there is a new man who has come, and from that one man comes life (Romans 5).
This post is written by David McLemore, and is published as a companion to Unit 2, Session 2 of The Gospel Project for Adults Vol. 1 (Fall 2021): From Creation to Chaos.
Adam Smith says
I wanted to figure out the best way to leave some feedback regarding the newest cycle of The Gospel Project. This has become a challenge to learn how to send things up the chain at Lifeway since we have lost our Regional Reps. We recently switched (2020) all of our adult groups to TGP. It took some time to process the change with them but it went over with great success for this past year. However, the newest cycle (From Creation to Chaos) has come with some challenges for both participants and teachers. The overall struggles, like with the DDGs, has been the confusing layouts that are very different from the previous cycles. The Day 1-5 reading is not structurally conducive for Group Time. I like the notion of having specific readings that anticipate the coming Sunday’s lesson, but putting it in the Unit that you are going into has seemed unnatural to our people, especially since it was at the end of Units during the last cycle. The Group Time portion has fill in the blanks which our adults find childish (especially our senior adults). I understand the push to make it interactive, but we’ve struggled with this change. Alas, are there ways to know about curriculum changes prior (several weeks) to new materials being released? I say that to say, we miss our Regional Reps. They always gave us a heads up on new material, changes, and more. They also allowed us to express feedback in how we were utilizing materials and what benefited us or didn’t. Writing material for ages as broad as “adults” from all all across the country is a challenge. Please, hear me recognizing that. Many of us simply wish we had more direct means of communicating up the chain. Thanks for consideration of these concerns.
Louis Stephen Carrozzi says
I really hate to do this because I have a horrible track record with the church as well as a lot of scripture buffs, but I’m always looking for the diamond in the rough, some people actually “get it” when I explain what’s going on.
One of the things I tell people is that living in the past is like trying to drive the car forward while looking in the rear view mirror. The story of Jesus was just that: A great story. But there is nothing that happened 2,000 years ago that is going to save the human race now.
Right now you have 14,000+ NUCLEAR WEAPONS pointed at your head and he who lives by the sword shall die by it! You’ve got big problems right now. The human race is 45 minutes away from total annihilation. I hardly call that “saved”.
Everyone keeps saying they are waiting for a savior, but when that savior actually shows up, people blow past him in favor of continued searching into the ether. In my experience the most closed minded people I have met are the ones who are knee deep in scripture.
The bottom line is that I was chosen for the job “Messiah” by the angel Emmanuel way back in 1993. I’ve actually tried saving the human race twice so far. (This makes 3)
I’m not going to go into all of the details and holy clues here, but you can find out all of that information on my minds.com page. If you have any questions, which you probably don’t, you know where to find me.
If you think that you are saved already, you couldn’t be more wrong! Jesus didn’t save the human race at all. He died on a cross and then the world continued to fight wars for the next 2,000 years.
The first coming of Christ didn’t save the human race. The SECOND coming of Christ can and will. (God willing!)
Best regards,
Louis Stephen Carrozzi
aka The Messiah
aka The Thief in The Night