a Biblical Theology of Genesis 3
As I give this overview canadian goose jacket of some key Messianic prophecies in this lesson I will be doing so via Biblical Theology. Rather buy canada goose jacket cheap than examining Messianic prophecies separately I will show the development of Messianic prophecies that build upon Genesis 3:15. Here is a basic definition of biblical theology to explain this approach by Geerhardus Vos,
“Biblical Theology deals with the material from the historical standpoint, seeking to exhibit the organic growth or development of the truths of Special Revelation from the primitive pre redemptive Special Revelation (Revelation prior to the recording of Scripture, prior to Moses) given in Eden to the close of the New Testament canon[1]“. Paul’s theology of Justification in the Pauline epistles, whereas Systematic Theology organizes theology by doctrine logically rather than tracing the development of the doctrine gradually with progressive revelation compared to Biblical theology. The analogy of a seed developing into a Canada Goose Coats On Sale tree helps to give a mental picture to understand what Biblical Theology is as a discipline in Theology,
“The organic process is from seed form to the attainment of full growth; yet we do not say that in the qualitative sense the seed is less perfect than the tree. The feature in question explains further how the soteric (salvific) sufficiency of the truth could belong to it in its first state of emergence: in the seed form the minimum of indispensable knowledge was already present. Again, it explains how revelation could be so closely determined in its onward movement by the onward movement of redemptionBut redemption, as is well known, is eminently organic in its progress. Isaiah 53)[2]“.
This is not a canada goose replica novel approach to studying scripture, but is well attested by Reformed Confessions demonstrating that reformed theologians didn’t study theology only systematically, but also observed the progressive nature of revelation as the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith explains covenant theology via the progressive revelation of the covenant of grace as first promised in Genesis 3:15 and inaugurated by the shed blood of Christ in the new covenant,
“1689 LBC Chapter 7 Paragraph 3: This Covenant is revealed in the Gospel; first of all to Adam in the promise of Salvation by Canada Goose sale the5 canada goose deals seed of the woman, and afterwards by farther steps, until the full6 discovery thereof was compleated in the New Testament; and it is founded 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 Canada Goose online this Covenant, that all of the posterity of fallen Adam, that ever were7 saved, did obtain life and a blessed immortality; Man being now utterly uncapable of acceptance with God upon those terms, on which Adam stood in his state of innocency[3]“.
Before proceeding to examine some Messianic prophecies I need to define a few important terms for studying Messianic prophecies, you may not use all of these terms in evangelism, but they are important to know for doing any research on Messianic prophecies. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew with a few small portions in Aramaic, during about the 7th century the Masoretes added vowel points to the Hebrew Text, which was passed down orally and is what you will find in a Hebrew Bible today. Related to this is an important point on textual criticism for the Old Testament called the Qere (what is read) and Ketib (what is written). minor spelling errors of similar letters. “written” in Aramaic), because the version represented by them has been rejected by the Masoretes (as Genesis 39:20). “read” in Aramaic), is written, fully vocalized [with vowels], on the margin of the Biblical text (as ibid). As ill fortune would have it, in many Bibles the ktib is exhibited in the text with the vowels of the qre (!) (as ibid), and the unvocalized qre on the margin (as ); yet one has always to bear in mind that only the vocalization of the qre is traditionally transmitted, whereas the proper vocalization of the ktib can only be surmised[4]“.
In addition to the Hebrew Old Testament, the Masoretic text (sometime abbreviated as MT) there is also the Septuagint (abbreviated as LXX), a Jewish ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament dated between 200 400 BC. Lastly, there are the Aramaic Targums, Jewish paraphrases/translations of the Old Testament, this was important for Jews at the time because by about 2,000 BC Aramaic was the language of international trade in the ancient world, hence the need for Aramaic paraphrases/translations of the Old Testament after the exile when many Jews had forgotten Hebrew and were more familiar with Aramaic.
Genesis 3:15 occurs within the context of God’s judgment upon Adam and Eve having broken His command not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:16 17), but in the midst of God’s pronouncement of judgment comes a glimpse of hope with the promise of a coming seed of the woman that will crush the serpent’s head, as God pronounces judgment on the serpent (Genesis 3:14 15) often called the “first Gospel”: “And enmity I will place between you and between the woman and between your seed and between her seed, he himself will crush you (2ms) (on the) head and you (2ms) yourself will strike him (on the) heel”.
Jewish objections to this passage include viewing the curse on the serpent as referring to the natural hatred that women have of serpents such as Nahum Sarna suggests,
“This curse canada goose black friday sale seeks to Canada Goose Parka explain the natural revulsion of humans for the serpent. Clearly, when it entered into conversation with the woman, it could not have been so regarded; indeed, it posed as her friend, solicitous of her interests[5]“.
However this ignores the common usage canada goose coats on sale of ‘bh in the MT, which according to HALOT means, “enmity or hostile disposition[6]“.
The use of this Canada Goose Online word both in Genesis 3:15 and its other occurrences in the OT suggests that this refers to more than merely a dislike of snakes canada goose clearance sale but a real adversarial enmity with the serpent. The second common objection is that seed is used collectively and therefore cannot refer to the Messiah in this passage, but this ignores other uses of zera’ as HALOT says canada goose it can refer to both descendents and a descendent[7], also the seed that will crush the serpent is described using the third person masculine pronoun in this passage h’ in both the MT and Targum Onkelos, and autos in the LXX, if the seed were collective in this passage then a plural pronoun would have been used instead of a third person cheap Canada Goose singular pronoun. Paul commenting on this passage in Galatians 3:16, he applies this text to Christ specifically as the seed prophesied in the text.
The second major messianic prophecy in the Pentateuch is Genesis 49:10, a prophecy for the tribe of Judah given before Jacob passed away giving both patriarchal blessings and curses to his sons, which translated from the Masoretic Text is: “A scepter will not depart from Judah nor a scepter from between his feet, until Shiloh comes, and to him belongs the obedience of the peoples.” Nahum Sarna gives two predominant Jewish interpretations of Shiloh,
“The present rendering, that of the Yalkut and Leka Tov, takes shiloh as a combination of shai, “tribute,” and loh, “to him.” Several ancient versions understand it as in late Hebrew shello, “that which belongs to him[8],” that is, until he obtains the monarchy,[9]” and the second view is that Shiloh is a messianic reference, “An early tradition, found in texts from Qumran, in the Targums, and in rabbinic literature, sees in shiloh a messianic title, although no biblical passage supports this. It has even been noted https://www.canadagooseoutleta.com that the numerical value of the consonants y b sh y l h, “Shiloh will come,” is equal to that of mashia, canada goose store “messiah”: 358 [the Rabbinic references he gives in the footnote are: 4QGe[10]n. 49:10, Sanh. 98b, Gen. R. 98:13, Lam. R. 1:16. Hengsetnberg, a well known 19th century conservative OT Lutheran theologian. He observes the similarity of Shiloh with Solomon’s name in Hebrew and argues that Shiloh is an adjective meaning peace based off of his view that Shiloh comes from the noun Shilon for rest,
“The analogy of the name shlmh which is formed after the manner of shlh, indicates that it has here an adjective signification, and, canada goose online like Solomon, Shiloh denotes “the man of rest,” corresponds to the “Prince of Peace” in Is.
I side with the messianic view of Geerhardus Vos and others who view Shiloh as composed of three parts, translated together as “he to whom it belongs”, Vos explains this position well,
“I resolve the word Shiloh, after leaving off the vowels, into the three characters sh l oh. Then sh is taken as the abbreviated form of the relative asher; l, I take as the preposition lamedh; the oh at the end of the word is the suffix of the third person singular bearing the possessive sense of “his.” Taken cumulatively, this yields the rendering “he to whom[14].”
This interpretation is also supported by an intertextuality with Ezekiel 21:27,
“That this is not an arbitrary or prejudicial explanation appears from the passage in Ezekiel that must evidently be accounted for as a conscious echo of the Jacob blessingthe mysterious characters sh l oh reappear here. It is true, the subject to which, in each case, Canada Goose Jackets the relative belongs differs as between Genesis and Ezekiel; but it differs only in form, not in substantial meaning In Genesis it is the scepter and the judge’s staff held by Judah, while in Ezekiel, it is designated as “the government[15]“.
In addition to this, the translation of Shiloh as “to whom it belongs” is supported by the qre of this passage is shl[16], which supports the translation “to whom it belongs” explaining that the final he in Shiloh is used to mark a vowel, rather than being consonantal, so the messianic view of “to whom it belongs” is supported by the Hebrew Text, whereas you have to change the Hebrew root to shlmh to defend Hengstenberg’s position.
The last prophecy that will be examined concerning the Messiah in the Pentateuch is Numbers 24:17 19. This messianic prophecy comes in the last of Balaam’s three blessings that he gives to Israel instead of the curses that King Balak of Moab had commanded Balaam to call upon the nation of Israel. All of the New Testament references to Balaam describe him as wicked warning believers not to follow in his ways (Jude 11, 2 Peter 2:15, Revelation 2:14). Even in spite of Balaam’s greedy motives to curse Israel to gain a great reward from King Balak of Moab (Numbers 22:15,), in the Lord’s providence Balaam’s curses become blessings to Israel (Nehemiah 13:2) and Balaam utters a messianic prophecy despite the fact that Balaam buy canada goose jacket by no means is a prophet. eb), extending the usual meaning of Hebrew be. Alternatively, one could take a cue from be in its figurative connotation of “sovereign, head,” namely, one who bears a scepter. Thus Genesis 49:10: “The ‘scepter’ (be) shall not depart from Judah, nor the magistrate (meoqeq) from the issue of his loins[17]“.
This interpretation still runs into the same dilemma as Genesis 49:10, that the conquest described in this passage exceeds the size of what David’s kingdom ever was, and Levine’s second interpretation does support a messianic view of the passage connecting it to Genesis 49:10. By comparing other ancient translations it is clear that this is a Canada Goose Outlet messianic prophecy in addition to the clear allusions to Genesis 3:15 and 49:10, according to the LXX the Hebrew word be (scepter/tribe) is replaced with anthrpas (man), and Targum Onkelos has msh’ (the messiah)[18].
The root mts occurs in Numbers 24:17 to describe the Messiah crushing Moab which is similar to Genesis 3:15 which describes the Messiah crushing the head of the serpent using the Hebrew verb shp. James Hamilton suggests that one of the problems avoiding connecting Genesis 3:15 with similar passages (such as Numbers 24:17) is the word concept fallacy, that because a word isn’t used therefore the concept isn’t present, and applied to Genesis 3:15 because the word shp is used exclusively in Genesis 3:15 to describe the defeat of the serpent’s seed, therefore it can’t be connected to other passages using a different Hebrew word[19]. If that method were employed for basing messianic passages solely on the occurrence of the noun for Messiah, then the only messianic prophecies in the Old Testament would be Psalm 2:2 and Daniel 9:25,26, but the Messiah is clearly mentioned in other prophecies without having to use the Hebrew word msha. Hamilton lists several occurrences of the root mts which allude to Genesis 3:15 showing that canada goose clearance it is within the semantic domain of shp: Judges 5:26 uses the root mts to describe Jael crushing Sisera’s head[20], in Habakkuk 3:13 it describes salvation coming by your Messiah (‘et mshek) who crushed the head of the house canada goose coats of the wicked[21], In Psalm 68:22 [English 68:21] Yahweh’s triumph over his enemies is described, “Surely God will crush the heads of his enemies[22]“, and Psalm 110:6, “He has shattered (the) head over a broad country”.
One last overlooked OT text in this trajectory of the first messianic prophecy of the skull crushing seed of the woman is Psalm 110:6, most likely due to its traditional translation (heads/chief) which blunts the significance of this messianic prophecy.
