Moses died at the age of 120, and, according to the Bible “His eye was undimmed and his vigour unabated” (Deuteronomy 34:7).  Gautama Buddha died at the age of 80.  In his final year he was attended by many followers and continued to teach his disciples the seven factors of enlightenment.  Confucius devoted his whole life to learning and teaching.  Frustrated in politics, he was accompanied by an expanding circle of students.  He returned home to teach and died at the age of 72, surrounded by some 3,000 who sought to maintain his philosophy.  The prophet Mohammed knew much hostility in his early years.  However, he managed to gather an army of 10,000 Muslim converts and march on the city of Mecca which he entered with little bloodshed.  In his final years he was the political ruler of a united Arabia.  Apparently he died at the age of 62 in Medina in the arms of his favourite wife.  All these founders of world religions survived to a comparatively mature age and in their latter years knew much popular acclaim.  By contrast, Jesus Christ had a public ministry of little more than three years.  Always surrounded by controversy, at about 33 years of age He was betrayed by one of his own men, deserted by the rest and declared guilty of blasphemy by the supreme court of the Jews.  He was handed over to the Romans, whose governor Pontius Pilate declared Him innocent but sentenced Him to die by crucifixion.  His death was premature, agonising and totally alone, a man despised and rejected by His own people and seemingly abandoned by God too.

And yet, to borrow the words of a famous piece, “all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that were ever built; all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary (short) life” (James Allan Francis, One Solitary Life).  In a series of articles on Christianity we have to come to terms with the man who was called Christ.  His death was a very different kind of death from that of other leaders of world religions.  And His life was unique too.

In the first two articles of this series, dealing with who God is and with His prize creation, man, we assumed the truth of God’s revealing of Himself and His plans for the world in the book we call the Bible.  As we come now to what God has done to rescue man, we continue to assume and assert that truth.  Again in this article I’m using ‘man’ frequently in the inclusive sense of the human race.  On the same day as Adam and Eve committed the first sin, and even before God spoke words of punishment to them, He spoke enigmatic words of hope against their tempter, the devil, “I will put enmity between you [Satan] and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel” (Genesis 3:15).  Sin has invaded the previously perfect human race, but, purely because of God’s kindness, He will not destroy Adam and Eve on the spot.  Instead He will embark on a much more costly plan.  In this verse God is saying that a specific male member of the human race, ‘the offspring (or seed) of the woman’ will come to deal with the one who introduced that sin.  He will bring about the downfall of Satan, but He will also be injured in the process.  Union and communion with God have been broken – hence the necessity to drive Adam and Eve from the Garden, so they don’t eat from the tree of life and extend their sinful lives for ever – but God is also saying here that that communion will be rejoined.  There’s some evidence at the start of Genesis 4 that Eve believes her firstborn, Cain, is the promised deliverer.  However, the human race will have to wait longer than that.  In fact He won’t arrive until the New Testament.

The Covenant

So what are all those pages and chapters from Genesis 4 to Malachi about?  They’re not just a disordered hodge-podge of law, history, heroes, villains, poetry and prophecy.  Instead, they set out the programme for the coming deliverer.  In fact the verse above points the way.  God is saying there that He will win Eve and descendants in every generation back from Satan.  There will be a people of God and there will be a people opposed to God.  We can trace the two sides throughout the Old Testament.  Numbered among the offspring of the woman are Abel, Seth, Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, faithful Israel, David and the remnant of Judah.  The offspring of the serpent can often be seen in close proximity – Cain, the Nephilim, Ham, Nimrod, Ishmael, Esau, Pharaoh and many Egyptians, Korah, the Canaanites, Saul, the northern tribes, Assyria and Babylon.  What’s more, God’s covenant choice of Noah, Abram, Moses and David gives further shape to this plan of salvation that runs through the whole Bible like a supportive spine.

Space forbids a detailed treatment of God’s dealings with each of these men.  I will make a few suggestive comments only.  From the very beginning God has always related to man through this special arrangement called a covenant.  It is established by God for man’s benefit.  He lays down the rules and makes the promises.  Adam’s breaking of the covenant did not destroy it (but changed its shape somewhat).  When sin has spread to cover the whole earth God chooses an individual, Noah, and his family to preserve when He washes the earth clean.  The word ‘covenant’ is used for the first time in connection with Noah (Genesis 6:18).  In that covenant, where He requires Noah’s obedience, God binds Himself to preserve the world from major catastrophe so His plans to save a people for Himself may take place.  God takes nothing for granted.  In Abram’s case God sets up three separate covenantal encounters (only in the last is his name changed to ‘Abraham’).  For those who think only a small fraction of the earth’s population will be saved it is good to remember God’s original terms with Abram, “[I]n you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen.12:3).  God here can be seen to prophesy the future.  He promises land to Abram and a people, ‘a great nation’.  Abraham himself will later be called a prophet (Gen.20:7), one who speaks the words of God to man.  The second such encounter in Genesis 15 is by turns the most mystifying and the most amazing.  A common feature of covenants of the time was the cutting in two of animals and the passing between the pieces to ratify the oaths taken.  In this particular ceremony God alone, represented by a flaming torch, passes through.  He is saying, priest-like, that He is prepared to offer up not another, but His own life in order to keep His promise.  In the third encounter God underlines His commitment to Abraham, “I will establish My covenant between Me and you… to be God to you and to your offspring after you” (Gen.17:7).  These are the intimate words of communion between God and man that form the framework of Scripture.  Through the covenant man can, incredibly, know God.  God is deliberately closing the yawning chasm between sinful man and His sinless Self.  This time He tells Abraham that kings will come from him (Gen.17:6).  In other words he will get kings though he be none.  The covenant with Moses, no separate arrangement  but a richer expression of what’s already in place, develops the response to God of the people.  The books of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers contain many covenant laws, practical applications of the ten commandments God writes with His own finger.  However the people do not earn God’s favour.  The most important part of the commandments is their introduction, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Ex.20:2).  God saves His people first and requires an obedient response of faith afterwards.  Moses, the prophet, communicates these laws to the people and brings the people’s response to God.  But Moses is not the last word.  God says to Moses, “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers.  And I will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him” (Deuteronomy 18:18).  When the people inherit the land God has marked out for them they demand a king.  The first king they choose, Saul, is a disaster, but through his reign God brings His own man, David, into prominence.  He makes a covenant with David where He promises peace, a house and an heir.  Indeed, it’s David’s heir, Solomon who prays for a King yet to come, “May the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts!  May all kings fall down before Him, all nations serve Him!” (Psalm 72:10-11).  Under David and Solomon the kingdom knows its brightest days.  The rest of the Old Testament is a catalogue of the sins of kings and people, of the repeated breaking of God’s covenant and of the exile from God’s land.  However, as in Eden, God’s promise shines as brightly as ever and His patience has not yet run out.  Indeed, in the prophets we read of One who is coming with names like no other, “Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Is.9:6), One who will occupy the throne of David for ever.  He is clearly man, born as a child, but with titles like no other man.  And yet the closing chapters of Isaiah carry a very different picture, One who is despised and rejected, One who is struck by God, One who is punished for the sins of others.  He looks not so much like a priest as like a sacrifice!

Christ

I well remember a sermon preached by the late Ray Dillard shortly after I arrived at seminary.  I don’t remember his text, but I do recall that he wept openly in the pulpit as he lamented the total failure of the Old Testament.  And without Jesus Christ that’s all the Old Testament is – a pious hope full of uncompleted promises.  Yet, with Jesus all the diverse strands we have been tracing find their fulfilment.  Jesus is the image of the invisible God.  By Him all things were created.  He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.  He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead.  These are simple statements in Paul’s letter to the Colossians, but they’re simply breath-taking.  It’s quite clear from these statements that Jesus is God.  His miracles tell us He is God, with His power over nature and food and life itself.  His sayings point in the same direction – “before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58) – claiming for Himself God’s special name and character.  His use of the Sabbath in John 5, setting Himself on a par with His Father, further reinforces that claim.  His preferred title ‘Son of Man’ from Daniel 7 refers to a divine figure with an everlasting kingdom.  And He forgives sins committed against another (Mark 2:5,7) – only God can do that!  But those Colossians statements take us further.  He is the image of God because He took on human flesh.  He actually surrendered His human life.  His conception in the womb of a virgin ensures that He is without the bias to sin we have all inherited from our ordinary human generation.  Isaiah already tells us that “He had done no violence, and there was no deceit in His mouth” (53:9) and the uniform testimony of the New Testament is that He is wholly righteous, completely without sin.  That means He can keep the law which Adam broke in all its particulars.  And He can pay for the sin that suffocates us.  John Calvin sums up these two natures perfectly, “[S]ince neither as God alone could He feel death, nor as man alone could He overcome it, He coupled human nature with divine that to atone for sin He might submit the weakness of the one to death; and that, wrestling with death by the power of the other nature, He might win victory for us” (Institutes, II.xii.3).

As the final prophet Jesus came to speak the words of God to us, to make Him known to us, to tell us how we can be right with Him, be His people.  He maintained the truth of His word before His accusers and died for the rightness of His claims.  The eternal death promised to Adam He bore on the cross.  As the King of all kings He rode into Jerusalem on a donkey.  At His arrest He defended His people from any harm and surrendered Himself instead.  On the cross, in His cry “It is finished!” He defeated sin and death and hell and bruised the head of Satan.  And as our great high priest He offered up His perfect life to satisfy His Father’s justice, to pay for all the sins of those He had chosen, to buy us back from sin and reconcile us to God and to take the very last drop of His Father’s anger against every believer’s sin.  All the words of truth spoken by the prophets and the righteous acts of kings as well as the sacrifices of a million beasts in the Old Testament find their fulfilment in Jesus, who, by the shedding of His blood, brings in God’s new covenant for all who hate our sin and believe in Him.  By nature we lack knowledge.  We have turned away from the light into our own shadow.  We lack leadership.  All we have to look to in the world are relative failures.  And, most of all, we lack forgiveness.  Other world religions tell us what to do and divide it up and package it all neatly.  But they don’t tell us what to do with our failure, with our not being able to do it.  They provide a teacher, a mentor, an example when we need a Saviour.  A Substitute.  A sacrifice.  All of these Jesus alone, our final prophet, all-conquering king and ever-living priest, provides.  Truly Christianity is Christ.  And when the great company of believers is praising God in heaven what is the theme of their song?  “Worthy are You [Jesus] to take the scroll and to open its seals, for You were slain, and by Your blood You ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9).  Truly the covenant with Abraham is fulfilled.  And every believer is totally forgiven and cleansed and reborn for ever.