The Scripture reading for today begins in Genesis 3:1-24.
01. The Virgin
Birth (Genesis
3:15)
In Genesis 1:1-2:6, the Holy Spirit through Moses
records for us the account of creation, with Genesis 2:7-25 focusing on the
creation of the first man and woman. Then we see in Genesis 3:1-24 the Holy Spirit records for us the
temptation and fall of man. Adam and
Eve both sinned, and when God curses Satan, we find tucked neatly in
this account an amazing verse, that truly shows us the beginning of the
CHRISTmas story.
If you could look again at Genesis 3:15 we that the Hebrew word for “enmity”
is (H342) אֵיבָה ʾêybâh[1]
and it means personal hostility[2] between two parties.[3] What God is saying here in Genesis 3:15
is that there will be hatred and hostility between Satan and the seed of Eve.
We then see that there is going to be a Saviour who is going to be born who
will destroy Satan (1 John 3:8-10). But if you look more at Genesis 3:15, we see that it tells us more about
the Saviour that is going to be born who will destroy Satan. Look at where it says “and her Seed”. In the Hebrew, the noun “seed” (H2233 זֶרַע zeraʿ[4]) is written in the masculine singular, which is in reference to
semen. Notice that it doesn’t
say “Your seed and Adams…” Now we all learned many years ago that
women have eggs and men have seed, so why did the Holy Spirit have Moses used
the masculine noun for “seed” here in Genesis 3:15? Because it is prophesying that there
will be a miraculous virgin birth! Remember
that God said this in Genesis 3:15 after Adam and Eve had sinned,
allowing death to enter all of creation. Though they were sentenced to die (Genesis 3:19;
cf. Genesis
2:16-17) God in His mercy gave a promise of redemption through the
One who would be born of a virgin (Genesis 3:15). He then sacrificed an animal to
cover Adam and Eve’s sin and nakedness (Genesis 3:21).
About 600 years before Jesus, Jeremiah the prophet
prophesied the virgin birth as well in Jeremiah 31:22. Isaiah would further elaborate on the virgin birth of the coming Messiah
about 700 years before Jesus came in Isaiah 7:14. Isaiah tells us that the name of the
coming Messiah is going to be “Immanuel”, which is important because if He had
not been Immanuel, which means “God with us”, He could not have been Jesus the
Saviour! The word for “sign” in Isaiah 7:14 is the Hebrew word (H226
אוֹת ʾôwth, ōth[5]) and it means a signal, a miracle.[6] There are those
critics who state that the word for “virgin” in Isaiah 7:14 just means a “young
woman”, so it doesn’t necessarily mean she was a virgin. The word for “virgin”
in Isaiah 7:14
is the Hebrew word (H5959)
עַלְמָה ʿalmâh and
it is true that one of the meanings of this word is for a young woman. But if
you look in the Greek Septuagint (the Old Testament written in Greek in Egypt
in about 284bc
by 70 scholars. The name Septuagint means 70 [LXX]), the Greek word used in Isaiah 7:14
is the same Greek word used in Matthew 1:23 and Luke 1:26-28 in describing Mary
as a “virgin”.
In the Latin Vulgate translation (which is a late 4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. It was largely the
work of Jerome, who was commissioned by Pope Damasus I in 382 to make a
revision of the old Latin translations, and ultimately it became the official
Latin version of the Bible in the Roman Catholic Church) it says “Hail, full of grace” Luke 1:28
where the Hail Mary prayer is originated
Latin Vulgate Luke
1:28 “And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of
grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.”
When Erasmus
learned Greek and got ahold of the Greek manuscripts, he noted that the Greek
translation isn’t what is above, but is “Hail thou that are highly favored”
or “Hail
thou that has found grace in the sight of God” that is the nature of
the passage, much like Noah in Old Testament (cf. Genesis 6:8). This twisting of
the words is what is responsible for the whole Roman Catholic Church’s teaching
that you have to go through Mary to get to Jesus. They argue, even to this day
that Mary is full of grace, meaning she is the container she’s full of God’s
grace, she has all of God’s grace, and since we are saved by God’s grace, you
cannot get saved unless you get grace. Where do you get grace they say? Through
Mary!
The Hail Mary
Hail Mary, Full of Grace, The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy
Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of death. Amen.
This is what
inspires the Roman Catholic Church to worship Mary. By the way, Mary, contrary
to the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching, did not remain a virgin (Matthew 1:24–25). The Bible tells us that Joseph and Mary
had other kids (Matthew
12:46-47; Matthew 13:55; Mark 6:2-3; John 2:12; Acts 1:14; 1 Corinthians 9:4-5; Galatians 1:19).
The Greek word for “virgin” that is used in Matthew 1:23 and Luke 1:26-28,
as well as in Isaiah
7:14 is (G3933) παρθένος parthĕnŏs and it literally means “an unmarried daughter, one who has never engaged in sexual
intercourse, virgin, chaste person [7]”
and it would
never be used to describe a woman who was married. This Greek word (G3933) παρθένος parthĕnŏs was used by the Greeks for the Parthenon, the Greek
temple to the goddess Athena, which the Greeks described as being a virgin.
Jesus fulfilled this prophecy in Genesis 3:15 in that He was the
only person in history not conceived through the seed of a man (Matthew 1:23;
Matthew 1:25;
Luke 1:27;
Luke 1:34).
The Jews all would know that a virgin giving birth was in fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14
and Jeremiah
31:22, and that it was a sign that the Messiah was now here! The
fact that the Messiah would be virgin born was a sign that He was the Son of
God, for a virgin giving birth is impossible unless it’s Divine!
The “you” in Genesis 3:15 is Satan who will
bruise the heel, trying to trip up the work of Jesus (cf. Luke 04.01-13 | The Temptation of
the Messiah part
1 and part
2) and that the seed of the woman, who is Jesus, would bruise the serpents
head, dealing a crushing blow not by the woman as Roman Catholicism teaches,
but by the seed of the woman. Roman Catholicism teaches that it’s Mary who will
crush the head of Satan, as Our Lady of Miraculous Medal appeared to Catherine
Laboure in 1830 in Paris, which is now displayed on medals, with Mary depicted
as crushing the head of the serpent (see
pictures here). That’s not the Gospel (1 Corinthians
15:1-5), which states, “that Christ
died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that
He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures”.
It was from this very moment in Genesis 3:15 that Satan was
awaiting this virgin birth in order to kill this virgin born Babe. This is evidenced throughout time, as Satan has
been constantly attacking the Jews, using the Pharaoh while the children of
Israel were in Egypt (Exodus 1:1-14:31),
to the Amalekites (Exodus 17:8–16; 1 Samuel 30:1-31; Esther 3:1-10:3) to the Nazi’s and Hitler as well as to the
present day with the Muslims to try to wipe out the Jewish people, first to try
to keep the Messiah from being born, now trying to keep God’s promises to
Israel and the Second Coming of the Messiah from being fulfilled. Of
course Satan didn’t succeed, but he tried hard to prevent the virgin from
bearing a child.
So what we see here
is the first verse found in the Bible that proclaims the Gospel “that Christ died for our sins according to the
Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day
according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians
15:1-5) and without that
there is no salvation for mankind!
02. The Tribe of
Judah (Genesis 49:8-10)
In Genesis 49:1-33, Jacob
knows that he is about to die, and he calls all of his sons together, in fact they
probably were all lined up in birth order (cf. Genesis 43:33). What Jacob says on his
deathbed is prophetic. We pick up the prophecy in Genesis 49:8-10 where he is addressing his 4th born son (of
Leah-Genesis
29:35), Judah.
Genesis
49:8 The name Judah (H3063 יְהוּדָה Yehûwdâh[8])
means, “praise”, which is
alluded to when he was named after his birth in Genesis 29:35. “Your father’s children shall bow
down before you.” The last part of this
verse is indicating that the descendants of Judah will be the kings of Israel.
Genesis
49:9 The symbol of the tribe of Judah later became a Lion, in
fact the
Lion of Judah is found on the coat of arms of Jerusalem.
Genesis
49:10 The
noun “Shiloh”
(H7886
שִׁילֹה Shîylôh[9]) means tranquility
or rest, but it is also another name for the
Messiah. In Revelation 5:5, John
tells us about “the
Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll
and to loose its seven seals.” The Lion of the tribe of Judah is a term of royalty
and the scepter is a symbol of authority. We now see that the Messiah is coming from
the tribe of Judah, but there is more to this verse! Around 12ad we know from
Josephus (The Jewish War 02.08.01) and history that the Romans took away
capital punishment from the Jews. In the mind of the Jews, this took away the
foundation of their government, which was to be able to put to death those who
deserved it. On this day when Rome took capital punishment away from the Jews,
we know from history that the Jewish people went out and wept because they
believed that the Messiah had not come and they could not understand how God
can do this.
Look again at what Jacob prophesied in Genesis
49:10…remember, the noun Shiloh (rest) is
another name of Jesus! We know that at this time, Jesus the Messiah was
already alive and they did not recognize Him as a boy, and of course, even as a
man! Connected to Jacob’s prophesy in
Genesis 49:10 is the prophecy by Balaam, where we see the coming Messiah who will rule
mentioned in Numbers 24:17-19 (cf. Psalm 45:6; Isaiah 9:7; Luke 1:32-33; Hebrews 1:8). Jesus tells us that the star is a
picture of the Messiah in Revelation 22:16.
03. The Bethlehem
Birth (Micah 5:2)
Micah 5:2 states where the Messiah (HaMashiach)
is to be born. This Bethlehem is about five miles South of Jerusalem, and its elevation is about
2,460 feet above sea level. There is another Bethlehem, also known as Bethlehem
of Zebulun (up by the Sea of Galilee), and mentioned in Joshua 19:15. Bethlehem of
Zebulun was closer to where Mary was living in Nazareth (Luke 2:4-7),[10]
in fact it was about seven miles northwest of Nazareth. Bethlehem Ephrathah was
where Rachel, the wife of Jacob/Israel died (Genesis 35:19; Genesis 48:7).
Bethlehem Ephrathah was where Naomi, the mother in law of Ruth was from and
where they moved back to after living in Moab, as well as where Ruth met and
then married Boaz (Ruth 4:11), who became the great-grandparents
of David (Ruth
4:18-22). Bethlehem Ephrathah was where David’s family was from (Ruth 4:17;
Ruth 4:21-22;
1 Samuel 16:1;
1 Samuel 17:12;
1 Samuel 17:58;
1 Samuel 20:6;
John 7:42).
Bethlehem Ephrathah was also known as Bethlehem of Judea (Matthew 2:1). So because Joseph
was a direct descendant of Israel’s greatest king (Matthew 1:1-17; Luke 1:27),
he had to go to Bethlehem Ephrathah where his family was originally from to “because he was of the house
and lineage of David,” (Luke 2:4) “So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city.”
(Luke
2:3) Although Bethlehem Ephrathah was a small, unimportant village “little among the thousands of
Judah” (Micah 5:2), God had said through his prophet
Micah that it would produce a ruler in Israel “Yet out of you shall come forth to Me The One to be
Ruler in Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, From everlasting.”
(Micah 5:2).
It is interesting to note that the only king of Israel that
came from Bethlehem Ephrathah was David (who died about 1015bc, but Micah prophesied around 750bc),
almost 300 years after David! So the ruler prophesied by Micah who was going to
be from Bethlehem Ephrathah could not have been David, but the Messiah!
Micah tells us more about the Messiah being God, “Whose goings forth are
from of old, From everlasting.” (Micah 5:2) This is a clear
statement that it’s not David or any other human, for only God has existed from
the days of eternity (Psalm 90:2; Psalm 102:25-27; Proverbs 8:22; John 1:1-3;
Colossians
1:17; Hebrews 13:8; 1 John 1:1; Revelation 1:11-18; Revelation 2:8;
Revelation
21:6)! The way that this prophesy in Micah 5:2 is written is YHWH
talking to this city as if it were a person, which is a common Jewish way.
Now I want to take you back a few verses to Micah 4:8, and
remember, there are no chapter breaks in the original manuscripts. Micah 4:8 “tower of the
flock” in Hebrew is “Migdal Eder”. In Genesis 35:21, we see that “Then Israel (Jacob) journeyed and pitched his tent
beyond the tower of Eder.”
The “Migdal Eder” or “Tower of the Flock” was a watchtower built for
the protection of the flocks against robbers or animals or any thing that could
cause a blemish to them. According to Alfred Edersheim in his book The Life And Times Of Jesus The Messiah,
in Book 2, Chapter 6, “this Migdal Eder was not the watchtower for the ordinary
flocks which pastured on the barren sheep ground beyond Bethlehem, but lay
close to the town, on the road to Jerusalem.”[11] A passage in the Mishnah leads to the
conclusion, that the flocks, which pastured there, were destined for
Temple-sacrifices, and, accordingly, that the shepherds, who
watched over them, were not ordinary shepherds.[12] These
shepherds were not just your ordinary shepherds. They were priestly shepherds
who were educated in how the sheep had to be so that they would qualify for the
strict restrictions of the sacrificial system. So it was their job to make sure that
none of the animals were hurt, damaged, or blemished. These were the shepherds
who the angels appeared to in Luke 2:8-14.
There is a little sign by the North side Rachel’s tomb in
Bethlehem today that says “Migdal Eder”. It was in the lower portion of this
Migdal Eder/watchtower that the birthing of the lambs would take place. The
shepherds would then wrap the newborn lambs in swaddling clothes to protect the
body of the lambs which would be offered as sacrifice at the Temple just five
miles away in Jerusalem. Wrapped in swaddling cloths to keep the new lambs without
spot or blemish, they would be laid in a manger until they had calmed down (cf.
Luke 2:7).
Where were these sheep born? In Bethlehem, at Migdal Eder,
just like Jesus. Where were these sheep later sacrificed? In Jerusalem, just
like Jesus, who was crucified on Mt. Moriah, where David purchased the land
from Ornan (1 Chronicles 21:23-24), and
also where Solomon built the Temple (2 Chronicles
3:1). John the Baptist declared in John 1:29: “Behold! The Lamb of God who
takes away the sin of the world!” The Messiah was born in the same
place as these sheep, and He died in the same place as these sheep. He was born
so that He may die so that we may live (John 10:11; 2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 Peter 3:18; 1 John 3:5). The birth of Jesus was at the
perfect God ordained time, place and virgin so that we may live eternally (Galatians 4:4;
1 John 4:9–10).
[1] Strong, J. (2009). A
Concise Dictionary of the Words in the Greek Testament and The Hebrew Bible
(Vol. 2, p. 11). Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.
[2] Whitaker, R., Brown, F., Driver, S. R. (Samuel R.,
& Briggs, C. A. (Charles A. (1906). The
Abridged Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew-English Lexicon of the Old Testament: from
A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament by Francis Brown, S.R. Driver
and Charles Briggs, based on the lexicon of Wilhelm Gesenius. Boston; New
York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company.
[3] Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old
Testament) (electronic ed.). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
[4] Strong, J. (2009). A
Concise Dictionary of the Words in the Greek Testament and The Hebrew Bible
(Vol. 2, p. 36). Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.
[5] Strong, J. (2009). A
Concise Dictionary of the Words in the Greek Testament and The Hebrew Bible
(Vol. 2, p. 10). Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.
[6] Strong, J. (2009). A
Concise Dictionary of the Words in the Greek Testament and The Hebrew Bible
(Vol. 2, p. 10). Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.
[7] Arndt, W., Danker, F. W., & Bauer, W. (2000). A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament
and other early Christian literature (3rd ed., p. 777). Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
[8] Strong, J. (2009). A
Concise Dictionary of the Words in the Greek Testament and The Hebrew Bible
(Vol. 2, p. 47). Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.
[9] Strong, J. (2009). A
Concise Dictionary of the Words in the Greek Testament and The Hebrew Bible
(Vol. 2, p. 115). Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.
[11] Edersheim, Alfred. The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah
[Peabody; Hendrickson, 1993], Bk 2, Ch 6.
[12] Shekelim 7.4 http://www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Shekalim.7?lang=en&layout=lines&sidebarLang=all
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