I have a vague memory of a time Ally, my wife, said, “James, can you get me some ketchup out of the fridge.” So I went to the fridge and scanned the shelves on the door for ketchup. I checked behind some stuff. I went back to Ally and said, “We don’t have any ketchup.” She said, “You’ve got to be kidding me? Yes we do.” I said, “No we don’t. I just looked.” She said “Yes we do,” and she went to the fridge and pulled a bottle of ketchup out. I don’t know how I missed it. She said, “How can you spot deer in the trees 500 yards away and you can’t see the ketchup in plain view in the fridge?” I don’t know. I guess it wasn’t where I was expecting to see it.
What Ally did for me with the fridge, Jesus did at least a couple times for His disciples with the Scriptures. The Old Testament section of our Bible is the Scriptures they had at that time. And they’d searched the Scriptures to find out what God was up to. They saw promises from God to raise up a descendant of David to be King and Savior of His people. This chosen one of God they saw would deliver His people from their enemies and lead them in righteousness and provide them with peace and prosperity, and would reign forever and His kingdom would never fall to another. This promised one they called the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed one. But there’s a lot they didn’t see about the Christ to come. So when Jesus was put to death on a cross, His disciples were so disappointed.
They thought, “How could Jesus possibly save us from our troubles if He’s dead?” Their hopes were shattered.
Luke 24 talks of an incident on the Sunday afternoon after His death. There were two followers of His walking the road from Jerusalem to their home in the nearby village of Emmaus. As they were walking along, they were discussing all the recent events connected with Jesus. And Jesus Himself actually came up and walked beside them, but it says their eyes were kept from recognizing Him. So to them, Jesus was just a stranger walking the same road. But Jesus asked them, “What are these things you guys are talking about?” They stopped in their tracks, looked at Him and said, “Do you live under a rock?” I’m sure that’s what they said. And they said, “You must be the only visitor to Jerusalem who doesn’t know the things that have happened here recently?” Jesus said, “What things? Tell me about it.” They said, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth. He was a prophet of mighty deeds and words. But our chief priests and rulers delivered him over to Pilate and got him crucified. And we were so hoping and believing that He was the one to redeem Israel. But now he’s dead and He’s been dead for three days. And now earlier today, these women who are friends of ours told us that they went to His tomb early this morning and it was empty. They couldn’t find His body anywhere. And these crazy women said they saw angels there who told them that Jesus is alive. Some other friends of ours went to the tomb and found it just as the ladies described. Then Jesus said to these two guys, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into His glory?” Then beginning with writings of Moses (Genesis through Deuteronomy) and then all the prophets, he explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures. Jesus showed them that the death of the Messiah and His resurrection and other things about Him are hidden in plain sight in the Scriptures. And later these guys say, “Were not our hearts burning as He talked with us on the road.” Their hearts were burning with awe and faith and excitement as Jesus showed them these things they had never seen before.
Later that evening He met with His closest disciples who were hiding in a locked room in Jerusalem. After a little conversation and giving them some time to realize it was actually Him, He said to them, “This is what I was saying to you before, that everything written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” And it says then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. That is perhaps, He did for them what He did for the two guys on the road to Emmaus; He explained to them the things concerning Himself all through the Scriptures. Then He concluded saying, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” So He showed them all these things in the Scriptures about Himself, hidden in plain sight.
This morning I’d like us to go to the book of Genesis and I’d like to show you Jesus and the gospel hidden in plain sight.
Last Sunday we looked at some of the clearest references in Genesis to the Christ, the promises that God made to Eve and to Abraham about one of their future offspring or seed. God told Eve that an offspring of hers would engage the serpent who deceived her in combat, and though struck by the serpent, He would deal a blow to the serpent’s head. A couple thousand years later God told Abraham that a descendant of His would possess the gates of His enemies. In other words, He will be king over all other kings, He will rule the world, and in that One all nations of the earth will be blessed.
But I want to show you some other places where I see Jesus and the gospel in the book of Genesis.
One place is probably one of the least expected. It’s in…
The Genealogy in Chapter 5
It’s one of those chapters we tend to skim over quickly because it’s just a genealogy. But there’s something fascinating here if you look into the meaning of the names in this chapter and put them together?
If you write in your Bible, maybe you want to write the meaning of each name in the margin beside it. Adam means man.
He had a son named Seth, which means appointed.
Seth had a son that he named Enosh, which means mortal, terminal, frail, feeble.
Enosh has a son he named Kenan, which is believed to have meant something like sorrow or dirge or funeral song.
The next descendant in line was Mahalalel. The first part of that name, Mahalal, is from a root word that means to praise or shine. The rest of the name, el, is something you often see in Hebrew names. It means God. For instance Dan-i-el means God is my judge. Ezeki-el means God strengthens. Mahalal-el means either the praise of God or the shinning of God or shinning one of God.
His son next in the genealogy was named Jared, which means descent or to come down. Other ancient Jewish writings tell us he was named that because it was in His time that the events of 6:1-4 happened, that the sons of God, angels, saw that the daughters of men were beautiful and they came down, they descended and took wives for themselves. That was happening around His birth. So Jared means to come down.
The next in the line is Enoch which comes from a root word that means to dedicate or train or teach. So Enoch could mean dedicated one who trains or teaches.
Enoch had a son that he named Methuselah. The first part of the name comes from the word muth which means “death”. Then the u, or it could be an o, would mean “his.”… “His death.” And the last part of the word is from the verb shalach, which means “to send” or “to bring.” So Methuselah means “his death will send” or “his death shall bring,” which sounds like an incomplete sentence. A rather unusual name for a boy! Imagine? “Nice to meet you Enoch. Is this your little boy? What’s his name?” “His death will bring.” “What? His death will bring what?” He was given this strange name I think because his father Enoch was a prophet, and God was warning people through Enoch that He was going to destroy the world with a flood because of their wickedness. I think God told Enoch to name his boy “his death shall bring,” because if you do the math in Genesis you find that the same year Methuselah died, the flood came on the world. And it’s interesting that Methuselah lived longer than anyone else. I think it’s a testimony of God’s mercy. He wasn’t in a hurry to send the flood. He was giving people time to repent.
Methusaleh had a son he named Lamech, which it’s not for certain, but likely comes from a root word that means to be low, lowly or poor or humble.
And then the name of his son, Noah, means rest, relief or comfort.
What do you get if you put the meaning of all those names together? You get, “Man appointed mortal sorrow. Shinning one of God comes down, dedicated, his death shall bring lowly rest.” Let me just add in a few little words to make it complete sentences. “Man is appointed mortal and sorrowful, but the shinning one of God comes down, dedicated. His death shall bring the lowly rest or comfort.” That’s the gospel in a nutshell, isn’t it? Do you think it’s just a coincidence that the meaning of the names in the genealogy sounds like a concise summary of what God would do for us through Christ?
I see Jesus again in chapter 14…
Melchizedek
When Abraham comes back from a victorious rescue mission, saving his nephew Lot and many others who had been taken captive, this mysterious guy meets Abraham on his way back. The guy’s name was Melchizedek, Melech means king. Zedek means righteousness. His name means “king of righteousness.” He’s king over Salem, which means peace. And it’s the old name of Jerusalem, which is the city of God. And he’s not just a king, but he was also a priest of God Most High. And he brings out to Abraham, bread and wine. Presumably then Abraham partakes of the bread and wine and this king and priest blesses him. He says, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand.” Then Abraham gave to him a tenth of all he had.
Boy, that sure sounds like somebody we know, doesn’t it? Priest of God Most High and King of righteousness and peace and the city of God, who offers bread and wine and blesses the one who receives it.
Another guy in Genesis who in many ways sounds a lot like Jesus is…
Isaac.
His birth was promised by God before he was ever conceived. His conception was about as miraculous as a virgin conceiving a baby. His mother Sarah was 90 years old, her womb was hard as a walnut. There was no way she was going to have a baby naturally. And yet miraculously she conceived this promised son.
When he was a relatively young man, probably between 25-35, his brother Ishmael had been sent away, so he was an only son. Listen to Genesis 22:1-2, After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here am I.” 2 He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love… Where have you heard something like that? Only, beloved son (cf. Matthew 3:17) and go to the land of Moriah… Now, II Chronicles 3:1 says Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah. The land of Moriah is the Jerusalem area. Take your only beloved son near Jerusalem… and offer him on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” Abraham decided to do what God said, though he didn’t understand it. He feared God and he trusted God. It took him 3 days to travel to the place. And so for 3 days in Abraham’s mind, his son was dead.
When they got to the Jerusalem area, God said to Abraham, “That hill over there, that’s the one. Offer him on top of that one.” I bet you know which one it was. There Abraham made the most amazing statement. I don’t think he was being deceitful at all. He told his servants “wait here with the donkey. My son and I are going to go over there and worship and we will come back to you.” We will come back. In Hebrews 11:19, it says Abraham considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead. Abraham figured “God promised me a multitude of descendants through Isaac, so he can’t die and stay dead. If I kill him, God will bring him back, because God will keep his word.” So he told the servants, we’re going to go worship over there and we will come back.
This good father had his only beloved son carry the wood on which he would die, up to the place where he would die. And remember that right at the last second when he was about to kill Isaac, God stopped him, so in a sense, Abraham received his son back to life after 3 agonizing days.
Suddenly there’s another picture of Jesus.
The Ram
Abraham lifts his eyes and sees a ram. He knows it’s a substitutionary sacrifice that God provided for him. Its head is caught in the thorns. Abraham offered that ram and named the place, Yehovah – Yireh, which likely means the Lord will provide. And it became a saying among the ancient Israelites “On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided.” What a statement about God in the context of a substitutionary sacrifice and the offering of an only beloved son on a hill by Jerusalem! The Lord will provide.
As I read on from there in Genesis, I see Jesus again.
Joseph
The story of Joseph in Genesis, you can outline into 2 parts; part 1 down, part 2 up. That’s what happened to him. He went all the way down from being the favored son in the presence of his rich father to being a sold off slave and then down even further to being a forgotten slave in a dungeon. But from the bottom he was quickly exalted all the way up to the right hand of the most powerful man in the world, and he became the Savior of the world. He saved Egypt and his family and many others in a seven-year famine. The story of Jesus is Part 1 down, part 2 up, “though He was in the form of God… taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. [That’s part 1 down. Here’s part 2 up.] 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.” (Philippians 2:6-11)
Even many of the smaller details of Joseph’s story parallel the story of Jesus. God foretold that Joseph would one day rule over his family. Remember those dreams he had as a teenager that he probably should have kept to himself?
Why did his brothers hate him? It was not for anything he had done wrong. It was just envy and jealousy. Matthew 27:18 says that Pilate knew that the reason the Jewish leaders had delivered Jesus over to him was out of envy.
And Joseph’s character is rather Jesus-like. It’s remarkable. Day after day he resisted Mrs. Potiphar’s enticements. Later he showed absolutely amazing forgiveness and grace to the ones who hated him and tried to get rid of him.
When you think about Joseph’s story and what happened on a hill by Jerusalem with Abraham’s only beloved son and that Melchizedek guy, it makes the story of Jesus sound very in character with the God of Genesis. What happened with Jesus sounds like the kind of thing that the God of Genesis would do because there are so many striking similarities.
The OT stories with such similarities are commonly called foreshadowings, because they’re like a shadow on a wall when something is about to come around the corner. The shadow gives you an idea of what’s coming.
Let me give you one more place where I see Jesus in Genesis. Look at…
Genesis 49:10
This is where old Jacob is prophesying to his 12 sons about what would happen to them and their descendants in the future. Genesis 49:10, “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, Nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, Until [Now, this is where our English translations go different directions. The word in Hebrew is “Shiloh”] Shiloh comes, And to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.”
There’s a lot of debate among scholars about what the word “Shiloh” means there. Some say it means “peace” or “one sent” or “to whom it belongs”. The NIV translates this “until he comes to whom it belongs.” But whatever the exact meaning of the term was, it was understood by the ancient Rabbis to be a reference to the Messiah, to the King and Savior that God promised to send. Among the scrolls of ancient Qumran and in the Jewish Talmud, the Messiah is called by this term, Shiloh.
You notice that it says at the end of verse 10, “to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.” This is no ordinary king. This is one the peoples, the nations will obey. This is a mighty world ruler.
And this verse speaks of when this great King of Kings will come. It will be before the scepter and ruler’s staff depart from Judah. Those are symbols of having governing authority.
Well, think about the history of the tribe of Judah. They gained the “scepter,” or governing authority, when David a descendant of Judah became king. After the reign of his son Solomon, the kingdom divided in two, the 10 tribes in the north became known as the kingdom of Israel and the 2 tribes in the south, Judah and Benjamin, became known as the kingdom of Judah. And descendants of Judah, through David, reigned over that southern kingdom for many years. When the kingdom of Judah was conquered by the Babylonians and brought into exile, out of their land, they still retained their national identity and were allowed to have their own laws and judges. Judah remained a self-governing nation even in exile. And they continued as such after they returned to their land. But in the 1st century A.D. Judah appears to have lost its governing authority. It appears the scepter departed.
There’s some debate about when exactly the scepter departed from Judah. Was it in 6-7 A.D., when the Romans set a governor over Judea and immediately limited the governing authority of the Sanhedrin, making it where they could no longer administer capital punishment? Or was it 70 A.D. when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and scattered the surviving Jews all over the world? They definitely no longer had a ruler’s staff at that point. But the prophecy said that the Messiah, the one to whom shall be the obedience of the peoples, He would come before Judah had lost the ruler’s staff. If that prophesy is reliable, then the king of Kings must have been born before 70 A.D. and maybe before 6 or 7 A.D. There is only one person who can fit that prophecy and it’s Jesus of Nazareth, who was born in probably 4 B.C.
So this ancient book of Genesis was like a giant ancient arrow pointing at Jesus of Nazareth as the one God had in mind from the very beginning to save us. And it just confirms my faith all the more.
-James Williams