Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #4 of Genesis, chapter 21.  We are continuing to read the first three verses in Genesis 21:1-3:

And JEHOVAH visited Sarah as he had said, and JEHOVAH did unto Sarah as he had spoken. For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him. And Abraham called the name of his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bare to him, Isaac.

The word “conceived” led us to Hebrews 11, where we discovered that the Greek word translated as “conceived” is the word “kat-ab-ol-ay,” a word translated as “foundation.”  It is used in connection with “the foundation of the world” ten times out of the eleven times it is used in the New Testament.  Only in Hebrews 11 was it translated differently.  Instead, it was translated as “conceived,” as it referred to Isaac, Abraham’s only begotten son born of Sarah.   We looked at the word “seed” and saw that it clearly identified with Christ.

So, we have these two words together as “foundation of seed” and we know, with certainty, that the seed has to do with Christ.  It is the “foundation of Christ” or we could say it is the “foundation of the firstborn Son of God” because the historical context has to do with Abraham’s son who is called his “only begotten son” in Hebrews 11:17. 

It is very interesting because it fits very well with the doctrine we have learned concerning the Lord Jesus having made payment for sin at the point of the foundation of the world, rather than at the cross.  That was a stunning revelation which the Lord brought forth at the time of the Great Tribulation and it is being confirmed in these days after the Tribulation in the Day of Judgment.  It was a stunning revelation of something that the Bible had plainly declared in Revelation 13:8 where it said that Christ was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

However, the traditional teaching of the churches and their theologians was that God meant that Christ was slain “in principal.”  It was never thoroughly checked out in the Bible.  If Revelation 13:8 is to be understood as done “in principal,” then what about Hebrews 4:3 where it declares that the works were finished from the foundation of the world?  It is stated in the context of “rest” or “sabbath,” which has to do with salvation.  What work was finished?  How can a work be finished in principal?  How can you do work “in principal”?  By its definition, a “work” is something that has been performed and done.  How could there be a finished work if it was done only in principal? 

Of course, no one bothered to ask these questions because the Lord had sealed up this information.  God did not lead His people in the past to understand these things because it was kept in reserve.  It was sort of like the grain in Joseph’s storehouse, as Joseph laid up corn for the time of famine.  No one could take of that storehouse until the time came when the famine came upon the land and Joseph opened the storehouse to feed the people.  Likewise, God stored up many truths against the time of famine during the Great Tribulation and into the Day of Judgment, as He tells us in Romans that it is “the day of wrath and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God.”  So, we have been continuing to learn, more and more, about these things.

Now we want to ask another question.  We can see the word “foundation” in relationship to Sarah bringing forth Isaac.  And we can see the word “seed” that ties to Christ.  But what about Sarah’s womb?  What would be the spiritual picture?  She was a barren woman, without a child, and God chose her to bring forth this child.  She went from being an old, barren woman to conception of a child in her womb in her old age.  In a very curious way, the Bible speaks of Sarah’s womb in Romans 4:16-22:

Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all, (As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were. Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be. And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sara's womb: He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.  And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness.

We read that Abraham considered not his own body dead when he was about 100 years old, “neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb.”  Of course, we understand what this means historically.  Yes – Abraham was an old man.  He would live for 75 years more, but for God’s purposes He said that his body was “now dead.”  His wife would be 90 when the child was born, so she was an old woman past childbearing age, so God refers to the “deadness of Sara’s womb.”  So, there is a double emphasis on the word “dead.”  The word used in referring to Abraham’s body being “dead” is Strong’s #3499.  The “deadness” of Sara’s womb is a related word, Strong’s #3500, the next word in Strong’s.  And they are both related to Strong’s #3498, which is the typical word for “dead.” 

The word translated as “deadness” is only found twice.  It is used once here, and it is also found in 2Corinthians 4:10:

Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.

The word “dying” is that word that was translated as “deadness” regarding Sara’s womb.  Why does God identify Sara’s womb as being dead?  Again, she was an old woman past childbearing age, but that is only the historical fact.  Spiritually, why would God identify Sara’s womb with deadness? 

We are going to look at some Old Testament verses that use the Hebrew word translated as “womb” or “belly.”  Psalm 22 is a Messianic Psalm, which means it refers to the Messiah, the Lord Jesus.  There is no question about that because of what we read in Psalm 22:16-18:

For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.

Again, without question, these things were fulfilled when Christ went to the cross.  In that context, it says in Psalm 22:6-10:

But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people. All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted on JEHOVAH that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him. But thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's breasts. I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother's belly.

Since this is referring to Christ, the question is this: Does this refer to Jesus in “history” when He was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary and came forth out of her womb in 7 B.C.?  Or, is the mother’s “belly” referring to another mother and another womb?  Jesus was born in another way when He was declared to be the Son of God via the resurrection from the dead.  He came into this world already as the Son of God.  Psalm 22 does not reveal much more to us about this, except that Christ came out of the womb or out of his mother’s belly.  But after Jonah was swallowed by the great fish, it says in Jonah 2:1:

Then Jonah prayed unto JEHOVAH his God out of the fish's belly,

The word “belly” in this verse is a different Hebrew word than the word translated as “womb,” but it goes on to say in Jonah 2:2:

And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto JEHOVAH, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice.

This is the same word translated as “womb.”  We could read it this way: “Out of the womb of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice.”  We know this is looking at Christ as He was under the wrath of God in an eternal sense.  It says in Jonah 2:6:

I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O JEHOVAH my God.

So, Jonah in the great fish’s belly is a picture of Christ under the wrath of God.  Jesus makes that connection in the Gospels, when He said, “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”  The “heart of the earth” is a figure for “hell” or “death.”   So, Jesus came out of the womb of hell.  He was in two different wombs.  He was in two different bellies.  Yes – he was literally in the belly of the Virgin Mary when He took upon Himself flesh, as we read in John 1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.”  He did take up residence in the Virgin’s womb.  But the book of Jonah tells us that He was also in “the womb of hell.”  At about the same time we learned that Christ died for sin at the foundation of the world, the Lord opened up the Scriptures to teach us that “hell” is synonymous with the “grave” or “death.”  As a matter of fact, in the Old Testament this word is translated as “hell” many times and as “grave” many times, but it is the same word.  When we read, “out of the womb of hell,” it means “out of the womb of the grave” or “out of the womb of “death.”  So, now we can see how the “deadness” of Sara’s womb fits in.  The womb of death gave birth to Isaac and the Lord Jesus Christ came out of the womb of death.

Let us go to another Psalm that is extremely interesting.  (We could say that about the entire Bible.)  It says in Psalm 139:13:

For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb.

This is a Psalm of David.  The name “David” means “beloved” and Christ is the Beloved.  David is a type of the Lord Jesus Christ.  This is not referring to David when he was in his mother’s womb, but it is referring to the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, when He was in His mother’s womb.  Again, we must ask the question: Is this the womb of Mary or is this the womb of death?  This passage will answer that question.  It goes on to say in Psalm 139:14-15:

I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

If this was His mother’s womb, how could He have been made in secret and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth?  Remember that Jesus said: “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”   The “lowest parts of the earth” is a synonym for “hell” or the “grave.”  Again, it says, “My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth,” or the lowest parts of “hell.”   Then it says in Psalm 139:16:

Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.

Christ is the seed (singular), in Him were all the elect, the seed (plural) that were predestinated before the foundation of the world.  All their sins were laid upon Him at the point of the foundation of the world and, therefore, as He was experiencing “hell” or “death” at the point of the foundation for His elect, it adds, “and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.”  None of the elect had been born in the human race because the world had not yet been created, but we were “fashioned” in Him.  We were “curiously wrought” in Christ.  He was the seed and we were counted for the seed in Him before the world was, and therefore Abraham was said to be the father of many nations.  It is pointing to God Himself and Christ is God.  God died at the foundation of the world.  This the reason Abraham was likened to a dead man.  He was 100 years old and he is “dead,” as it says in Hebrews 11 that he was considered to be dead.  God was dead, and in the womb or belly Christ was being “formed.”

You know, it is just like a baby forms in his mother’s womb.  The baby is “coming together” slowly and surely.  It is a wonderful thing to behold.  With our modern technology, we can even see images of how a baby is formed.  That is the idea or picture here – Christ was “forming.”  Yes – He already existed from eternity past, but He is “coming together” to be declared the Son of God.  Remember what it says in Colossians 1:14-18:

In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.

Who is that “church”?  It is everyone that is saved.  Jesus was the firstborn from the dead.  And, if you are a male and firstborn, what are you called?  You are the firstborn son.  He was the firstborn Son from the dead.  Remember Romans 1:4:

And declared to be the Son of God with power…by the resurrection from the dead:

That was when He came forth out of the “womb” of hell or death.  Again, God referred to the “deadness of Sara’s womb.”  He came forth out of “hell” to resurrect and live again.  At that point in eternity past, God declared Him to be His firstborn Son.  There was no world.  There was no creation yet, because as the Son of God He would then speak and create the world.