Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis.  Tonight, is study #7 of Genesis, chapter 21.  We are reading Genesis 21:2-6:

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. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac being eight days old, as God had commanded him. And Abraham was an hundred years old, when his son Isaac was born unto him. And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me.

I will stop reading there.  For the last few studies, we have been discussing the wonderful doctrine or teaching that Christ died for the sins of His people and rose again from the dead to be declared the firstborn Son of God.  As the firstborn, He then created the world.  Surprisingly, the Bible is very clear about these things, although it had been a long-hidden mystery. 

It sounds complicated, but the Bible laid it out directly, once God takes our “blinders” off.  Of course, it requires that we be living at the proper time in history to see these things, because they had been sealed up (as were many Biblical truths) until the time of the end.  It was God’s plan to open the Scriptures to reveal these things to His people, so the elect people of God are seeing and understanding these things.  This is the reason in the context of the end time that God said in Daniel 12, “…shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end.”  Then He added, “and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.”  You see, this was a major way God hid truth. 

We sometimes wonder why God would hide such incredible truths about the nature of the atonement and when it was performed.  It is such a critical truth and, yet, the answer is that it served God’s purpose to hide this information until the time of the end, and then use it to divide the wheat from the tares and the sheep from the goats.  He divided the wheat from the tares by calling His people out of the congregations during the Great Tribulation, and He is separating the sheep from the goats during the Day of Judgment.

On the surface, the true doctrine sounds so incredible, while the longstanding traditional church teaching that Jesus first died and paid for sins at the cross in 33 A.D. seems so reasonable.  There was no hint of the idea that He died and rose from the foundation of the world, even though the Bible directly made that statement in Revelation 13:8, but God so hid this truth that it was not known until the time of the end.  Again, it almost sounds “too spectacular” and incredible to be true.  Unfortunately, natural-minded people are much concerned with the way things sound to others, like the doctrine regarding “hell,” for example.   Another example is the truth that God opened up regarding the fact that May 21, 2011 was a spiritual judgment.  They would say, “It sounds like you are simply not fessing up to your having made a mistake and you are trying to cover up the fact that nothing happened.”  (I use the word “fact” regarding the perception of the natural-minded eyes of men that nothing happened.)  

However, they cannot deny that all the major judgments in the Bible were spiritual in nature.  When God said to Adam, “for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” it is true that Adam did not die physically on that day, but he did die spiritually.  It is also true that when God began to bring judgment on Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, and He was drinking of the cup of the wrath of God, an onlooker would not have seen it because it was a spiritual judgment.  It is also true that God’s judgment on the churches and congregations during the Great Tribulation was completely spiritual and because they could not “see” it, they think nothing happened. 

These individuals understand some of these examples.  By the way, can you get any more “major” than God’s judgments upon mankind when we originally fell into sin, His judgment upon Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane or His judgment upon the churches?  They are the major judgments spoken of in the Bible, apart from the final judgment on mankind, so we would expect the final judgment to follow the pattern of the former judgments regarding the spiritual nature of the judgment.  So, of course, there is Biblical precedence and much evidence, but it “just does not sound right” to these people.  They can say, “You are just trying to cover up your error, and that makes me feel uncomfortable,” and they draw away, rather than to look at the Biblical evidence and to allow the Bible to determine the right doctrine. 

How it strikes the “ear of man” or the natural man in the world does not matter.  What do we care what the true doctrines “sound like” to the natural-minded person?  These people are contrary to God.  They are completely set against God’s kingdom and His Word.  We should not look to them for any real indicators about what truth is, as they certainly will not direct us in the right way.  This is one of the reasons that the apostate corporate church that was under the wrath of God all agreed with one voice as they said, “No man knows the day or the hour.”  It is not something that ought to convince anyone.  To the contrary, it ought to trouble people when they think, “These churches cannot get anything straight and they do not speak with one voice on any other doctrine, so it is very strange that they speak with one voice on that doctrine.  That gives me no comfort at all.  I better search it out to make sure.  How can these blind congregations (the entire corporate church world) manage to stumble upon that truth when they cannot find the door to heaven?”  We do not have to continue down that path.  We can see the problem.  It is strange and exceedingly odd that they finally managed to speak with one voice.  God allowed them to do that as a final assault on the truth as God opened the Scriptures to reveal time and judgment.  Even though they had agreement, they were wrong as they went down a blind alley, so to speak, but this is what God has done.

We have been looking carefully at the idea of Christ having died for sin and resurrected from the dead at the point of the foundation of the world.  Then as the firstborn Son of God, He created the heavens and the earth.  He spoke and all this creation came into existence, but He had the preeminence.  As the firstborn, He was before all things.  He had the preeminence by dying and rising from the dead to be that firstborn Son before this world even began.

The Greek word translated as “firstborn” is Strong’s #4416.  It is closely related to the word translated as “birthright,” which is Strong’s #4415.  It says in Hebrews 12:16:

Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.

We know Esau had the birthright because he was the firstborn.  He was the first child to come out of the womb and, therefore, he was given the birthright based on the placement of his birth; he was first, and his brother Jacob was second.  As the firstborn son, he would receive the greatest inheritance and the greater blessing from his father.  That is why it is so important that Jesus have the preeminence in being the firstborn of all creation.  He was the firstborn from the dead.  If Jesus were not firstborn, He would not have the birthright, as it says in Deuteronomy 21:15-17:

If a man have two wives, one beloved, and another hated, and they have born him children, both the beloved and the hated; and if the firstborn son be hers that was hated: Then it shall be, when he maketh his sons to inherit that which he hath, that he may not make the son of the beloved firstborn before the son of the hated, which is indeed the firstborn: But he shall acknowledge the son of the hated for the firstborn, by giving him a double portion of all that he hath: for he is the beginning of his strength; the right of the firstborn is his.

There is a right or a law given for the firstborn to receive double.  He would receive the greatest portion of the inheritance and the greatest blessing.  Because Jesus was the firstborn Son of the Father, the inheritance of the rich, eternal blessings of the Father that were bestowed upon the Son would also be bestowed upon all that are counted for the seed in Him (the whole company of the elect).  If Christ had not received the inheritance of the firstborn because He did not have the birthright, then it means that we would not receive the inheritance either because without being the firstborn, He would not have the birthright.  For the sake of our eternal salvation and the promise of the inheritance, it is crucial.  Remember the promise that was given in Genesis 17 to Abraham and his seed.  God tells us in Galatians 3 that seed is Christ, the firstborn, just as Isaac was called the “only begotten son” of Abraham.  It says in Genesis 17:7-8:

And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.

This was the promise of the inheritance; and the inheritance goes to the firstborn, Christ, who bestows it upon all His people, the elect.  But, again, it is dependent on His being the firstborn from the dead.  If there were another firstborn from the dead, it could not happen.  Does God take these things seriously?  Just read Hebrews 12 regarding God bringing the curse down upon Esau.  In Genesis, Esau came to his father pleading that he would have some blessing, but it was a meager blessing compared to the birthright he had squandered when he sold his birthright to his brother. 

Likewise, God is extremely careful not to even give the appearance of evil or wrongdoing, and He would not permit there to have been an individual who died and rose from the dead before Christ – He would never permit it.  That would give the appearance of evil, if it were true what theologians claim when they say Christ died at the foundation of the world only in principal.  All the theologians love these doctrinal problems and they try to solve them by throwing out a couple of theological terms that are manmade: “Yes – we can understand that in principal.  The Bible does say that without the shedding of blood, there can be no remission of sin.  And this does present a problem for all Old Testament saints.  However, the problem can be solved, because God did this in principal.” 

For them, that solves a whole host of Bible contradictions (or they hope it does).  They think it does, but they really did not think too much about it.  They just throw out their solution and hope all the opposition goes away. 

I am sorry, but the Bible is not going away.  It is insistent that Christ was the firstborn from the dead.  And as the firstborn, He was the Creator.  The blood had already been shed: “Without shedding of blood is no remission.”  It was shed when the Lamb was slain at the foundation of the world, thereby making the blood available for the remission of Abel’s sin, Noah’s sin, Abraham’s sin or the remission of sins of all the Old Testament elect.  The blood was available because the Lamb was slain in eternity past at the foundation of the world.  Thank God for this because that is when He became the promised seed and that is where we were in Him as He purchased our inheritance for us.  We can live in the new heaven and new earth for evermore, because that is our inheritance, based on the fact that He is the firstborn Son of God. 

Why would anyone want to argue against this and attempt to “undo” it?  It can only be out of stubborn, sinful pride.  Only through hardheaded ignorance and blindness would man seek to meddle with the beautiful wisdom of God and the Bible.

We will stop here.  Lord willing, when we get together in our next Bible study we will continue in our study of Genesis 21.