The Provision of a Sacrificial Son

Belgic Confession 17; Genesis 3:14-21, 4:1-5

Impoverished parents have high hopes for their children. They give up much for the education of their children. They work day and night, so that their children can have the opportunity to study. They hope they’d get into a good school so they’d have a good career. A good career means extraction out of poverty. Those are the high hopes of many parents. Whether or not their sacrifices have been worth it; whether or not their children become the golden sons they hoped for; whether they’re saved - that’s not always guaranteed. There are many disappointed people. It’s the same when it comes to politics. Election season in the United States of America is heating up. People are rallying behind their candidates. They hope that the future of the country will be secure by the candidate they choose. Some choose a candidate that can bring them the best economic security and success. Others hope that their candidate can secure rights for certain minorities. We’re all looking for a hero.

And the Bible tells us why we all look for a hero. It’s because life on earth has been cursed by sin. We saw three weeks ago how man fell. He was deceived by Satan and sinned. He was cast out of paradise. And not him alone, but his posterity. Last week we saw how detestable original sin is - it infects all of Adam’s descendants. And if that’s the case, how will anyone escape? Adam sinned, all in Adam are cursed. The answer from God is simple - God provides a hero. Someone who would restore to Adam and his descendants what Adam lost. God provides his sacrificial Son. There are 2 sections to this sermon. Firstly, the curse and prophesied redemption. Secondly, the cure and promised redeemer.

Firstly, the curse and prophesied redemption. Belgic Confession, article 17 says, “that man had thus plunged himself into physical and spiritual death and made himself completely miserable.” What is that misery and death? The curse of sin. And from this passage, we see that the curse of sin is five-fold. Verse 12-13 revealed there was impenitence. When a person sins, you’d expect admission of guilt. But when Adam and Eve sinned, Adam blamed Eve for giving him the fruit. When Eve was blamed, she accused Satan for having tempted her. And invariably, both blamed God. Adam said to God, “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” Eve said to God, “The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat” as if the commandment of God was not clear enough. But the misery also had to do with not enjoying what God had intended for them. God had intended for Adam and Eve and their descendants a paradise on earth. He intended them to work and to produce fruit with their hands. And work would be easy. He also intended for them to marry and have children. They two shall be one flesh, so that they’re no longer two but one. He called them to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. Marriage and children. And he also gave them eternal life - physically and spiritually. If they hadn’t sinned, they’d have lived on forever - as a holy people, multiplying themselves to serve God and find meaning through work, family, legacy, community, eternally in paradise.

But as we see, sin ruined that. Not only was their impenitence, there was death - as our confession says physical and spiritual death. When God warned them not to take of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he placed a penalty - they’d surely die, literally in Hebrew, dying you shall die - it’s a double death - physically and spiritually. But until that physical death, there’d be hard work. Man would no longer enjoy work, but would labor in the sweat of his brow amidst thorns and thistles to bring forth fruit. Work would not be enjoyable. But neither would marriage. Verse 16 says that the woman’s desire shall be to her husband and he will rule over her. Meaning, she will desire to control him, and he will subjugate her. While she was meant to be his helper and he to care for her, this is now the misery brought on by the curse. And not just that - having family will be painful. This is something we all experience. It’s no longer a paradise. Divorce is not uncommon; and those who may not divorce often stay on in unhappy marriages. Children battle with inconsistent parents and parents not only bring forth their children in pain; child-rearing can be painful. When your existence is comprised of work, community like marriage and family, knowing that you’d die one day - and it’s cursed, your life is miserable. Some have less misery than others - but all experience it.

But God provided a way to escape this misery. He provided a hero, a champion - who will be a descendant of Adam and Eve. In verse 15, he cursed Satan - “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” And from this verse we see the descendant’s success and suffering. Now, to be clear, when God cursed Adam and Eve, it was the consequence of their sin. They deserved nothing less - in fact, they deserved much more. But as our confession says, when God saw that man had plunged himself into such complete misery, what did he do? “Our gracious God in his marvelous wisdom and goodness set out to seek man when he trembling fled from him. He comforted him with the promise that he would give him his Son, born of woman (Gal 4:4), to crush the head of the serpent and to make man blessed.”

In the deserved curse of Adam and Eve, God also cursed the Satan in prophesying a redeemer. Adam and Eve lost all the blessings of paradise. But they’d get it back and more through this redeemer. We see his success - he’d crush the head of the serpent. This speaks about mastery over temptation and over sin. He will crush the head. What does head mean? Head can refer to Satan’s devices. He devised his temptation to beguile man - to lead to the physical and spiritual death of all men. So to crush the head means to reverse the effects of that beguilement, the fall, and temptation. But head as opposed to heel, also refers to the greater success the son will have compared to his great suffering. To be sure, the descendant of this woman will suffer. And this establishes the rule that the way of redemption comes by his suffering. Our confession tells us that he will crush the head of the serpent to make man blessed. In other words, this blessing on man will come by way of his suffering. We know that this descendant is the Lord Jesus Christ - God’s only begotten Son, who came into this world to die for sinners. Galatians 4:4-5 say, “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” He was born to be subject to the law, and to redeem them who were condemned by the law. And the only way to do that was to be condemned on their behalf.

Secondly, we see the cure and promised redeemer. Why did he have to die as a redeemer? This is the only way the blessing can be returned. This is the cure - the atonement for sin. In verse 21, after God promised a son, he took animals to sacrifice them, so that their skins could be used to cover their nakedness. “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.” To be blessed, man needed atonement - a clothing or covering. We see this throughout Scripture. For their nakedness to be covered, there had to be a sacrifice. God made coats of skins - how? - by sacrificing animals to fashion a garment. For Noah’s ark to float so the waters of judgment and destruction would not sink it; it had to be covered with pitch and tar inside and outside. So while the rest of the people were destroyed by water, 8 people were safe in the ark from that water. And there was another ark - the ark of the covenant. It contained the 2 tablets of the law of God, the budding rod of Aaron, and the pot of manna. God could’ve judged the people for their disobedience against the law, their dismissal of God’s ordained rulers, and their dissatisfaction with God’s daily provision; but he covered the ark with the mercy seat. God saved the people from what’s inside the ark. What’s more, the mercy seat was so called because it covered the judgment of God. It was a cover with 2 gold ornaments of cherubim with outstretched wings covering the ark. And during the Day of Atonement, when the High Priest represented the people, he offered a sin offering for them. He took that blood into the Holy of Holies and sprinkled it on the mercy seat of the ark, covering it, providing atonement for the people, so they’d have blessing and not judgment. And what’s more, he couldn’t simply approach that ark. Yes, he approached it with a sacrifice; but he needed a cover. The altar of incense on that day was brought before the ark, and incense was offered, with the smoke creating a barrier, covering the High Priest and protecting him from the very presence of God. And why he had to offer an atonement for the people was because the people may have forgotten to make atonement for themselves. There were 3 kinds of blood sacrifices the people had to offer. The burnt offering was made for sins in general - where a male animal was sacrificed by the worshiper, butchered by the priest, and placed on the bronze altar to be burned. The blood of the animal would also be collected and sprinkled on the altar to cover it. The peace offering was an offering to symbolize reconciliation with God. The animal was sacrificed by the worshiper, butchered by the priest, and the blood of the animal would be poured on the edges of the altar, covering it. The sin offering was for specific sins done out of ignorance. And an animal was sacrificed, and its blood would be sprinkled on the people, covering them, providing atonement for their sins of ignorance.

To be blessed, to return back to paradise, the cure is atonement. It’s not through a better job - because work is cursed. A better job can turn into the worst job. It’s not through marriage - because marriage is cursed. Your spouse may hurt you. It’s not through family - Proverbs speaks about the foolish son. It’s also not from a healthy life - illness comes upon all of us. It comes from the son that will suffer and be a sacrifice, whose blood covers us. Ephesians 1:3 and 7 say, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ…In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.” In Christ, we have an inheritance reserved in heaven for us - of eternal service to God in the family of God. And until then, in Christ, we can work on earth, to the glory of God, have covenant families, pointing our children to Christ as their only savior - not to the cursed things on earth.

All other things are disappointing. And this is something that Adam and Eve realized. They were promised a son who’d have success over Satan through his suffering. But which son but Christ - who was given at the fulness of time? The Bible shows many disappointing sons and sacrifices. When Eve gave birth to Cain, she named him according. His name means “to gain.” She had gained a son - perhaps that promised prophesied successful son. But in time, she was disappointed. When she had her second son, she named him Abel - or hevel in Hebrew - vanity of vanities, all is vanity and vexation of spirit. Her hopes of redemption and return back to paradise were dashed with Cain. And all was vanity. In fact, this was proven. Cain looked not to God for redemption - he looked to his works to bring satisfaction. And these were not accepted by God. And out of sinful anger, he killed his brother. No savior, no redemption, no return to paradise.

You see, there are many such sons in the Bible - many that were hoped for, longed for. But their redemption was short-lived and incomplete. Moses was a son born in adversity. He was rescued from the Nile waters in an ark made of reeds. He grew up in Pharaoh’s household and counted himself not a prince, but rather to suffer with God’s people. He led the people out of Egypt with God’s 10 plagues; he brought the law down from Sinai - God’s laws; he gave them water from the rock by hitting it, as God commanded. But remember, they were God’s plagues, God’s law, and God’s water. And in the end, Moses disobeyed God when he thought the water was his to give. But the water is Christ’s to give - living water. He’s God’s true seed. Whereas Solomon was the son that would take over David, he was not the son that would build an everlasting kingdom. That was Christ. Israel too was called God’s son - but her many failures were evident in her history. None of them, through their suffering, brought success and redemption to God’s people. Only Christ.

And there were many sacrifices. But they were not effective. Hebrews 10:4 says, “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.” What were the sacrifices good for? They were good for 3 things. Hebrews 9:7 says, it was good to forgive sins of ignorance, unintentional sins - “But into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people.” They were also good for ceremonial washing. Hebrews 9:13 - “the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh.” They were also used to ceremonially cleanse the tabernacle. Hebrews 9:21 - “Moreover he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the ministry.” But the true sacrifice that provided eternal redemption, that reversed the curse, that made man blessed was the death of Christ. Hebrews 9:12 says “neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.” Verse 14 says only his blood can purge our conscience from dead works. The Sacrificial Son had success over the curse of sin, by his suffering and sacrifice at the cross. And by his ministry, he restores to us God’s blessings and more, in his eternal kingdom - the true paradise.

So what are some ways we can apply this sermon? There are no new applications for us - just reminders. We look to the world for blessings - from work, relationships, family, that we may have a good life on earth. Our Lord reminds us that such blessings can only come from him. While work is filled with thorns, and many Christians were slaves and ill-treated, they could find blessings in Christ whom they served. While marriage has its ills, yet in Christ, with husbands loving wives, and wives submitting to husbands in the Lord, it becomes a picture of Christ’s love for the church. While child rearing is hard, we thank God that children are a heritage - and giving them the gospel points them to their only savior. And we live life, despite all its vanities, all its hevel, rejoicing knowing that we have gained the true Son that God has given us.

1. The Curse and Prophesied redemption

A. The curse of sin

B. The descendent’s success and suffering

2. The Cure and Promised Redeemer

A. The atonement for sin

B. The disappointing sons and sacrifices