Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Genesis 12; Genesis 49 | Date: August 6, 2023 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

As I mentioned this morning, I have intended to conclude the evening psalm studies with a study on the Messianic Psalms—how the psalms point ahead to the Lord Jesus Christ. And I thought what I would do first is back up and give a broader look at that through the Old Testament, the Old Testament messianic hope. So that’s what we will do this evening and for the next week or so as well.

Psalm 2: The Nations in Rebellion

But I would like to begin with Psalm 2. This is one of the best known and clearest of the Messianic Psalms, Psalm 110 being the other. Psalm 2: “Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel against the Lord and against his anointed saying, let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.”

So here we have the nations in rebellion. Verse four: “He who sits in the heavens laughs. The Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath and terrify them in his fury, saying, as for me, I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.”

So there we have God speaking in response in verses four to six. We have the nations in rebellion in verses one to three. God speaks in response in verses four to six. And now we have another speaker beginning with verse seven. And this is the Messiah himself. “I will tell of the decree. The Lord said to me, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possessions. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

And now a fourth speaker, the psalmist himself speaks. “Now therefore, O kings,” addressing the kings in rebellion in verses one to three, “now therefore, O kings, be wise. Be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the son lest he be angry and you perish in the way. For his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.”

So here we have the nations in rebellion. God speaks in response. We’ve seen this recently. God speaks in response. He laughs with some amusement, but also with disdain. He’s angry with them because of their rebellion against him. And God is resolved to carry out his purpose. And he expresses that resolve when he says in verse six, “As for me, I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.”

So there’s God’s resolve to carry out his kingdom in the earth, despite the rebellion of the nations. And then verses seven through nine, we have the anointed, the king himself speaking, and here he echoes what God had said to him in a previous conversation. Verse seven: “I will tell of the decree. The Lord said to me, you are my son. Today I have begotten you.” That’s enthronement language. I’ve made you the king. And then he tells him what he will do with this kingship. Verses eight and nine: the nations become his heritage and he crushes all of his enemies.

So God expresses his resolve that despite the nations’ rebellion, he has set his king on Zion, his holy hill. Then the king speaks and says, “God said to me, he’s made me king, and he’s told me I would have the nations as my inheritance, and that I’ll crush all my enemies.” That’s God’s resolve. That’s Messiah’s resolve to carry out what God has given him. And so then David counsels the nations in verses 10 and following: wise up. You can’t carry this on successfully. You’re bound to lose. Take refuge in the king. Kiss the son. Bow before him while you can before it is too late.

So clearly then in this psalm, we have a prospect of a future kingdom of God, that God will exercise his rule over the world through his king. It will be God’s rule, the kingdom of God, but it’s administrated by this king, his anointed that he has set on his holy hill. And so you have two expressions, verse two: “His anointed,” that is God’s anointed, that’s Messiah, what the word means, and then in verse six, he’s called “my king.” I have set my king—God’s king—on his holy hill.

Well, this in a nutshell, then, is the messianic hope that God will establish his king to rule over his kingdom in the earth. It will be God’s kingdom, but it will be administered through his king that he has established in Zion. So this is a dominant theme then, not just in the Psalter, but all through the Old Testament, and there are ways actually where the Old Testament is shaped in the ordering of the books—the way it’s been shaped by the Jews even with this messianic hope in view. And that’s what we’re going to trace out in these next couple of weeks.

The Anointed Offices: Prophet, Priest, and King

So look back at Genesis chapter one. I want to start there. By way of background, there were three offices in Israel: the prophet, the priest, and the king. And each of these offices was entered through a ceremony, a ritual of anointing—anointing with oil. There’s a ceremony where they would rub or smear or pour oil on them, and the word mashach means to paint or to smear or to rub, but in this ritual sense it has the idea of anointing. And so they were entered into their office through this anointing, this putting on of oil.

And it then became sort of a title for these offices, particularly with reference to the king. But these were God’s anointed: his prophet, his priest, his king. And this is why you find references like, “Don’t attack the king, he’s God’s anointed,” or “Don’t touch my anointed, don’t do him any harm.” He’s God’s anointed; don’t mess with this. This is the one God has set apart to serve.

In fact, we find it used in a broader sense in an interesting way in Isaiah, where God, 150 or more years ahead of time, names the man who will come and bring deliverance to Israel. His name is Cyrus, and he’s called, “My Anointed.” And there’s that expression again, “My Anointed One, My Messiah.”

So we have a technical use then that comes with this word. The anointed one is not just any of the prophets, priests, and kings, but it came to anticipate in the Old Testament an anointed one par excellence who is coming—a king par excellence, a prophet par excellence, a priest, super priest who’s coming. He’s the anointed one in the greatest sense. And he will fill all of these offices of prophet, priest, and king, but the kingship is particularly in view. We find some others where he’s a prophet and where he’s a priest as well. Those are important passages, but primarily the emphasis falls on his kingship, where he rules in God’s stead over God’s kingdom in the earth.

And then as we work our way through the Old Testament, you find some related designations, like “my servant,” or “my son,” “the branch,” “a branch of David,” and so on. All of this refers to this anointed one who is coming, and as we’ll see next week, I think, it’ll be David’s son who is coming, and then you find those prophecies of David’s son coming in the Prophets and in the Psalms as well, and this becomes the very fabric of the Old Testament. It’s impossible to make sense of the Old Testament apart from this. This is, in a sense, the glue that holds it all together—this hope of a promised one who is coming, a Messiah, an anointed one par excellence who is coming.

So for the terminology, “Messiah” comes from that verb mashach, which means to anoint. So he’s the anointed one. When it comes into Greek, it’s Christos, or the anointed one. Same word, only it’s now in Greek instead of that. So when you read the word “Christ” in the New Testament, think Messiah. This is the promised one who’s coming. All right, that hope then, is broadly what the Old Testament is all about. He’s coming, he’s coming, he’s coming. And when you get to the New Testament, broadly the whole message is he’s here and his name is Jesus. Now you’ve got the whole Bible hung together in that way. That’s really not too much of an oversimplification either.

Genesis 1: The Creation Mandate

All right, I want to highlight the messianic hope in the Old Testament. We really have to start in Genesis chapter one because the messianic hope does not arise out of nowhere. It’s not, “Oh, let’s have a king and he’ll be the big one that comes.” It is essential to the very storyline of the Bible, from the very beginning, that God’s king will rule over his kingdom in the earth.

So we begin with Genesis 1, verses 26 and following, where humanity now—this is day six of creation week—and humanity is created in God’s image, and he’s created to be, as I’ve said before a hundred times, he’s God’s vice-regent in the earth. He’s the king to rule in place of the great king who has put him there. So verse 26: “God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness, and notice the emphasis on rule, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heavens, over the livestock, over all the earth, over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

“So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them,” and here we have it again, “be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heavens, over everything that moves on the earth.”

So he says, “I’m going to create man to rule, to have dominion,” and then he creates man, in verse 28, and tells him, commands him: rule. Have dominion. Exercise that dominion. Be fruitful. Multiply. Extend this rule throughout the whole earth. And so reign as king under God, of course, but reign as king over the earth. And this idea of being fruitful, multiplying—that unpacks the idea of rule that’s been given to him. Extend your dominion over the earth. We call this the creation mandate. Man is to rule in God’s stead over the earth. Oh, that’s God’s purpose in creation: to establish his kingdom in the earth by means of or administrated by the human king that he has placed over it. Man is created with that role in mind. Here you are in my image. Reflect that image. Extend the rule over all the earth.

Genesis 3:15: The Seedbed of Messianic Prophecy

Well, that’s Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. Of course, we turn to Genesis chapter 3, and man fails. Genesis 3:15 then makes the promise. “I will put enmity,” God speaking here to Satan, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring, and he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.”

Now notice the characters that are involved in this. There are five of them. Well, if you count God, there’s another one. But “I will put enmity between you,” there’s one, “and the woman,” that’s between Satan and the woman, “between your offspring and her offspring,” there’s three and four, “he shall bruise your head and you will bruise his heels.” We have a fifth one: “he.” Who is this he?

And of course you know, because you go to church, the answer to all the questions is Jesus. And that’s right; this is what this is, this is who he is. One of the old—I can’t think of which one it is now, but one of the old Roman Catholic versions translates this “she.” There’s no warrant for that in the Hebrew. The Hebrew is very explicit. It’s “he.” The Hebrew pronoun hu—that’s how you pronounce it. Hu means “he.” “Who” is “he” in Hebrew. But it’s very explicit that it’s “he,” and I know why they got that, but I don’t know how they got it. It’s masculine; it’s very explicit here. He—that is, a male descendant of the woman’s seed—shall crush Satan’s head, and Satan in the meantime will bruise his heel. There’ll be a significant blow given to this “he,” but it will not be a final one. The final blow is given to Satan by this “he” who is coming.

So it’s forward-looking; it’s looking ahead to a champion who will come. The first promise in the Bible is that of a champion who will come and he’ll fix what has just been lost by God’s king that he has placed to rule over creation. Adam has failed; there’ll be another one who comes, and he’ll succeed in it. It’s forward-looking. It’s eschatological. It’s looking ahead.

That was the Jewish interpretation that is messianic, of course, until Jesus came, and then they wanted to reconsider that. But we have New Testament echoes of this several times in the New Testament. We also have echoes of it in the Old Testament. I think it’s not for nothing, for example, in Samuel when Nahash—the bad guy in Samuel—Nahash, that’s the word for “serpent.” And I think it’s reflective of this bad guy thing who’s going to be crushed as it’s coming.

But we come to also another emphasis here in verse 15, which is this whole idea of “seed” or “offspring.” It’s a huge messianic theme. It’s a big theme running all through the rest of Genesis and really through the rest of the Bible—that God will give an offspring and through the offspring you’ll bless the world and so on. This is significant in the Genesis genealogies. Well, Genesis 3:15, then, is often referred to as the seedbed of messianic prophecy. There’s often a Latin term that’s associated with it: protevangelium. Sometimes it’s proto-evangelium. The first proclamation of the gospel is what the Latin term means. It’s the first promise of the gospel here in Genesis 3:15. The first promise is a champion will come, he will rule, he’ll defeat the tempter who has brought this mess around.

Now, I’m not going to do this with all of them, but let’s take the time here to look at some of the ways in which the New Testament refers back to this, just so you see how that works. I can’t do this with all of the passages that we’ll look at, but I do want to do it with this one, just to give you a little taste of how it works.

So keep this in mind: we have Genesis 1, where God has said for man to rule over the world. Man has failed; He promises a champion, he will do it, and he will crush the head of the serpent. One should be very familiar to you; we just looked at it last week: Psalm 8. You remember where David reflects on this? I won’t take time to read it; you can look at it if you’d like while I’m speaking. In Psalm 8, David reflects on the creation account, and he marvels that God has given such great nobility and dignity to humanity in placing all things under his feet. And he glories in that. We come to the New Testament, and that’s picked up.

For the sake of time, I think I’ll just speak these instead of taking time to look them up. If you want to take notes, you can. Matthew chapter 12 is another. In Matthew chapter 12, Jesus heals a demon-possessed man. He’s blind as well. Jesus heals him, and the people recognize the power that he has, the authority that he has, and this must be the Son of David. There’s the messianic connection. This must be the one who’s coming. Well, the Pharisees, of course, hear that, and they’re trying to explain it otherwise, and they explain that, no, this isn’t the Messiah, this is somebody working through the power of Satan. And Jesus explains, it’s not Satan working against Satan—Satan casting out demons—that wouldn’t make any sense. I’m casting out demons here, and it is evident then that the kingdom of God is among you. And then he explains that he has come and he’s bound the strong man. Now, it’s not the same words used in Genesis 3:15, but it is an echo of it, isn’t it? He’s come and bound the strong man, and he’s ransacked his house. That is, he has broken into this world that belongs to Satan, and God’s kingdom now has blasted its way in. He’s bound the strong man, and he’s ransacking Satan’s kingdom.

Let’s do take the time to look at one in John chapter 12. John chapter 12. Jesus hears this voice from heaven and he says in verse 30—boy, I’d like to explain the whole passage. Well, verse 30: “Jesus answered, this voice has come for your sake, not mine.” And then he explains, “Now is the judgment of this world. Now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” All right, notice the connection here. He’s speaking of, obviously, a reference to Satan’s rulership over the world now. And he said, I’ve come to this point where he will be glorified. That’s verses 27 and following. He’ll be glorified in his death, being lifted up on the cross. And in his death, he says, the judgment of this world has come and the world ruler is cast out. So the death blow is given to Satan. He explains when he’s lifted up from the earth. And then John explains, verse 33, he said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die. So by his lifting up—and there’s a pun there; it’s his glory, lifted up, exalted, but it’s actually a literal lifting up on the cross—and through his death, Satan is done for. So here is Satan bruising the heel of the champion, but the champion crushing the head of the tempter; he’s cast out. Obviously an allusion, I think, to Genesis chapter three, verse 15.

Let’s look next at Romans chapter 16. I have an interesting reference to it here. Romans chapter 16. Paul has been bringing his letter to a close and he says in verse 20 to the saints at Rome, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.” That’s obviously an allusion to Genesis 3:15, but notice here, it is the saints who crush Satan under their feet. And clearly it is through the advance of the gospel made through them. And so they are participating in this triumphant work of Christ over Satan with the extending of the gospel through the world. They are crushing Satan under their feet with the advance of the kingdom in this way.

Well, you remember last week, Psalm 8. We looked at Hebrews chapter 2, and there the writer marvels at the incarnation of the Son of God. God the Son becomes a man, and he does that in order to rescue man. And he makes reference back to Psalm 8, where he’ll put all things under his feet, but we do not yet see all things under his feet. We sure don’t. The world is certainly not under the feet of the righteous. But we see Jesus, okay? There is a connection. Genesis 1: put all things under your feet. Psalm 8 reflects on that: He’s put all things under your feet. You are to rule. We have failed. We don’t see it yet, but we see Jesus. And he has come to succeed where Adam has failed and restore for humanity as the incarnate Son what we were purposed to do at creation. And clearly there, he then speaks of the defeat of Satan: “and defeat him who has the power of death, that is, the devil.”

And then we come to a climax of this theme in Revelation chapters 19 and 20, where we find the return of Christ, and Satan is defeated and finally thrown into the lake of fire where the beast and the false prophet were, and they are burned and tormented forever and forever, and Satan is crushed. So then you see then how this has been set up for us at the beginning. Genesis 1: man is created; rule. Man fails; God promises a champion who will do it. And it will be a seed of the woman. So we have to have a man doing it. And here we find it fulfilled finally in the incarnation of the Son of God through his death. And finally, in his return, and in the meantime, we carry out that order of dominion through the extending of the kingdom by means of the gospel, crushing Satan under our feet. All right, any questions on that one? That’s just a brief beginning of the theme of the messianic hope. All right, you’ll want to remember then, it’s Genesis 3:15: the seedbed of messianic prophecy.

The Abrahamic Promise

Look back then at Genesis chapter 12. We’ll take the next big step. I might have mentioned Genesis chapter 9 and the prophecy there that God will be the God of Shem, but now we have a Semite, a descendant of Shem, by the name of Abraham—or Abram at this point—and God makes an important promise to him. Genesis 12 verse 1: “Now the Lord said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you, and I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

Now in verses four and following, he leaves Haran for Canaan, then verse seven: “Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, to your offspring I will give this land. So he built there an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him.” Now clearly the central point here is that of blessing. Abraham here is the recipient of blessing and he’s the mediator of blessing. In you will all the world, all the families of the earth, be blessed. So he is blessed so that through him the whole world will be blessed. So this is God’s purpose in blessing Abraham. He has a larger purpose in mind, and in fact it’s universal in scope. He’ll bring blessing to the entire earth, through Abraham and through his seed. We find that repeated then in Genesis 18 to Isaac and Genesis 28 to Jacob, that God will accomplish this blessing to the world by means of making of Abraham a great nation. We’ve been seeing that develop in Genesis on Sunday morning in the Sunday school lessons.

Now in this promise to Abraham, there’s a pronounced emphasis on kingship from that nation. If you’d like to jot down Genesis 17 and verse 6: “I will make you exceedingly fruitful, I will make you into nations, and kings will come from you.” Verse 16 of Genesis 17: “I will bless her, Sarah, and moreover, I will give to you a son by her. I will bless her and she shall become nations. Kings of peoples shall come from her.” That’s repeated in Genesis 35 verse 11 with regard to Jacob: “Kings shall come from your own body.”

So through a royal descendant, blessing will come to the nations. Through a royal descendant of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, a royal descendant will bring blessing to the nations. So the Abrahamic promise then is one of an offspring who will come, a great nation who will be made, there’ll be kingship, and there’ll be blessing that comes from it. Now of course, if you’ve been in church more than 10 minutes, you recognize that this is pointing ahead to Jesus as well. Open your Bibles to the New Testament, Matthew chapter one in verse one: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham.” And here it’s picked up with the Abrahamic blessing.

One of the most important treatments of this in the New Testament—if you’d like, let’s go ahead and look at that—is Galatians chapter three. Here Paul is dealing with the question of why the law was given. Why was that brought in if the promise from Abraham was given? If it was given on condition of promise only, then why did the law come in with its emphasis on works and so on? Paul is answering that question, which we can’t get into right now, but in verse 16 he says, speaking of the Abrahamic promise, “Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring.” And notice Paul’s careful exegesis here: “It does not say, and to offsprings, referring to many, but referring to one, to your offspring, singular, who is Christ.” Now here it’s referenced back to Genesis 12:7 and Genesis 22:18, where Abraham was promised a seed who will come.

Now, this is really interesting because, point of fact, the word “seed” or “offspring” is often a collective singular. Seed singular can mean lots of seed. It’s like when you get a haircut. You don’t say, “I’m going to get my hairs cut.” Well, usually you don’t. You say, “I’m getting my hair cut.” It’s a collective singular. Fish can be that way as well. Usually you don’t talk about “the fishes.” Look at “the fish” in the sea; it’s a collective singular. Seed is that way. But Paul emphasizes this is singular. And he wants to get all he can out of that. It’s a singular, so it has to be one person, and of course he’s going to Jesus with that. How does Paul know that the word “seed” or “offspring” is to be taken in such a strictly singular way? Think about this. How does Paul know that it’s not just a collective singular, but it’s referring to a singular person? I think the answer is Genesis 3:15: “he.” I think Paul is reading the Abrahamic promise in light of the Genesis promise: “he” will come. And Paul emphasizes that. How do you deal with this? It’s Jesus; who else could it be?

All right, well there’s the Abrahamic promise—that’s just touching it, but there it is. Now, I’ve mentioned the kingship emphasis in all of this. What is the—this is sort of an aside here—what do kings do? What’s their job? Think about that. What is a king to do? I’ve listed three. One, he’s to protect his people. Two, he’s to judge. That’s what a king was: he was a judge. He didn’t have a court system in ancient Israel; the king was the judge. So: protect his people, judge, and defeat his enemies. That’s the job of the king.

Genesis 49: The Scepter of Judah

Now, keep that in mind when we go along, but let’s look back at Genesis 49. Now, this should be familiar to most of you, because we saw this this morning. Eric did a great job with this wonderful passage. For the sake of you who weren’t there, we’ll take just a few minutes with it this evening as well. In Genesis 49, Jacob is blessing his sons toward the very end of his life, and he says to them in verse one: “Jacob called his sons and said, gather yourselves together that I may tell you what shall happen to you in days to come.” Now that expression in the Hebrew here invariably has reference to the distant days, the eschaton, the days that are promised, that will come. So, “Let me tell you what’s coming in the distant future.” And he goes through all of his sons and does that as we saw this morning.

We’ll focus on verse 10 exactly, but also verses 8 through 12. “Judah, he says, your brothers shall praise you. Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies. Your father’s sons shall bow down before you. Judah is a lion’s cub. From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down. He crouched as a lion. And as a lioness, who dares rouse him? Scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet until tribute comes to him, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. Binding his foal to the vine and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine, he has washed his garments in wine and his vesture in the blood of grapes. His eyes are darker than wine and his teeth whiter than milk.”

A lot of poetic imagery here. I don’t know how much of it we’ll get into, but clearly he’s speaking of the prominence of Judah that will come in the latter days. Verse 8: he’ll be prominent among his brethren. That is, he says, “your brothers shall praise you, your father’s sons shall bow down before you.” In verses 8 and 9, he has emphasized Judah’s power, specifically over his enemies. You’ll have your hand on their neck. He’s like a lion who comes that nobody can stop and nobody wants to mess with.

And then verse 10: “The scepter,” that’s the ruler’s staff, the kingly staff. “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet until tribute comes to him, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples,” peoples plural. The nations will bow before him and they’ll obey him, and he will rule over them all. So we have here then in verse 10 a promise of the continuation of the people of Judah until this great ruler arrives. You’ll have the scepter, the ruler’s staff.

Now the interpretation of this passage hinges on the meaning of this—what’s translated here as “until tribute comes to him.” This is a complicated argument in how the Hebrew word is put together, but the idea is that—and you see this in the translation sometimes—”until tribute comes to him,” or “until it comes to him to whom it belongs.” That is, until he comes to whom the scepter belongs, the ruler’s staff will not depart from him. It’s a cryptic prophecy, but he’s saying this ruler will arise out of Judah; the rulership, the scepter, belongs to him, and Judah will continue as a people until he comes. And all of the peoples will obey him, and he will have power over all of his enemies.

By the way, this was the Jewish understanding of the prophecy as well. Some of the ancient Jewish Targums even reflect that, and there’s their paraphrase of it: “Until Messiah comes” is the way they render it. But it’s all—we have that confirmed, by the way, and if you want to look at Ezekiel chapter 21, we have an echo of Jacob’s prophecy. Ezekiel chapter 21 and verse 27. In the context here, God is unleashing his sword against Israel. God’s sword that he’s unleashing against Israel is Babylon. He brings Babylon against Israel to judge them for their failure to keep the covenant. He’s addressing Zedekiah here, typically as the head of the Davidic house, and because they have sinned, he demands that he remove his turban, remove his crown. In other words, there’s going to be a loss of your kingship and the kingly line. The Davidic line is going to be overthrown. God will destroy the nation, He’ll overthrow the kingly line, and there’s going to be utter devastation. And this prophecy was fulfilled, of course, in 586 BC, finally when Babylon completed their sack of Israel.

But notice verse 27. He says in this prophecy, “a ruin, ruin, ruin.” Three times—that’s just for emphasis. “A ruin, ruin, ruin, I will make it. This also shall not be until he comes, the one to whom judgment belongs, and I will give it to him.” This is a deliberate echo, an obvious echo of the Jacob prophecy in Genesis chapter 49. So verse 27 is: a ruin will come to the Davidic line until it comes to whom it rightfully belongs. The line of David will be restored, but not until the righteous, the right person, the appointed king, comes. Ezekiel here is important then because it’s not just another Messianic prophecy, but it confirms the intent of Jacob’s prophecy in Genesis chapter 49.

Quickly, there are two aspects of this prophecy in Genesis 49. I’ve already mentioned this. One: Judah will continue to exist as a people. And then number two: one from Judah will rightfully hold the scepter of government and the obedience of the peoples will be given to him. The nations will bow before him in obedience. He will have worldwide rule. It’s a remarkable prophecy, particularly given how ancient it is. This is Genesis chapter 49. This prophecy was given that he will come from Judah and have worldwide rule.

Verses 11 and 12, if you’re back in Genesis 49, speak of the unprecedented prosperity that will mark his rule. Again, Eric spoke of this this morning. “Binding his foal to the vine and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine, he has washed his garments in wine and his vesture in the blood of grapes. His eyes are darker than wine and his teeth whiter than milk.” Poetic imagery, but the idea here is that under his reign, it will be so affluent, so prosperous, that you’ll tie your donkey to the vines. You would not tie your donkeys to the vines normally. You don’t want those vines being choked off, torn apart. You tie them to a post or something. But it is so prosperous, we have such an abundance of grapes, that you can tie them to the vine and if it breaks, it breaks. It’s not a problem because we have so many grapes.

Well, how much do we have? He says he will wash his garments in wine. We’ve got so many grapes, we can wash our clothes in it. That’s the idea here. “His eyes are darker than wine.” He’s drunk enough wine that you can see it in his eyes, these dark wine-colored eyes. And “his teeth whiter than milk.” We’ve got so much milk and we’re so prosperous with the cattle that our teeth turn white—the most poetic imagery. The harvest of grapes is so abundant, you wash your clothes in it, and your eyes turn dark from drinking it, and there is so much milk that your teeth turn white.

Well, we have some later echoes of this as well. Look at 1 Chronicles chapter five, verses one and two: “the sons of Reuben, the firstborn of Israel, for he was the firstborn, but because he defiled his father’s couch, his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph, the sons of Israel, so that he could not be enrolled as the oldest son. Though Judah became strong among his brothers, and a chief came from him, yet the birthright belonged to Joseph.” So there’s a touch of irony he’s mentioning here—that Reuben should have had the birthright, but he was excluded from it, and so it went to Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh. We’ve talked about this in Sunday school. And yet, although the birthright went to Joseph, here’s the strange turn: it’s Judah who rules. And that’s the chronicler’s understanding of Genesis 49 verse 10.

And then, of course, we have this coming to its grand climax in Revelation chapter five. You remember when there’s that scene in heaven where God is seated on his throne and he’s got the scroll in his hand, and who’s worthy to take it? And someone looks and says, “Look, the Lion of the tribe of Judah,”—Genesis 49—”the Lion of the tribe of Judah,” and everybody looks, and it’s a lamb as it had been slain. And it is Christ who has achieved the victory through his death, and now in his ascension, has been awarded with kingly glory, and he has taken the Judah’s scepter, and he rules over all. And then of course, through the rest of the book of Revelation, he carries out that rule in his judgment of the nations and bringing God’s kingdom to its climax.

So we have the ultimate fulfillment of Jacob’s prophecy, Genesis 49:10, in Christ ascended, taking the throne, and then finally, the lion finally roaring in his return and bringing the kingdom of God to its consummation.

All right, those are some beginning prophecies looking ahead to the coming of Christ. We’ll see a few more, and then we’ll get to the Psalms. All right, we’ll observe the Lord’s Table. Pastor Greg.