The Curse of Adam and Promise of Christ (Baptist Covenant Theology)

So Genesis three, one through seven. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the

Lord God had made. He said to the woman, did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?

And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it lest you die.

But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.

She also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked.

They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin cloths. So look at me real quick. How many of you, even the young people in here, how many of you have heard this story before?

Hopefully everybody, right? No, Caleb? Yeah, okay, good. Kind of weird, maybe had overlooked that.

So I wanna say, first of all, how important this is for us to understand the whole

Bible. We need to get this right. And I wanna say I've had a really fun time teaching this class.

I hope that you've benefited from it. Some of you have told me it's been a blessing to you. Well, you have encouraged me as well, but we want to understand how this whole book that God has given us fits together.

Now, this isn't gonna really be an exposition. I preached through Genesis 1 -11 a few years ago.

So if you're wanting more of a detail, like let's pick apart these verses, then let me know, I can send you a link to that.

What we're trying to do tonight is think about the big picture, okay? So what you have in these verses that I just read is what?

Somebody tell me, you can tell me. What, probably it's above your chapter three. What are we describing that just happened here?

The fall. Or we could say Adam broke what?

The covenant. Adam broke the covenant of works. In so doing, he invokes a curse upon himself.

He disobeyed God. God didn't break it, Adam broke it. He has failed to uphold, remember the standard, personal, perfect, precise, and perpetual obedience.

So because he is the leader here, he invokes a curse upon all creation.

Go down to verse 16 for a second. To the woman, he said, I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing.

Pain, you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband. He shall rule over you. And to Adam, he said, because you've listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which

I commanded you, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you.

And pain, you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles, it shall bring forth for you.

And you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread. Till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for you are dust.

And to dust, you shall return. Now, that is the curse upon creation.

Adam broke this covenant of works, but not only is creation cursed, Adam is what to mankind?

What word could you use? What? Representative, okay? The more clunky theological term, which it's a good term, but we just don't use it, phrase, federal head, okay?

But he's our representative. And because he's our representative, we've all sinned in Adam.

Romans 5 .12, it's on your sheet. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through how many people?

One man. Well, didn't Eve sin? Yes, but Adam is the representative. And death through sin.

So death spread to all men because all sinned. All sinned. All sinned how?

In Adam. I'll use some examples here. This will get some of you very encouraged. Think about our national debt.

You feel encouraged already, right? It's something trillions, trillions. It really, it's, I mean, it doesn't even make sense, right?

I might as well just say unicorns, right? Like, okay. But who owes our national debt?

Yeah, you. We're like, but I didn't do that, right? Yeah, but the government that represented you did, right?

Or think if, I'm always picking on Canada, but it's just so easy. Well, just think if the government declared war on Canada and then he would retort and say, well, you did that once and we beat you.

So bad memories there. But think of if we declare war on a country, who's at war?

All of us. Well, I didn't do it. Yeah, but your government did. So we understand the idea of representation.

So in a similar way, but listen to me, in a much more righteous way, Adam is our federal head.

Adam is our representative. And therefore, since Adam sinned, we are cursed in him.

A .W. Pink puts it this way. In decreeing and permitting Adam's fall with the consequent imputation of the guilt of his offense unto all his posterity,

God has wronged no man. God punishes none for Adam's personal sin, but only for his own sin in Adam.

The whole human race had a federal standing in Adam. Each of us was legally represented by him when

God instituted the covenant of work. So listen, I'm gonna put this into a lower rung here.

What happened in the garden is you sinned. No, I didn't. I wasn't there. You did in Adam.

Because your representative sinned, you sinned.

Now, we'll hold that for a second. We need to remember the kingdom of God motif, if you will.

I've mentioned it before. What are some attributes of a kingdom? What does a kingdom have to have?

It has to have subjects, has to have a king, right? So you have to have a king, you have to have subjects, you have to have laws, you have to have territory.

Yep, and God's kingdom was to be in Adam and then

Eve and spread over all the earth as Adam and Eve's progeny spread abroad.

That's what the kingdom would be. But now, think about this. I need you to think very hard.

Young people, teenagers, think very hard about this. Now, the kingdom, if you wanna think of it this way, the kingdom of the world, it was in Adam and Eve.

They were gonna spread over the earth, but now it's been transferred. To who?

Not yet. I'm talking about the kingdom of this world. The idea was for it to be one and the same.

Kingdom across the whole world, and it's Adam and Eve and their progeny and God's people.

That's the kingdom. But now Adam essentially has handed the kingdom to who?

Satan. The Bible says things like this in Matthew 4, 8, 9. Think about this. This is in Jesus' temptation.

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory.

And he said to him, all these I will what? I will give you.

What does that mean? How is Satan gonna, how could he give them? Yeah, in a sense, in one sense, although on the ultimate sense,

God owns it all. But in one sense, Satan is in control of the world in one sense.

I mean, God is obviously sovereign over Satan, but what I mean is there is a kingdom now.

In Genesis 2, think of it this way. There's one kingdom. Now there are how many kingdoms? There's two.

There's the kingdom of Satan, or you might call it the kingdom of this world, and there's the kingdom of Christ. Remember a few weeks ago,

Luke 22, 29. And I signed you as my father. Is that on your sheet? I signed you as my father assigned to me a what?

A kingdom. Jesus came to bring what? A kingdom. So what we will see is that even in the

Garden of Eden, after the fall, the kingdom of Christ begins to be ushered in, though in opposition to this kingdom of the world, though it's just gonna be in seed form as God begins to work to establish

His plan from the beginning, which is what is God's plan from the beginning? Let's drill this in our brain.

What is God's plan from the beginning? To have a people for Himself spread throughout the whole earth to glorify

Him and enjoy Him forever. Now, this is what we need to think. So that's a lot.

We're taking in a lot. Pause for a second. So you have the kingdom in Adam.

You have the kingdom broken. Now you have this kingdom that's gonna be ushered in in Christ.

I heard some of you say that earlier, and you're right. Now Adam has given the reins over, and now the kingdom is gonna be ushered in in Christ, but a very important way now that that's gonna happen because now there's a covenant of works, but it's broken.

So how are we gonna get that back? How's the kingdom going to happen now?

What is the way that the kingdom is gonna be established? What's the answer? Or we say a different way with just one word.

Starting with a G, the gospel. Yeah, all those words I'm hearing, they were good.

So now this brings us to Genesis 3 .15. Now a little bit of overlap from Sunday school, but I think that's okay.

So Genesis 3 .15 says what? This is God's cursing the serpent.

So let's start in verse 14. The Lord God said to the serpent. So you have the blame game, remember? God's like to Adam, why did you do this?

What does Adam say? I'm so sorry. No, he says, it was the woman who what? You gave me, okay?

And then Eve, why did you do this? Eve says it's the serpent. And then God doesn't give the serpent an opportunity, does he?

He doesn't say why, he just curses. And in the midst of this curse, you have verse 15.

God to the serpent. I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring.

He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. I'm gonna try not to be too repetitive from Sunday school, but there are two seeds here, two offsprings.

What are they? That's right, yeah, that's right. Just right there in the text, right? Two offspring, what are they?

The serpent of the serpent and of the woman. This is actually gonna be typified, which we won't spend a lot of time.

We won't even really cover it because we're just doing big. But this is really typified in Cain and Abel.

You understand? That's what's happening here. In fact, 1 John 3, 12 says, we should not be like Cain who was of the evil one and murdered his brother.

What does that mean, Cain was of the evil one? Yeah, very similar to Ephesians 2.

It says when we weren't Christians, before we were Christians, we were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.

I hope that you're hearing what I'm trying to say. I'm speaking really fast, I'm speaking really big. Listen to me, in this world today, there are how many kingdoms?

And there are how many types of people? There are people who follow who?

Christ, and there are people who follow Satan. All people in Adam, before we're converted, we're not neutral.

It's not like, oh, you're gonna follow Christ one day, maybe, no, no. There's no neutrality. You're either following Christ or you're in Adam following under the rule and dominion, if you will, in a sense, the kingdom of this world, the kingdom of Satan.

So you see that war. So it actually helped you read the Bible very well. You begin to read the

Old Testament, this should always be in the back of your mind. What is happening in Genesis four?

You have Cain, who is jealous and mad at, not

Seth, but at Abel. So you have Cain of the evil one. What's the other guy's name?

Abel. I like got Seth in my mind. Abel, who is, has faith.

Now, the seed of the woman represents those of faith, trusting Messiah and following God.

The seed of the serpent represents those following the devil. These two seeds, the text says, are at enmity.

Okay, so again, you can think of the two kingdoms and these two seeds, the kingdom of the evil one, the kingdom of Christ. These two kingdoms today are at war.

Jeff Johnson puts it this way. From this point forward, there would be two different seeds, the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman.

The promised seed of the woman is Christ, yet the seed of the woman also includes all those who are united in Christ by faith.

The elect seed would become the children of God. The children of the serpent, on the other hand, are those who war against the children of God.

Christ and Satan and the children of God and the children of Satan will battle throughout redemptive history.

It's what you see the whole Bible as you're reading it. The people of God are in Egypt.

What's happening? Egypt versus the people of God, right? Like versus Moab, all the numbers

I was reading that this morning. So now we get this crucial point at the end of verse 15.

So I'll put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.

What we have here is the seed form, pun intended,

I guess, of the gospel. Now I remind you what our confession says. We're gonna get to the gospel.

The confession says, we looked at this Sunday, because the covenant works was broken by sin and was unable to confer life,

God was pleased to proclaim the promise of Christ, the seed of the woman, as the means of calling the elect and producing in them faith and repentance.

In this promise, the gospel in its substance was revealed and made effectual for the conversion and salvation of sinners.

Okay, I'm gonna address this. Before I do, we need to take a few notes from the text.

Number one, what was Adam and Eve's response to God when they sinned?

Go back to verse seven. What did they do? Well, they blame each other, but the first thing they do before they blame each other is they look at verse seven.

They try to cover themselves, right? They try to fix it. You ever seen your kids hiding, right?

They think they're hidden and they're like, they're giggling, you know, like the whole bed shaking.

You're like, I see you, right? These guys are like, hey, we sinned.

We've ushered the sin curse into the entire cosmos. We'll put some fig leaves on.

God probably won't even notice, right? Like, hey, what's up, right? You know, how foolish, but I'm gonna tell you something.

You laugh, no, but I'm saying that's what we do. Oh, we sinned.

Oh, we sinned. You know what, I'm gonna go to church. I'll pay some money. Oh, I'll get baptized. Hey God, we're good now, right?

Oh, you know what? I helped that person cross the street. I get heaven points. I actually heard someone say that to me. I get heaven points.

Well, this is what Adam and Eve doing. They're covering themselves up with this, the fig leaves. Secondly, they're running away, right?

So verse eight, they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and the man and his wife hid themselves.

Genesis three, or sorry, Romans three says, there is none who seek God. They don't seek

God. They're not looking for God. Hey, we messed up. How can we make this right? They're not, but here is the thing you need to hear.

Verse nine, what is God's response? Oh Lord, God called to the man.

Does God not know where he's at? Boy, I wonder where Adam's at. No, God knows where he's at.

Why does he call to the man? Because God is going to show him grace.

God knows. God doesn't have to, you know, think, you know, like, I wonder what, no. God could have, right?

Man, you think about this. This is what we don't, we don't really grasp this. At that moment of Adam and Eve's transgression,

God could have smoked the whole thing. God could have thrown everyone into hell and God could have just had people continue to be born in hell in Adam and Eve for all eternity.

I mean, God could have done it that way. God could have had justice right there in that moment, but instead he shows his grace.

Where are you, Adam? And then one final observation.

When does God pronounce the consequences on Adam and Eve? You need to see this in the text.

It's verse 16 and following. God pronounces the consequences on Adam and Eve. Verse 16, pain and childbearing, controversy, conflict in the marriage.

Verse 17, the work and everything is going to be hard.

All this is terrible, but do you know what happens before the consequences?

The promise. In verse 15, before God pronounces the consequences for their sin, he announces the promise.

That is, there is going to be one from the line of Adam and Eve, the seed of the woman who

I, which I'm saying is typifies the virgin birth, who is going to crush the head of the serpent.

Now, as a side note, well, let me just mention, God is gracious, he's in control, he has a plan. His purposes will be established.

But as a side note, let me just mention this. It's not an accident that Satan hates children.

It's not an accident. There are times in the Bible, Pharaoh is one of them.

What does Pharaoh do? He wants to kill children in Exodus. Herod wants to kill children at the birth of Christ.

Why? Well, in one sense, Satan is trying to prevent, maybe, maybe it's foolish, but trying to prevent this promise of God come to fruition.

If it's going to be a baby born, then if I just kill all the babies, it's done, right?

That's one thing. But today, the war on children continues. I'm just trying to tell you, it is not an accident that you have government saying, it is okay for children to mutilate themselves.

It's not an accident that you have the government saying, women can just take this pill and kill the baby inside of them.

That's not an accident. It's happening because Satan hates children.

It all stems back from this text. He hates the seed of the woman. He hates children because they're made in the image of God and each child represents one who

God may possibly redeem if they repent and believe the gospel. Okay, but that was a side note.

Back to our text. What I'm telling you in Genesis 3 .15 is you have the substance of the gospel.

You have someone that is going to come and bruise the head of the serpent.

That's a mortal wound. Even though the serpent will also bruise him, but only his heel.

Let me read you a couple of quotes. John Bunyan. The seed, Jesus Christ, in his bruising the head of the serpent must take away sin, abolish death and conquer the power of the grave.

But how must this be done? Why? He must remove the curse, which makes sin intolerable and death destructive.

But how must he take away the curse? Why? By taking upon him flesh as we, by being made under the law as we, by being made to be sin for us and by being made a curse for us.

He standing therefore in our room under the law and the justice of God did both bear and overcome the curse.

And so did bruise the power of the devil. I know you guys know this. It's superfluous for me to even mention it. Tomorrow is

Benjamin Keech's birthday. February 29th, 1640. So just a hat tip to Benjamin Keech.

I'm gonna read a quote from him. It's not on your sheet. He says, bruising the serpent's head, whereby the serpent is meant the devil who seduced

Eve in that form. And by the serpent's head, his power and diabolical fierceness.

So the breaking of his head is to be performed by the Messiah, God man, and signifies the destruction of the power and kingdom of the devil and man's redemption from its tyranny and vassalage.

Our savior is figured here as a magnificent hero who with his feet tramples upon the serpent or dragon and breaks his head.

But it is said that the serpent shall bruise his heel by which phrase, the passion and death of Christ is meant. And then one more, and then

I'm gonna say it in a different way. James Buchanan says this, the announcement of God's purpose of mercy was made in general terms.

And he gave no definite information on many points in which are now more fully and clearly revealed.

But it contained enough to lay a solid foundation for faith and hope towards God. And it was the beam, first beam of gospel light, which dawned on our fallen world.

So listen to me, here's what's happening in Genesis 3 .15. I'm not saying that you could write an entire systematic theology on the person and work of Christ, just from Genesis 3 .15.

But I am saying to you that in the midst of darkness, at the very moment of transgression, at the very moment of rebellion, at the very moment mankind turned its back on God, God offers hope.

There's going to be someone who's going to come and undo what you have done,

Adam. There's going to be the seed of the woman, the offspring of the woman, who is going to crush and defeat the devil.

First John 3, eight says it this way, the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

And this he did at great cost to him. My watch is dead, so I have to keep looking over here.

The serpent bruised his heel. The Messiah died. He tasted death for us.

He had to die. Bearing the curse of the law, bearing God's righteous wrath against covenant breakers.

This is what you need to understand. Young people, teenagers, adults, you're born under a broken covenant.

The covenant works didn't just go away. God wasn't like, oh, you know what? That didn't work. I guess we'll try something else.

No, you're born in brokenness. You're born sinned, having sinned in Adam.

And then as soon as you're able, you sin yourself because you want to. You're born under this broken covenant and you needed someone to keep what you've already broken and to pay the penalty that you owe for breaking it.

And this we have in Christ. It is by this promise here in Genesis 3 .15

and by subsequent revealed promises that we're gonna work through in our covenant theology. It's by these promises that God's people saw the coming of Christ and that saints in the

Old Testament would be saved. They looked to the promise and were saved. The promise of the gospel though, now listen carefully because if you miss this, you'd be like, what did he just say?

The promise of the gospel is not enough. What has to happen?

It must be apprehended by faith. Do you understand? So this is important for you guys.

Some of you in here listening to this, you need to hear this point very much. It's not enough that you can even know the gospel.

It's not enough that you can just regurgitate the gospel. It's not enough that you're sitting in here tonight and you're hearing the gospel.

It wasn't enough for Adam and Eve just to hear the gospel. What must they do? They must believe it.

They must trust it. They must put their faith in Christ. Now, the people of God have always been those of faith, even in the

Old Testament. The true church is in the Old Testament. The true church has always consisted of those justified by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to God's glory alone.

The church is present in the Old Testament, even in seed form, another pun, I guess. The seed of the woman, those looking forward to the

Messiah, that is the church. Okay, you're like, well, that's Israel. No, no, no, because there's a lot, you understand there's a long time before we're gonna get to the physical people of Israel, right?

What do you do with all those people from Adam to Jacob, right? Oh, there's just all of them, like, are they just, how do you categorize them?

No, those looking forward to the promise of Christ, they are the true church.

So it is with Israel. True Israel is the true church. The true church is the true

Israel. This all goes together. Now, did Adam and Eve believe this promise? You can look at the sheet and find out my answer, but if you weren't looking at the sheet, what would you say?

Did Adam and Eve, are we gonna see Adam and Eve in heaven? We're gonna see

Adam and Eve in heaven. Piper says, yes. Why do you think so? Huh?

Yeah, God does give grace, but I think we have evidence of them believing the gospel.

I'm gonna give you four evidences, okay? I didn't have time to alliterate them, so I just got to roll with it.

Number one, number one evidence I think Adam and Eve believed the promise.

Number one, Adam named his wife Eve. Look at verse 20. That's not a great translation. It's really in Hebrew, it's

Havah. Eve comes from the Greek back, anyway, it's fine.

It's fine, it doesn't matter. Her name, we'll call her Eve. The man called his wife's name

Eve. Why? Because she was the mother of all living.

There's a play on words here between the Hebrew word Havah and life.

The idea here is this appears to be an act of believing

God's promise. Eve is going to be the mother of all what? Living. This is gonna happen and the

Messiah is going to be born. The seed of the woman, as I said, is the foreshadowing, the virgin birth of Jesus.

Adam could have named his wife anything. He could have named her Rachel, right? Where's Rachel? But I don't have a great

Batman voice, but he doesn't. He names her Eve for a specific reason. He believed the promise.

Secondly, Eve believed God. In Genesis four, verse one, now

Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain saying, I have gotten a man with the help of the

Lord. Now, this is a very interesting phrase in Hebrew. It really can be translated like this.

I have gotten a man, even Yahweh. That's really fascinating. If that's the right way that it should be translated,

Eve thinks that she gave birth to the God man, right? That's fascinating to me.

Now, maybe you're not supposed to translate it that way. Even if you're not, like, even if someone's like, well, no, actually syntactically, it can't be.

You still have Eve saying that the only way that she's able to give birth is by the help of who?

Yahweh, which seems to be an understanding that she trusts this promise that God has given her.

And I think that in her mind, she thinks Cain is gonna be the Messiah, right? Now, we can laugh.

I'm like, ha ha, you missed that one, didn't you? You're like, way off, right? But we're like that when it comes to God's promises.

God makes promises and we want to win. Now, yesterday, right now, boy, does she not understand that we need to be patient and see

God's plan unfold? Thirdly, God clothed Adam and Eve in animal skins.

Verse 21, and the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothing.

Now, I want you guys, you buck deer guys over here to really think about this. Where do the skins come from?

Maybe a buck deer, maybe so. I walked into that one,

I mean, I saw you. Okay, but hold on just a second. If the skins come from an animal, the animal has to die.

And I believe what we see here is the first physical death in God's world. Animals die in the place of Adam and Eve.

A blood sacrifice is made and God now clothes his people in the robes of another.

And I believe this is because it's showing us that Adam and Eve are ultimately spiritually clothed in the robes of our

Lord Jesus Christ. Fourthly, and finally, I'm saying that I think

Adam and Eve didn't just hear this gospel, but they believed it. Fourthly, Adam and Eve pass on the faith to subsequent generations.

So for example, there's more examples I could use, but let me just give you an example. Hebrews 11, four says, by faith,

Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous.

God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, whatever. No, no, listen, where does Abel get this faith?

Where does the faith come? Hey, where does the Bible say faith comes from? Faith comes by hearing and hearing by what?

The word of Christ. Now that's Romans 10, 17. You say, well, that's just in the New Testament. Huh? No, the

New Testament says that people in the Old Testament were saved by what? Faith. Well, where did that faith come from?

Only in the New Testament faith comes from the gospel? No, it's always come from the gospel.

It's always come from the proclamation of the gospel. So the question you have to ask yourself is, where did Abel hear the gospel?

Where? His parents, which by the way, parents, family worship has been around for a long time, hasn't it?

Adam and Eve passed on the faith to subsequent generations.

So what we've learned tonight is that in the midst of darkness, God is shining a great light.

At the very fall of man, at the breaking of the covenant of works, God brought forth the promise, the substance of the gospel of a coming

Messiah who is King Jesus. And I'm gonna tell you tonight, and you need to hear it. Sinners have always and only been saved one way, by faith alone, grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

That's it. Guys, if you're in here tonight and you're basing your hope on something else, you are foolish.

If you just think to yourself, well, I just, yeah, I know the gospel, my parents know the gospel, pastor preaches the gospel.

No, no, no, you have to trust it. You have to understand that this battle between two kingdoms, even though Christ has come, is the battle over, huh?

No way, you see it all, we see it everywhere. Like, and don't get, like, don't, it's

Democrats and Republicans. It's not what we're talking about, right? We're talking about something much bigger here.

Christ has come by his life, death, burial, and resurrection. He has bruised the serpent's head.

But have you ever, you ever hit a snake pretty good and maybe it's dead, but it's still flopping around, right?

Or maybe even cut off its head, its body's still flopping around. That's the imagery

I think of with Satan. Oh, he's wounded, he's mortally wounded, but he's not, he's raging, right?

And so we understand that these two things are still happening. Let me read a couple of quotes and then we're done. Philip Griffiths, there are essentially two primary covenants made in time.

That made with the first Adam and the new covenant made with Christ, the second Adam. Those who live before Christ look forward to the ratification or the formal establishment of the new covenant and the shedding of Christ's blood.

In believing the promise, they became recipients of what Christ was to achieve. Even though the work that this covenant necessitated had not yet been worked out, believers still became members of it, beneficiaries of its blessing.

That's a good summation of what we walked through the last three weeks. Now, what we're gonna do next week is we're gonna move from here to Noah.

We're gonna just start walking through these covenants and we're gonna look at the Noahic covenant. But let me close tonight with a quote from Sam Rinehan, which

I think kind of helps us think through all that we've talked about and then give us a big picture and then we'll start stepping through the remainder of the covenants.

That's what we're gonna do. So Sam Rinehan, in Genesis 1 -3, a covenant was made with a son of God, commissioned to make the entire cosmos a consummated kingdom of God, filled with a perfect and sinless seed in perfect communion with God, building and creating culture to God's glory and with God's blessing.

Israel is portrayed as a new son of God in a new paradise with a new covenant for a new kingdom.

That kingdom will have a temple requirements of righteousness and promises of life. An everlasting covenant was made with the true and eternal son of God, granting life and an eternal kingdom.

That kingdom will have a temple, requirements of righteousness and promises of life. And we, friends, are going to get to all of that as we continue on and we'll start next week with the