A New Way of Reading Scripture
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A New Way of Reading Scripture
The Heidelblog has just published the first part of a three part series I've written titled, "The Search for the Second Adam"
More than anything, the Bible is a great unfolding drama with all kinds of plot twists and unexpected turns. The big picture that I want you to see has to do with the promise in Genesis chapter 3. God made the world good. In fact, after he made man, he called his creation very good. And yet somehow, our first parents took all the good gifts they had been given and used them to commit high treason. Nonetheless, God did not leave mankind in this fallen condition. Though death entered the world through this fall, God nevertheless promised that one day a child would be born who would victoriously defeat his enemy. Though his heal would be bruised, this promised child, this son of Adam and Eve would one day crush the serpent’s head.
In many ways, the Bible is the unpacking of this initial promise in Genesis 3:15. Christians across the centuries have referred to this as the proto-evangelium, a pre-gospel. It’s a kind of seed that, once it is planted here in Genesis, eventually grows and develops across the pages of scripture into a great fruit-bearing tree. And so one of the questions that Bible readers should ask from this point in the story, is whether or not any of the new characters who are introduced in subsequent chapters might in fact be this child of promise.
The first child born to Adam and Eve quickly revealed that he was not in fact the savior of mankind but, rather, was a kind of first anti-Christ. Whereas Adam and Eve were given the commission to be fruitful and multiply, with Cain, we see the principle of death and division as he slays his brother Abel in an act of cold-blooded murder. Clearly, this was not the new Adam…