Christ: The Blessing to the nations

Advent Week 2

Merry Christmas! But what is it about Christmas that makes it so merry? For certain, we have songs that we sing like Jingle Bells and The Christmas Waltz that remind us of fun times and warm feelings, but feelings don’t last. To simply have a time set aside every year for fun decorations and good times without having any firm foundation behind the reason for those traditions is fruitless and pointless. And year after year after year of hollow tradition will grind away at a  man’s soul. What was once a joy and a delight as a child becomes an arduous task for an adult, because suddenly we find ourselves trying to manufacture emotions in us, in order to create an experience for our children or for others. And times are hard. And when times are hard and there is no reason for joy or for merriment, then we find ourselves miserable and self-condemned, unable to meet the standard we have set for the season. 

But Christmas is a time of “good news” and “glad tidings.” It is not a hollow tradition. It is not a house built on the sand of human emotions. The Advent season was instituted by the church to remind us of the great anticipation of this wonderful feast we’re preparing to celebrate on the 25th. It is a merry and joyful season because we are reminded of the promises and faithfulness of God throughout history to a lost and rebellious people living in direct disobedience to Him. And in the Bible, we see promise after promise in covenant after covenant that points to a coming revelation, a coming king, a coming age when all the promises of God will be fulfilled in a glorious Yes! and Amen! And at Christmastime, we celebrate the appearing of the fulfillment of those promises. We celebrate the appearing of our great salvation. We celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Word Made Flesh, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary to suffer and die for our sins and be raised to life again so that He could set the captives free from the bondage of the curse and the tyranny of the devil and the finality of death. 

This year, we are working our way through several of those promises. And God has communicated those promises throughout history in Covenants. Last week, Conrad preached on the promise given in the Garden of Eden to Adam and Eve that their seed would be at enmity with the seed of the serpent, and that he would crush the serpent’s head. Some people call it the Covenant of Redemption. It is the beginning of the Covenant of Grace: the promise of Jesus Christ, our Skull-Crushing Savior. This week, we will be looking at a promise that God makes to Abraham after God establishes his covenant with him. This promise is one of blessing: “In your seed all the nations shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice (v18).”

Today, we’re going to take a look at Genesis 22:1-19 in 3 parts in order to better understand how Jesus is the promised seed of Abraham, and what that means to us today.

I.Who is Abraham?
II.The Passage
III.Christ: The Blessing to the Nations