Greg Boyd introduces this year’s Christmas series, Fulfilled. Each week during this series we are looking at Old Testament prophesies about the incarnation of Jesus. In this first sermon, Greg addresses how the Old Testament proclaims that the coming Messiah will overcome Satan and evil.
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The Serpent and the Star
• Greg Boyd
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This sermon opens a new series entitled Fulfilled, where we’ll be exploring Old Testament prophesies regarding the coming of Jesus. Greg opens by explaining what prophesies are and what they are not. They’re not declarations that give us insight into the events of the future. This is called divination, a pagan practice that is forbidden by the Scriptures. Instead, prophesies are expressions of what God promises to bring about to honor his covenantal promises to Israel and ultimately to the world.
This sermon explores two of these prophesies. The one quoted in the “Focus Scriptures” from Genesis 3 is the oldest prophesy recorded in the Bible. Centuries before humans started to make sense of their world through science, they told stories about why things were the way they were. These are called etiological tales. This one is told to explain why snakes slither on the ground and seem to eat dust, why there is a natural hostility between humans and snakes, why women experience such pain during childbirth, and why working the land is so hard. Most importantly, it explains why we humans feel like we’ve been estranged from the Creator.
In the midst of this etiological tale, God gives his first prophecy: while the serpent will strike at the heels of Eve’s descendants, one of Eve’s descendants shall crush his head. We now know that God is speaking about our warfare with a deceptive cosmic serpent, but thousands of years ago, God spoke the language of etiological tales. This passage reveals that God has always been willing to graciously accommodate the limited and fallen framework of people to reveal a level of truth they were capable of understanding. In the process, God promises that a descendant of Eve will deliver us from the ancient serpent.
The second prophesy quoted, from Numbers, requires a bit of backstory. Balak, king of Moab, was about to go to war with the Israelites. He hired a diviner named Balaam to curse Israel. However, each time Balaam goes out to ask the gods to curse them, Yahweh appears and tells him that he cannot curse these people, because Yahweh has blessed them. Balak continues to send Balaam back. Then on the last trip up the mountain on the back of his donkey, the angel of the Lord appears. The donkey sees and stops, but Balaam can’t see it. He beats the donkey and the donkey complains, “Why are you beating me?” The donkey had more spiritual insight than Balaam did. Finally, at the top of the mountain, he saw the truth and proclaimed the prophesy found in Numbers 24:17.
God is saying through Balaam that the shining star he sees in the distance will crush the forehead of Moab. The victory of the star is spoken in terms of violence against Moab. God here accommodates the fallen world view of violence, while also accommodating the practice of divination and sacrificing animals. God accommodates the fallen heart of a greedy divination-expert-for-hire who desperately wanted to curse Israel. Jesus overcomes not by pursuing ascent but by descending from his heavenly throne to meet people in their reality.
The little helpless baby born in Bethlehem on that first Christmas morning is none other than “the Alpha and Omega, First and the Last, Beginning and the End” (Revelation 22), all terms Yahweh uses to identify himself in Isaiah. The true eternal king is anointed by God to defeat the false morning star, the Dragon that was cast out of heaven and held humanity and the creation in its deceptive death grip since the dawn of time.
Greg closes out the sermon by highlighting three ways to respond to these prophesies. First, recognize the beauty of the God who stoops. God meets us where we are and leads us forward. He comes to us in love and continues to do so because this is his nature. Second, make these prophesies your own. Embrace what God is saying here as if they are personally written to you, because they are. Third, enter into the world of others. As God entered into our reality, God empowers us to engage others in theirs.
Hide Extended SummaryTopics: Christmas, Love, Spiritual Warfare
Sermon Series: Fulfilled
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The MuseCast: December 2
Focus Scripture:
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Genesis 3:14-15
So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,
“Cursed are you above all livestock
and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.
And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.” -
Numbers 24:17
"I see him, but not now;
I behold him, but not near.
A star will come out of Jacob;
a scepter will rise out of Israel.
He will crush the foreheads of Moab,
the skulls of all the people of Sheth."
