Genesis 4

Chapter 4. The Beginning of RedemptionGen_3:9-14, Genesis 3:20-24

Section I: In the Story of the Fall

Section I—In the Story of the FallRedemption begins with God and His seeking love. His tender question “Adam, where are you?” (Genesis 3:9) echoes through the ages in the shepherd’s cry for his lost sheep and the father’s search for his prodigal child. It is not the voice of the detective pursuing a criminal, but it is the cry of the father seeking his lost son. God’s Seeking Love

1. There is something infinitely touching in the simplicity with which God is here represented. He seems almost to have come down to the garden as at other times, not even suspecting His children’s sin, nor willing to think evil of them, but treating them as though they were still His loving household, and glad as at other times to welcome His communion. Of course we do not mean that God was ignorant of their sin, but His heart seems to refuse to believe it. This strange confidence of God and His desire to have confidence, even in spite of His people’s sin, are unutterably beautiful and as high above our thoughts as heaven is above the earth. So we see Him afterwards coming down to visit the cities of the plain, to see “if what they have done is as bad as the outcry” (Genesis 18:21) that had gone up to heaven, and almost hoping that there might be some explanation; “if not, I will know.” So He says of ancient Israel, “‘Surely they are my people, sons who will not be false to me’; and so he became their Savior” (Isaiah 63:8). And so God is still seeking lost man, and calling him through His Spirit, His Word, His Providence and all the agencies of His grace. “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9). “Return to me” (Isaiah 44:22). “Be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20). The salvation of every soul begins with God. Unconscious of it at the time, perhaps, yet in eternity we shall find with adoring gratitude and wonder, the truth of His gracious words, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness” (Jeremiah 31:3). Why was I made to hear His voice And enter while there’s room, While others make a fatal choice And rather starve than come? ‘Twas the same love that spread the feast That sweetly brought me in; Else I had still refused to taste, And perished in my sin. The Promised Seed2. The second stage in the development of redemption is the veiled promise of the coming Savior. This may have been but dimly understood by those who heard it first, but we know in the light of all that has followed, that the promised seed of Genesis 3:15 was none other than the great Redeemer. His humanity is distinctly foreshadowed in the description of Him as the “seed of the woman.” His sufferings and triumphs over the adversary are more distinctly implied in the words, “He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” (Genesis 3:15). His conquering feet were to be placed on the head of the dragon, but in the act of triumph He was to receive the death-blow from the serpent’s sting, and for a moment sink in suffering and death as the cost of victory and salvation. But the suffering should not be vain, for the adversary should be crushed and eventually destroyed through His death and resurrection. Henceforth the picture of the coming Messiah is one of mingled victory and suffering, of glory and humiliation. The contrasted colors blend so constantly, that the picture was at length mistaken by the Jews. They saw only the coming Victor and forgot His wounds and death; and when He came, He was rejected even by His own, although we can see in their Scriptures the constant picture of His sufferings, as well as the glory which should follow. The Church of today is in like manner forgetting the other side of the picture and losing the vision of His Coming in the shadow of His Cross. Satan Conquered
2. The promise of the Victor carries along with it the destruction of the enemy. So the first aspect of redemption revealed in Genesis is the conflict between the serpent and the Lord. It is to the serpent that the promise of redemption is first made, as though he were to be held primarily responsible for the fall; and his crime is to be avenged most bitterly for him by the assurance that his fiendish work should fail, and his purposes of destruction be thwarted and counteracted by divine love and grace. Henceforth the work of redemption was to be a great contest, not between man and Satan merely, but between God and Satan. This is a standpoint from which the gospel and the New Testament constantly lead us to regard our temptations and spiritual adversaries. We are to meet them as God’s enemies rather than merely ours, recognizing that the battle is not ours but God’s, and defying them from the beginning as conquered foes. Hence we find that the advent of Jesus on earth was attended by the special manifestation of Satanic power, and soon led to the personal combat between the Redeemer and the devil, which continued to the very end of His earthly ministry. On the cross He gave the adversary his death blow. His resurrection and ascension expelled Satan from access to the heavenly world, and through the Christian age He has been rescuing, one by one, His flock from the power of darkness and the kingdom of Satan; and in a little while He shall return to bind the tyrant for a thousand years, and a little later to hurl him to the bottomless pit. (See Luke 10:18; Revelation 12:9; Revelation 20, etc.) The Holy Seed
3. While we are to understand the “seed of the woman” as primarily and ultimately referring to Christ, yet the connection of the passage in Genesis, and the analogy of all other Scriptures, authorize us also to apply it to all Christ’s people who are recognized as the divine seed in union with Him, and partaking of all His redemption rights and blessings. They are called a little later the seed of Abraham; and the apostle teaches us that this expression includes all the children of faith. We may give the seed of the woman as wide an application. In a still wider sense it might be applied to the whole human family, who are undoubtedly the seed of Eve. But in this passage there is a twofold humanity. There is the seed of the serpent as well as the seed of the woman. What can the former mean except carnal, corrupt human nature, the men and women in all the ages whose moral and spiritual being are morally the offspring of Satan and of whom Jesus says: “You belong to your father, the devil” (John 8:44). The weeds were “the sons of the evil one” (Matthew 13:38). We believe therefore that these two expressions, “the seed of the woman” and “the seed of the serpent,” denote respectively the two races or classes of men who from this time developed through all the succeeding dispensations, with the clearest line of demarcation, and represented the followers of the wicked one, and the covenant people of God. Now God tells the devil in these words of Genesis that He is going to make a separation between these two classes, and keep His own people a distinct people, both from Satan and from his followers. A Threefold Conflict There is, indeed, a threefold conflict here described: Woman to Be Redeemed First: “I will put enmity between you and the woman” (Genesis 3:15). That is, Eve herself and her daughters shall be saved from the unholy alliance with Satan, which he had attempted to establish, and for a time succeeded, and that Eve herself, and woman preeminently through the coming ages, should be the loyal antagonist and bitter foe of her great destroyer. This has been gloriously fulfilled in the holy women both of the Old Testament and of the New, and it is preeminently true of the Church in every age, that not only has woman been Satan’s most injured victim, but Satan’s most powerful enemy, and Christ’s most loving, true-hearted friend. The Godly and the Wicked Then there is the second conflict between the woman’s seed and the serpent’s seed. This undoubtedly denotes the line of faith and godliness which runs through the Old Testament, and becomes the Church of the New Testament, in contrast with the ungodly race which commenced in the line of Cain and runs all through the ages. The Families of Seth and Cain We see these two seeds first in Cain and Abel, and afterwards in Cain and Seth. We see them again in the godly members of Seth’s family, such as Enoch and Noah and, on the other hand, in the descendants of Cain, and the monsters of the antediluvian wickedness, who at length overwhelmed the world with corruption, and made the destruction of the race inevitable, in order to effect the salvation of the godly remnant. Separation in Patriarchal Times We see the two seeds next in the patriarchal line of faith and covenant blessing, in contrast with the proud conquerors of Babel and Ashur, the wicked Canaanites and descendants of Lot and Esau and the pride and earthly power of ancient Egypt. Israel and the Gentiles In the later centuries we trace the two lines in the chosen people and the godly line in the kingdoms of Judah and Israel on the one hand, and, in contrast, the Gentile nations and the apostate people of God themselves. In the New Testament and through the Christian age, the lines continue as the Church and the world, and they shall be on earth when the Master comes. The Church and the World The purpose of God for these two races is separation. And the necessity of their opposite characters is irreconcilable enmity. The world has ever hated, and must hate, the spirit of godliness and the true seed. And the Church of Christ must hate the spirit of the world, although it may love its victims, and live and labor for their salvation. But it can never do this on the plane of the world itself, but on the higher ground of separation. So far as the serpent’s seed remains in the individual soul, there must be the same enmity and ceaseless strife. “For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want” (Galatians 5:17). The Son of Man The third stage of this conflict culminates in the coming of the personal seed—the Son of Man Himself, and then the battle is changed from unequal conflict to glorious victory. Then it is that the serpent’s head is bruised, and the conflict crowned with triumph. The battle of the ages is to end in His glorious coming. And the battle of the soul reaches its crisis likewise and rises to a shout of triumph when He comes in, its indwelling Lord and Victor. Mercy Before Judgment
4. The promise of redemption and the revelation of God’s great plan of mercy are made to Adam and Eve before God proceeds to pass judgment upon them. This is infinitely gracious. And it affords us a little glimpse of His grace in His whole method of dealing with man. How naturally we might expect Him to meet His disobedient children with indignation and severest judgment. How inexcusably had they abused their blessings, and all the kindness of His love and care! How recklessly had they thrown away their inheritance and all their hopes! How shamefully had they yielded themselves to the hands of His bitter adversary and dishonored Him before His enemy! And how utterly disappointing to His heart of love to find all of His purposes of blessing for the earth and man wrecked in a moment by the rashness and disobedience of those whom He had so richly blessed. He alone could fully understand the awful issues of this hour, the countless victims of their sin and folly, and the ages of misery and woe which they had in a moment ushered in. Surely it would have been a little thing had He stricken them in a moment from existence and indignantly closed the scene of human history forever. But how different! Calmly, tenderly, He listens to their excuses and gives them every opportunity to justify or palliate the sin. Then He proceeds to pass judgment on the tempter, leaving for a little in abeyance their tremendous fault. And then, before one word of judgment has fallen on their heads, He unfolds, in the beautiful promise we have already explained, His wondrous plan of redeeming mercy. He does not even seem to be agitated, far less bewildered and defeated by their sin. He is perfectly prepared to meet all its emergencies. The remedy has been ready for ages, and He begins to unfold it in the hour that their sin and fall have made it necessary. The Indians have a tradition that wherever the rattlesnake is found there always grows in the neighboring forests a little plant which is a certain antidote to the fatal sting. And so redemption springs in all its healing power amid the very earliest seeds of sin and misery, and God prepares His balm of healing even before the serpent has time to strike his fatal blow. How marvelous His resources! How wonderful His love! Nothing is too hard for the Lord. If any situation could have overwhelmed Him it was this. And the love and grace that so met and overcame it can meet all our needs and all our misery and sin. So, again, we see this principle of mercy overcoming judgment in the story of Exodus. After God had given the law on Mount Sinai the people fell, within a few days, into the most fearful outbreak of idolatry. When Moses returned from the mount where he had been receiving the plan of the Tabernacle, he found a scene of surprising and abominable wickedness, and for a moment was utterly overwhelmed with amazement and indignation. But God, while not less displeased, was all ready for the fearful occasion. Indeed, He had for the past 40 days been wholly employed in preparing the remedy for the very thing which had now occurred, namely, the Tabernacle of mercy, which was to be to the sinning people the type of their atoning Savior, and the way of access for pardon and cleansing until His actual coming. So still the gospel comes to sinful man along with the revelation of sin and misery, and the Spirit of grace seeks to awaken the consciousness of evil, only that He may heal it forever in the redeeming blood and grace of Christ. God does not wait until we deserve or even seek His grace, but He is “rich in mercy” (Ephesians 2:14), so that He loved us even when we were dead in sin. Redemption Through Eve
5. Redemption is revealed as to come through the woman, inasmuch as she had been the channel of the temptation and the direct instrument of the fall. This is her high honor, and may well make her Savior doubly dear to her loving heart. Surely every woman ought to hate Satan and love the Lord Jesus Christ. The mystery of the incarnation is distinctly foreshadowed in this promise; and the birth of Jesus, through the supernatural operation of the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary, has lifted the humanity of Christ above the breath of human passion and earthly taint, and yet made Him the literal Brother of our race and partaker of our complete humanity in the fullest sense. It was necessary that He who bore our sins should be one of the sinful race, and that He in whom we stand as redeemed men should be Himself a man. The perfect humanity of Christ is one of the essential foundations of redemption, and is demonstrated as completely by the story of His earthly life and the records of His infirmities and sensibilities and of all our needs and suffering, as His deity is proved by His works of infinite wisdom and power. Eve’s New Name
6. The plan of redemption already revealed in the words referred to, is so far understood and accepted by Adam that he gives to his wife the new name of Eve, which means “the living one,” undoubtedly as an expression of faith in the promises which had been so signally linked with her seed. Accepting the hope of life through her person, and tenderly associating her with it, he calls her Eva, or Havah, no longer Isha. And thus, amid all the darkness and sorrow of the death that he had just incurred, he accepts the new hope of life, and begins to repose his trust in the coming Savior as truly, perhaps, as we do in the Savior who has already come. Symbols of Redemption
7. God Himself now gives our first parents a number of beautiful and striking symbols of the gospel which He has already revealed in words. Coats of Skins The first of these was the coats of skins with which He clothed their nakedness, taken, doubtless, from the sacrificial animals which they were now taught to offer in recognition of their sin and of the hope of salvation. We know that Abel offered such sacrifices soon after, and a divine warrant for the act must have been given before. Why should it not have been just at this time? How natural that the covering of the bleeding victim, in which they saw at once the expression of their guilt and its punishment, should be made the type of their Savior’s robe of righteousness. The Cherubim
8. The cherubim of which we next read were still more significant emblems of redemption. We find that in the tabernacle and the visions of Ezekiel and John, they are linked with the representation of Christ so definitely as to leave no doubt of their being in some way types of His person and work, and of our hopes through Him. Here they are placed at the gate of Eden to “guard the way to the tree of life” (Genesis 3:24). The idea seems to be that man was not permitted to partake of the tree of life in his natural state, through the old way of Eden, but by way of the cherubim he is to be permitted again to eat of that tree. And if this figure is the symbol of Christ and His redemption, the representation is most beautiful and instructive, teaching us that the life which man then received through natural sources, in his primeval state, shall be restored through the Lord Jesus Christ and His work of grace and salvation. So that as we receive Jesus as our life, we begin even here to partake of the tree of life, both for soul and body, and by and by, through Him, we shall receive all and more than all which Adam lost. That the cherubim did represent Christ and His complete redemption more distinctly than any mere qualities of the divine government is rendered more certain by the place which this figure occupied in the Hebrew tabernacle, as we shall see in Exodus. There the cherubic figures were formed out of the ark itself, or the mercy seat, which was the lid of the ark, being beaten out of the same piece of gold, and overshadowing it with their wings. This shows that whatever the meaning of the mercy seat and the ark is, the meaning of the cherubim must also be in keeping, and indeed identical. If the mercy seat represented Christ, as we know it did, in His propitiation and intercession, then the overshadowing figures which grew out of it must represent Christ in His exaltation and glory. How fitly this could be done by the four figures of a man, a lion, an ox and an eagle, is not hard to show. The first represented His perfect humanity; the second, His kingly majesty; the third, His sacrificial suffering and His infinite strength; and the fourth, His loftiness, His Deity and His exaltation to all the fullness of His mediatorial kingdom. How beautiful that thus their coming Seed and Savior should be represented to the faith of our fallen parents. And if it were revealed to their apprehension, as it has been given to ours, that as He is so are we also, and that His glory is but a type of our destiny, how they must have rejoiced in that dark hour of shame and ruin to behold the vision of their future, spanning like a rainbow arch the black and gloomy cloud of that sad morning of sin and sorrow. How beautiful that God should begin the story of our race with such a vision of its future destiny. So also He begins for each of us the story of redemption, with the picture of our coming kingdom, and all the riches of His grace in His kindness towards us in Christ Jesus which, in the ages to come, He is forever to show. The Tree of Life
9. The Tree of Life is the last symbol of the new covenant in the garden of Eden. It had been the symbol, before the fall, of life, probably both physical and spiritual life. It is not removed even after the fall, from their view, but withdrawn from their touch, and so becomes to them the image of that new life into which they are to rise through the work of redemption. That it should be limited to spiritual life seems arbitrary and unreasonable. Life, as we receive it in Christ, reaches our entire man, and quickens spirit, soul and body. This is Christ’s great gift, eternal life; not in the sense of beginning in eternity, but in the sense of lifting us even in time into that which is eternal both in its nature and duration. Even here we may receive the life of the future, and receive in some measure the very breath of the resurrection morning in soul and body, through Him who is our Life, and in whom we live also, and look for deeper, fuller life forevermore. Let us cease to look for life, henceforth, through the old avenues of our fallen nature, or any of the trees of the garden. Let us seek it wholly through the way of the cherubim, and through His Person who is our new and living Way, and opens to us from the gates of Eden the way to the holy of holies, and the innermost presence of the glory of God. This idea of the holy of holies was expressed in the ancient cherubim at Eden’s gate, as well as in the tabernacle. The Hebrew word used with respect to the cherubim is the word Shekinah. “He placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword” (Genesis 3:24). It was the same Shekinah glory that afterwards shone in the inner chamber of God’s sanctuary. And it represented to the faith of Adam and Eve the same conception of God’s heavenly presence and glory to which henceforth fallen man is permitted to rise through the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Section II: Development of Redemption in the Remaining Chapters of Genesis

Section II—Development of Redemption in the Remaining Chapters of GenesisThe plan of redemption thus revealed in its simplest germs to our fallen parents, grows more distinct and full in the subsequent chapters of this wonderful book. We trace this in three particulars:

1. PromisesGen_17:7; Genesis 49:10The promise made to Adam and Eve is renewed repeatedly in the succeeding generations. Abraham’s Gospel First we see it unmistakably in the covenant with Abraham (Genesis 17:7). This might seem to the casual reader to be simply the prediction of Abraham’s posterity. But the Apostle Paul through the Holy Spirit tells us that the word “seed” was intentionally used in the singular number to denote Christ personally. “The Scripture does not say ‘and to seeds,’ meaning many people, but ‘and to your seed,’ meaning one person, who is Christ” (Galatians 3:16). And in the context he declares that God preached the gospel unto Abraham, and that our very hopes are linked with His ancient covenant. “So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith” (Genesis 3:9). The Promised Shiloh Again, the promise becomes still more definite. It is not now the seed of the woman, or even the seed of Abraham, but the seed of Judah. But it is the same faithful, victorious Conqueror that we saw in the promise of the fall, with His mighty heel on the serpent’s head, the true Lion of the tribe of Judah. “The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he [Shiloh] comes to whom it belongs” (Genesis 49:10). We have passed over the testimony of Enoch, which Jude tells us was also the promise of a coming Savior, with special reference to His second advent and His millennial glory. “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones” (Jude 1:14). This, though not recorded in Genesis, was undoubtedly known to the antediluvians as the Gospel of Enoch, and reveals a much fuller knowledge of the plan of redemption than appears upon the record. We might also find a reference to Christ in the prophecy of Noah: “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem,” and again, “May [he] Japheth live in the tents of Shem” (Genesis 9:26-27). The “he” of the King James translation is by many believed to refer to Christ rather than to Japheth.
2. SacrificesGen_4:1-5; Genesis 8:20-22; Genesis 15:9-18We have already seen that the coats of skins in Genesis 3 were connected with animal sacrifices in recognition of sin and atonement. We find the sacrificial altar henceforth at every important stage of the patriarchal history. Abel’s Sacrifice In Genesis 4:1-5, it is the center of the first act of religious worship in the Bible, as though it were fully established and accepted as God’s appointed way of access. We find Abel, “at the end of days,” that is the Sabbath day, coming with his bleeding offering as an expression of his obedience and faith; and the seal of God’s approval is publicly and solemnly placed upon his act of obedient faith. His offering, as well as his own subsequent death, becomes the type of the great Sacrifice of Calvary. Cain brings far richer gifts, but they are the fruit of the sin-cursed earth and the works of his own defiled hands, and they are rejected by the Lord, and the offerer too. Noah’s Altar Next, in Genesis 8:20, the altar of Noah marks another crisis in the world’s history, and seals the covenant which God establishes with the remnant of the race for the next dispensation. For ages the world had reeked with abominable iniquities, and after long months of judgment it had become a charnel house of death and horror. But at last the floods of wickedness had been swept away by the waves of judgment, and even these have now subsided, and Noah’s little household steps forth from the sheltering ark which has carried them through the fearful crisis. His first act is to rear an altar and offer upon it the sacrifices that he has brought from the ark. This was not the first time he had sacrificed, for the number of clean animals that he had taken in with him at the beginning implies that some of them were undoubtedly for sacrifice. But this public act receives the special seal of God’s approval. What a beautiful answer to the ignorant objections of man’s carnal reasonings against the unnaturalness and harshness of a religion that is based on the shedding of blood! As the crimson stains bathe the rude altar, and as the smoke ascends up to heaven, it is finely added, “The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: ‘Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood’” (Genesis 8:21). It would seem as though God made up His mind to expect nothing good from man in himself, and accepted the sacrifice of His Beloved Son instead; for His sake not only forgiving, but lovingly accepting the soul that trusts Him, as a sweet savor of Christ. And then to emphasize the lesson, and honor the offering more gloriously, suddenly He spans the gorgeous arch of the rainbow, like the very smile of heaven, above the smoking altar, as a token of His covenant of everlasting love and peace. Abraham’s Sacrifice and Vision We pass on to the next period, and find the altar and sacrifice again in the life of Abraham and amid all the vicissitudes of the patriarchal tent life. The covenant with Noah was not so important as the one that here is ratified by sacrifice again. That was for temporal, but this is for enduring spiritual blessings; and it, too, is sealed by the shedding of blood, looking forward like previous sacrifices to the great atonement. In Genesis 15:9 the sacrificial scene is vividly described. First He points to the starry heavens and renews the promise of the future. Then the victims are selected: a heifer, a she-goat, a ram, a dove and a little bird, perhaps a sparrow, in connection with which we afterwards find the most precious of the Levitical offerings. Separating them asunder, and leaving an open space between the parts, Abraham places them before the Lord, and then waits for the token of the divine acceptance. The birds of prey swoop down upon the altar, but the patriarch guards its precious deposit, and watches until the evening shadows have gathered about him. Then upon his senses there falls a deep sleep and a strange darkness, out of which the vision comes of a smoking furnace and a lamp of fire, which passes through the midst of the sacrifice as a seal of the divine acceptance and a symbol of the events which are to be connected with the future of his race, especially the furnace of Egyptian sufferings, and the pillar of cloud and fire that shall lead them forth from its trials. Then came again the voice of God, unfolding in all the fullness of detail the promise of the inheritance, and the limits of the land which Abraham’s seed shall possess. So we see that the sacrifice of Christ is the bond of our covenant and the pledge of our inheritance. Our Living Sacrifice And in all this beautiful picture we may behold not only the offering of Jesus Christ, but also the consecration of the living sacrifice of our own heart and being, which we, too, must lay naked and open at the feet of our Lord, guard from the birds of temptation that would snatch it from the altar and then watch for the seal and manifestation of the Divine Presence. This manifestation may come to us in deep darkness, and may bring the furnace of suffering, but it will be followed by the lamp of living fire, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the covenant of God’s eternal faithfulness, and all the fullness and blessedness of our land of promise, and our spiritual inheritance. We need not dwell upon the subsequent references to sacrifice in the book of Genesis, further than to notice that the altar reappeared in the life of Isaac and the wanderings of Jacob, as the expression of their faith and the center of their religious life and worship, and was to them undoubtedly the symbol of all they knew and claimed of the coming redemption.
3. TypesMore fully even than in the words of promise and in the sacrificial rites of the ancient dispensation, do we see the unfolding of redemption in its marvelous types. These are figures more manifest to us than they were to their own age. And the apostle implies this when he says “they were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come” (1 Corinthians 10:11). These types are of two classes, namely, persons and things. Personal Types Abel The first of the personal types in Genesis is Abel: The child of weakness and frailty, as his name implies, the shepherd, obedient, faithful and righteous. He is called by Christ Himself “righteous Abel” (Matthew 23:35). Hated by his brother, at last slain by Cain’s wicked hands because of his faith and testimony, and spilling his innocent blood upon the ground as a cry to heaven against him, he is the vivid type of Him who was born in lowliness, as “a root out of a dry ground” (Isaiah 53:2). Christ is the great Shepherd of His flock, the faithful and true Servant, the hated and persecuted Victim of His brethren, at last crucified and slain, and pouring out His precious blood as an appeal to heaven, not against sin but for the sinner, and a cry for mercy rather than for vengeance, whose blood “speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (Hebrews 12:24). Isaac The next personal type of the coming Savior is Isaac. In two respects he strikingly foreshadows his greater Seed. First, his sacrifice on Mount Moriah is the figure of Christ’s great offering by His Father’s hand and his restoration, of Christ’s resurrection. He was given back from the dead in a figure, and the figure was of Christ’s rising again. And secondly, the marriage of Isaac to his sole wife, with all the beautiful and typical circumstances which accompanied Rebekah’s wooing and wedding, foreshadows the call of Christ’s Church and the marriage of the Lamb to His Bride. Melchizedek The next personal type of Christ in the patriarchal age was Melchizedek, whose figure stands out in strange isolation from his race and time like a form suspended from the sky. The apostle says he was “without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, like the Son of God, he remains a priest forever” (Hebrews 7:3). This can scarcely mean that Melchizedek was literally without parentage or descent, but that his pedigree is lost in oblivion, and that his isolation makes him a vivid type of the great Redeemer. There are some who believe that he was literally an incarnation of Christ, the Son of God dwelling on earth for a time, even as he appeared to Abraham in the plains of Mamre in visible form, and ate and drank and talked with him. This we can scarcely accept without stronger proof than plausible inferences. But certainly he was a type of Christ, in his priesthood and kingliness and in his two gracious gifts of righteousness and peace. These four ideas were distinctly expressed by the name Melchizedek, and his two offices, as king of Salem and priest of the Most High God, Melchizedek meaning king of righteousness, and Salem signifying peace. No four words can express more fully the redeeming work and grace of Jesus: subduing and guarding us as our King; redeeming and representing us as our Priest; clothing us with His righteousness; and blessing us with His perfect peace. Joseph The most beautiful of all the personal types in Genesis is Joseph. He represents the Lord Jesus Christ as the beloved son of his father, the victim of his brethren’s hate and cruelty, betrayed, innocently suffering for the sins of others, separated from his father for long years, treated as a criminal, living a life of toil and humiliation, and suffering almost every possible privation and wrong in blameless innocence, and then suddenly and gloriously exalted to be a prince and a savior, and using his honor and power for the good of others and the salvation of the world. Preeminently does Joseph prefigure Christ as the loving and forgiving Brother, bringing us tenderly and faithfully to the sense of our sin and then generously forgiving us and helping us to forget our faults, reconciling us by His love, receiving us to His fellowship, and sharing with us all the resources and riches of His grace and glory. Typical Things Besides these personal types of Christ in Genesis, we have several typical things that are fitted to foreshadow His redeeming work. The Ark The ark was the type of the way in which He shelters us from the judgment of sin and hides us from the storms of life, carrying us through our spiritual death and resurrection, and bearing us through the tempests of life to the shores of that blessed kingdom where the covenant of Noah shall find its full realization in the glories of the ages to come, and the new heavens and earth. The Dove and the Rainbow Not only the ark, but the other emblems connected with the ark, the dove and the rainbow, all prefigure great spiritual truths in connection with the gospel. The former represents the Holy Spirit in the several stages of His coming, both to the world and to the heart, and the latter foreshadows the vision of the Apocalypse, when the rainbow round about the throne shall be the token of accomplished redemption, and the consummation of all the hopes and destinies of redeemed humanity. The Mystic Ladder The ladder of Jacob is also a beautiful figure of the new and living way which Christ has come to open between earth and heaven through His own person, and which He Himself has told us is the significance of the vision of Bethel (John 1:51). Thus even in this early form do we see the grace of God beginning to unfold. And still more fully, no doubt, it was revealed to the believers of that time. For we know that they are linked with us in the household of faith, and have risen out of the sins and sorrows of their earthly experience to the inheritance of the saints in light by the same pathway which we are treading now, and through the grace of the same great Redeemer, who has been the Hope of all the ages, and shall be the object of their adoring love, and ours, throughout the cycles of eternity.