The Seed Promise:

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• The Seed Promise
• A Key To Understanding O.T. Prophecy Matthew
  214-23

May 10, 2009
Presented by Eric Douma Twin City Fellowship
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A Controversy To Learn From

• Some Evangelicals scholars are claiming that the
  Old Testament is really not Messianic. They claim
  that the New Testament writers merely read Christ
  into the Old Testament prophecies after the fact.
  
• But when we observe what the apostles did with
  their Scripture, we can only conclude that there
  must be more to Christian biblical interpretation
  than uncovering the original meaning of an Old
  Testament passage Enns, Inspiration and
  Incarnation, 160.
• Paul is using the Old Testament in a way that
  has nothing to do with how the Old Testament is
  to be understood in its original context Enns,
  Inspiration and Incarnation, 137.

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Why Does This Matter?
Jesus is the Messiah promised in the Old
Testament
I know this because I believe Jesus is the
Messiah!
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Why Does This Matter?

• 2nd Timothy 314-15 continue in the things
  you have learned and become convinced of, knowing
  from whom you have learned them and that from
  childhood you have known the sacred writings
  which are able to give you the wisdom that leads
  to salvation through faith which is in Christ
  Jesus

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Why Does This Matter?

• Luke 2425-27 And He said to them, O foolish
  men and slow of heart to believe in all that the
  prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for
  the Christ to suffer these things and to enter
  into His glory? Then beginning with Moses and
  with all the prophets, He explained to them the
  things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.

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Matthew 214-15

• So Joseph got up and took the Child and His
  mother while it was still night, and left for
  Egypt. He remained there until the death of
  Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken
  by the Lord through the prophet Out of Egypt I
  called My Son.
• Hosea 111-2 When Israel was a youth I loved him,
  and out of Egypt I called My son, the more they
  called them, the more they went from them they
  kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning incense
  to idols.

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Matthew 214-15

• But the real problem is this scanning the
  context of Hosea 11, it becomes quite clear that
  Hosea himself is not talking about the boy Jesus,
  nor is he thinking of a future messiah Enns,
  Inspiration and Incarnation, 133.
• Is Matthew playing fast and loose with the Old
  Testament?

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Reading In Context of The First Gospel

• Genesis 315 (God pronounces judgment on
  Satan)
• And I will put enmity between you and the
  woman and between your seed and her seed He
  shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise
  him on the heel.
• Genesis 123 Abraham
• Genesis 1810 Isaac
• Genesis 2523 Jacob (ISRAEL)
• Genesis 4910 Judah
• 2nd Samuel 714 David

erz Zera
SEED
Messiah
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Principles of Interpretation

• Three Kinds of Prophecy
• Direct Prophecies Micah 52 Zechariah 99
• Typical Prophecies Jer 3115 Hosea 111
  
• Applications of O.T. Nazarene in Matt 223
• Two Concepts For Interpretation
• The One and the Many Seed Promise
• The Near and the Far

Shared Theme
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Seed Promise In Matthew

• Matthew 11 The record of the genealogy of Jesus
  the Messiah, the son of David, the son of
  Abraham Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac
  the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of
  Judah and his brothers.

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Matthew 214-15

• So Joseph got up and took the Child and His
  mother while it was still night, and left for
  Egypt. He remained there until the death of
  Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken
  by the Lord through the prophet Out of Egypt I
  called My Son.
• Matthew 221 (Joseph takes Jesus out of Egypt!)
• Hosea 111 When Israel was a youth I loved him,
  and out of Egypt I called My Son.
• SEED PROMISE

Israel protected
Messiah protected
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Israel is Attacked Again

• Matthew 216-18 Then when Herod saw that he had
  been tricked by the magi, he became very enraged,
  and sent and slew all the male children who were
  in Bethlehem and all its vicinity, from two years
  old and underThen what had been spoken through
  Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled A voice was
  heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning,
  Rachel weeping for her children and she refused
  to be comforted, because they were no more.

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Israel is Attacked Again

• Jeremiah 3115 (Book of Comfort Jer. 30-33)
• Near Rachel (Buried in Bethlehem) represents
  Jewish mothers who stood (in Ramah) and watched
  as their descendants were exiled. Righteous
  Jeremiah went to Egypt.
• Far Rachel sees her descendants murdered again
  as righteous Jesus went to Egypt!

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Jesus Is The Righteous Branch

• Matthew 222b-23 Then after being warned by God
  in a dream, he left for the regions of Galilee,
  and came and lived in a city called Nazareth.
  This was to fulfill what was spoken through the
  prophets He shall be called a Nazarene.
• Matthew 122 this took place to fulfill what was
  spoken through the prophet
• Matthew 25 for this is what has been written
  through the prophet
• Matthew 215 This was to fulfill what had been
  spoken by the Lord through the prophet
• rxn Nezer Branch Isaiah 111 Jer 235 etc

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Jesus Is The Righteous Branch

• rxn Nezer Branch Isaiah 111 Jer 235 Zech
  38 etc.
• 2 Samuel 235 Truly is not my house so with God?
  For He has made an everlasting covenant with me,
  ordered in all things, and secured For all my
  salvation and all my desire, will He not indeed
  make it grow (sprout or branch)?

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Paul Preached THE PROMISE!

• Galatians 316 Now the promises were spoken to
  Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, And to
  seeds, as referring to many, but rather to one,
  And to your seed, that is, Christ.
• Acts 1323, 32-33 From the descendants of this
  man, according to promise, God has brought to
  Israel a Savior, JesusAnd we preach to you the
  good news of the promise made to the fathers,
  that God has fulfilled this promise to our
  children in that He raised up Jesus

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Paul Preached THE PROMISE!

• Acts 266-7 And now I am standing trial for the
  hope of the promise made by God to our fathers
  the promise to which our twelve tribes hope to
  attain, as they earnestly serve God night and
  day. And for this hope, O, King, I am being
  accused by Jews.

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Application

• 1. We must remember that deficiencies in
  understanding Scripture lie within us, not in the
  Word of God.
• 2. Obedience is tied to trusting and loving the
  promises of God more than the things of this
  world.

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1. The Deficiencies Are Within Us

• 2nd Corinthians 43-4 And even if our gospel is
  veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case
  the god of this world has blinded the minds of
  the unbelieving so that they might not see the
  light of the gospel of the glory of Christ
• Titus 115 To the pure, all things are pure but
  to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing
  is pure, but both their mind and their conscience
  are defiled.
• John 644 No one can come to Me unless the Father
  who sent Me draws him

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1. The Deficiencies Are Within Us

• Luke 2444-45 Now He said to them, These are My
  words which I spoke to you while I was still with
  you, that all things which are written about Me
  in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the
  Psalms must be fulfilled. then He opened their
  minds to understand the Scriptures
• Peter Enns (In light of the fast and loose
  hermeneutics of the Apostles) This should
  motivate us to greater humility about our own
  interpretive conclusion (Inspiration and
  Incarnation, 161).

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2. Obedience Trusting The Promises of God

• Hebrews 1124-25
• By faith Moses, when he has grown up, refused to
  be called the son of Pharaohs daughter, choosing
  rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of
  God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin,
  considering the reproach of Christ greater riches
  than the treasures of Egypt for he was looking
  to the reward.
• Are you living for this world, or for the King
  and His kingdom?