WHAT IS THE GOSPEL? the first time ever preached.

Posted : 10 Jan, 2012 02:38 PM

In order to preach the Gospel, we must first understand the Gospel, and we must know who was the first person in this world to preach the Gospel.



The first person to preach the gospel was God Himself.



After man's fall in Genesis 3, God took actions, but don't consider this actions as something negative.



We need to consider God's dealing with the fall of man. God did not judge man.



Immediately after the fall both Adam and Eve realized that they were not very good. They condemned themselves, hid themselves, and used fig leaves to cover themselves (Gen. 3:7-8). Adam and Eve hid themselves from the presence of God. They knew that they had violated God's prohibition against eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge and that the result of their transgression was to be death.

Therefore, they hid themselves from the Lord's presence, awaiting the sentence of death. However, God came in, not to declare the sentence of death, but to preach the gospel. God did not pronounce the sentence of death; He sounded the voice of the gospel.



Do you know what was the first word of this gospel preaching? It was the question found in Genesis 3:9: "Where art thou?"



This question is not the pronouncement of a judgment; it is the opening proclamation of the glad tidings. God was seeking man, asking, "Where art thou?"



When man answered to God's question, he recognized that he was naked, but when God asked him about who told him that he was naked, Man didn't confess his sin, but he discharged himself of the responsibility by placing it upon the woman and the woman did the same with the serpent.



Nevertheless, God did not rebuke him, because God had not come to judge but to save. God came to man in the garden in the same way that His Son was to come many centuries later: He came to save, not to judge (John 3:17).



When God came to Adam and Eve He asked them questions, but when He turned to the serpent He asked no questions at all. He immediately condemned the serpent.

God did not ask the serpent, "Serpent, have you done this?"



When God came to Adam He asked him, "Where art thou?" (v. 9). He also asked him, "Who told thee that thou wast naked?" and "Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?" (v. 11). God also asked the woman, "What is this that thou hast done?" (v. 13).



God did not ask Adam and Eve all these questions because He had the intention of condemning them. God asked these questions to lead them to confession. However, when God turned to the serpent He did not ask him anything. Instead, God said to the serpent, "Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life" (v. 14). This was God's judgment upon the serpent.



In Genesis 3:15 we see the wonderful promise that God made to man after the fall. "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." This promise certainly is good news.



Who is the seed of the woman? Jesus



To bruise the head of the serpent means to destroy and kill him. According to Genesis 3:15, the seed of the woman would destroy the serpent, but the serpent could only injure the heel of the woman's seed.



The woman of Genesis 3:15 is firstly Eve and secondly all the people who rely upon God and who put their trust in God. In brief, all the people of God are the woman. Therefore, the enmity between the serpent and the woman is the enmity between Satan and Eve, between Satan and all of God's people. Eve signifies all the people of God.



In Revelation 12:1 we see the sign of a universal woman. This woman, a great sign, is clothed with the sun, has the moon under her feet, and has a crown of twelve stars upon her head. Therefore, this woman is not a single, local, individual woman; she is a universal woman, a sign that symbolizes all of God's people from Adam to Abraham, from Isaac to Moses, from Moses to the apostles, and from the apostles to the present time. All the people of God compose this woman and are included in her.



Adam and Eve were waiting for death;

They thought it was impossible for them to have a seed because they were doomed to die immediately. When Adam heard that the woman was going to have a seed, he called his wife's name Eve, which in Hebrew means "living." As Adam and Eve were awaiting the sentence of death in fear and trembling, there suddenly came the glad tidings that this woman would have a seed, and Adam spontaneously said, "Living. You are not dying, you are living. Your name is Eve.





God preached the gospel in verse 15, and Adam reacted to the gospel in verse 20. If Adam had not reacted to the gospel, he would have called his wife "Dying", but he called her "Living".



BOTH SEEDS:



1-The seed of the serpent are the people who follow Satan. The Bible uses various terms to describe them. In Matthew 3:7 they are called the "brood of vipers." In Matthew 13:38 they are designated "the sons of the evil one." In John 8:44 the Lord Jesus referred to them as being of their father, the Devil. In 1 John 3 the Apostle John said that everyone who practices sin is of the Devil (v. 8); he also used the term "the children of the Devil" (v. 10).



2-The seed of the woman is the Lord Jesus. He was born of the virgin Mary (Isa. 7:14; Matt. 1:23; Gal. 4:4). Thus, He is truly the seed of the woman. He is the very seed prophesied in the glad tidings proclaimed by God Himself in Genesis 3:15. He is the One who bruised the serpent. There is great enmity between the people who follow Satan and the Lord Jesus.



The Lord Jesus, the seed of the woman, has bruised the head of the serpent. The Lord has destroyed Satan, the one who holds the power of death. This is fully revealed in Hebrews 2:14 and 1 John 3:8.



While the Lord Jesus was destroying the serpent on the cross, the serpent bruised His heel. This means that Satan wounded the Lord Jesus by nailing His feet to the cross (Psa. 22:16).



In Genesis 3:15 we have three main items: the serpent, the woman, and the seed of the woman. We find the same three items in Revelation 12, where we see the old serpent, the universal woman, and the manchild. Have you seen how these two chapters correspond to one another? The "ancient serpent" of Revelation 12:9 is the serpent of Genesis 3, the universal woman of Revelation 12:1 is the woman of Genesis 3:15, and the manchild of Revelation 12:5 is a part of the seed of the woman that is also mentioned in Genesis 3:15.



This manchild is not individual; he is corporate. Since the woman herself is not individual, but universal and corporate, her child must also be universal and corporate. This corporate manchild includes the Lord Jesus as the Head, center, reality, life, and nature of the manchild.



This can be proved from the Scriptures. Psalm 2:8-9 prophesies that the Lord Jesus, God's Anointed One, will rule the nations with a rod of iron. Revelation 2:26-27 says that the overcomers in the churches will rule over the nations with a rod of iron. Now in Revelation 12:5 we are told that the manchild will rule all nations with a rod of iron. Therefore, according to the record of the Bible, both the Lord Jesus Himself and His overcomers will rule over the nations with a rod of iron. Thus, the manchild in Revelation 12:5 includes both the Lord Jesus and the overcomers in the churches. Furthermore, Revelation 20:4 says that Christ and the resurrected overcomers will reign as kings for a thousand years. Hence, the manchild in Revelation 12 is neither the Lord Jesus individually nor the overcomers separate from Him, but the Lord Jesus with the overcomers.



The enmity between the serpent and the woman's seed mentioned in Genesis 3:15 is fully manifested in Revelation 12. In Revelation 12 we see that the old serpent tries his best to damage the manchild and the woman (vv. 4, 13-17). The enmity of Genesis 3:15 is thus fulfilled to the uttermost.



THE RESULT



The seed is in Genesis 3:15, and the result, the harvest, is in Revelation 20 through 22. Each of the three items has grown from a seed into a highly developed form. The serpent has grown into a dragon (Rev. 12:9; 20:2), the individual woman has grown into a corporate woman, and the individual seed of the woman has grown into a corporate manchild.



-Revelation 20:10 declares that the serpent ultimately will be cast into the lake of fire. This is the harvest of Satan. Satan's destiny and destination is the lake of fire.



-The woman herself will issue in the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:2, 9-10). This is the harvest of the woman. The destiny and destination of the woman is the New Jerusalem.





In Genesis 3:21 we see an anticipation of the redemption that was to be accomplished four thousand years later.



Both the man and the woman were in a situation that needed redemption. Although God had not condemned them, although God had sought them out and had ordained suffering as a restriction and protection for them, and although God had proclaimed to them the promise of the coming seed, when Adam and Eve looked at themselves they were still mostly naked, because they were poorly covered by the aprons (skirts) which they had made for themselves out of fig leaves (Gen. 3:7). The fig-leaf skirts represented man's own work in covering his sinfulness.



These skirts did not cover their bodies adequately. After God had come in to preach the gospel and Adam had responded by believing, God placed coats over the man and the woman. This means that God justified them. To be justified means to be covered with the righteousness of God, which is Christ Himself, not with anything man-made. Adam and Eve's being under the coats signified that they were in Christ. Galatians 3:27 says, "As many as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ." The coat is the clearest type of Christ as God's righteousness, the righteousness that covers us. Thus, figuratively speaking, Adam and Eve were in Christ. Hence, both man's believing and God's justifying the believers were sown as seeds in Genesis 3:20-21. These seeds are developed in the Epistles of the New Testament.



Although the Bible does not say explicitly that the skins were taken from a lamb, I, along with others, believe that they were lamb skins, because the skins were made into coats.



After the coats of skins had been placed on them, Adam and Eve had the appearance of a lamb. Was Adam a man or a lamb? All that was visible was the wool, for Adam was completely covered by the lamb. Although he was a man, he had become a lamb in the eyes of God.



People always become the very thing which covers them. Since we all are covered by Christ, we will express Christ and resemble Christ. When Adam and Eve were covered by their self-made skirts of fig leaves, they must have looked like ugly, naked, sinful persons. However, after putting on the coats made with the lamb skins, they must have looked like lambs. God has put us in Christ (1 Cor. 1:30), and we have put on Christ (Gal. 3:27). Thus, we can express Christ. Paul could even say, "For to me to live is Christ" (Phil. 1:21). Paul became the expression of Christ through being one with Him. This thought of expressing Christ was sown in the type of the coats of skins which covered Adam and Eve and which became their expression.





Before the skins were taken from the animals, the lambs were undoubtedly sacrificed. They were killed and their blood was shed.

Perhaps Adam said to Eve, "Eve, don't you know that that should be our destiny? We should be killed. Our blood should be shed because we fell, committed sin, and transgressed God's prohibition. According to God's prohibition, we should be killed. But God didn't kill us, Eve. God is killing these lambs in our place. How thankful and grateful we should be to these lambs. They are our substitute."



In Genesis 22, when Isaac was to be offered to God in sacrifice, he asked to abraham "where is the lamb for a burnt offering?"



and abraham answered "God will provide HIMSELF lamb for a burnt offering, my son."



One day the Lord Jesus came, and John the Baptist said of Him, "Behold, the Lamb of God" (John 1:29). John 1:29 is a development of Genesis 3:21. In type, when the lambs were slain, Christ had already been slain in the eyes of God, for He was slain from the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8). Hebrews 9:22 says, "Without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness." Thus, this matter of shedding of blood was also sown as a seed in Genesis 3:21 and is developed in John 1:29 and Hebrews 9:22. If you read the Epistles in the New Testament, you will notice how many times the blood is mentioned. We have been redeemed by the precious blood of God's Lamb ordained by God for us before the foundation of the world (1 Pet. 1:18-20). Christ was ordained before Adam's fall. We can see a picture of the shedding of Christ's blood there in the garden. Without the shedding of blood, how can a righteous God justify sinful man? Without the shedding of blood, it would not have been legal, lawful, righteous, or fair for God to put a covering upon fallen man. However, before God covered sinful man with the coats of skins, God judged and killed him in the sacrifice. God will never kill us, because He has already killed us in Christ. On the cross Christ was killed by the righteous God. Thus, whenever we respond to the gospel and say, "Living," God immediately comes and covers us with Christ as our righteousness. This means that God's justification is based upon redemption. The putting on of the coats of skins was based upon the shedding of the blood of the sacrifice, for the sacrificial lamb was actually a substitute for sinful man.





NOW IT COMES AN IMPORTANT QUESTION:



As long as Christ has died for us on the cross, why do we need to believe? iF He has accomplished full redemption for us. Why then do we have to believe?



We need union. If you do not believe in Christ, you do not have this union. If you do not have union with Him, whatever He has done on the cross cannot be appropriated by you or applied to you. We need to believe in Christ. Whenever the Bible speaks about believing for salvation it uses the preposition "in." We must believe in Him. This little word "in" denotes union. To believe in Jesus Christ is to be one with Him, to have union with Him.



Adam and Eve was the first believers, and they shared this gospel with their kids.



Abel himself was an extraordinary believer. Although you have read the Bible for years, perhaps you have never noticed Abel's occupation. He was a "feeder of sheep" (Gen. 4:2, Heb.). During Abel's time sheep were of no use for man's eating, since, before the flood, man was only permitted to eat vegetables (Gen. 1:29).



Therefore, as Abel was feeding the sheep he was not working for food to live on. The sheep were used primarily as offerings for God.



Evidence of this is found in Hebrews 11:4 which says, "By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain." According to the Bible, faith comes from hearing the word that is preached (Rom. 10:17, 14). Since Abel had such faith, exercised this faith, and offered a sacrifice to God in accordance with this faith, he must have heard the preaching of the glad tidings from his parents. Out of that word he received faith. He did not present his sacrifice according to his own opinion or learning, and his offering was not his own invention. He presented his offering by faith according to the words preached by his parents.



THIS IS THE GOSPEL GOD PREACHED IN GENESIS.



(Extracts from "Life-study of Genesis", Messages 18,19 and 22)

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