Then the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven, and said, “By Myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son, indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed [plural] as the stars of the heavens and as the sand, which is on the seashore . . . And in your seed [singular] all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.” 

Genesis 22:15-19 NASB

The entire Old Testament narrative points to the coming of Jesus. Yet that pointing takes a variety of forms. As we’ll soon see, some passages record the visions of prophets who glimpsed Him. In other places, rituals, feasts, and ceremonies serve as “types and shadows” of who Jesus would be and what He would accomplish through His death and resurrection. 

There is a third form of pointing that could be called “forerunner-ing.” Some individuals in the Old Testament literally blazed a trail for the future Messiah. They opened legal windows between heaven and earth to make it possible for God to deliver His redemptive masterplan.

As noted in the previous meditation, once God made mankind the legal stewards of planet earth, vesting them with dominion authority, God was constrained by His own righteousness and character to work in partnership with fallen men and women in order to accomplish His redemptive plans. That’s why the opening section of this devotional is labeled, “Prophecies & Prerequisites.” For reasons cloaked in mystery, some things were simply necessary if Jesus was ultimately going to be born.

Abraham and his son Isaac represent two such forerunners. Before God could offer up His only Son as a sacrifice for the sin of all mankind, it seems it was necessary to begin that process with a mortal man who was willing to offer up his beloved son as a sacrifice. Only such a man could serve as the natural ancestor to the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world. 

This future sacrificial Son would be a miracle baby. Therefore, the forerunner child would have to have a miraculous aspect to his birth, too. Isaac, the forerunner, carried the wood to the top of the hill where his own sacrifice was to take place. The ultimate Seed would one day carry a wooden crossbeam to the hilltop where He would willing lay down His life.

In a sense, Isaac was a forerunner of the resurrection too. Hebrews 11:19 declares: “Abraham’s faith made it logical to him that God could raise Isaac from the dead, and symbolically, that’s exactly what happened.” (TPT)

Mary’s miracle baby was Abraham’s promised “Seed” through whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed. That Seed was possible because God found a willing partner in Abraham. God is still looking for partners today—people of faith and trust who will be His instruments in blessing others.

Prayer of Declaration

Father, I’m willing and ready to partner with You and carrying out Your redemptive purposes in the world. I hear You clearly through Your Spirit and Your Word. I’ll say what You want me to say and manifest Your compassion to those You want to touch in love.

But when the time of fulfillment had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law.

Galatians 4:4 TPT

Christmas is a seed story. Eve was promised a Seed. God spoke to Abram of a Seed, too–one through whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed. The pitiful cry of a newborn infant from a stable on a star-spangled Bethlehem night announced the long-awaited arrival of that Seed. Oh, what battles preceded that arrival! 

The entirety of the Old Testament can rightly be viewed as the account of God working in History to put in place all that was legally necessary for the arrival of that Seed, alongside His enemy’s futile efforts to stop God’s Garden prophecy from coming to pass. (One day the Seed of the woman will crush the head of the Serpent.)

Note the phrase “legally necessary” in the paragraph above. Too few Christians understand that God built the universe upon a legal and judicial framework. Once God legally granted dominion stewardship of Earth to mankind (Gen. 1:26-28), He was constrained by His own righteousness and holiness to operate within the judicial rules He had established. 

In other words, although a sovereign God theoretically could have cheated at the game He invented, His character would never allow Him to do so. 

This meant that if God was going to fulfill His promise to get another “Adam” into the earth, He would have to do so legally. In the Old Testament, everything that came after that seed promise depicts a cosmic chess match between God and His crafty but inferior enemy.

If the Old Testament narrative sometimes seems harsh and hard, it is only because the stakes of that battle were so profoundly high. The fate of humanity and control of planet earth literally hung in the balance. 

Yet, move by move, God brilliantly advanced His plan. First, he called a man (Abram)—one willing to sacrifice his own son in faith. That man would produce a people (Israel) whose intricately prescribed sacrificial system of worship would, by judicial necessity, model and forerun the ultimate solution to the crisis Adam caused. The blood-soaked Old Testament is the war chronicle of the battle to get Jesus, the “Last Adam,” into the earth. 

Every detail of every incident speaks of Him. Points to Him. Prepares for Him. And most importantly, judicially sanctions Him.

Paul has all of this in view when he writes, “But when the time of fulfillment had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law.”

It means that infant’s cry from the Bethlehem stable was merely a prelude to his cry of “It is finished!” from a Jerusalem cross 33 years later. 

Prayer of Declaration

Brilliant heavenly Father, what a plan. What a victory! It’s easy to trust in You because You are utterly good, ever faithful, and always redemptive in your actions. That’s just Your character and nature. Because Jesus was born “under the law” and fulfilled its every requirement, I have been born-again under Your new and better covenant of grace. I’m filled with gratitude for Your kindness. I’m in awe of Your brilliance. I’m humbled by Your gracious generosity. 

The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me [Moses] from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him . . . The Lord said to me [Moses]: “. . . I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him. I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name.”

Deuteronomy 18:15,17-19 NIV (additions mine)

One of the most obscure Old Testament prophecies concerning the coming Messiah King came from the lips of Moses near the end of his life. The final chapters of Deuteronomy represent Moses’ parting instructions to the Israelites as they prepared to enter and occupy the land of promise without him.

In the middle of those instructions, Moses pauses to prophesy. First, speaking for himself, he tells the nation that God will one day raise up, out of their midst, another prophet—one “like me,” Moses says. Then he repeats this prediction as a word from the Lord. This future Moses 2.0 prophet will speak everything God tells Him to say. God follows this with a warning: Those in Israel who do not heed the words of this future prophet, will answer directly to God. 

So, who fulfilled this prophecy? Who was this second prophet like Moses? Was it Samuel? Elijah? Isaiah, perhaps? Fortunately, we don’t have to speculate about that. The Word of God tells us plainly. 

In the third chapter of Acts, the Apostle Peter, freshly baptized in the Holy Spirit, preaches a sermon in the outer court of the Temple to the crowd that gathered to marvel at the miracle of the lame man who Peter and John healed in Jesus’ name. In verses 22 and 23, Peter explicitly states that Jesus was that promised prophet, like Moses. 

Most believers understand that Jesus became our High Priest and that He is our reigning King. But few Christians understand or even recognize the prophetic ministry of Jesus. Matthew 4:17 tells us that Jesus picked up John the Baptist’s prophetic mantle and message: “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand!” For three years He crisscrossed Israel visiting “. . . all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom.” (Matthew 9:35 NIV)

Those among his countrymen who heeded His message had hearts prepared for the New Covenant message when it arrived on the Day of Pentecost. Those who rejected it suffered the imminent judgment of which both John and Jesus had repeatedly warned—just as Moses had foreseen. 

Before Jesus began His priestly mission in the final weeks of his life, He carried out a vital prophetic mission—one foreseen by Moses. That means that child of promise in Mary’s arms is not only destined to be our priest and king, but a prophet, too. 

Prayer of Declaration

Jesus, as a prophet to Israel, You spoke everything God told You to say, just as Moses prophesied. Your Holy Spirit, the One you promised and sent, carries on today, speaking to me everything You want me to know. Your Spirit leads me into all truth and shows me things to come. 

Want more insight like this? Get my devotional Christmas Grace: 31 Meditations and Declarations on the Greatest Gift Ever Given.

For a change of pace, I thought I’d share one of my favorite evidences for “design” in the universe. 

Many planets have moons. For we passengers on planet Earth, we have only one. Earth and moon orbit the sun together–two bodies twirling around each other in a gravitational dance on a cosmic stage.

And of course the sun is millions of times bigger than our moon. And yet . . .

From earth, the sun and the moon appear to be almost exactly the same size. This is a function of the moon’s size and distance from earth. 

In a randomly formed universe, the moon could have been any size and any distance from earth. Yet here, on seemingly the only place in this incomprehensibly vast universe perfectly situated to support life, we see this from our vantage point when they line up . . .

The good folks over at the YouVersion Bible app and the site Bible dot com have graciously provided a seven-day sample of devotions from my newest devotional.

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Over at the Cup & Table Co. blog . . . A word about the “Imprecatory Psalms” and how to deploy these violent prayers in the New Covenant era. Go here.