Please watch this video: Free Fall.
Maybe the serpent did laugh or maybe it slithered away thinking, “I wonder what ‘crush your head’ means?” Even within the midst of the curses God hinted that he was not finished though his creation had been broken by the rebellion of humans, his own images.
The Old Testament is important to our understanding of how God picked up the pieces of his broken creation and put them back together. However, I’m going to share just a brief outline of the process that the Lord undertook through the centuries leading to the major actions that restore the image of God in his people. The broken cosmos cannot be restored unless humanity is renewed in the image of its Creator.
I reject any idea that God tried to restore his creation by choosing Israel to be his people on earth and that didn’t work so he went to Plan B. There never was a Plan B. God had one plan, and he has accomplished it.
Three times in the New Testament we read that the things of the Old Covenant were a “shadow” of the real thing (Colossians 2:17, Hebrews 8:5 and 10:1). The real thing is in Christ. The work that God did through Christ is the actual way that humanity and creation are restored. The things in the Old Testament (like law, temple, sacrifice, king, nation along with specific events) are shadows of that reality; they give us a basic indication of what God was going to make happen.
It’s like a football coach drawing the diagram of a specific play he is going to have his team run. The X’s and O’s and arrows are not the actual players and procedures of the play. The players understand what is going to happen when they actually run the play. When they do run the play in a game, it becomes real.
This is only an analogy. The Old Covenant was of course more than a simple diagram. God genuinely was involved with real people and events. Yet we must understand that he was moving toward something else that would actually make the difference that was needed to renew the image of God and restore the broken creation.
The first major move God made was with Abraham (Genesis 12-25). In his relationship with Abraham, God made the promises that he was going to bring about new conditions on the earth. Genesis 12:1-3:
The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
Once Abraham was in the land God showed him – Canaan – God made his promises more detailed and specific, including Genesis 13:14-16:
The Lord said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, “Look around from where you are, to the north and south, to the east and west. All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted.
The Lord called on Abraham to adhere to this covenant by trusting God to keep his promises and by obeying God’s commands.
With creation broken, God took the initiative to bring about the needed change. He promised to once again have a people who belong to him and who fill the earth. Notice that his promise extended to “all peoples on earth.”
The next major move was with the Hebrews. After bringing them out of slavery in Egypt,the Lord told them (Exodus 19:4-6):
You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
God rescued them from an idol-filled culture and the curse of forced slavery. He took them to be transformed into his own people, his own children. They were to become a holy kingdom of priests, his sacred representatives.
God instructed Moses and the Hebrews to build the tabernacle, the tent of meeting. Once finished and set up,
Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle (Exodus 40:34).
The Lord himself moved into the nation. He led them where to go. He gave them the Law to follow and the sacrificial system to purify them so they could experience fellowship with him.
With creation broken, God was advancing forward with a people he sovereignly chose in order to express his plans and will for the whole world.
What I would call God’s third major move occurred after the Hebrews were well settled in the promised land. He set up a kingship over Israel. After the first king (Saul), which the people demanded before God was ready, failed miserably, the Lord chose David to rule over his people. He chose young David because “the LORD looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). So, 2 Samuel 5:10 and 12, tells us:
And he became more and more powerful, because the Lord God Almighty was with him… Then David knew that the Lord had established him as king over Israel and had exalted his kingdom for the sake of his people Israel.
Bernardo Cho provides a good summary of David’s place in God’s process: “David is important, therefore, because he prefigured the type of king whom Israel needs in order for God’s redemptive purposes to be actualized: a true worshiper who recognizes that YHWH is the supreme ruler above all. For the same reason, it is in the story of David that the plot of salvation more explicitly links Israel’s true vocation with the establishment of the Davidic dynasty, through which God’s own kingdom would become tangible in the world.”
David wanted to build a temple, a house for God, in Jerusalem, to replace the old tabernacle. Instead, God put that off for David’s son Solomon to undertake. This temple built by the king of Israel hearkened back to Eden, the original meeting place of heaven and earth. When the temple was completed the glory of the LORD entered just as with the tabernacle.
1 Kings 9:3-8 states that God told Solomon:
I have heard the prayer and plea you have made before me; I have consecrated this temple, which you have built, by putting my Name there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there. As for you, if you walk before me faithfully with integrity of heart and uprightness, as David your father did, and do all I command and observe my decrees and laws, I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father when I said, ‘You shall never fail to have a successor on the throne of Israel.’ But if you or your descendants turn away from me and do not observe the commands and decrees I have given you and go off to serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land I have given them and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my Name. Israel will then become a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples. This temple will become a heap of rubble.
God established the kingship over Israel so there would be a leader who would be faithful to God and his covenant with the nation and who would guide the people to trust the Lord in all situations and follow his commands in the Law. The temple in Jerusalem provided a way (the sacrifices) for the people to be purified of their sins and a place (the Holy of Holies) for God to dwell on earth with his people.
The final major move of God recorded in the Old Testament involved the prophets. The chosen people of God did turn away and did not do all he commanded and did go off to serve other gods. The consequence was they were cut off from the land as they were repeatedly conquered by other nations. The temple was destroyed. Again and again, God called and sent prophets proclaiming the seriousness of their sin and the surety of God’s judgment, but also the assurance of God’s love and desire to forgive and restore the nation to blessing.
Embedded within the prophetic messages through the centuries, the Lord included promises and plans for the future (their future, not ours). The key to it all working out the way God intended was God sending a unique individual who would make the difference. One example is Zechariah 3:8-9:
Listen, High Priest Joshua, you and your associates seated before you, who are men symbolic of things to come: I am going to bring my servant, the Branch… I will remove the sin of this land in a single day.
And God promised that he himself would return to the temple. Malachi 3:1:
“I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty.
Through the prophets God made it known that he still expected his people to trust him, depend on him, and worship him above all else. He still expected them to serve as his representatives and bring blessing to the world. He still expected them to be what he created humanity to be. They couldn’t do it, but God’s plan, first implied in Genesis 3, was still in effect.
Grit and tenacity. I think it’s fair to say those were God’s characteristics after his images rebelled and broke his good creation. He never backed down, never gave up on his plan. He drew up the play, revealed something of what he was up to, then waited for the right time.