In The Beginning…
The Line of Jesus
Matthew 1 – Lineage of Jesus
Luke 3 – All the way back to Adam
Family tree – I was not present three branches ago. I was not living during the 1800’s. I was not present for the birth of my father…
BUT JESUS was Present every step of the way through his lineage.
Not only is the old testament jammed packed with prophecies about Jesus (Next week), but it is also jammed pack with Him actually being present!
John 1:1-5 New International Version (NIV)
The Word Became Flesh
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it.
Genesis 1:3
Testimony – things you have lived through, things you have done, changes, your story. Your testimony started from when you were born…
Jesus’ testimony – things he has done, things he has experienced etc, well that started… it didn’t really start.
John 5:39 New King James Version (NKJV)
39 You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.
On the Road to Emmaus
Luke 24:25-27 New King James Version (NKJV)
25 Then He said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?” 27 And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He [a]expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.
Full Revelation of God to Man did not start in Bethlehem:
Jesus is first seen in the Old Testament as the person who appeared as “the Angel of the Lord” in his sudden confrontation with Sarah’s maidservant, Hagar (Gen 16:7).
Thereafter, he continued to appear intermittently throughout the earlier books of the Old Testament. These real occurrences, initiated by God, were characterized by the fact that they were convincing revelations of his person and work, as much as they were also transitory, fleeting, but audible and clearly visible appearances.
He came in the form of a human, much before his final incarnation as a babe in Bethlehem, yet this same “Angel of the LORD” is called and is addressed often as “the LORD/Yahweh” himself (Gen 12:7; 17:1; 19:1; etc.) So real was he as the full manifestation of God to man.
This “Angel of the LORD” was a title that stood for his office, but it did not describe his nature. The Hebrew word for “angel” (mal’ak) had the basic idea of one who was “sent,” a “messenger.”
Of the 214 usages of the Hebrew term used for “angel,” about one-third of them refer to what is labeled by theologians as a “Christophany,” a temporary appearance of Christ in the Old Testament. It is certain, however, that this special angel of the Lord is divine, for Hagar “…gave this name to the LORD, who spoke with her [as the Angel of the LORD]: ‘You are the God who sees me,’ as she observed, ‘I have now seen the One who sees me’” (Gen 16:13).
Other instances of Jesus’ appearances in the Old Testament
Genesis 22:11, 15, where it was the Angel of Yahweh who spoke from heaven to Abraham when Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac
Moses in the flame of fire in Exodus 3:2
Angel of the Lord who appeared to the wife of Manoah (Judges 13:2-25), mother of Samson and Manoah himself.
This “Angel” is regarded as a “Redeemer,” who saves Israel from evil (Isa 63:9).
Temporary dwelling/appearances vs permanent residence.
Higher being has authority over us…
Jesus came right through time and continues His work today to reveal this authority in your life.