It is Genesis that we see The Beginning of Hope…

Sin entered the world with the fall of mankind… through Adam and Eve, yet in their sin God provided hope.

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 3:15

 It would be in the space between, that redemption would come.

Now the man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all the living”

Genesis 3:20

 It would be in that space between the word of God and the flesh of God that redemption would be possible. The moment when the two become one.

Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said, “I have gotten a manchild with the help of the Lord.”

Genesis 4:1

Eve knew the way of redemption had come… Right here we see her hope! In hope against hope she believed… that through her seed God would restore what they had destroyed. However… Cain was not the appointed one. Eve would bear other sons… we know the names of three… Cain, Able, and Seth.

Cain would kill Abel. Seth would be conceived and born after this murder.

Adam had relations with his wife again; and she gave birth to a son, and named him Seth, for, she said, “God has appointed me another offspring in place of Abel, for Cain killed him.” To Seth, to him also a son was born; and he called his name Enosh. Then men began to call upon the name of the Lord.

Genesis 4:25-26

Cain is qayin in the Hebrew, and it means spear.

Abel is hebel in the Hebrew, and it means vapor, breath, vanity, worthless, useless.

Lord, make me to know my end, And what is the extent of my days; Let me know how transient I am. Behold, You have made my days as handbreadths, And my lifetime as nothing in Your sight; Surely every man at his best is a mere breath. Surely every man walks about as a phantom;

Psalm 39:4-6

Seth is Sheth and it comes from shith and it means to put, set, appoint, fixed position, to place.

Enosh in the Hebrew comes from the word anash and it means incurable, desperately sick, desperately wicked. 

 Then men began to call upon the name of the Lord.

Genesis 4:26

I believe Eve thought she and Adam had provided their own salvation- Cain, with the help of God of course. Yet, this was not the case. The spear would pierce through this useless, vain, worthless, breath of Adam and Eve. They would see that they are but a vapor and strivings for their own salvation would get them nowhere. They were created in the image of God, yet this flesh that enslaved them was fit only for death.

They would then have Seth. This son would be the set, appointed, line of redemption for all mankind. It would be through the lineage from Adam to Seth that the Son of the promise of Genesis 3:15 would come. The Messiah. The Christ. Jesus the Son of God.

Yet, Seth did not come until they understood that salvation would be the work of God alone… not theirs with the help of God, but God alone.

Seth, in the naming of his son, would declare the set state of mankind.

Seth would have a son, he would name him Enosh… incurable, desperately sick, desperately wicked… Seth would stand and say, This is our lot. We are sick. We are incurable. We are desperately wicked. We have no hope within ourselves.

Then men began to call upon the name of the Lord.

Genesis 4:26

The child that would save mankind from the chains of sin would not be a seed of Adam… but the very Son of God.

Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel. 

Isaiah 7:14

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For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us;

Isaiah 9:6

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“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

John 3:16

Redemption would come, hope would come in the space between, in that blessed interval moment in time when the flesh of man and the Life of God would collide and the two would become one, the God-Man, the Word made flesh, would come and dwell among us… and when Cain would rise up to kill him as he did Abel… He would discover that this One was not a mere vapor or breath… this One was God Incarnate, Immanuel. The One who would save His people from their sin.

The first time the word hope is used in the Scriptures is in the book of Ruth, but where is the picture of hope first seen in the Scriptures?

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day. 

Genesis 1:1-5

In my book Devotions from Genesis I shared how I thought the fall of Satan occurred between Genesis 2 and Genesis 3. Somewhere between God saying, it was very good and reading now the serpent was more crafty… 

I still believe his fall to the earth could have happened at that time… but as I have grown in my knowledge of the Word I believe the rebellion in the heavens occurred right here in the beginning.

I also believe here in the beginning is our first picture of hope.

Satan sets himself up as an equal of God, a created being demanding to be worshipped as the Creator. He gathers followers as he stands in this rebellion. This one who thought he himself could ascend above the throne of the Most High and could set himself above the stars of God…

God creates the heavens and the earth.

The word and in Genesis 1:1 is eth.

In the Hebrew this word and is in the accusative case. 

The accusative case (abbreviated acc) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of (some or all)prepositions. It is a noun that is having something done to it, usually joined (such as in Latin) with the nominative case. The syntactical functions of the accusative consist of designating the immediate object of an action, the intended result, the goal of a motion, and the extent of an action. (information from wikipedia)

This Hebrew word eth is apparent contracted from ‘owth in the demonstrative sense of entity; properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)

The Hebrew word owth means sign, mark, miracle and it probably comes from ‘uwth (in the sense of appearing); a signal (literally or figuratively), as a flag, beacon, monument, omen, prodigy, evidence, etc. — mark, miracle, (en)sign, token.

Now why on earth did I just take you down this path of definitions… just hang with me… and know that I am not a scholar, this is just the thoughts of a small town girl living in love with the Word.

Let us just suppose that the great rebellion occurred in the highest heavens and in this rebellion came darkness… the separation of God from His rebelling creation. In this God forms this heaven and this earth. This heaven and earth created as a sign, a monument, a mark, evidence of the rebellion.

Now the Spirit of God hovers over the formless and void and dark earth… the surface of the deep darkness… and God says no. No it will not remain in formless, void, darkness… Let there be light.

Let there be hope!

Can you see it precious one? Can you see the glory of our God, in His omnipotent power, the beautiful workings of His hands of mercy and grace and life and light as He works the wonders of the universe? I am convinced that there is so much more to this story of creation and darkness and light and good and evil than will ever be revealed to us here in this mortality… but something in the depths of my being knows that it is an epic tale of the utmost proportions. One that our finite minds cannot even begin to comprehend and into the ages of the ages we will sit at the feet of our Elohim and hang on His every word as He tells us of the story behind The Story.

God separated the light from the darkness… the word separated here is bayin and it means between, an interval, a space between. 

Darkness might be here. This rebellion has occurred, but there would always be a space between the light and the darkness… a chasm so great that the two would never be able to dwell together. The earth would be a sign, a mark, a monument to this separation. This creation, would be an interval of time between the rebellion in the heavens and the complete destruction of the rebels, but the effects of their rebellion would be carried out to completion as would the redemption of the light of all creation.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 

Romans 8:18-21

Here lies the beautiful picture of hope… let there be light.

We reside here in this interval, this space between. We dwell here today on this earth, this monument, this object of the action of the verb created, the intended result, the goal of a motion, and the extent of an action. The action that the Spirit of God hovers upon calling out for us, those created in His image, to come to the light.

 This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.

John 3:19-20

Here lies the hope…

Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.”

John 8:12

Wait there’s more… The Beginning of Hope Part 2

The first Sunday in the month of December begins Advent. Just in case you are wondering what this whole advent thing is, let’s go to wikipedia.

Advent is a season observed in many Western Christian churches as a time of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus atChristmas. The term is an anglicized version of the Latin word adventus, meaning “coming”.

Latin adventus is the translation of the Greek word parousia, commonly used to refer to the Second Coming of Christ. For Christians, the season of Advent anticipates the coming of Christ from two different perspectives. The season offers the opportunity to share in the ancient longing for the coming of the Messiah, and to be alert for his Second Coming.

One tradition accompanying Advent is the Advent wreath.

Four or five candles depending on how many Sundays is used and each candle has a specific meaning.

The readings for the first Sunday in Advent relate to the old testament patriarchs who were Christ’s ancestors, so some call the first advent candle that of hope.

I have looked up a few advent readings for 2013, but they all began in the New Testament so I am going for the challenge of putting together my own readings this week to share with you. They will all come from the Old Testament. They will all also come from those who are revealed to us as the lineage of Christ according the flesh.

When I looked up the word hope in the Scriptures, I discovered that the first occurrence of this word, according to the NASB, is in the book of Ruth. Ruth is the great-grandmother of King David who is in the lineage of Christ. How fitting that the first occurrence of the word hope would be concerning a woman who would bear a child, who would one day bear a child, who would bear The Child.

Return, my daughters! Go, for I am too old to have a husband. If I said I have hope, if I should even have a husband tonight and also bear sons, would you therefore wait until they were grown? 

Ruth 1:12-13

The word for hope here in the Hebrew is tiqvah and it means cord. Figuratively it means expectation, hope, live, thing that I long for. In this verse Naomi is speaking to Ruth and to her other daughter-in-law as well. Naomi has decided that her situation is hopeless, and that these two young women need to return to their parents house and go on about their lives.

However, Ruth will not hear of it.

But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus may the Lord do to me, and worse, if anything but death parts you and me.”

Ruth 1:16-17

Ruth did not know what the future held, but Ruth held on to Naomi. She refused to walk away from this woman and leave her all alone. She would go with her, husband or no husband. Naomi had lost hope, but Ruth had not. I often wonder what kind of life Ruth had before she met Naomi’s family. What had this Moabite woman been rescued from as she became the bride of this Israelite man?

The Moabites worshiped a god named Chemosh. Chemosh had a taste for blood.  In 2 Kings 3:27 we find that human sacrifice was a part of the rites of Chemosh. What would it have been like to be the child in a home that sacrificed their children into the arms of a fired filled false deity? I can’t even imagine being raised in that type of culture.

Can you just imagine this woman who has known child sacrifice as normal, meeting this family who serves the One True God who forbids such rites and values life? What would it have been like to learn about a God that commanded His people to love Him and to love their neighbor? What would it have been like for Ruth to meet a God who had revealed Himself as a God of compassion, mercy, and kindness?

Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished…

Exodus 34:6-7

I can almost hear the inner thoughts of Ruth. Leave Naomi? Leave their God? Leave this Hope?

No, leave Ruth would not.

She did not know what the future held as she walked into Bethlehem with this woman she now claimed as her own mother, but she knew she would keep walking forward into the unknown before she even considered turning back to the past.

Hope is found in the future. Hope is found pressing forward. Hope is trusting in something yet to come, but walking in full assurance that it is indeed to come.

And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.

Romans 8:23-25

Ruth had been given a first fruit of God when she entered into this family. She received her first taste of something so beautiful and tender that even though she groaned in this present loss of her husband, her brother-in-law, and her father-in-law facing, this groaning was worth the hope that she had found in this family.

She could not see what was coming next, but she was learning about this God of her deceased husband. She was learning about this God of her mother-in-law Naomi, and she wanted this God to be her God. She wanted this family to be her family.

She wanted this Hope to be her hope. She had grabbed hold of the cord of Christ. She grabbed hold of the scarlet thread of redemption that has woven its way all through history. She grabbed hold of Hope and she was not letting go.

As we close out this year we are one year closer to the return of our Lord. As you consider His advent, His coming, are there things that you have placed your hope in other than Him? What or who are you clinging to? Have you said goodbye to the past and grabbed hold of the redemptive cord of Christ? With perseverance are you eagerly watching for Him?