Session Notes

What We Will Learn Today
  1. The implicit prophecy of the Incarnation in the creation of Adam and Eve
  2. Why God forbade the making of divine images in the old covenant
  3. The difference between chronos and kairos time
  4. Christ as the Malak Yahweh
  5. Christ as the Word, Wisdom, Glory, Name, Power, and Man of God
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  • What does “walking backward to Bethlehem” mean?
    • The Hebrew word for “in front of” (qedem) is the same word for “past”
    • The word for “behind” (achar) is the basis for the word for “future” (achareet)
Luther writes in his Genesis commentary that, in saying the Adam and Eve were created in the image of God,
“Moses wanted to intimate dimly that God was to become incarnate…Because he was created in the image of the invisible God, that statement is a dim intimation, as we shall hear, that God was to reveal Himself to the world in the man Christ. These seeds, as it were, of very important facts the prophets have carefully gathered from Moses and considered,” (AE 1:87).
The Prophets read and studied the Bible just as we do
Adam and Eve were made in the image of God. Jesus is the image of God.
Everything post-Torah is inspired interpretation and expansion.
  • The Torah forbids the making of divine images. Why?
    • This is to make Israel wait until God himself discloses his own image in the incarnation.
Christmas is forecast in the Ten Commandments.
Two Versions of Time in the Old Testament
  1. Chronos, from which we get chronological, is the moment by moment, day by day, gradual progression of time from the past into the future
  2. Kairos, on the other hand, is the occasional explosion into chronological time of God’s time.
    God works in chronos and kairos time
Genesis 16:7,9-10
The angel of the Lord say I will greatly multiply your offspring, not that God will.
Then she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, “Thou art a God who sees”
Genesis 22:11-12
Once more, he speaks with divine authority and identifies himself with God.
Exodus 3:2-7
We meet the Son of God again in Exodus 3 at the burning bush.
Exodus 20:20-22
Here, the one who would eventually accomplish his own saving exodus of the world sends Moses.
Exodus 23:20-21
God says that his name is in this Messenger.
The Son also appears as:
  1. The Glory of God
  2. The Wisdom of God
  3. The Word of God
  4. The Man of God
The OT is not just full of the prophecies of the Messiah, but the presence of the Messiah, as he reveals himself to his people in manifold ways.