Concept
ChristologyThe Gospel in Genesis
The rescue is announced in the first book: in Eden's promise, Abraham's ram, and Joseph's throne: long before it is narrated.
#typology#genesis
- 5passages
- 39original words
- 1approved connection
- 124cross-references
The words behind it
Hebrew and Greek standing in the 5 passages listed below, not a lexicon of "the gospel in genesis" itself. The number on each word is how often it occurs in those passages; the connecting words the languages use everywhere are set aside so the words that carry meaning can be seen.
Hebrew39
29 more hebrew words ▾
The passages
Every passage this site attaches to the concept, in canon order. Each row says where it came from.
Old Testament5
- Genesis 3:15listed key text
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”(opening verse of the passage)
Commentary on Genesis 3:152 voices
THIS IS THE FIRST gospel sermon that was ever delivered upon the surface of this earth. It was memorable discourse indeed, with Jehovah himself for the preacher, and the whole human race and the prince of darkness for the audience. It must be worthy of our heartiest attention. Is it not remarkable that this great gospel promise should have been delivered so soon after the transgression?
Charles Spurgeon· The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 1326: “Christ the Conqueror of Satan” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition), 1876
He has therefore, in His work of recapitulation, summed up all things, both waging war against our enemy, and crushing him who had at the beginning led us away captives in Adam, and trampled upon his head, as thou canst perceive in Genesis that God said to the serpent, "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; He shall be on the watch for thy head, and thou on the watch for His heel."
Irenaeus· Against Heresies 5.21.1, 202Patristic
- Genesis 22:8listed key text
Abraham answered, “God Himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two walked on together.(opening verse of the passage)
Commentary on Genesis 22:82 voices
Christ the great sacrifice of atonement was of God's providing: when none in heaven or earth could have found a lamb for that burnt-offering, God himself found the ransom. All our sacrifices of acknowledgement are of God's providing too; 'tis he that prepares the heart. The broken and contrite spirit is a sacrifice of God, of his providing.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765Evangelical
Abraham's response, sufficiently accurate and cautious, moves me. I do not know what he saw in his spirit, for he does not speak about the present but about the future: "God himself will provide himself a sheep." He responded to his son's inquiry about present things with future things. For "the Lord himself will provide himself a sheep" in Christ, because also, "Wisdom herself has built herself a house," and "He himself humbled himself unto death."
Origen of Alexandria· HOMILIES ON GENESIS 8.6, 253Patristic
- Genesis 22:13listed key text
Then Abraham looked up and saw behind him a ram in a thicket, caught by its horns. So he went and took the ram and offered it as a burnt offering in place of his son.(opening verse of the passage)
Commentary on Genesis 22:132 voices
Behold a ram - Tho' that blessed Seed was now typified by Isaac, yet the offering of him up was suspended 'till the latter end of the world, and in the mean time the sacrifice of beasts was accepted, as a pledge of that expiation which should be made by that great sacrifice.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765Evangelical
Abraham lifted up his eyes . . . and behold . . . a ram, &c.--No method was more admirably calculated to give the patriarch a distinct idea of the purpose of grace than this scenic representation: and hence our Lord's allusion to it (Joh 8:56).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Reformed
- Genesis 49:10listed key text
The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes and the allegiance of the nations is his.(opening verse of the passage)
Commentary on Genesis 49:102 voices
THE dying Patriarch was speaking of his own son, Judah, but while speaking of Judah, he had a special eye to our Lord, who sprang from the tribe of Judah. Everything, therefore, which he says of Judah, the type, he means with regard to our greater Judah, the Antitype, our Lord Jesus Christ. You will remember how Jacob gathered his 12 sons around his bed and, addressing them individually as representatives of the 12 tribes that bear their names, uttered different predictions, and gave to each a special blessing.
Charles Spurgeon· The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 1157: “Shiloh” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition), 1874
until Shiloh come--Shiloh--this obscure word is variously interpreted to mean "the sent" (Joh 17:3), "the seed" (Isa 11:1), the "peaceable or prosperous one" (Eph 2:14) --that is, the Messiah (Isa 11:10;
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Reformed
- Genesis 50:20listed key text
As for you, what you intended against me for evil, God intended for good, in order to accomplish a day like this—to preserve the lives of many people.(opening verse of the passage)
Commentary on Genesis 50:201 voice
Joseph's brothers meant his suffering for evil, and insofar as this was their motivation, they were culpable before God.
R. C. Sproul· How Can God Bring Good Out of Evil?
Approved connections
1 link an editor approved, each with the reason it was kept.
- targum readingGenesis 3:15
The Aramaic Targum Pseudo-Jonathan reads the enmity of Genesis 3:15 as resolved “in the days of the King Messiah”: Jewish translators heard a promise of the Messiah in this verse long before the church did. Where scholars push back: Flesher and Chilton (2011) note the Targum's final form was written down later. It shows how the verse came to be understood over time, not necessarily how it was first heard.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Gen 3:15 (Etheridge, PD)
Voices on these passages
Commentary matched to the verses above, each named with its source: the full pool sits on each verse page.
THIS IS THE FIRST gospel sermon that was ever delivered upon the surface of this earth. It was memorable discourse indeed, with Jehovah himself for the preacher, and the whole human race and the prince of darkness for the audience. It must be worthy of our heartiest attention. Is it not remarkable that this great gospel promise should have been delivered so soon after the transgression?
Charles Spurgeon· The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 1326: “Christ the Conqueror of Satan” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)
Genesis 3:15
Christ the great sacrifice of atonement was of God's providing: when none in heaven or earth could have found a lamb for that burnt-offering, God himself found the ransom. All our sacrifices of acknowledgement are of God's providing too; 'tis he that prepares the heart. The broken and contrite spirit is a sacrifice of God, of his providing.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old TestamentEvangelical
Genesis 22:8
Behold a ram - Tho' that blessed Seed was now typified by Isaac, yet the offering of him up was suspended 'till the latter end of the world, and in the mean time the sacrifice of beasts was accepted, as a pledge of that expiation which should be made by that great sacrifice.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old TestamentEvangelical
Genesis 22:13
Study it deeper
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Trace one word to every place it stands
A word page lists every verse that word occurs in, with its definition and its range of meaning. Start with the roots that occur most under the passages above.
Walk out from the passages
The passages above carry 124 cross-references between them, links from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, the great 1830s reference work, together with the reader-voted index at OpenBible.info. The most-linked destinations:
Read the whole chapter around it
A verse quoted alone can mean almost anything. Open Genesis 3 in the reader, where the Hebrew or Greek sits under every line.
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The search page is a doorway: it returns verses, word studies, people, places and studies for one term at once.
Where this comes from
Genesis is not a prologue to the gospel; it is the gospel in seed form. A promised Deliverer in chapter 3, a substitute ram caught in a thicket on Moriah in chapter 22, a rejected brother raised to the right hand of the throne who says "ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good" in chapter 50.
Read in that order the book carries the shape of the cross before Sinai, before the prophets, before Bethlehem.