The Gospel Message Past and Present

Jesus tells us in the Gospels that if we look at the Scriptures (meaning the Old Testament), we will find that they are written about Him.

You will find from the Scriptures that it was common for people to name children with a meaning. Usually it would describe an attribute, an act in their lives, or something to come.  Hebrew names come from a root word, for example Adam comes from the root word ‘adomah’ which means ‘man’. This is a fitting name as he was the first man.

Continuing through Genesis 5, we find Seth is next in line after Adam. Seth’s name means ‘appointed’, you will find a reference to this in Genesis 4:25, where Eve says God has appointed her another son in place of Abel who had been killed by Cain.

After this we find Enosh which means ‘mortal’. The root is ‘anash’ which mean incurable, wound, grief. Next we have Kenan which means ‘sorrow’.

Next we have Mahalalel. The first portion ‘mahalal’ means ‘blessed’ or ‘praise’, and ‘El’ is the name for God. So Mahalalel means ‘the blessed of God’.

Next we have Jared which means ‘shall come’ followed by Enoch, which means ‘teaching’ or ‘commencement’. After Enoch we have Methuselah which means ‘his death shall bring’ followed by Lamech, the root of his name means ‘despair or despairing’. The meaning of his name is still evident in the English word ‘lament’.

Now last but not least, we have Noah. His name comes from the word ‘nacham’ which means ‘to bring relief’. Noah’s name means ‘comfort’ and ‘rest’.

From Adam all the way to Noah, we’ve found the root meanings of each name. Let’s put them all in order and put those meanings into a complete sentence: Man (is) appointed mortal sorrow, (but) the blessed one of God shall come teaching. His death shall bring (those who) despair comfort and rest.

There you have it, from Adam to Noah, the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

In Noah’s day, around the year 4990 BC, out of the entire world that existed there were only eight people who were saved from the disaster of the flood.

However, in the year 1447 B.C., God made a great change in His method of having the kingdom of God represented on this earth. In that year, God began to utilize the nation of Israel to represent the kingdom of God. It was in the year 1447 B.C. that Israel, under the leadership of Moses, came out of their enslavement to Egypt. The nation of Israel consisted of the descendants of Abraham, who was born more than 700 years earlier. Abraham was born in the year 2167 B.C. as a citizen of Ur of the Chaldees or Babylon. In the year 2092 B.C., he and his wife, Sarah, in obedience to God’s command, went to the land of Canaan. They became the beginning of the nation of Israel, and the land of Canaan was used of God as an earthly representation of the kingdom of God.

The nation of Israel, together with the land of Canaan, became the centerpiece of the unfolding of God’s salvation plan during the period preceding the birth of Christ. The fact is that Jesus the Son of God took part of the flesh and blood nature of Adam as a direct descendant of Abraham.

By the year 1447 B.C., the descendants of Abraham, who were called Israel, had grown to become a nation of possibly about two million people. It was in that year that they came out of enslavement to Egypt and were called God’s people. They were given more and more of God’s laws. They became the external physical representatives of the kingdom of God on earth.

God gave the nation of Israel a country, the land of Canaan, which is also called the land of Israel, as a place to live, and a temple, and synagogues in which to worship. He gave them laws, ceremonial laws, which were to be observed because they pointed to the coming Messiah, Jesus Christ. The ceremonial laws included things such as the observance of feast days, new moons, sabbaths, burnt offerings, blood sacrifices, etc.

An integral part of the nation of Israel was the body of laws that God gave concerning the appointment of priests and kings to rule over the nation. They were established by God to externally represent his kingdom here on earth. Anyone who was a descendant of Abraham was automatically a member of this great congregation. To emphasize this membership, every male was circumcised. This was a ceremonial law set forth by the law of God. Today, for those who are born again, the circumcision is final and forever in Christ.

The Bible gives us a lot of information about the years that immediately precede the beginning of the nation of Israel as well as its first thousand years of history. The Bible gives much detail about Israel, as a nation, when God delivered them from slavery and brought them out of Egypt, when they miraculously went through the Red Sea on dry ground, and wandered 40 years in the wilderness, and then went through the Jordan River on dry ground. The Bible then gives considerable information concerning the next 360 years of their history, as God ruled over them, utilizing individuals called judges, in the land of Canaan.

We are then given details about the next 116 years, when Israel came into its greatest earthly glory, as they were ruled over by King Saul, who was followed by King David, and then by King Solomon.

Considerable detail is also given in the Bible concerning the division of the one unified nation, which included the 12 tribes of Israel, into two nations. Upon the death of King Solomon, ten of the tribes became an independent kingdom called Israel, with its capital eventually located in Samaria, and the remaining two tribes became the nation of Judah, with its capital located in Jerusalem. The Bible gives much information concerning these kingdoms and the kings who ruled over them.

The Bible also gives considerable information about the end of these nations. The Assyrians conquered the ten tribes of the nation of Israel in the year 709 B.C. Then in the year 587 B.C., the nation of Judah was conquered by the Babylonians, at which time the city of Jerusalem and the magnificent temple built by King Solomon were destroyed.

Following the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 B.C., details of the experiences of the 12 tribes became much more limited. We learn that in 539 B.C., about 40,000 of the survivors of Judah, which was destroyed by the Babylonians, returned to Jerusalem. We learn a few facts about the rebuilding of the temple, an effort that was completed in 515 B.C. We learn about a few experiences of the Jews who returned to the land of Israel, mainly from the books in the Bible titled Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther.

For almost 400 years of history, from 391 B.C. to 4 B.C., the Bible is completely silent about the land of Israel, its inhabitants, and for that matter, any other nation in the world.

The Bible is filled with statements concerning the sin, the apostasy, and the rebellion of the nation of Israel against the laws of God. Even when Jesus Christ came as the promised seed, a descendant of Abraham, they rebelled, and they would not regard Him as their Messiah. In fact, they eventually killed Him (Acts 2:22-23).

In 4 B.C., the Bible again began to give us much detail about the nation of Israel. In that year, the birth of John the Baptist was announced, and it was John who was to declare to the world that the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, had come to take away the sin of the world. Jesus Christ, of course, is the only mediator by which anyone in the world can be eternally reconciled to God. It is Christ who is the wonderful fruit produced by the nation of Israel. It is through the nation of Israel that Christ was born of Mary, who was of the tribe of Judah.