EP 160: Tracing The Scarlet Thread Of Redemption Through Genesis (Part 1)

"Are any of you old enough to remember when we used maps before GPS? Today, we plug in the coordinates for the Messiah and explore the Scripture."

We trace the Old Testament’s map to the Messiah, from the garden promise to the ark’s door and Rahab’s scarlet cord, showing how Scripture points to Jesus as the anointed King, Priest and Prophet. We connect prophecy and typology so the story reads as one plan of rescue.

• John 5:39 as the study’s anchor
• Protoevangelium in Genesis 3:15 and the promised seed
• Rahab’s scarlet thread as a sign of salvation
• Meaning of Messiah and the three anointed offices
• Cain and Abel as early typology of Christ
• Noah, Shem and the hint of God dwelling with His people
• The ark’s single door and the pitch as images of atonement
• Passover imagery and the better word of Christ’s blood
• Invitation to respond while the door is open

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Transcript

Welcome And Deep Dive Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Lord, you know you're now listening to playing what is the best.

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Death its desire is to have you. He warned him, but both chose to rebel against what God said, and death came to their brother. Cain rebelled against what God warned him and went and killed his brother, Abel, who ironically is a shepherd. Just like the last Adam. The good shepherd. You guys track with me on that? Like, did you see the parallel on that?

GPS To The Messiah Concept

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Are any of you old enough to remember when we used maps before GPS? Today we are gonna plug in the coordinates for the Messiah and explore the scripture.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

Hello, and welcome to Plays on Word Radio, where we discuss, analyze, work, and play on the Word of God. Thank you for joining us on this excursion today. Let's join Pastor Teddy, also known as Fred David Kenny Jr., the founder of Plays on Word Theater, as he does a deep dive into the Word of God.

John 5:39 And Scripture’s Witness

The Scarlet Thread And Rahab

Defining Messiah And Anointing

Protoevangelium In Genesis 3:15

Cain, Abel, And Messianic Typology

Noah’s Blessing And Shem’s Line

The Ark, The Door, And Salvation

Closing Blessing And Next Steps

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Deep dive, deep dive. Amen. Amen. Well, welcome to all of you listening to Plays on Word Radio! My name is Fred David Kenny Jr. And thank you very much, Katie Kenny and Josh Taylor, for that introduction. Today, we are gonna do something. You know, you hear in the intro, you hear Josh say all the time into this. Today's one of those days we're gonna deep dive into the old testament. We are recording. Yes, we're gonna we're gonna call this GPS to the Messiah. And it's basically like using a GPS to get to a destination. And you notice there's scriptures in that GPS model. I mean, I don't know if anybody's using an actual dedicated GPS anymore. Everybody just basically uses their phone, but there are those things. The main verse for this study, the main verse, or the theme verse, I should say, is John 5.39, where Jesus says to the he healed this guy who was lame, and the teachers of the law were he did it on the Sabbath, and the teachers of the law were really upset with him. How could you do that on the Sabbath? And you know, he's going back and forth, and he's talking to these guys, and he says, You guys, you you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. It is they that bear witness of me. Jesus basically is talking about the scriptures that they had, which was the Old Testament, what we call the Old Testament. They didn't have the New Testament letters or anything yet. But he's saying all the scriptures that you guys think that you have eternal life by digging through and you diligently search the scriptures, you don't even realize that they testify of me. So the the point of this study, and it's not exhaustive, this study is definitely not exhaustive. This is kind of like a, I wouldn't call it a flyover, but maybe a drive-through and stop for coffee, but you keep on moving. Uh, much more could be done, but we'll come back to it at some point. The one of the themes that goes through the scripture is something, has anybody ever heard of the scarlet thread of redemption? The scarlet thread of redemption. That's kind of what we're studying when we're when we study, we're studying Messiah, studying Christ, it's the scarlet thread concept. And if you remember the story of uh Joshua before before they went to Jericho, and the walls fell down. You guys know that story in the book of Joshua? Um just a little side note, ADD Joshua is the Hebrew name, the Greek translation of Joshua is Yeshua. Or Jesus. The Hebrew is Yeshua. Uh Jesus, which is Jesus, that's how we get Jesus. So it's the book of Jesus in a sense. Don't make a doctrine out of that. Uh so they sent these spies in to Jericho, and this prostitute hid these spies and protected them. And she was like, I know that your God is the true God. I heard what you I heard what you did to Og and uh and the Egyptians, and we heard, and we're terrified of you. Please don't wipe us out. And they gave, they told her something specific to do. They said, Okay, if you take this scarlet thread and tie it in your window, you'll be protected. And so when they marched around the city of Jericho, and when they went, when the walls fell, when they went in, they noticed they had that scarlet thread in the window, and everybody in her name, every her name was Rahab. Everybody in Rahab's house was saved. Don't miss that picture. Everyone was saved. There was one way to be saved. You had to have that scarlet thread, and they were saved, and amazingly, Rahab, that prostitute that protected them, that was not even Jewish, she ended up being in the line of Jesus. It's kind of a fascinating story. So the scarlet thread that goes throughout scripture, this idea of salvation, this idea of one way to be saved. But there's also something that we in on Sunday morning we dealt with the first prophecy in Scripture, and it talks about this seed of a woman, and it sets up what we know today as the Messiah or Messianic. Let's get the terms right first. Let's look at that. So, okay, Messiah. Or let me start with messianic before we get to Messiah. Messianic. It's got a broader meaning than just Messiah, and it typically relates to the Old Testament when discussing the hope of a glorious future. Okay? The hope. The glorious hope. The Old Testament. The kernel starts in Genesis 3.15 and it starts to unfold, and we get more like a tree. It starts to grow and grow and grow throughout the scripture. Looking back from our perspective, we can go, oh wow, that makes perfect sense. But a lot of the people at the time did not understand that it was, they didn't understand the gravity of what they were given. Let's just say that. The Hebrew term Messiah, it means anointed. It means to smear, to anoint. What else do we have on that definition here? Yeah. The king of Israel, the oh, the the high priest was anointed. The king would be anointed, and the prophet was often anointed. So the the those three offices, prophet, king, and priest, there's only one person that filled those all three offices. Only one person, Jesus. He's a king. David was a king and a prophet, but he wanted to be a priest. He was like, oh man, I want to be. He wanted to be a priest so bad. But he couldn't be because he was from the line of Judah. He wasn't from the tribe of Levi. So he couldn't be. Moses was a prophet and a priest to it to an extent. He was from Levi. He was not a king. Jeremiah was a priest. He's from the priestly line and a prophet, but he couldn't be a king. Christ is the only one that fills, that filled those roles. And not every anointed in the in the scripture in the Old Testament, where the word, and it's there's two different forms. There's a verb form and a noun form. The noun form is what we would use for Messiah, the Messiah. The that article there. The Messiah. I actually have some examples. Let's see. The verb form first used in Genesis is where God shows up to Jacob and he says, I'm the God of Bethel, where you anointed Mashak a pillar and made a vow to me. Now arise and go from return to the land of your kindred. That word where it's anointed, that's the verb form where you anointed a pillar. But then in Leviticus, it's talking about the priest. If the anointed, and the word is mashiach, there. It's the noun form of anointed, what we call anointed. In our English, it's just anointed, anointed, anointed. But when you look, start looking at the Hebrew, it you understand it is the different forms there. Daniel uses it, the anointed one. Let's see. Samuel. Those are some passages where Messiah, the word Messiah, what we call Messiah, is used. David uses the term Messiah for King Saul. I will not, it's, I think it's right there. How is it that you're not afraid to put your put out your hand against the Lord's anointed Messiah? Right there. The term is through is, I wouldn't say throughout the Old Testament, but it's used in different places. Psalm 2 is a fantastic psalm. The kings of the earth set themselves and rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed. That is the noun version in that. Rabbis, even from that time, or not rabbis from that time, but writings going back very far, recognize Psalm 2 as a messianic psalm, pointing to the great hope of this anointed of the Lord. So let's just show you this here. In the Gospel of John, we get both terms. We get the Hebrew term and the Greek term in two different verses, where he says, right here, where Andrew goes up to Peter and says, We found. He went up to his own brother Simon and said to him, We found the Messiah. He uses the Hebrew form, and he said, and then John adds, which means Christ. Christas in the Greek. So Christ, Messiah, same word, it's the same idea. New Testament uses Christ. The Old Testament in the Hebrew would use Messiah or anointed. But the idea, we go into it looking backwards, and we've got all these New Testament aspects to our lens. But the people at the time, like in Genesis 3.15, all Adam and Eve knew was that the seed of the woman, that's all they had, is going to crush the head of the seed of the serpent, the enemy. And they didn't have all the details. We can look back and go, oh wow, look at that, man. It makes a whole lot of sense. So when we use Messiah, it's a little different than somebody from that period would have used it. Although the concept, as time went on, the concept got greater and greater and greater to where they were looking for. Well, we'll get to it. We'll get to that. Okay, so we did our turn. Okay, so look at this. The very first one. We did this on Sunday. The very first prophecy in Scripture. Genesis 3, 15. And okay, so and this is the proto-evangelum, the very first mention of good news. Proto-first. Evangelum means uh good news. The first good news happens as soon as sin came onto the scene. That's when it happens. And he says the the seed of the woman. Here, I'll put up these both of these versions here. Put up the NASVI up there for you. The seed of, and I like that the NASMI in this because I it's I like it better than the ESV, the way it renders it, because the ESV says, you know, I'll put um enity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring. And that's what seed means. But there's something special about the way that the term, the phrase seed is used. And the NASBY makes it, the one on the right. I'll put, and between your seed and her seed, he shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel. And going back very far, this is recognized as a messianic psalm because it's it's bizarre in the sense that the woman does not have the seed. It is the man. And yet, here God is talking about her seed, and then he says, He shall bruise you on the head. Using that term there, he, pointing to some a guy, a man, is coming. And the idea of the bruise on the head, he's gonna crush, one of the translations is gonna crush your head. The enemy was told back there in the first prophecy that this one that's coming, this man from the woman is going to crush your head or the head of your your you know, your seed. And it points to the virgin birth right there. The virgin, it's just it's peculiar, it's like bizarre, it's like, wait a second. Seed of a woman. We look back through our lens and go, oh, the virgin birth makes sense. Yeah, it was talked about even in Genesis 3. Back then they were like, oh, I mean, we can tell from Eve's her response in chapter 4, we can tell that she was looking for a man. Not looking for a man. That didn't sound right. She was she was expecting a man from the Lord. Okay, so we have in Genesis 4, might as well go to it now, the seed of the woman. Genesis 4, Adam knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain. That's Genesis 4.1. And her response is it's almost like she's excited. I don't know if it comes across in the English that way, but she says, I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord. And with the help of it's not in the Hebrew. It's really, I've gotten a man, the Lord. And Satan tried to thwart this male child ever since Genesis 3, 15. Satan's was trying to thwart this seed because he understood he's no dummy. So then we talked about on Sunday the typology also. That's one thing we're gonna do. I'm gonna look at the the direct prophecies of Christ. But I'm also gonna try to show you the um the typology and pictures. You know what I mean? Because there's they they do go together, and there are so many pictures and types. To miss that would be, I think, not wouldn't be an adequate way to present when Jesus says, you search the scriptures, they're talking about me. Those types and shadows talk of him. Paul tells us that. Jesus is the fulfillment of the types and shadows. So I see that they're really important. One of the types and shadows is when back if we back up to the end of Genesis, when God kills those animals that Adam had just named and probably played with and looked them in the face and whatever, and he named them and he brings them in front of Adam, and then Adam gets to see the consequence of his action. Like it gets real. When God kills that animal, how he does it, we don't know. God prescribes how to cleanly kill animals to the um to the priests in the tabernacle. So it's possible maybe he slid his throat, and Adam was like, What is happening here? He sees it die, and then God takes the skin and does his thing and makes covering for Adam and Eve. That is a picture and a type of Christ as far as his work. You know, the innocent animal, first of all, Christ was innocent. He who knew no sin became sin. You know, the innocent Lamb of God, that's Christ, he's innocent. The innocent Lamb of God. And he challenged them all. He said, anybody here, can you, anybody here, can anybody here say what sin I've done? Nobody. Everything was quiet. All they heard was crickets. So he was, you know, he's the innocent, sinless lamb of God. And he was slain, and his his blood shed, we are covered by the blood of Christ. His blood was shed so that we could be covered. Our shame and our guilt could be not just covered, but removed, which is greater than covering. The Old Testament, the animals that died just covered, covered over sin. Christ propitiated it, got rid of it, removed it. As far as the East is from the West, which is amazing. Um but this begins when God kills this animal. This begins kind of that scarlet thread of redemption right there through the scripture. So we move on to Adam and Eve's sons. Adam, Cain and Abel on the bottom there. It's not the most easiest slide there to read, but no, Cain and Abel are a picture and a type of Adam, the first, Adam number one, first son of God, and then the last Adam, Christ Jesus. And Adam was a gardener, worked the ground, worked the dirt. Cain was the first son of Adam. He's born in his image in Noel 9. He worked, he was a gardener, he's a farmer, he worked the ground. Both were warned by God don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for the day you eat of it, you're gonna die. He says to Cain, hey, sin is at the door, its desire is to hack you. He warned him, but both chose to rebel against what God said, and death came to their brother. Cain rebelled against what God warned him and went and killed his brother, Abel, who ironically is a shepherd, just like the last Adam, the good shepherd. You guys track with me on that? Like, do you see the parallel on that? Abel's blood spoke to God. God said to Cain, Where's your brother? And what did Cain say? Am I my brother's keeper? And God said, Listen, your brother's blood is calling to me from the ground. From the ground. Abel's blood spoke. The blood of Christ Jesus speaks. Because we have the blood of Christ over our heart. And then we're gonna get to the Passover speaks to God. Anyway, we're gonna keep moving on this section. Genesis 4 25. Then Adam knew his wife again, and she she bore a son and called his name Seth. For God's sake, she said, hath appointed me another, look at that, another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew. Seed really brings it home. And Jesus will come through this line of Seth, not the line of Cain. Much more could be said on that, but we're gonna keep moving here on this. Our next road sign on this GPS tour. Are you guys following this? Yeah? If and if I get too far out of whack, please stop me. And say as and ask a question if you want, it's all good. Genesis 9 25 through 27. This is thought to be another messianic section, and I'm gonna give it to you here. Here's what it says This is after Noah. After the flood, and Noah, he made goes and makes some wine and he drinks a little too much of the wine. And his or his son, Ham, doesn't say exactly what he did, but he he he his Japheth and Shem. Shem and Japheth. And they they went and they covered their father's nakedness, and that sets the stage for what happens here. Then Noah, he said, Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants. He shall be to his brothers. Talking about he's going to be a servant to his brothers. He shall also, he also said, Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem, let Canaan be his servant. And in verse 27, this is this is the real key. May God enlarge Japheth and let him dwell in the tents of Shem and let Canaan be his servant. Okay. This has been hotly debated by theologians and people. Because they're like, well, okay, whose is Japheth? First of all, let's get these terms right. Shem, the oldest brother of Noah, oldest son of Noah. Shem, from his line come the Jews, Abraham, you know, Isaac, Jacob, the Jews, you know, Judah, and even Christ. Goes through Shem. And the term Shem or Shemite was turned into Semite. So you've heard the term anti-Semite. Anti-Semite. Just gives you a little more picture. The many of the Gentile nations, the Greeks and all the others, can trace their back through Japheth. Now, may God enlarge Japheth and let him dwell in the tents of Shem. The debate is like, okay, is he talking about Japheth dwelling in the tents of Shem? Or, and the Hebrew allows for this, the way the grammar constructs, it allows for what God is saying, let him, when he says, let him dwell, that hymn is God. God dwell in the tents of Shem. With that in mind, during the Exodus, when they left, there was a pillar of fire at night and a cloud by day, and God, the creator, dwelt in the camp of the Israelites. Many see that, pointing to God dwelling with in the tents of Shem. God Himself. So as a messianic prophecy, check this out. In Genesis 3, back with Adam and Eve, we get the idea of a man coming. Here, we get the idea of okay, it's a kernel, it's not fully worked out, but God coming. So we have God coming and a man coming. Those two lines, the messianic scriptures, will move throughout this, will move throughout the scripture like this, and they converge only in one person. In Christ. You don't see the messianic prophecies converge until it gets to Christ. As far as the God and the man prophecy. We learn about the suffering servant, the man, um, in Isaiah. And also in Isaiah, we find out that he's gonna be from eternity. You know, this one in in uh Micah, not Isaiah, next to next to Isaiah, Micah. Out of Bethlehem, I will come call the one who will be the rule of my people, whose origins are from ancient times, from eternity. And the idea here is like the first kernel of God actually, can God how's God gonna how can God dwell in a tent? Solomon said that what kind of house can I build for you? But this is where that idea starts, and this is one of the prophecies that deals with that. And I'm only gonna go up to to Abraham on on this on this study here, so uh you don't have to worry, I'm not gonna stay here super long. The Shekinah glory, it came to Shem, not the others, didn't come to Japheth. The word of God came through Shem, the Messiah came through Shem, you know, and it's like I said, it's just a kernel. Now, there's typology. Let's just deal with Shem because he was on the ark. There's typology in this story of Noah. The ark was God's provision for salvation. There was one door, there was one way into the ark. There weren't multiple ways to get into the there was one way. Right? Follow me on this. There was one door. What did Jesus say in John 10? He said, I am the door. The gate, the door. He also said, Anyone who comes to me, I'm not gonna cast out. There was one way to go. In multiple places, Jesus makes, he lays down the gauntlet and says, There's not multiple ways. I am the way, the truth, and the life. So Jesus is indeed the door, and there's a parallel between the ark and the door, but there's more. The pitch that covered the ark prevented the judgment water from getting in. Right? It had God told Noah, make an ark and cover it in pitch. And that pitch that was covering it prevented that judgment water from getting in. And the blood of Christ, which covers, protects us from the wrath of God. It's the blood of Christ. That shed blood of Christ, which is portrayed in the Passover, having the blood of that Passover lamb on the doorposts up top. That makes a cross right there. The blood, but there's more to this. The blood. God called the people through the word. I love this part. God called the people, his call. He called the people through the word and the preaching of the man of God, Noah. How do I know that? Look what Peter tells us. And God did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a what? A preacher of righteousness with seven others. And he brought a flood upon the world and the ungodly. Bottom line is, Noah preached about God, and his call went out to everybody. There was enough room for other people on that ark. Nobody else came. And when they did come, it was too late. When they did decide, oh, let's get on that boat thing or whatever that is, oh, the door's shut. And they're banging on the door trying as the water's rising. Let us in, let us in. It's there's a comes a point when it's gonna be too late. Right now the door's open. There's one way in. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:51

Today is the day of salvation.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

Thank you. Yes, right. Today it's important. We're God hasn't changed. Noah preached righteousness. And we're preaching Christ. He is righteous. He's the king of righteousness. That's his title. Amen. Amen. That's all the time we have for today on Plays on World Radio. We're going to continue this later, though, alright? Until we meet again, the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

SPEAKER_02 29:31

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