Cain, Abel & The Virgin Birth: Genesis 4 Explained

Welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a 30-minute walk through the Scriptures, teaching in-depth Bible truths that change people's lives. Now, here's your host, Les Feldick. Good evening. It's good to have everybody back with us again. And tonight we're just going to pick right up where we left off last week. And if you'll turn with me then to Genesis chapter 4. We'll begin right with verse 1. Now, just for a little bit of review from our last program, you'll remember that Adam and Eve were brought back into fellowship by virtue of the animals that were slain, and God provided the blood sacrifice first and foremost, and their clothes being clothed with the righteousness of God. And they were also, of course, clothed in their physical nakedness by the skins. And then, since sin had now entered, they had to be removed from the garden of Eden. And as we come in then to chapter 4, it's a whole different set of circumstances, remember. Sin has now come into the picture. The necessity for a getting back in a right relationship with God becomes a necessity. They are no longer under the light, easy keeping of the garden as they were before. Now they're going to have to go out and make their way by the sweat of the brow. They're going to have to live under the effects of the curse, thorns and thistles, disease, insects. And all the things that the curse brought in are now part and parcel of Adam and Eve's environment. They're going to begin to raise children. But remember, it is all now under the curse. And so as we come into chapter 4 then, verse 1, they have been out of the garden. We don't know how long. The Bible, again, doesn't tell us specifically. But in verse 1 of chapter 4, Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived. And bear Cain, the first child born now to this couple, and immediately Eve said, I have gotten a man, and I think it'd be clarified if you would say a man -child. I have gotten a man-child. Now the King James says, from the Lord or from Jehovah. Now if you happen to have a Bible that's the revised version, I think in the margin they state that this is better translated, I have gotten a man-child with the help of Jehovah. Then there are others, and I prefer the others, who say that this is better translated by reading it this way. Eve said, I have gotten a man-child, even Jehovah. Now think about that for a minute. I have gotten a man-child, even Jehovah. Now that has to make us think. Come back now to chapter 3. And we touched on this verse, and when I was teaching it, I said, now we'll be coming back to it, so I didn't really go into it too much in depth a couple weeks ago. But in chapter 3, verse 15, the Lord God or Jehovah is addressing, of course, Satan in verse 14 and 15. But verse 15 is the one we like to look at, where it says, God speaking, I will put enmity between thee and the woman, that is, between Satan and the female of the species, the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. It, that is, the seed of the serpent, shall bruise, I'm sorry, it shall bruise thy head. In other words, the seed of the woman would bruise the head of Satan, and thou, Satan, shall bruise his heel. Now remember we pointed out that this is foretelling then that long run of enmity between the powers of Satan and especially the Son of God, who would be coming on the scene as the Redeemer. So there will be an enmity between thy seed and her seed. It, that is, the seed of the woman, shall bruise the head of the serpent, but the serpent would get his licks in by bruising the heel of the Redeemer. All right, now if you'll flip back to Galatians chapter 3, and we always have to qualify everything with Scripture, and that's the whole idea of studying, that we can compare Scripture with Scripture. Now the seed of the woman is unique in verse 15 of Genesis 3, but we have to follow it all the way through Scripture, because, as I said, it was looking forward to the coming of a Redeemer. Now in Galatians chapter 3 then, verse 16, it's certainly qualified as to who is the seed of the woman. Now, to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not unto seeds, plural, as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ. So we can always scripturally refer to the Lord Jesus then as the seed of the woman. Now, you remember when we first started way back in Genesis 1 and at creation, and then as we came into Adam and Eve eating of the forbidden fruit. You remember I made a point, at least I certainly tried to, that first and foremost we have to understand that Adam, as he was first created, actually contained the woman as we now know as Eve. At that time she wasn't called Eve, she was just simply called the woman. And so when Eve was then created, the Bible makes it clear that she came out of Adam, because Adam had to be the federal head of the human race, and that everybody, including Eve, would now come from that line of Adam. And that's why the Scripture tells us so plainly that the human race didn't come under sin by virtue of Eve, even though she ate first. But sin came on the whole human race by way of Adam. Now, we have to understand that Eve was in Adam because even though God did not put the curse on Eve for having eaten of the tree, yet she inherited that sin nature, just like every other woman and every other man since, through Adam. Now, all this should begin to tell us something. For some reason or another, and after we understand the whole picture we begin to see it, but for some reason or other then, God had to keep the fault or whatever you want to call that fell upon man in the curse, He had to keep that from Eve. He insulated her from it, and she simply inherited her sin nature not from the act of her own eating of the tree, because that she did in ignorance, but she was now a fallen creature because she was in Adam. Am I making myself clear? But even though she is a fallen creature, she is under the anathema of sin just as much as Adam or anyone else, yet God had something in the long-range view in order to provide a Redeemer, and that had to come through the woman. Now, if you really stop and think, most of us, I think, that are in my hearing, certainly ascribe to and believe in the virgin birth of Christ. Now, isn't it amazing that Christ could be born of a woman who out of the line of Adam was a sinner like anybody else. Mary was not sinless. She was just as much in the line of Adam as anybody else. But isn't it amazing that God could bring to pass the birth of the Christ child from a normal human being of the female species, and yet her offspring would be sinless and not pick up anything of that human element of the sin nature. Now, why? Well, now, here's where things get to the place I know. They get a little deep, and I'm afraid the average Christian never even stops to consider it. But that's not why I teach. I teach so that we kind of get down to the basics and the things that are maybe not so easily understood, because God intends for us to study. He intends for us to grow, and He intends for us to go into the deep things, as Paul calls them. All right, now, if Eve was somehow or other insulated from when she ate of the tree, so that all the way down now then in the female of the species, and I have to emphasize that. It's the female that is somehow or other insulated from the curse that came by way of Adam. Now, I think maybe the easiest way I can show this is that the seed of the woman, which we normally refer to physiologically and in medical terms, well, the ovum or the egg in other species, we refer to it. And, of course, when the female of the species begins to get ready for reproduction, within her body there is building all of these potential ovum, seeds, if you want to call it that. And those, of course, will never be anything more than just that until they are impregnated from an outside source, normally we think of from the father. All right, now, this is hard for some people to understand, and yet physiologists, and I've got plenty of quotes to prove it, that as soon as the young mother becomes pregnant, one of these ovum has come off and it's impregnated. She becomes a mother. Now, the first thing that happens is that these cells, of course, begin to divide and multiply rapidly up until we get from 16 to maybe 32 of these cells that have simply divided. They have become two, they've become four, and they've become eight, and so on and so forth. Then at about 32 and maybe sometimes at 64, then all of a sudden in the development of that little embryo, that process of cell division and multiplication stops and the body cells begin to develop. Now, when I say the body cells, I'm talking about the extremities, the fingers and the feet and the legs and all that. And all of this is going to form that little human body. And then at some point quite a while down the line, then again these little reproductive cells find their way into the fetus as a whole, over here, in there, and that's why I remember back I said that Eve wasn't a rib, but rather she was taken out of the side of Adam, and it was probably the reproductive part of Eve, and I think that the correct term is the germplasm. And that's all part of our reproduction. All right, but now here's the amazing thing. Eve had to be insulated from any part of the curse so that these reproductive cells beginning from Eve all the way down to Mary and probably continuing on to this very day do not carry the curse from one generation to the next except through the father. It's only the father that precipitates what we would call the circulatory system or the blood system. Now, you have to think about this for a little bit because this doesn't just come easy like 2 plus 2 is 4. Now, if the female of the species has been insulated from the effects of the curse, that is in the reproduction area, she cannot pass down from her generation to the next the curse of sin. That has to come from the father. Now, physiologically again, there is none of the mother's blood that ever becomes part and parcel of that little fetus or later that little infant. The blood comes from the father. Always remember that. All right, now then, the line of the curse comes through the blood, through the father. And so every human being, as we've been stressing in these early lessons in Genesis, every human being is a born sinner by virtue of the fact he's inherited from the father, not necessarily the mother, although she is just as much a sinner as anybody else. But why has all this happened? Why did God see fit to insulate the seed of the woman from the curse? Well, He was looking down through the eons of time to the coming of that Redeemer because Christ had to be born of a woman, but He had to be sinless. Now, since the ovum or since the reproductive cells of the woman did not carry the curse, God, as we know, is what happened at the virgin birth. God was the one who impregnated Mary, and so she became the mother of the Lord Jesus without benefit of a human father. And that's why we call it the virgin birth. Now, you see, the Lord Jesus could be born of the woman without the effects of the curse that came from the human father, and so what was He? He was sinless. He was divine. His blood circulatory system did not originate with the human element. It originated with God. And yet, since He was born of the woman, He was human. He had the same appetites that we have. He lived, He ate, He slept like we do, and yet what? Without sin. All right, so now then, coming back to chapter 4, verse 1. I never like to use the word assume because we can never do that with Scripture, but I think it is so perfectly implied that since God had now provided the way back to Himself by virtue of Adam's faith that they would continue to live and they would continue to have children, they would be the parents of the human race, He provided that blood sacrifice that was necessary, but faith is always another one of the prerogatives. It has to be faith plus the blood offering. Remember Hebrews? Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission. And then Hebrews chapter 11, verse 6 says, without faith it is impossible to please God. It was the same way here. God provided the blood sacrifice, but Adam and Eve had to believe what He said. All right, now if you look at this verse 1 very carefully and stop and analyze what is Eve driving at when she says, I have gotten a man-child, even Jehovah. Well, now what did Genesis 3.15 promise? The seed of the woman who would defeat Satan. And we know, of course, from the terminology that that took place at the cross. So evidently, now I know this takes some deep thinking, evidently the Lord had shared this much with Adam and Eve that since sin had come into their existence and that sin would be plaguing the human race, He would Himself come back on the scene, born of the woman, and become their Redeemer. And so Eve had this right front and center in her thinking. And when this little boy baby was born, what did she think? This is already Him. He has already kept His Word. But you see, she didn't realize that it would be generations down the line before that Redeemer would come. But she had the concept. Now she had no idea, of course, that He would be crucified on a Roman cross. I'm convinced of that. But she did understand that God was going to provide a Redeemer to bring the human race back to Himself. All right? Now let's just look at the Redeemer concept. In fact, we had it on the board, do you remember, last week or the week before? And we've pointed out before that even the book of Job, we won't stop and look at that one now, but come all the way back, if you will, to Romans, in Romans chapter 3. But you remember Job said, I know that my Redeemer liveth. And so this whole concept of redemption is all the way through the Old Testament. In fact, the book of Exodus. What do we normally call the book of Exodus? It's the book of redemption. And why do we call Exodus a book of redemption? Because God bought His covenant people out of the slave market of Egypt. He redeemed them. He bought them back. And see, that's the whole concept of redemption, isn't it? It's something that you have lost control over, but you buy that control back. In other words, let's just put it down into everyday vernacular. I guess just about every American knows what a mortgage is. And maybe you were fortunate enough that you had a home that was paid for, and then you became unfortunate and you had to have some cash, put the kids through school, whatever. So what do you do with that home that's been paid for? Well, you go to the bank and you mortgage it. Now, who's really got control over that mortgaged house? Well, your banker does. You can't do anything with that house until you've somehow settled with your banker. But there is a way you can get that banker out of your hair. What do you do? You buy that mortgage back. You pay it off. That's redemption. All right. Romans chapter 3. You found it quicker than I did. Romans chapter 3. And come down to, again, the verses that we looked at before, beginning with verse... Well, let's just start with verse 21. Verse 21 again. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith or the faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all them that believe. For there is no difference, that is, between Jew now and the Greek. We're in Romans. We're in Paul's doctrines of grace, of course. And then verse 23. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And then as he says in chapter 5 of Romans, it's because of Adam. By one man, sin entered the world. All right. But now verse 24. Being justified freely by his grace through the... What's the word? Redemption through the process of buying us back, that is, in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his... What's the word? Blood. See? Remember the two mandatory statements of Scripture? Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission. And without faith, it is impossible to please God. It takes those two. You can't shortcut them. You can't detour them. You have to face them head on. All right. So here we have it. We are redeemed when we believe what God says about the shed blood, about his death, his burial, and his resurrection. All right. Now we're not going to have time to finish all this. I can see that already. So for those of you who are watching on television, you'll just have to wait until next week, and we'll just pick up right where we leave off. But all right. In verse 24, then, we are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. All right. Now we have to look at this system of buying us back. When God put Adam and Eve in the garden, who did Adam and Eve really belong to? Well, the Lord. They were his. He enjoyed their fellowship. He enjoyed their company, and they enjoyed his. But, you see, when sin entered and they became a sin creature, now who took over control of Adam and Eve and their surroundings? Well, Satan did. So God lost them. He lost control over them. Satan now had them. But, you see, God immediately, in their behalf at least, getting the whole thing started, God immediately came in and did what? Redeemed them by virtue of that animal sacrifice and speaking to them in words that they could understand, and they believed it. And so he redeemed them. He brought them back to himself. Now, that was just the beginning of the redemption process. And so all the way through Scripture, we have this whole idea of redemption. I've already alluded to the book of Exodus as the book of redemption. All right, now the same way. The nation of Israel, when God had called out Abraham and promised a nation of people that would come from that one man and that it would come through the line of Isaac and Jacob and Jacob's twelve sons, and God was in, again, full fellowship with that line of people. And then you remember the story, the Leaven brothers hated Joseph because he was the favored son. And for all practical purposes, what'd they do with him? They killed him, so far as they were concerned, albeit God had something else in mind. He spared his life. But Joseph ends up where? Down in Egypt. Now, because Joseph ends up in Egypt and becomes the second greatest man in all of Egypt, and he was in control of the grain and getting everything ready for the seven years of famine. When the famine hit Canaan and there was grain down in Egypt, where did the brothers have to go? Down to Egypt. You know the story. All right, now then, as a result of Abraham's offspring, the sons of Jacob, now in Egypt, in that pagan, godless land, what happened to them? Well, they lost their fellowship with Abraham's God and they became, you might say, mortgaged to the pagan, heathen Egyptians. And there they were. They were in bondage. And so what's God going to have to do? He's going to have to buy them back. He's going to have to redeem them. And so that's the whole story of the book of Exodus. How that God, instituting first and foremost again on the night of the Passover, what? The shedding of the blood of the Passover lamb. The placing of the blood on the doorpost. It had to start with that. But as you move through the account of Israel now coming out of Egypt, after the blood has been applied, then what did they have to do? Well, they had to move out. And God led them through the man Moses. And they come to the shores of the Red Sea. And now there they're trapped. The Red Sea in front of them. Populated areas to the left and mountains impossible to the right. And the Egyptian army coming from the rear. And where are they? Trapped. But what does God do? Oh, He redeems them with His power by opening the Red Sea. And they come through on dry ground. And as a result, they're bought by the power of God, by the Passover blood, out of Egypt and unto God's own self. Now that's the picture of redemption. And we'll have to pick it up as we go into the next program. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick. Through the Bible is a partner-supported ministry. If this program has been a help to your study of the Scriptures and you'd like to see others enjoy the teaching, your support would be greatly appreciated. Write to us at Les Feldick Ministries, 30706 West Lona Valley Road, Kenta, Oklahoma 74552. Or call 1-800-369-7856. Remember, all programs are available in printed form, audio cassette, and videotape. Be sure to tune in next time to Through the Bible with Les Feldick.