Lay down your sweet and weary head Night is falling, you've come to journey's end From tent-toting patriarchs greeting promises from afar, to vagabonds and vagrants doomed to wander in a wasteland, God's people never sought final satisfaction in the journey. Traveling is not going. We seek the promised land, the city with foundations, whose designer and builder is God, aiding you on towards the destination. Welcome to Journey's End. When I was in junior high, a video game came out that was called Paperboy. You were a young paperboy riding your bike through the nice suburban neighborhood, and your goal was to deliver the news to your subscribers by throwing it in the mailbox or on their front porch. And if you broke a window or hit the dog, you would lose points. unless they weren't subscribers, in which case you would earn bonus points. I've been getting the paper for many years, and yeah, I still get the paper even though you can get it on an iPhone app, but I have to confess that sometimes I wonder if the person that delivers my paper thinks that they're playing this game at my house, only that they think I'm not a subscriber. I wake up in the morning and find my paper is as far under my truck as possible or buried under the deepest snow bank that can be found. Now, why am I telling you about this? Inevitably, when I open the paper, I receive more bad news, since bad news is what seems to sell these days. It's news that began when I went outside to get my paper and had to get my knees muddy, and it continues as I read through the paper. Now this bad news is what we've been talking about the last couple of weeks in the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden when they fell. The law itself, which we've talked about, is not bad news. But when we break the law, we receive very bad news. So they received this message from God in the form of a promise, on the day that you eat of the forbidden tree, you will die. That's bad news. Adam and Eve heard the sound of God coming and they were terrified. But the Bible isn't just about bad news, and this bad news is contrasted with good news. These are really two words of Scripture, bad news and good news. Today we want to talk about the good news, finally. It comes very early in the story of the Bible, in Genesis 3.15, where God promises something to the woman in the form of a curse on the serpent. He says, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. Her seed shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise him on the heel. Good afternoon, I'm Doug Van Dorn. I'm the pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Northern Colorado and with me is Tony Jackson, pastor of Reformation Baptist Church. Tony, we're talking about the good news today. I suppose we should probably start by asking what is the term for good news in the Bible and what does it mean? Well, we are going to talk about the good news today, and another word for good news, in fact, in the New Testament, the word good news comes from a Greek word which means gospel. And, in fact, it's the same word from which we get our word evangelical, and it literally means good news. Now, that's the question that we need to follow up on, is what do we mean when we say good news? What is the good news? Or, what is the gospel, if we were going to define that, Doug? Yeah, Tony, this is a very important topic, because studies have been showing increasingly that people, even Christians, really don't have a biblical understanding of what gospel means. And so, I suppose the first thing to say is that, just like news, it's an announcement. It's a declaration. It's something that comes outside of you. It doesn't really have anything to do with you. It's something that's historical. Something that happened in the past. And it happened to someone else. And it happened for your sake. And of course, that all surrounds the person and work of Jesus Christ. So the Good News is an announcement about something regarding Him. I think it's important to define Good News the way you just defined it. And one of the reasons for that, you mentioned earlier that you get the paper or you can use your iPhone or you can go on your iPad or on your computer. And these days, you know, you can click on an RSS feed and you can get any kind of news you want. In fact, it's interesting that most news organizations today, you know, tailor their service to feed you the kind of news that you prefer to get. So a lot of people will mostly listen to sports news or they'll listen to news about home renovation or news about the economy or news about whatever it is that they happen to be interested in. So people today get to pick and choose the kind of news that they listen to. But when we're talking about bad news and good news in the Bible, how is that different than what most people today perceive really as even being news? How would you respond to that? Well, I think the tendency is for people to confuse the bad news with the good news. So we would say that the bad news, like I introduced this, is called the law. But I think a lot of people think that law is actually good news. And so what you end up finding being preached in a lot of places, week to week, are things like 10 steps to a better life, or how to slay the Goliaths in your life, or how to have a better, happier marriage, or how to accept Jesus into your heart, or whatever. It's all things that you do. And these things that you do, whether they come from the Bible, whether they're biblical laws or not, they're law. And it really doesn't have anything to do whatsoever with an announcement. Now, I suppose it could be, people could say, well, it's coming on the heels of the good news, as if somehow the good news is for unbelievers. But Christians, they just need a bunch of laws. They need to get back to more laws. So we hear that the Christian life is supposed to be about praying more, reading the Bible more, going to church, or having a deeper relationship with Jesus, or practicing spiritual disciplines, or whatever the case might be. But all of those are still things that you do, and they're still legal things. And they're really not about an announcement. So I think to answer the question, people confuse the law with the gospel. So what you're really talking about is categories, and that's something that, you know, it really took me a long time to understand that the Bible really runs along those two categories. In fact, to understand what Scripture teaches us, and we'll talk about the big picture of Scripture in just a minute, I think it's imperative that when we come to the Bible we need to understand all that is taught in scripture through the lens of either one or the other of these two categories. So when we're talking about law, we're not necessarily talking about the Ten Commandments per se, are we? No, we're talking about anything that commands you to do something, whether it's in the Old Testament at Mount Sinai, or whether you find it in the Prophets, or the Psalms, or the Gospel of Matthew, or in Paul's letters, anywhere in the Bible that you're commanded to do something that's a law. So one of the pictures that has really helped me to kind of understand this is when I think about the category of law, I picture myself standing in front of the Ten Commandments, because the Ten Commandments is a good summary of the law, and what I see in front of me is the demand of the law, the constant demand of the law in Scripture for me to be better, for me to be more holy, for me to be more like Christ, for me to be a better Christian, whatever it is. All of those kinds of categories that you described, the spiritual disciplines, praying more, all of those kinds of things. I have this demand upon me constantly from the scripture to be something that I'm not, because I'm a sinner. I have violated the law. I've broken the law. And so when we think about the law as a category, we think about it in a very broad sense, that we have to understand the condemnation of the law against us as sinners before we can ever understand the gospel. Isn't that right? And I think there's another thing that's important here as well, Tony, which is that when people go to church and they get sermons week after week after week telling them what to do. They come away with the impression that this is the Christian message. And that sort of no other people in the world know what to do. They don't know what's right and wrong. It's Christians that know what's right and wrong. And that's why we go to church. That's why we hear sermons on how to be better people or do more things or whatever. The problem is that the Bible says that the law has been written on the hearts of every human being in the world, and they also have a conscience that accuses them and defends them when they do something right or something wrong. So if we don't make this distinction and we don't get it proper, then we're going to end up getting the very heart of what makes Christianity Christian wrong. I heard you say once that you never wanted to end a sermon leaving people with a law. What did you mean by that? Okay, so the law isn't a bad thing in and of itself. It has several roles in the Christian life. But people need to hear good news because they're sinful and because their consciences do accuse them and because they end up feeling like you know, am I going to lose my relationship with the Lord because I've done such and such a bad thing? The good news is a comfort. It's a balm. It's something that soothes you. It's something that tells you good news. Because it has nothing to do with you, it is able to give you peace, if you believe in it. So really, if we go back and simplify this, the law and gospel in Scripture as categories, and necessary categories, categories that we need to hear over and over again. We need to hear the law because it reminds us that we're sinners, and we need to hear the gospel because it reminds us that we can't save ourselves. We need Christ in order to save us. And so if we were to simplify this, let's go back and use the terms that we've already used, the good news and the bad news, or really the bad news and the good news. We do need to preach the bad news because scripture commands us to preach the bad news, but we also must preach the good news because the good news is only good if we understand it in terms of bad news, right? Yeah, and Christians need to hear the good news. They need to hear it. It's not just for unbelievers. Now think about what God said to Eve. He said, I will put enmity between you and the woman. I said this to Satan, but she's sitting there listening. And between your seed and her seed, and he will bruise you on the head and you shall bruise him on the heel. This was an announcement that God would make. Now, in this case, because it's the Old Testament, the announcement came in the form of a prophecy. In the New Testament, because these things have happened, it comes in the form of history. It tells us what It tells us how the prophecies have been fulfilled. So let's look at Genesis 3.15 and the way that it prophesies what the good news is going to look like. You just mentioned that God said I'll put enmity and notice the specificity of what God promises in the promise of the gospel. He doesn't just promise that we who've heard the bad news are now going to be saved. but rather he promises it through the means that he provides, and the means is a seed. And really we have what here, two seeds, right? Between your seed and her seed. And then we see the battle between the two seeds. Yeah, we're going to talk about that battle next week, but notice that the content of the Good News isn't about even being saved. It's simply about Jesus winning this victory. because because Adam and Eve fell into sin he's going to come and redo that undo that I mean and So the good news in terms of look you're going to be saved and it actually comes in a couple verses When after God curses them he ends up clothing them with the skins of the sacrificial animal So he shows them that he has favor upon them but his favor upon them comes because of the announcement that was made in back in Genesis 3.15. Yeah, and that's what you mean when you said earlier that the good news comes from outside of ourself. It's not just good news about us. And that's where I think a lot of us get confused when we hear sermons about what we ought to do and how we ought to live. But the good news of the gospel is not about what we can do. It's about what Christ has done for us a number of years ago uh... there was a very popular movement in the united states at least remember the w w j d do you remember that what did that stand for oh yeah how can you forget it what would jesus actually maybe it's as for who wants to jelly donuts uh... i think that was the uh... model for krispy kreme What would Jesus do? Okay, so what would Jesus do? That's an ethical kind of question that we're confronted with if we wear a bracelet or the necklace. And one of the problems with that question is it put Christians in a position of saying, well, you know, how do I need to act in this particular situation? Now, we do obviously need to think about how we need to act as Christians. We're not suggesting, in what we're talking about today, that we're not under law in any sense of the word. Rather, what we're saying is before we can understand how we obey the law and how we ought to live the Christian life and live out our faith in Jesus Christ, we need to understand these two categories first and foremost, the bad news and the good news. The law and the gospel. Because even in trying to live out the Christian life, the fact is we fail. We fall on our face. We fall desperately short of the glory of God. We're not able to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We're not able to love our neighbor as ourself. We're not able to fulfill the demands of the law ever in our Christian life, in our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Which is why we must go back always to these two categories, the law and the gospel. So really a better way to frame that question, what would Jesus do? I heard someone say one time, I don't know where it originated, but a better question would be, what did Jesus do? Now what do I mean by that? So one is the difference between what I do and what He has done. So it's all the difference in the world. One is within me, it's kind of subjective. The other one is outside of me. It's historical, and it's objective, and it has to do with his work on my behalf. And that's why we say that the gospel, even living the Christian life, the power of it comes because of the good news that we're talking about here. One of the things I want to do, Tony, is as we're looking at Genesis 315, kind of for the rest of our time here, is to help people, maybe give them an idea of how to read the Bible. A lot of people kind of get confused about this, or maybe they really haven't been taught how to read the Bible properly. If you can read it as a story of the Son of God in prophecy, in typology, and in fulfillment when He comes, according to this promise in Genesis 315, then you've read the Bible properly, and you can't get far wrong when you do that. So, reading it as a unity in light of this promise, we end up having this theme of the seed that you can trace out all the way to the end of the story. It kind of begins in Genesis 4-1 when Eve has a son. What's the story there? How does it relate to this promise of the seed? Well, when Eve bears Cain, you remember the first words out of her mouth were, with the help of the Lord we have given birth to a man-child. And the idea was there, I think, and most scholars agree, is that Eve thought at that time, following the promise of God, that she had given birth to the Messiah, to the fulfillment of this prophecy. It was the offspring of Adam and Eve, it was their seed. And so, in a very real sense, she thought that Cain was going to bring them back into the Garden of Eden, that he was going to be the one to reverse the curse, the seed who would defeat the seed of the devil. And so, from the very beginning, she has this expectation of this battle between the two seeds, and she thought that that was it, but we all know from the story that it wasn't. In fact, it's the opposite, isn't it? That Cain ends up killing his brother Abel, and then The book of 1 John actually comments on this in relation to this promise in Genesis 3.15. He says, we should not be like Cain who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. It's the same kind of language that Jesus uses of the Pharisees when he says that your father is the devil and you do the will of your father. Now in this case he's not talking physically as if somehow the devil came down and fathered them. Biologically, it's a spiritual thing and they're following after Satan in a spiritual way. But the good news is that in spite of all of our sin and our desire really to follow our sin and in our enslavement to Satan, that God takes this promise that he makes and he brings it to fruition over the course of the Old Testament in various stages through promises and through specific people that end up becoming the great great great grandfathers of Jesus. So kind of the first place that I think about is the story of Abraham in Genesis 22, when God tells him, I will greatly bless you, will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which are on the seashore, and your seed shall possess their gate, the gate of their enemies. And so what is the first fulfillment of this prophecy? Well, you really are talking about the plural and the singular here, because on the one hand, the seed of Abraham was the nation of Israel. but he's also talking about the singular and we know this because in Galatians chapter 3 verses 15 and following Paul tells us that the Lord Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of that exact prophecy that was given to Abraham. He said, "...to give a human example, brothers, even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified." Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring It does not say to offsprings, referring to many, but referring to one. Or to seeds, if you will, referring to many, but referring to one, that is, one seed. And to your offspring, Paul says, who is Christ. And so what Paul says is that the promise that was made to Abraham was fulfilled in a broader sense, certainly in Genesis 22, in the nation of Israel, but even through that promise of the many seeds or the multiplication of the seed in the nation, the promise goes back to Genesis 3.15 and then goes forward to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's exactly what Paul is saying. So in scripture what we see then is a thread that runs all the way from Genesis chapter 3 all the way to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is the seed of the promise that God spoke of in Genesis chapter 3. It is not seeds. We don't have many saviors. It's not the nation of Israel that is our savior, but it is Christ himself who is a fulfillment of the seed of the promise. And so we find this language of the seed in all sorts of places then after this promise is given to Abraham. You find God giving the same promise to Isaac, who was kind of the very first seed of promise. himself in a type and shadow form. But it's given to him so that Jacob ends up coming. It's given to Jacob and so he ends up having Judah. The promise is given in a strange verse in the book of Numbers. Water shall flow from his buckets. It's talking about Messiah here. And his seed shall be by many waters and his king shall be higher than Agag. It's actually talking about Jacob but the fulfillment is Messiah. You find this same story in a prophecy that's given to David. That's a prophecy that regards the temple, that his seed will build this temple. And so, like you said, it's a thread that goes throughout the entire scripture. How is it helpful then to read the Bible through this thread? It's helpful because it's the promise of the seed. It is the promise of the Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, which is the good news that is preached to us. And without that good news, without understanding that this battle, and as you mentioned, we're going to talk about the battle more in detail next week, but it's with the knowledge that this battle is taking place, that God is going to raise up a seed from the seed of the woman, from the seed of Adam and Eve. God is going to raise up a Redeemer who is going to do battle against the evil one, and he's going to destroy him. That's the good news that is preached to us. It's what Christ has done for us on the cross Christ has redeemed us from the kingdom of darkness and from the kingdom of Satan and he's he's brought us into his own kingdom so that we're not the children of Satan but rather we've been adopted into God's family through the Lord Jesus Christ through his spilt blood and And that's the good news that helps us to get to Journey's End. The good news of the gospel that comes from outside of ourselves. That while we cannot defeat the evil one, We can't even defeat the sin that's within our own hearts. We can't defeat the sinful nature that we have, and yet the Lord Jesus Christ has done that. And that's the good news that we need to hear over and over again. The news is that someone else will bring us to journey's end. Somebody else has already done all that's necessary to do that, and because God is sovereign, He will make sure that He does that for those that believe in Him. We want to thank you for listening to our program. It always seems to go by too quickly. But next week we're going to continue this discussion and probably for many weeks hereafter as we think about this promise that's given to Eve in the form of a curse to Satan. And we look forward to being with you again next week. Journey's End is a production of the Reformed Baptist Churches serving the Front Range. Our show is dedicated to helping Christians think deeply about their faith and helping them understand that the destination is the purpose of the journey. At www.ColoradoReformation.com you will find an increasing number of helpful tools. We have local churches in the southern and northern metro areas to assist you in understanding both the journey and the journey's end. Our worship services are Christ-centered and driven by the teachings of Scripture. This leads to our people seeking to emulate our Savior through kindness and humility. We are rooted in the historic creeds of Christianity and our traditions arose out of the Protestant Reformation. We invite you to head to our website www.ColoradoReformation.com for more information. That's www.ColoradoReformation.com. We look forward to being with you again next week.