Bible Survey Series – Scroll and Rock – Part I

“And I will put enmity
    between you and the woman,
    and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
    and you will strike his heel.” Genesis 3:15

Have you ever tried to roll out something that is tightly wound; such as wire mesh? You no sooner begin to roll it out and what lays behind starts to roll up behind you! So you go back and place a rock or something heavy on the end of the beginning and start over. Oh well… That is the way that I find the Word of God. It is laid out as a tightly made and written scroll that will roll up behind you if you don’t see the rock that God placed in Genesis 3:15. Thus, we find ourselves going back to the beginning; which in the case of Adam was a covenant of works that God made with him. There, God gave him a very simple command: ‘don’t eat lest you die.’ Adam who possessed, as mankind’s Federal head and representative, the true and only ‘free will’ of choice decided, for himself and for us, to take the bite anyway. Nonetheless….

In Genesis 3:15, God promised a rock, Jesus. All those who followed after Adam, such as Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Simeon (the old man who prayed not to die before he saw the Christ child), they saw through faith the scroll laid flat. There was no curling going on behind that forced them to go back again and again. Let’s just say that it was laid out as flat and as understandable from the beginning up until the point that God inserted each of them, as is true of us, into His foreknown and predestined timeline. Otherwise, for His saints the blessed scroll is laid out beginning to end; prompting us in faith to always look ahead as the succession of days greets the fullness of time as foretold by the prophets; even as we will find the Book of Revelation unfolding and soon unfolded; leading to the creation of a new heaven and earth. 

For those without faith, however, they did not see the rock that held down the beginning of the scroll. Thus, their lives recoiled even as the scroll. They would continually go back for another bite of the apple, until their heart became as hard as a rock. They then used that hardened heart to lay upon the scroll, but now, it prevents its unraveling. Others, who were unable to set aside their guilt, would go back to try to restore the covenant of works. In vain, they tried to present themselves worthy of redemption through their good works; but their opportunity to do so was as dead as Abel. As Cain, they failed to hear the cry of Abel’s blood for a future redeemer who would shed His blood at the hands of men who preferred to worship God in their own image. Nonetheless, while our first father’s choice spelled death to all his progeny; an heavenly Father’s choice provided a rock… a rock of salvation… a rock to crush the head of Eve’s seducer: Lucifer, the Devil, who handily used her to sway Adam. That the Father planned to send His Son to die on the cross even before the fall… well, I don’t know about you, but that isn’t as extraordinary as it is to consider One who inhabits eternity. 

Anyway, I have found the Bible to be tightly wound, and it will remain so, for those whose hearts are hardened and who, as dead men walking and left unquickened, will continue to live in a darkened and earthen grave. However, for those who by grace, and as children come to sit at the feet of Jesus; those who find no offense to the first sentence in that scroll: ‘In the beginning, God…’ then read of the fall… Well, they are those who will soon find joy and hope in God’s rock of promise; which can be mined just three chapters and fifteen verses later from Genesis 1:1 into the greatest story ever told. Yes, in Genesis 3:15 is a verse that God laid down to hold the scroll in place, as by the Spirit we embrace it; walking forward… rolling it out and taking it up to read as the eunuch who read Isaiah while riding God’s chariot. All of this was done and written for us to taste the sweetness of the fruit that hung from another tree, and that of life, which was a fruit that Adam and his progeny were barred to taste.