The book of Romans is Paul’s letter to the church in Rome in order to straighten out some theology, among other things. The church consisted primarily of Jews, who came to faith in Christ, but also consisted of Gentiles. These differences among the members caused some challenges. For Jews, this meant many of them had to realign their beliefs about what God was doing with them around Christ– since now it seems like God was setting aside His promises to them through their ancestors. Central to their Jewish identity is God’s promises to their patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and David. They thought these promises applied due to them being descendants of these patriarchs. Understandable, but not quite accurate. He’s why.
In the book of Genesis, God made a promise to Abraham. This promise was to make him the father of many nations and to give the land of Canaan to him and his “seed” as an inheritance. That seed is the same seed that was prophesied to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3:15. I believe it’s the oldest prophecy stated in the Bible. That prophesied “Seed” came through the line of Seth, down to Noah, then down to Abraham.
In the book of Genesis God progressively reveals, makes and confirms his covenant with Abraham. (Gen 12:1-3; Gen 15, Gen 17) Abraham was promised a son. It wasn’t just any son. God reveals this promised son was Isaac. Abraham and Sarah tried to make God’s promise come to pass by their own ability by having Abraham conceive a son through their concubine Hagar (16:2). God said no, it was through Sarah; thus comes Isaac (Gen 17:15-19).
By the way, the english translations of the promises sometimes say “descendants” instead of what it originally said, which is seed, or sperm. The original language makes it so it could be referring to either a specific descendant, OR many. The New Testament clarifies this promised seed was SINGULAR and not “seeds,” (Galatians 3:16) revealing the identity to be Jesus! However, the ambiguity of the original statement, in my mind, makes sense as to why Abraham’s descendants misunderstood the promise.
The promise doesn’t stop there though. Was the covenant God made with Abraham just pertaining to him? No. Was it just to his seed? No. It was to him AND his seed (Gen 3:15).
So what about Isaac? Well the same promise that was made to his father Abraham, was made to him (Genesis 26:1-4). Therefore, although Isaac was also being promised the land as an inheritance, he is not the specific promised seed either. This scenario also applies to Jacob. In Genesis 27:26-29 The promise was passed on to Jacob by Isaac. This was also confirmed in Genesis 28:1-4 and directly from God in Genesis 28:10-17. Jacob, whom God later re-names Israel, has 12 sons which become the 12 tribes of Israel. Notice what Jacob says to his sons in Genesis 49. When he gets to Judah in verses 8-12 we see that the promised seed will come through the line of Judah.
Verse 10 is interesting, because it says “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.” It’s interesting for a few reasons– one being that it says the scepter (staff of a king) will not depart from Judah. The Septuagint (LXX) provides a translation of this passage that is pretty exciting to me. Verse 10 in the LXX says , “A ruler shall not fail from Juda, nor a prince from his loins, until there come the things stored up for him; and he is the expectation of nations.” We get a hint of who this ruler is in the very next verse. It’s Jesus again! (Zech. 9:9 & Matt. 21:1-9). Jesus is the promised seed, and King who will not fail. He is the expectation of nations!
We will do some more tracing of Jesus’ lineage in order to highlight the Kingdom and details surrounding it, but I also want to provide you with this:
The Genealogy of Jesus From Abraham
Genealogy from Jesus from Adam
We see that not only is Jesus from the line of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob but he’s also from the line of Judah and is the ruler described in Genesis 49. Things get even more interesting when we see that he comes from the line of David and what that means. If Jesus is the prophesied seed of the woman from Genesis 3:15 as well, then he needs to “crush the head of the serpent” and the serpent needs to “bruise his heel.” We’ll address these things in upcoming articles.
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Free Resource: When a Jew Rules the World, by Joel Richardson (PDF edition)