The Fulfilling of God's Promise

As we noted yesterday, the very day when man fell into sin, God promised the coming of Christ to save us from Satan's power, and from the punishment we deserve be- cause of our sin and guilt. Today we will look a bit more closely at God's faithfulness to His promises.

To do this let us turn to Isaiah 11:1 , where we read, "And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots." Our God, Who told Satan that He would crush his head through Christ, Whose heel Satan would crush, presents to us here a wonderfully comforting truth. Because Satan crushes our heel, that is, persecutes us, and brings death upon the woman's seed, and God's Son has His heel crushed, that is, suffers death on His cross, we will have the victory. On the day when we celebrate Christ's birth we can enjoy this truth.

So often it looks as though God is not keeping His promise to us. The crushing of our heel seems to deny His faithfulness. But it is not so.

In Judah the line of David, which God set aside to bring forth our King, ended in a virgin. That made it look hopeless for a king to be born. It looked, as we read in Isaiah 53:2 , as though the dry ground could not bring forth a tree. Mary, the virgin, could find no husband in that line of Jesse and David. Joseph, whom she planned on marrying, could not bring forth the royal seed of David. He was a dry ground, and she was therefore also dry ground.

But as we look forward to celebrating Christ's birth, let us read those words of Isaiah in chapter 53:2, namely, "For he (Christ) shall grow up before him (God) as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground."

Remember then that this fulfillment of God's promise through the virgin Mary reveals that no matter how dark the future may look, Christ will come, and God's promise to us in Him will be completely fulfilled. Celebrate Christmas then with this comforting truth in your mind.

Read: Isaiah 11

Meditations on the Heidelberg Catechism

Through the Bible in One Year
Read today:
Zephaniah 1; Zephaniah 2; Zephaniah 3 
Revelation 10:1-11 
Psalm 138:1-8 
Proverbs 30:11-14 
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Quote for Reflection:

"First, the Levitical priesthood was inadequate, incapable of producing ‘perfection’. Second, therefore it was but a temporary institution, and the whole economy connected with it must be set aside. In other words, Judaism as such, was now defunct. Thus ‘a change of the law’ means a change of dispensation, a change of Divine administration. This at once fixes the meaning of ‘law’ in the parenthetic clause of the previous verse. The reference is not to the ten commandments, but to the Mosaic system" ~ Arthur W. Pink (Exposition of Hebrews, p. 385)