genesis – jeffersonvann

BLOODY TUNIC

BLOODY TUNIC

Genesis 37:31-35 NET.

³¹ So they took Joseph’s tunic, killed a young goat, and dipped the tunic in the blood. ³² Then they brought the special tunic to their father and said, “We found this. Determine now whether it is your son’s tunic or not.” ³³ He recognized it and exclaimed, “It is my son’s tunic! A wild animal has eaten him! Joseph has surely been torn to pieces!” ³⁴ Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, and mourned for his son many days. ³⁵ All his sons and daughters stood by him to console him, but he refused to be consoled. “No,” he said, “I will go to the grave mourning my son.” So Joseph’s father wept for him.

Penny and I had the opportunity to drive up to Virginia this past week. We got to walk in the snow and visit some people we hadn’t seen in a while. But the excuse we used for traveling was that it was Tuesday, the birthday of one of our grandchildren. Tuesday morning came, and I witnessed a wonderful sight. I had woken up and was doing my devotions at the kitchen table. Suddenly, the quietness was broken by two very small children running downstairs together. They were playing together and just enjoying each other’s company. The older sister started singing to the birthday girl. It was the happy birthday song – the same song we sing each Sunday morning when we are celebrating with one of our members. At the end of the song, the older sister tacked on, “Happy birthday, Jesus bless you.” and my heart melted.

One of the joys of being a parent is when you have the chance to see and hear your children or grandchildren enjoying each other’s company. That was a joy that Jacob had lost. He was a profoundly unhappy man, and the things that happened, as recorded in today’s text, added even more sorrow to him. I’m not going to go over all the events of the story because I’m sure you all have read today’s chapters. Instead, I am going to focus my message on one object that is introduced in the story. The bloody tunic that Jacob’s sons showed their father.

the tunic was a symbol of love

It did not start out as evidence in a crime scene. It started as a precious gift given by a proud father to his favorite son. Jacob loved Joseph because he was the firstborn of Rachel – who was always his favorite. This chapter says that “Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons because he was a son born to him late in life, and he made a special tunic for him. When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated Joseph and were not able to speak to him kindly” (vv. 3-4).

So, you see that the Patriarchs continue to produce broken, dysfunctional families. What made matters worse was that Joseph had some interesting dreams—dreams that indicated that, at some point, all his family would bow down to him. That just made the ten brothers greener and more angry at him. Meanwhile, his father just “kept in mind” what he had said. Like Mary, the mother of Jesus, Jacob pondered these things in his heart. He loved Joseph so much that he would not dare rebuke him.

The tunic was a special gift. It signified a special standing among Jacob’s children. It was like an inheritance given beforehand. It symbolized a special relationship and set Joseph apart as a special blessing who would be blessed. It was how Jacob expressed his love for his favorite son.

the tunic was a symbol of envy

I mentioned that the older brothers were envious of young Joseph. Because that special garment set him apart from them, some of their hatred was focused on that blessing. They considered it a curse. The brothers were so envious that they saw an opportunity for sweet revenge when Joseph came to Dothan. They saw him coming, and before he even reached them, they had already plotted to kill him. They said, “Come now, let’s kill him, throw him into one of the cisterns, and then say that a wild animal ate him. Then we’ll see how his dreams turn out!”

Two of the older brothers displayed a bit of constraint. Reuben, the oldest, suggested that they just throw him into a deep hole. Judah suggested that they sell him to some foreign traders who happened by. As soon as Joseph reached them, the brothers stripped him of that precious tunic and tossed him into the hole. When the foreign traders arrived, they fished him out and sold him to them for twenty silver coins. They got their revenge and some money to sweeten the deal.

the tunic was a symbol of treachery

It was a symbol of sibling rivalry to the extreme – like Cain, who waited until his brother was alone with him in the field and clobbered him to death. They cared so little for their own brother that when the opportunity presented itself – they took it. The wonderful colored tunic that had been a sign of their father’s love would now be evidence of Joseph’s supposed death by a wild animal. All it took was some goat’s blood.

No doubt these sons of Jacob had been told many times of their own father’s betrayal of his brother, Esau. He found Esau hungry and offered him a bargain – some stew for his birthright. Then he and Rachel cooked up a scheme where they would deceive his father, Isaac, by pretending to be Esau and getting his blessing as firstborn.

So, these sons of Jacob cooked up a plot of their own. They would present this tunic to their father as evidence that his favorite son was dead. How ironic that Jacob himself had used a goatskin to pass himself off as Esau. Now it would be goat’s blood that covered his precious garment.

the tunic was a symbol of deception

When the ten sons returned to their father, they came with a lie, and backed up their lie with a deception. They didn’t say it. The best lies are those you don’t say but force others to believe. They just “brought the special tunic to their father and said, “We found this. Determine now whether it is your son’s tunic or not.” Of course, Jacob had no problems identifying this sign of his love, now covered with evidence that he had met a sudden, violent death.

It was not just a lie; it was a false lie. Joseph had not died at all – though he probably often felt it would have been better if he did. At the time this incident is happening, Joseph is on the way to Egypt to be sold as a slave. He was on his way to his destiny. But his brothers had convinced Jacob that he was ended. They had their revenge against the dreamer and got rid of those pesky dreams – they thought.

the tunic was a symbol of mourning

When I was eleven years old, I had an older brother. His name was Gary. He was 16. I remember a joyous day when Gary brought home his special prize. It was a green Honda 100 motorcycle. Gary loved that vehicle. He went everywhere with it. It was a symbol of his pride in being able to ride it and his joy that it was his very own.

But in June of that year, a terrible thing happened. I can still remember my mother getting a phone call. I don’t know who called her, but what I recall was that Mom was calm and collected on the phone. But as soon as she hung up, she called out to my Dad: “Come on, Buck, Gary’s been in a wreck.” The two of them left the house quickly, and my two sisters and I began praying and crying.

Gary died that day. Some well-meaning people took his broken and mangled motorcycle and brought it to all the nearby schools. They used it as evidence to teach young people to be extra cautious on motorcycles or don’t ride them at all. They also had his cracked helmet, with a blood smear still prominent on it. Sometime later, they brought that wrecked motorcycle back to our place and dumped it in a pile. From then on, every time we saw that pile, we grieved again.

The Bible does not say what Jacob did with that bloody tunic. It just says that “Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, and mourned for his son many days. All his sons and daughters stood by him to console him, but he refused to be consoled. “No,” he said, “I will go to the grave mourning my son.” So Joseph’s father wept for him.”

Actually, the Hebrew says something even more specific. Jacob said that he would go down (יָרַד) to Sheol (שְׁאוֹל) to his son mourning. Sheol is the state of being dead. Jacob planned to mourn himself to death and join his son in the state of death. The Bible tells us some very specific things about Sheol.

Sheol is always described as a place that is down there – a place you descend (יָרַד) to. When the biblical authors compare it to something, they always compare it to a pit or destruction. When Eric Lewis examined the 65 references to Sheol in the Old Testament, he concluded that the term specified “not the place of interment, nor a presumed locality of departed spirits, but the condition of death, the death-state.”[1]

Sheol is also described as a place of silence. When David was in threat of death, he cried out to God to deliver him because he said, “In death, there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who will give you praise?” (Psalm 6:5). To David, there is no afterlife. There was merely silence and stillness – a waiting on God to perhaps rescue by resurrection. To the Old Testament saints, a residence in Sheol would not be considered a goal to attain. It was an inevitable consequence of their mortality – to be avoided at all costs.

Sheol is also described as a dark place where people sleep. It is a silent, dark state or condition in which everyone exists at death and can only live again by a resurrection from the LORD. It is always contrasted with heaven and never equated with it. It is not the hope of the saints; rescue from it is the hope of the saints. That is the Old Testament consensus. When Jacob said he was going to Sheol he was not anticipating a happy reunion there.

When Jacob saw that bloody tunic, he was convinced that all hope was lost. When we experience tragedy, we can start feeling that way, too. But we can learn from this story. Tragedy does not mean that everything is lost. As long as we have a God in heaven with a plan for our lives, we can trust him to carry out that plan. Jesus told us that in the world, we will have trouble. But he also told us that he has overcome the world. We can find our hope in him. He gives a hope of a life after death. It starts with a resurrection unto eternal life. That is a destiny we can cling to no matter what we face today.

[1] Eric Lewis, Christ, The First Fruits (Boston: Warren Press, 1949), 48

Here is a quote from Devotions from Exodus:

“Nuisance

The frog was also a deity in the Egyptian pantheon. Heqet was a goddess who represented fertility. To have the territory overrun by these creatures was more than an annoyance. It was another reminder to Pharaoh that his worldview was erroneous. It was an embarrassment. And even though his magicians were able to duplicate the same thing on a smaller scale (because they were illusionists) he was perturbed, so he appealed to Moses to have Yahveh stop the plague. He was starting to take Yahveh seriously. Moses even gives Pharaoh the honor of choosing the day for the pestilence to stop. But when the break came, Pharaoh still stubbornly refused to comply with Yahveh’s demand.

I wonder if we are any better than Pharaoh was. We regularly experience nuisances in our lives, and they sometimes are so bad that we appeal to Yahveh to rescue us. But do we ever stop to ask if Yahveh wants to change us? Maybe an annoying event might be his way of getting our attention. Perhaps we should not be so quick to return to business as usual when the nuisance is over.

LORD, forgive us for ignoring you when you remind us of our need to change. Help us to see the possible significance of the annoying interruptions in our lives. Keep us sensitive to your guidance” (p. 40);

The book is 296 pages long and was released on May 17, 2024.

EVERYTHING ALIVE

EVERYTHING ALIVE

Genesis 9:12-17 NET.

¹² And God said, “This is the guarantee of the covenant I am making with you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all subsequent generations: ¹³ I will place my rainbow in the clouds, and it will become a guarantee of the covenant between me and the earth. ¹⁴ Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, ¹⁵ then I will remember my covenant with you and with all living creatures of all kinds. Never again will the waters become a flood and destroy all living things. ¹⁶ When the rainbow is in the clouds, I will notice it and remember the perpetual covenant between God and all living creatures of all kinds that are on the earth.” ¹⁷ So God said to Noah, “This is the guarantee of the covenant that I am confirming between me and all living things that are on the earth.”

We are now on our 5^th day of the new year, which means that we are five days into our commitment to read two chapters a day in God’s holy word. I’m hoping that we all can keep to that commitment because I know that God wants to bless us with his wisdom and a closer relationship with him. The early chapters of Genesis teach us that God is holy and he wants to have a close relationship with his people. But he will not tolerate rebellion. Adam and Eve rebelled in the garden and so God banished them from it. That meant that our ancestors no longer had access to the Tree of Life. They were mortal, and our race began to die, starting with Abel, who his brother killed.

The rebellion continued among our ancestors and finally grew to such a degree that God could not tolerate it. Thus, God sent the flood to cover the planet in water and destroy all its inhabitants. But God is also merciful, and he chose one family of humans to rescue by his grace, along with the animals he chose to preserve for life after the flood. Genesis 9 describes the new covenant that God made with Noah, all humanity, and everything alive on this planet when the flood was over.

The version we are reading today uses the phrase “every living creature” to describe everything alive on the planet—humans and animals. That term is found in verses 12, 15, and 16. Verse 17 uses a synonym, “all living things.” Both terms refer to everything alive. The covenant God made was more comprehensive than we usually think. It was not made merely with Noah. It was a covenant with all the humans and animals on earth.

We should also note that the term for living creatures in verses 12, 15, and 16 reveals something that many religions (including many Christian denominations) refuse to accept. The average Hindu, Muslim, Catholic, and many others believe that the one thing that separates human beings from animals is that humans have souls, but animals do not.

One reason many Christians accept this doctrine is that many versions of Genesis 2:7 read something like the King James, which says, “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” This reading led many to accept the concept that humans are endowed with an immortal soul and animals do not have souls.

Some modern translations correct the KJV. The NET reads, “The LORD God formed the man from the soil of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” The reason they had to correct this is that the exact phrase that the KJV translated, “living soul,” is found elsewhere in the Bible to refer to animals. The phrase is found in today’s text three times. Every time, it refers explicitly to everything alive. The point is not that every animal has a soul. The point is that the word translated soul (Hebrew נֶפֶשׁ) means something that breathes. The verb נָפַשׁ means to breathe. A נֶפֶשׁ is a throat which breathes.

This is a very unpopular belief, but it is proven true by the Bible. The Bible nowhere says that human beings are immortal – not even a part of them. Having a soul does not make us immortal. In fact, it proves the opposite. We breathe every breath until we breathe our last breath. We are temporary creatures, just like every other living creature. Our hope in Christ is not that we will survive death but that he will return and make us alive again. We don’t have immortality naturally by being human. We hope for immortality supernaturally by means of resurrection.

Now, I’m saying all this not just because of a doctrine I espouse but because it is essential context to understand the passage we are looking at this morning. The covenant that God made, as expressed in Genesis 9, is often called the Noahic covenant. But in fact, God made the covenant not just with Noah and not even with all humanity. He made this covenant with everything alive on the planet.

This passage gives the reason for the covenant

Notice the phrase “never again” in today’s text. In verse 11, God says, “Never again will all living things be wiped out by the waters of a flood; never again will a flood destroy the earth.” In verse 15, he says, “Never again will the waters become a flood and destroy all living things.” The reason for the covenant between God and everything alive is that the act of Judgment had a profound effect on the divine judge. He regretted that he had to destroy all those lives. Even though God, by his grace, rescued one family and enough animals to repopulate the planet, he still regretted having to kill everyone else.

God is the creator of all life, and he does not approve of reckless disregard for that life. There is a doctrine called the sanctity of human life, and I agree with it. I believe abortion is wrong because it is the taking of the life of an innocent human being who has done nothing wrong to deserve the death penalty. You can choose to rename abortion and call it reproductive rights or reproductive healthcare if you want to. But it does not change what is really happening. A human life is being destroyed. It’s not a suicide; it’s a homicide. The sanctity of human life is being disregarded.

But this passage is saying something even more comprehensive. It is saying that all life is sacred, not just all human life. God regretted the fact that he had to destroy every living creature in the flood. He determined not to do that ever again. It is wrong to kill a human being and show reckless disregard for that life. It is equally wrong to kill another creature for no reason and show reckless disregard for that life. The Noahic covenant was put into effect so that human beings would show the proper respect for all God’s creatures.

This passage gives the details of that covenant.

One of the details of the Noahic covenant was a repetition of a mandate that was part of the Adamic covenant. Verse 1 says, “Then God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” God still wants human beings to have children and expand their dominion over the planet.

A new mandate that is part of the Noahic covenant involves a change in the relationship between humans and animals. Human beings are allowed to take the lives of animals for the purpose of sustaining their own lives. Humans are allowed to eat animals but must not do so when the animals are still alive. Verses 3-4 say, “You may eat any moving thing that lives. As I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. But you must not eat meat with its life (that is, its blood) in it.” The word “life” in that verse is the same translated creature in 12, 15, and 16. It’s that word “soul” again. It means something breathing. Humans are not allowed to eat an animal still breathing, with its blood still coursing through its veins.

There is also a new mandate stipulated in the Noahic covenant suggested in verse 6: “Whoever sheds human blood, by other humans must his blood be shed; for in God’s image God has made humankind.” This mandate establishes human law against homicide and human government to enforce that law.

From the Noahic covenant, we know that our God holds us accountable for preserving all life—especially human life. He wants us to be agents of renewal, undoing the devastation of the flood and making this planet thrive.

This passage also gives the guarantee of the covenant.

It is a sign. The sign still exists today. Unfortunately, many are abusing this sign and using it as a symbol of pride in something they should be ashamed of. For many, the rainbow now means that human beings are free to have conjugal relations with anything they want – be it someone of the same gender or even a different species. That’s not what the sign means. The rainbow in the sky is God’s guarantee that he will never again destroy everything alive on earth by means of a universal flood. He has done that, and he will not do it again. If people commit crimes, there will be governments with authority to punish them. If people sin against God, there will be the final judgment and the lake of fire to punish that. But the rainbow is God’s promise to us that “Never again will all living things be wiped out by the waters of a flood; never again will a flood destroy the earth.” He is going to allow us to live how we want to live, and he will not intervene by retaliating against all humanity as he did in the days of Noah.

The rainbow is God’s commitment to life. It is his statement and sign of his love for us, even if we do not deserve it. We should certainly be aware that God is capable of immediate reprisal against any rebellion. We should not take the rainbow to mean that God is not capable of punishing sin. Instead, we should realize that God is giving us space and time to turn back to him—to seek him during this age of grace.

Holy Communion

In Matthew 26:28 Jesus said, “for this is my blood, the blood of the covenant, that is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”

The signs of the new covenant that Jesus established with his followers were the bread and cup of the communion ritual. The sign of the rainbow meant that God chose not to punish the sins of humanity with immediate retribution. The signs of the new covenant show God’s grace even more drastically. The bread and cup symbolized what Jesus did for us on the cross. He did more than delay God’s retaliation against sin. He brought about God’s forgiveness of sins. When the blood of Jesus flowed from his body while he was nailed to that cross, the flowing blood took our sins with it. We now stand as recipients of a new covenant with God. When we stand before Christ as judge, all of the world’s sins will be laid before him. But our sins will be marked “paid in full” because of the substitutionary death of Christ.

The rainbow is God’s commitment to life. So are the symbols we use today to celebrate Holy Communion. They are signs of sinners forgiven and given eternal life in the age to come. Hallelujah!

A quote from The Piney Grove Pulpit #5:

“God also said “(he) will put a new spirit within (them)” (Ezekiel 36:26b). The spirit is the breath that is inside a breathing body. The Hebrews used this breath as a metaphor for the internal life. As such, good breath inside a person suggested health, vitality and a good attitude. An evil breath (not to be confused with bad breath) meant that the body was unhealthy, dying and full of hate and bitterness.

So, when God said that he was going to put a new spirit in his people, he was talking about restoring their relationship with him through forgiveness, and that would result in health and wholeness.”

{The book has 72 pages and was published on September 15th, 2024}.