The Last will be First

This week I was reading the November/December issue of Every Thought Captive, the publication of R.C. Sproul, Jr's Highland Study Center. Yes, I was reading it for the first time. In my defense I will say a few things: 1. The topic was angels, and since I received the publication after Christmas, I wasn't in the mood. 2. I have been sick. 3. Once I started I couldn't put it down, but read the entire magazine straight through. 4. The timing was God's; I got just what I needed for that day.

One thought struck me, a matter of theology or biblical interpretation. R.C. Sproul writes, "But the consolation of theology is in this, that the greater shall serve the lesser, that the last shall be first, that the handmaid would be exalted, that the Second Born would redeem the sons of the First Born." First Born, Second Born. In the Old Testament we see so often. Cain, though firstborn, did not find favor with God. First Abel, then Seth pleased God. Isaac, of course, was the son of promise, not Ishmael, and so was the true son who inherited the blessing of Abraham. Jacob carried the line of the Messiah and the promise given to Abraham, not his older brother Esau. Aaron was older than Moses, but who was the deliverer? David was the youngest son, yet anointed king of Israel.

These stories have always been strange to me, with their quirks and details. Why would Esau sell something so valuable? Did the great men of the Bible really have to behave in such petty ways? What was the problem with Cain? Why are all of these stories - these details - included in the eternal Word of God? What are they to teach us today?

1 Corinthians 15:22, 45 - "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive... And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit."

Perhaps all those stories were promises that the last would be better than the first, that though Adam was a disappointment, the Messiah was coming, and He was the Promise, the redemption of all their disppointment and sin.

I close with the next sentence from the acrticle (entitled Angels We Have Heard on High): "God made order, and then, for the sheer beauty of it, turned it upside down, that He might harmonize it all again."

To God be all glory.