The Foreshadowing of God’s Promises To Us That Were Fulfilled in Christ # 1

Our Text for this new Series of Messages is Romans 5: 14b and is interpreted the same way in 21 different Versions of the Bible, like this:

‘Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come’.

NKJV, AMP, AMPC, CSB, ESV, ESVUK, EXB, LEB, MEV, MOUNCE, NABRE, NASB, NASB1995, NET, NRSVA, NRSVACE, NRSVCE, RSV, RSVCE, YLT, LSB

Several other Versions of the Bible interpret our Text like this:

‘Adam, who is a figure of Him who was to come’.

And a few other Versions of the Bible interpret our Text like this:

‘In some ways Adam is like Christ who came later’. CEV

‘Adam can be compared to Christ, the one who was coming in the future’. ERV

‘Adam is an image of the one who would come’. GW

‘He (Adam) is a foreshadowing of the one who would come’. ISV

‘Adam is...a representation of Christ, who was yet to come’. NLT

‘Adam, who is a pattern of the one who was to come’. EHV

‘Adam prefigured the one who was to come’. CJB

‘Adam, who is the similitude of him who is to come’. NMB

‘Adam, who was the imprint of the one who would come’. NTE

‘Adam, the which is likeness of Christ’ WYC

‘Adam was a prophetic type, a future figure of He who comes’ Orthodox Jewish Version

As you can see there are several different interpretations of our Text, type (the most popular), figure (the second most popular), like, compared, image, foreshadowing, representation, pattern, prefigured, similitude, imprint, likeness, prophetic type

You might ask:

“These different Text interpretations seem to be in contradiction with each other – is there a problem here”?

And I would say:

No, there’s no problem, they are using a different word to mean same thing

So, what does the Text mean?

The most popular interpretation comes from the original Greek word used by the Apostle Paul – ‘tupos’, from which we get the English word - type

So, in this Series of Messages, I’m going to use the word type to help us understand and appreciate The Foreshadowing of God’s Promises To Us That Were Fulfilled in Christ

2 Corinthians 1:20a ‘For all of God’s promises have been fulfilled in Christ’

C.F Deuteronomy 18: 15; Matthew 5: 17; Acts 2: 29-31; Acts 13: 23, 32-34; Acts 26: 6; Romans 1: 2-4; Romans 15: 8; Galatians 4: 4-5; Hebrews 9: 15

Let’s dig into our Text: firstly, Adam is clearly identified

Romans 5: 14b ‘Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come’.

Secondly, who is the ‘Him who was to come’?

That’s easy, ‘Him’ is Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior

C.F 1 Corinthians 15: 45 ‘The first man was named Adam...Jesus...may be called the last Adam’

But what does it mean that Adam was a ‘type’ of Jesus Christ?

It means that the promises of God to us that were all fulfilled in Jesus Christ were first foreshadowed/imprinted in Adam

This new Series of Messages is going to help us to do 2 things:

(1) Learn more about some of the important Old Testament people that God used as Christ-types to foreshadow His promises to us

Now, take a look again at our Text, Romans 5: 14b ‘Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come’.

Adam was a ‘type’ of Christ; so, the Text implies that Adam was one of many ‘types’ which means that there were many more ‘types’ of Christ

In this new Series, as well as Adam we will be looking at other ‘types’ of Christ including:

Noah, Abraham, Melchizedek, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, Joshua, Samuel, David, Elijah & Elisha, Jonah, Zerubbabel & Joshua the priest

C.F Hebrews 12: 1 ‘we are surrounded by such a large crowd of witnesses’

This leads me to the 2nd thing:

(2) When we think about God’s promises to us, we may think “Oh good! God is going to give me something really great like a better job, more money, a handsome new husband or maybe a beautiful new wife

Ok, God might give you those things but the real reason He gives us His promises is that by receiving them we will become transformed into the image of Christ and live holy lives that give glory to the Lord

2 Peter 1: 4 ‘He has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share in God’s nature, and the world will not ruin you with its evil desires.’ NLT & NCV

C.F 2 Peter 3: 14

As we go on to consider God’s Promises to us, here are a few important things to remember:

Of all the 5, 467 promises recorded in God’s Word:

We can’t claim many of those promises because they were given to a specific person or to a specific group of people

I Kings 9: 5 'I made this promise to your father, David’

Isaiah 14: 1 ‘But the Lord will have mercy on the descendants of Jacob. He will choose Israel as his special people once again. He will bring them back to settle once again in their own land’.

However, we can claim some of the promises of God because they were given to every believer in every Age

John 3: 16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life”. ESV

Of the promises we can claim, some of them are:

Conditional promises – we must first fulfil a condition to receive the promise

Hebrews 3: 14 ‘If we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ’.

Unconditional promises – there are no conditions to receive the promises

John 6: 37 ‘However, those the Father has given Me will come to Me, and I will never reject them’.

I have 2 things to leave you with today:

1/ We can trust God to honor His promises to us

Hebrews 10: 23 ‘for He is faithful Who promised’

2/ By persevering in faith and serving the will of God we will receive His promises to us

Hebrews 10: 36 ‘Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will. Then you will receive all that He has promised’