Sermon Text: Genesis 38
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, we ask that as we open the Scriptures You would open our ears and our eyes. Help us to hear the good news of grace. Help us to see Christ. Make our hearts soft to Your Holy Spirit’s work, that we would be moldable and teachable. For Christ’s sake. Amen and Amen.
We begin the story of Joseph in chapter 37 and through the end of Genesis Joseph is one of the main characters of the story along with his father Jacob. In fact the last part of the last chapter records Joseph’s death. But Moses, who wrote Genesis, here sees fit to give us the genealogy of Judah.
In Genesis 3 as God is pronouncing the curse on the Serpent, He says, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”
Notice that God is putting enmity between two seeds. In other words God is saying there are only two sides of this battle and all men will either be offspring of the serpent or of the women. So in John 8:44 Jesus says to the scribes and the pharisees that they were of their father the devil. Peter tells us in 1 Peter 1:23 that we have been born again not of perishable seed but of imperishable seed.
And then notice that He says that this seed of the women is singular, God says “He” will crush the serpent’s head. This is of course Christ. So the promise of a Redeemer was given to mankind at the very beginning. So by faith, God’s people from the very beginning have been looking for this dragon slayer—for this one who would save.
In Genesis 49 as Israel is blessing all of his sons, listen to the prophetic benediction he gives to Judah.
Judah, your brothers shall praise you;
your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies;
your father’s sons shall bow down before you.
(Remember Joseph’s dreams?)
Judah is a lion’s cub;
from the prey, my son, you have gone up.
He stooped down; he crouched as a lion
and as a lioness; who dares rouse him?
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.
Binding his foal to the vine
and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine,
he has washed his garments in wine
and his vesture in the blood of grapes.
His eyes are darker than wine,
and his teeth whiter than milk.
Remember I said last week how absurd Joseph’s dreams were to his brothers because the older just doesn’t bow down to the younger? That is because that is our natural inclination. It is as if we all come with the seniority rule pre-programmed into our moral code. It is like we all feel that is just the way it is supposed to be. And yet, all throughout Genesis God is taking that natural inclination and turning it on it’s head.
We have Cain and Abel, God rejects Cain and accepts Abel. Then after Cain kills Abel God replaces Cain with Seth. Then we have Ishmael and Isaac. God chooses Isaac and sends out the older Ishmael. And then there is Jacob and Esau. God loves the younger Jacob and hates the older Esau. Then there is Joseph who is chosen over Reuben, but then God, in another surprising twist, says Judah not Joseph will possess the chosen seed.
As per Jacob’s prophetic blessing the Salvation of the world—the scepter and the Lion—would come from Judah. The obedience of the peoples (nations) belongs to Judah.
The Redeemer would come from Judah so God tells us the story of our father, Judah. And this story is anything but glamorous and dignified. In fact it is quite the opposite. It is the kind of thing we would try and stuff away and hope that one day everybody would forget about. This is the kind of family history that would bring shame on Judah’s descendants for generations.
But God does not tell this shameful story for the sake of shaming. He does not tell humiliating stories for the sake of humiliating, He tells us the stories of our father’s cowardice and unrighteousness for the sake of exalting Christ. That in their weakness, His strength would be made perfect.
Christ came to strengthen the fearful and to make sinners righteous. This humiliating ancestry does noting but glorify the humility and sacrifice of Jesus. The ineffable love and grace shown by God in Jesus is magnified as we learn of kinds of people He saves and what we have been saved from.
Barren women and pagan gentiles and less than glorious men and women who have sordid pasts, are the kinds of people God likes to make central characters in His stories. These are the kinds of people that God likes to use for the most unlikely parts.
In the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1, we are specifically reminded of 4 women other than Mary, they are Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba the wife of Uriah. As if Mary’s virgin birth of the world’s Messiah isn’t incredible enough, it is as though God, in the genealogy, is saying, “Oh and by the way, don’t forget about Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba who were also part of My divine conspiracy.”
These women, by faith believed God’s promise of the dragon slaying seed from Genesis 3. These women by faith would not be left out of His promise.
Bathsheba is the wife of a man named Uriah who was one of King David’s trusted mighty men. It was the time when the kings were supposed to go out to war but David stayed behind. Bathsheba and David end up having an affair and he gets her pregnant so David attempts to cover the whole thing up by bringing Uriah back from battle for a few days he gets him drunk and tries to get him to go in and sleep with his wife. But Uriah, even drunk Uriah, being the faithful man and soldier that he is, refuses to go into his wife while on duty. He sees it as a slap in the face to the men who are still on the battlefield. So since David fails at covering it up, he orchestrates the murder of his faithful friend Uriah.
God then afflicts the son of David and Bathsheba’s adultery and the child dies. But they have another son who they name Solomon and he becomes the chosen heir of the throne and the Messianic lineage.
Then if we back up a little, we will see that David’s great-grandmother was a woman named Ruth. Ruth, was a pagan gentile. Meaning she was not an Israelite, she was not part of God’s priestly, set apart people. She was from Moab.
Paul says in Romans 3, none is righteous, no one understands, no one seeks for God. Ruth gives us a particularly vivid image of this reality. She didn’t belong to God’s people, she was an outsider, she did not seek God, but just like God does with all of His children, He pursued her, He found her, and He saved her.
One of the most beautiful pieces of prose ever written can be found in the book of Ruth. You probably have heard it at weddings.
Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.
But this isn’t a wife to her husband or a husband to his wife, this is Ruth the Moabites speaking to Naomi, the mother of her dead Hebrew husband.
You see, Naomi and her husband and two sons left the promised land because of a famine and went to the land of Moab where there was food. Ruth marries one of Naomi’s two sons but Naomi’s husband dies and then both of her sons die. Naomi and Ruth are both left widowed so Naomi pleads with Ruth to just leave her and go back to her father’s house.
Naomi’s name means “my delight” but she says the hand of the Lord has gone out against me and so she tells people to call her “Mara” which means “bitterness”. But even God’s bitter providence does not keep Ruth from clinging by faith, not just to Naomi, but to a very old promise of redemption.
So Naomi and Ruth go back to Bethlehem and to make a long story short, Ruth marries a man named Boaz. They have a son named Obed who has a son named Jesse who has a son named David who becomes the great King of Israel. But Boaz was the son of a man named Salmon who was married to a woman named Rahab.
Rahab, like Ruth, was a gentile. But even more shocking than that, she was a prostitute in a wicked city called Jericho. Jericho was a great and fortified city in the promised land that God had commanded Moses to take and to destroy it’s wicked inhabitants. Well Rahab hears of this. She hears of the power of this God of Israel and she knows that His enemies can not withstand Him.
Before the great battle of Jericho, two hebrew spies are sent to Jericho, and they just so happen to end up at Rahab’s house. Rahab begs them for salvation—for mercy—and they tell her to hang a scarlet cord out of her window and to gather her family inside and they promise that everyone inside that house with the crimson cord would be saved alive.
By this mercy that has come to Rahab, she believes. By faith, this prostitute becomes a friend of God. And one of her first righteous acts of faith is to lie to the King of Jericho in order to save the spies. Because she believed the God of Israel and obediently put out her scarlet cord, her and her family survived the cities miraculous and utter destruction.
Then finally there is Tamar.
Read Genesis 38
Judah, has three sons by a canaanite woman. Er, Onan, and Shelah. He takes a woman for Er his oldest named Tamar. And then because Er was wicked in the sight of the Lord he is put to death which leaves Tamar a widow.
Judah then gives Tamar to Onan, the next son, to raise up offspring for the dead brother. Onan is what would later be called the kinsman, the kinsman redeemer.
The kinsman redeemer is a sort of office in the old covenant. The word translated kinsman or redeemer is the same word that is also translated avenger or revenger. The kinsman redeemer had judicial responsibilities under old covenant law. When someone was murdered, it was the avenger/kinsman redeemer’s responsibility to pursue justice on behalf of the victim and execute just judgement on the guilty. (Numbers 35)
When someone became extremely poor or came under great debt or slavery, it was the kinsman who would redeem his family member from their poverty. (Lev. 25:25)
Also when a widow was left childless, it was the responsibility of the kinsman redeemer to impregnate her, giving her a child and an heir. This is what we see in Genesis 38. This is also central to the story of Ruth. Boaz became Ruth’s kinsman redeemer.
Onan, Judah’s second son, doesn’t like this idea. There are three brothers which means the inheritance is to be split between them but the firstborn (as we see later codified in Deuteronomy 21:15-17) would apparently receive a double portion. So Er would receive 50% and Onan and Shelah would each receive 25% of the inheritance.
When Er dies, Onan being the next oldest, stands to receive the double portion of the inheritance. But if he gives Tamar a son that child would be entitled to his father’s double portion as well as the status that came with being firstborn in that culture. It would mean his portion, his material legacy, and his status would be diminished.
To be a kinsman redeemer was a total sacrifice, which is what makes the story of Boaz and Ruth so beautiful. It was a completely selfless task in which the redeemer gave expecting nothing in return. He would invest in this woman and give her a son redeeming his inheritance and then eventually, turn everything over to that child.
Onan, being more concerned with a larger inheritance than he is his righteous responsibility, decides to deceive Tamar by wasting his seed on the ground instead of giving her a child. This is wicked in the eyes of God and so God put Onan to death just like his brother.
Two of Judah’s three sons have now died after having relations with Tamar. Judah is afraid to give his last and only son, he is afraid that his son will die. Apparently Judah believes that Tamar is the cause of his sons’ death.
Just like his sons, Judah, it would seem is more concerned about his reputation than his obligations to Tamar. So unlike Naomi, Judah does not release her and send her to find another husband, rather he sends Tamar back to her father’s house and tells her to wait for his youngest son to come of age.
In the course of time it becomes clear to Tamar that Judah has deceived her. She realizes that she is not going to be given to Judah’s only living son who is now grown.
However, Tamar refuses to let this injustice go. She refuses to just rollover and be forgotten. Tamar wants a child from this family. She wants a place in this family. Even after all of the injustice and rejection, she wants a place in Judah’s family.
So get’s dressed up like a cult prostitute and goes down to be seen by Judah. He sees Tamar in her deceptive disguise and takes the bait. Understand that Tamar, being a widow, is taking a great risk by becoming pregnant. As we will soon see, sexual immorality is punishable by death in Tamar’s time. However we also see that Tamar is no dummy, she is not frantic, rather she is extremely shrewd and wise.
For her services, Judah promises her a young goat as payment, a payment he would have to send her after the fact. As a guarantee, she asks for his signet, cord, and staff. Both a signet and cord were used to stamp or roll over wax or clay as a means of identification, as was a man’s staff, which was specifically carved to identify someone. So in essence she takes his means of identifying himself. She takes his identity.
Again, we see just how shrewd Tamar is. She is very wise and discerning so she waits about three months to expose the crime, where there can be no mistaking. Judah is finally told that Tamar is pregnant.
His response to Tamar’s alleged immorality is a judgement not just for fornication but rather for adultery which is why He is involved in the first place. Because remember, he told her to go and wait for his son even though he didn’t intend to give her to his son. So he believes he has found a way to free his family from this cursed woman while still keeping the moral high graound.
As she is being carried out to be executed by fire, she sends word to Judah saying she can identify the man who got her pregnant. She plays her cards. And what is Judah’s immediate reaction? Confession and repentance.
And what does he say about her? She dresses up like a prostitute and deceives her father-in-law into having relations with her and Judah, seeing straight through all the mess, sees the persistent faith that has made her righteous.
Judah, standing on the moral high ground has been exposed, humiliated, brought low. And Tamar who humiliated herself, dressing like a prostitute, has been raised up.
There is a story in the New Testament of a woman caught in adultery who is brought to Jesus. Like Tamar she is accused and dragged to her death. This woman’s accusers stood tall on their moral high ground as they leveled the charges and seek to stone her to death.
Jesus acknowledges the guilt in the woman and says to these hypocrite accusers, whoever is without sin, go ahead and throw your stone. In other words, whoever is themselves just, go ahead and execute justice on this guilty woman. But like Judah, they are exposed and humiliated. Jesus stoops low and cuts them down.
You see with these women, with this woman caught in adultery and with Tamar, accused of adultery, their place of judgement becomes the place of their justification. Tamar is accused and taken to Judah to be condemned and instead she is justified. She is redeemed.
As is happens, Tamar has twins, and they are just like the rest of the family, crafty. One of the babies gets his arm out first and the nurse ties a scarlet thread—a crimson cord around his wrist, he is the firstborn. But as he took his hand back in, his brother, Perez actually comes out before him.
Just like Tamar is rejected by Onan, her would be redeemer, in the story of Ruth, Ruth is rejected by her would be redeemer. You see Boaz was not the nearest kinsman, there was one closer but just like Onan, he was more concerned about his inheritance being spoiled and legacy being diminished than he is about his righteous responsibility to his would be wife.
What is so ironic is that these men, who are so concerned with preserving and enlarging their legacies, are both left out of the great Messianic lineage. In their efforts to save themselves, they lose everything.
Remember Rahab? Remember what she was told to hang out of her window? A scarlet cord. Rahab did not just dress up like a prostitute, she was a prostitute. Well in that great battle of Jericho, we are specifically told about a descendant of Tamar’s son Zerah, who had the scarlet thread to signify that he is the rightful heir. This descendant of Zerah, disobeyed God. He coveted the treasure of the enemy and stole some and hid it under his tent.
He hid the treasure under his tent from his people, but he could not hide his heart under his tent from his God. And so he is found out and all Israel, it says, stoned him with stones and burned him with fire. Because instead of faith in the God of promise, he presumed. He tried himself to save and to keep and just like Onan, lost everything.
Now do you see what happened there? This presumptuous, self-serving, hebrew man gets the destruction—the stones and fire—while this gentile prostitute Rahab escapes the destruction by faith. The woman caught in adultery escapes the stones by faith. Tamar escapes the fire and death by faith.
The Salvation of the world came through Judah and Tamar. And yet this story is anything but glamorous and respectable. In fact it is quite the opposite. It seems so unbecoming of a king, and how much more so the King of Righteousness?
It is the kind of thing we try and stuff away and hope that one day everyone forgets about. This is the kind of family history that would bring shame on Judah’s descendants for generations. And yet here God preserves it for all generations. Why? Because of Christ the King of Righteousness.
Because one day a husband who is better that Er would come. A kinsman redeemer who is better than Onan would come because one day a Father who was better than Judah, who would not be afraid to give His Son, would send Him to be a husband and redeemer to a bride who actually would cause this righteous Son to die.
This is our dragon slaying Avenger, promised in Genesis 3, who would come and take our guilt—who would take our shame and our sin. The Father’s wrath would crush Him instead of crushing us as we confess, He is more righteous that I.
One day our redeemer would come. A Lion from the tribe of Judah would come and He would devour the devourer. He would cut down the proud and raise up the humble.
Christ’s humiliating ancestry does noting but glorify His humility and sacrifice and love. As God zooms in close to our brokenness and cowardice and self-serving, it serves to magnify the ineffable love and grace shown to us by our Father in Jesus Christ.
Christ does not derive glory from flesh or from His fleshly ancestors, rather because our Redeemer takes these broken people, He takes our fleshly brokenness and our sin-sick, broken world and through death on the cross and resurrection from the grave He glorifies.
In Christ, by faith that says, He is more righteous than I, the humble are raised up. The guilty are set free. The rejected and abandoned are adopted and brought home.
By faith that says, He is more righteous than I, the cross of Christ, the place of our just judgement, becomes the place of our justification.
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Let us Pray.
Heavenly Father, we confess, He is more righteous than I. Thank You for Your costly grace. Thank You for giving it freely to us. When we did not deserve anything but death and flames, You poured out Your wrath that was rightfully due us, You poured it out upon Your Son who is more righteous. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Father we thank You and we ask that as we have abundantly received this grace, we would abundantly give it. Guard our hearts from fearing and thinking that Your grace to us could be used up or run dry. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen and Amen.
Charge:
God’s grace is an eternal fountain. There is no end. So do not hold back from this fountain as you would a church pot luck, making sure everyone gets enough before you get your fill. The Bible says we are to approach the throne of grace with boldness and confidence so do it. Be bold, take your fill freely and frequently. And because of this, do not be afraid or slow to freely give this grace to others.
Benediction:
To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. (Revelation 1:5b-6)