There are different disciplines that one is introduced to when one attends Seminary. Two of those disciplines are Systematic Theology and Biblical Theology. Both of these disciplines are based on the Bible. Biblical Theology as discipline came much later and labeled itself “Biblical Theology.” It was a good marketing move.

We are going to spend just a little bit of time seeking to help you get a laymen’s understanding of the two because the understanding of these distinctions, at least at a rudimentary level, should be owned by the Laymen as much as the Seminary Student.

When we consider Biblical Theology, which we will be emphasizing today, we find that according to one Professional Biblical Theologian,

“Biblical Theology seeks to explain the worldview behind the statements we now find in the Bible. Biblical Theology attempts to elucidate the metanarrative embraced by the Biblical authors.”

James M. Hamilton Jr.
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Because this is so Biblical sermons may not focus on one text but instead might seek to be longitudinal as the sermon seeks to give some aspect of the metanarrative soil out of which a particular Biblical truth grows.

One of the most well known Biblical Theologians has offered,

“Biblical Theology, rightly defined, is nothing else than the exhibition of the organic process of supernatural revelation in its historic continuity and multiformity.”

Geerhardus Vos
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Systematic Theology, for example, examines and organizes revelation systematically and logically, whereas Biblical Theology operates historically.

Example — Systematic Theology has this great dense, complicated and tangled Forrest of God’s Revelation before it. It looks at this Forest of Revelation and it asks the question, “How can I best organize all this truth so that it is understandable and digestible?”

And it concludes that the best way it can do that is to break it up into categories and sub-categories and sub sub-categories wherein it can be understood. So for example one might rightly see that the Forest of God’s revelation deals with “Soteriology” — “The Doctrine of Salvation,” and so one creates the category of “Doctrine of Salvation” with sub-categories under that of Redemption, Reconciliation, Propitiation, Expiation, Sacrifice, Blood, etc. The one might take one of those sub-Categories of the Category of Soteriology and break it down even more. In doing so there idea is that there will be ever increasing exhaustive understanding of what Scripture teaches on any one subject.

As we’ve hinted at already, the Discipline that is called “Biblical Theology,” does not ask the question that Systematic Theology asks. As we just noted Systematic Theology asks the question “How can I best organize all this truth so that it is understandable and digestible?” The discipline of Biblical Theology on the other hand asks the questions, “How did this Forest of God’s Revelation grow into the Forest it did and what are the main themes we can see in this Forest as this Forest grew?”

So systematic theology is concerned with the finished product of God’s Revelation whereas biblical theology is concerned with the unfolding process, growth, and final culmination of God’s Revelation. Now, if you were to think about it awhile you would realize that there is overlap between the two and that the two imply one another but this is the general way in which these two Disciplines are considered.

The concept of the organic nature of revelation is prominent in Biblical Theology. Good Biblical Theology traces the organic growth of revelation as it is God’s Interpretation of the work of God’s Redemption. The great events in the history of redemption were accompanied by the corresponding revelation of God to explain the meaning of the acts of Redemption. Biblical Theology understands that,

“the heart of divine truth, that by which men live, must have been present from the outset, and that each subsequent increase consisted in the unfolding of what was germinally contained in the beginning of revelation. The Gospel of Paradise is such a germ in which the Gospel of Paul is potentially present; and the Gospel of Abraham, of Moses, of David, of Isaiah and Jeremiah, are all expansions of this original message of salvation, each pointing forward to the next stage of growth, and bringing the Gospel idea one step nearer to its full realization.”

G. Vos

Now, I offer this painfully brief backdrop in order to spend a little time with you this morning looking at a theme that is constructed in a Biblical Theological fashion.

What we want to consider this morning is the process in Scripture by which the theme of the anti-thesis is begun and then traced throughout the Scriptures.

Of course the first mention of this warfare between the two competing seeds is found in the passage read this morning. What this passage teaches us is,

1.) I will put enmity (warfare) between the two seeds

There will be perpetual conflict placed between the people of God (seed of the Woman) and the people who oppose God (seed of the Serpent). This conflict is both between the people of God collectively and the enemy and the Champion of the people of God (Christ) and Satan.

2.) Bruising … and Crushing

This conflict will eventuate into ultimate deliverance (Salvation) for God’s people (God’s representative will crush the head of God’s opponent) but that ultimate deliverance will come via judgment (God’s opponent will strike the heel of God’s representative before that opponent is crushed.)

3.) On the belly … eating dust

Complete humiliation and total condemnation for the seed of the serpent.

So these three themes we want to trace organically and longitudinally through Scripture to see how this acorn theme in Genesis 3 grows into a mighty Oak through the rest of Scripture. In doing so we are seeking to let the Scripture interpret itself as God’s Revelation repeats and magnifies a theme that it begins in Genesis 3.

We need to keep in mind as we examine these themes that later Revelation can use different phrases and words to enlarge and expand upon the original idea.

I The Theme of Smiting and Broken Heads of Enemies

A.) Law

Numbers 24:17 I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not near: there shall come a [a]Star of Jacob, and a Scepter shall rise of Israel and shall smite the [b]coasts of Moab, and destroy all the sons of [c]Sheth.

This is the third oracle of Balaam concerning Israel. We see the language of “smiting” in reference to Moab (one of the early enemies of God’s people). The 1599 Geneva Bible interprets the “Coasts of Moab” as standing for the “Princes of Moab.” It is Balak, the Prince of Moab, as the seed of the Serpent that will experience the Smiting. King Balak has dismissed the prophet Balaam in frustration, but Balaam departs prophesying, consistent with the Genesis passage of a time when the seed of the Serpent “Moab” will have its head crushed by the seed of the Woman.

B.) Prophets

Judges 4:21

21 Then Jael Heber’s wife took a [a]nail of the tent, and took an hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him (Sisera), and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground, (for he was fast asleep and weary) and so he died.

5:26 She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workman’s hammer: with the hammer smote she Sisera: she smote off his head, after she had wounded and pierced his temples.

Judges 9:53

53 But a certain woman cast a piece of a millstone upon Abimelech’s head, and brake his brainpan.

Here we see this promise to crush the seed of the Serpent’s head is quite literal.

1 Samuel 17:491599 Geneva Bible (GNV)

49 And David put his hand in his bag, and took out a stone, and slang it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead, that the stone sticked in his forehead, and he fell groveling to the earth.

Isaiah 1:4-5

4 Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity: a [a]seed of the wicked, corrupt children: they have forsaken the Lord: they have provoked the [b]Holy one of Israel to anger: they are gone backward.
5 Wherefore should ye be [c]smitten anymore? for ye fall away more and more: the whole [d]head is sick, and the whole heart is heavy.

Here God refers to His enemies reminiscent to the language used in Gen. 3 (seed of the wicked) and speaks of the smiting that has taken place. God smites His enemies.

Isaiah 7:8-91599 Geneva Bible (GNV)

8 For the head of Aram is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin: and within five and [a]threescore years, Ephraim shall be destroyed from being a people.
9 And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah’s son. If ye believe not, surely ye shall not be established.

Here the context is that Syria and Ephraim are the “seed of the serpent,” opposing God’s seed and God is promising that His and His people’s enemies shall be destroyed.

Isaiah 28:31

3 They shall be trodden under foot, even the crown and the pride of the drunkards of Ephraim.

The head of the seed of the serpent is crushed as it is trodden under foot.

Jeremiah 23:19

19 Behold, the tempest of the Lord goeth forth in his wrath, and a violent whirlwind shall fall down upon the head of the wicked.

Jeremiah 30:23

23 Behold, [a]the tempest of the Lord goeth forth with wrath: the whirlwind that hangeth over, shall light upon the head of the wicked.

Habakkuk 3:13 Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people, even for salvation with thine [a]Anointed: thou hast wounded the head of the house of the wicked, and discoveredst the foundations unto the [b]neck, Selah.

Habakkuk 3:13 From the top to the toe thou hast destroyed the enemies.

C.) Wisdom Literature

Psalm 68:22-24

21 Surely God will wound the head of his enemies, and the hairy pate of him that walketh in his sins.22 The Lord hath said, I will bring my people again from [a]Bashan: I will bring them again from the depths of the Sea: 23 That thy foot may be dipped in blood, and the tongue of thy dogs in the blood of the enemies, even in [b]it.

Psalm 74:12-14

12 Even God is my king of old, working salvation [a]in the midst of the earth.
13 Thou didst divide the sea by thy power: thou brakest the heads of the [b]dragons in the waters.
14 Thou brakest the head of [c]Leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be [d]meat for the people in wilderness.

This is a reference to God’s victory at the Red Sea. As we shall see in just a bit “dragon” and “serpent” are synonymous terms. When God defeated Egypt he defeated the seed of the Serpent and God’s people were saved.

Psalm 110:6

6 He shall be judge among the heathen: he shall fill all with dead bodies, and smite the [a]head over great countries.

Now we have yet to look at similar themes consistent with Gen. 3:14-19 but what we have learned so far is that,

1.) God destroys His Enemies and those who oppose His people.

We need to keep this in mind as we live in times that are increasingly characterized by a preponderance of God’s enemies. We need to remember the Genesis promise of God that He would crush His enemies. This promise extends beyond the Cross. While it is true that ultimately God’s enemies were crushed in and by Christ’s finished work on the Cross we still look for God’s enemies to continue to be crushed after the Cross.

Romans 16:20

20 The God of peace shall tread Satan under your feet shortly….

Epoch by epoch God’s enemies arise and epoch by epoch God eventually crushes the seed of the Serpent under the feet of His people. Time and again throughout history it has seemed that the seed of the Serpent was getting the upper hand, but then God hears the groanings of His people and arises to bring forth a champion to crush the enemy. Often the seed of the Serpent has been used has cleansing judgment against the seed of the woman as just judgment against their rebellion against God but always God arises and crushes His and our enemies.

Of course this gives us great hope. It should also give us patience, endurance, and optimism. God will arise. God will not let either His name of His people to be continually trod upon.

2.) There is a permanent animosity between the competing seeds.

Naturally there is a temptation to want to make friendship with the World in order to purchase some relief from the pressures of the seed of the serpent. We should be careful of this. Our identity is in Christ and we must maintain that identity even in the face of growing warfare against the Saints. Certainly we must be wise about all this. We must pray for Wisdom. We must walk circumspectly. However, having said all that we can do nothing that would be a mar upon our identity we the seed of the woman.

3.) God’s Glory is seen in the context of this contest as His salvation is seen in the context of judgment

II The Theme of Broken Enemies

(Note that as the serpent is licking the dust of the ground there is reason why it is so often spoke of these broken enemies being trod under foot.)

A.) Law

Exodus 15:6, Numbers 24:8

6 Thy [a]right hand, O Lord, is glorious in power: thy right hand, O Lord, hath bruised the enemy.

8 God brought him out of Egypt: his strength shall be as an unicorn: he shall eat the nations his enemies, and bruise their bones, and shoot them through with his arrows.

B.) Prophets

I Samuel 2:10, II Samuel 22:39, 43, Isaiah 14:25, Jeremiah 13:14, 23:29, 48:4, 51:20-23

1 Samuel 2:10

10 The Lord’s adversaries shall be destroyed, and out of heaven shall he thunder upon them: the Lord shall judge the ends of the world, and shall give power unto his [a]King, and exalt the horn of his Anointed.

2 Samuel 22:39

39 Yea, I have consumed them and thrust them through, and they shall not arise, but shall fall under my feet.

2 Samuel 22:43
43 Then did I beat them as small as the dust of the earth: I did tread them flat as the clay of the street, and did spread them abroad.

Isaiah 14:25

25 [a]That I will break to pieces Assyria in my land, and upon my mountains will I tread him under foot, so that his yoke shall depart from [b]them, and his burden shall be taken from off their shoulder.

Jeremiah 13:14

14 And I will [a]dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, saith the Lord: I will not spare, I will not pity, nor have compassion, but destroy them.

Jeremiah 23:29

29 Is not my word even like a fire, saith the Lord? and like an hammer, that breaketh the stone?

Jeremiah 48:4

4 Moab is destroyed: her little ones have caused their cry to be heard.

C.) Writings

Psalm 2:9, 72:4, 89:23-24, 137:9, Daniel 2:34-35, Job 34:22-25

Conclusion,

Now see what we have done this morning. We have taken one theme in Scripture and we started with its point of origin and just by moving through Scripture we have seen how God’s revelation expanded on that theme in the context of God Redemption. This is Biblical theology.

You can use this same technique to study any number of Biblical themes.

1.) the promise of God’s Kingdom and
2.) the building and expansion of God’s Law
3.) the idea of the covenant
4.) the spilling of blood for Atonement

I Samuel 8 — Israel Rebels against God

That this is rebellion is hinted at here but is stated explicitly in I Sam. 10 and I Samuel 12

17 ¶ And Samuel [k]assembled the people unto the Lord in Mizpah, 18 And he said unto the children of Israel, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I have brought Israel out of Egypt, and delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hands of all kingdoms that troubled you. 19 But ye have this day cast away your God, who only delivereth you out of all your adversities and tribulations: and ye said unto him, No, but appoint a king over us. Now therefore stand ye before the Lord according to your tribes, and according to your thousands. (Compare I Samuel 12:6-18)

I.) The Turn Away From God To the Nation (I Samuel 8:4-9)

What Israel is rejecting here is not Samuel so much as it is God. God had been their King as was made evident in God’s triumph over Pharaoh. The Exodus account tells of how God’s Kingship over Israel was mightier that Pharaoh’s Kingship over Egypt. That the Hebrew children recognized this is seen from their acclimation of God’s rule over them in Exodus 15:16-18.

17 “Thou wilt bring them and plant them in the mountain of Thine inheritance, The place, O LORD, which Thou hast made for Thy dwelling, The sanctuary, O Lord, which Thy hands have established. 18 “The LORD shall reign 24 forever and ever”

But now as the I Samuel 8 text teaches, “they have cast me away, that I should not reign over them.”

And so not desiring God to reign over them they desire a King like all the pagan Nations around them.

We need to keep in mind that this turn away from God’s Kingship was at the same time a turning away from God’s law. The Hebrews of Samuel’s time had no desire to be ruled by God and His Law Word. They desired a different standard by which to be ruled.

Now we want to make clear here that it is not the idea of having a King that is a problem. We know this because in Dt. 17 God speaks about the coming day when there will be a King and he lays down certain provisions for that Kingship.

15 Then thou shalt make him King over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall choose: from among thy brethren shalt thou make a King over thee: thou [j]shalt not set a [k]stranger over thee which is not thy brother. 16 In any wise he shall not prepare him many horses, nor bring the people again to [l]Egypt, for to increase the number of horses, seeing the Lord hath said unto you, Ye shall henceforth go no more again that way. 17 Neither shall he take him many wives, lest his heart [m]turn away, neither shall he gather him much silver and gold. 18 And when he shall sit upon the throne of his Kingdom, then shall he write him this [n]law repeated in a book, by the [o]Priest of the Levites. 19 And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, and to keep all the words of this Law, and these ordinances to do them: 20 That his heart be not lifted up above his [p]brethren, and that he turn not from the commandment, to the right hand or to the left, but that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his sons in the midst of Israel.

II.) The Consequences of that Turn From God to the Nations

A.) The consequences that Samuel lists are basically a move to centralization.

The Hebrew children are going to move from a decentralized Government (Judges) to a Centralized Government. Another way of saying this is that they are going to be ruled in a viciously top down fashion.

Calvin puts it this way,

Samuel warned them “that the King who will reign over them will take their sons for his own purposes and will cause much plundering and robbery.”

In this description Samuel gives we recognize that what the Hebrews have before them is the promise of being enslaved to the State.

I Sam. 8:17 “… and ye shall be his servants.”

The whole Nation will be organized so that instead of being the servants of Yahweh they will become the servants of the King. Each person becomes an agent for the State. What develops then is what a Political leader of the 20th century coined,

All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.

Benito Mussolini

Along the way Samuel mentions the issues of Taxation, (8:15-17)

B.) Taxation

Now either what is happening here is that this tenth is being taken by the King from what belongs to the Lord,

Leviticus 27:30-32 / / Dt. 14:22, 28

30 Also all the tithe of the land both of the seed of the ground, and of the fruit of the trees is the Lord’s: it is holy to the Lord…. 32 And every tithe of bullock, and of sheep, and of all that goeth under the rod, the tenth shall be holy unto the Lord.

Now if the King is not stealing from the Lord then what he is doing is creating a Tax Burden for the people.

In short the King will steal from them so what they think is their property is not really their property but instead belongs to the State.

1st edition of “The Institutes” Calvin commenting on Taxation,

“Taxes are not so much private revenues as the treasury of the whole people, or rather the blood of the people and aids of public necessity; to burden the people with which without cause would be tyrannical rapacity.”

Samuel’s point to the people is that they are turning away from the Liberty that comes from having God and God’s law as their King to the taxation Tyranny that comes from throwing off God.

Calvin in his sermon on this text noted,

“A tyrant rules only by his own will and lust, whereas legitimate magistrates rule by counsel and by reason so as to determine how to bring about the greatest public welfare and benefit.”

Calvin decried the oppressive custom of magistrates’

“taking part in the plundering to enrich themselves off the poor.”

Of course what the Hebrew Children are demanding in a Centralized system stands in contrast to the decentralized system that they previously knew.

In the Book of Judges we see that there is no king, no palace, no standing army. When Israel is attacked, a volunteer army is assembled. In part, this army is supplied by the families of those who fight (see 1 Samuel 17:17-22). There is no superfluous court bureaucracy to support or a administration that specializes in redundancy for which to pay. The previous system was decentralized and comparatively cheap. The new pagan system that they were demanding was to make slaves of them.

Application

I hope that you note as we move through this that today we have now much of what was promised in I Samuel 8. We ourselves, not being satisfied with God’s reign, have broken down and dispatched the kind of decentralized Government that we once had. We ourselves have demanded, both in years long past and still today, that we have a Government that is tyrannical and that taxes to the point wherein the 10% tax the Hebrew children were forced to pay would be met with shouts of joy by us today were we to return to that level of taxation.

And to this, the response we often get in our Pulpits today is at best deafening silence on these issue. Failing the silence we hear that we should be satisfied with our tyranny — and this by a wrong interpretation of Romans 13 that Knox, or Goodman, or Viret and any number of other Magisterial Reformers would have recognized. Sometimes what we get from the modern pulpit is so bad that it is suggested that this kind of tyranny is a positive good.

Our Reformed forefathers did not think that way.

I introduce Calvin here because I want people to see that these ideas I champion in terms of Biblical Civil Government are merely what I and we have inherited from our Reformed past. A Reformed past that had a great deal to say about Government and how it should be structured.

Calvin noted,

“the Lord does not give Kings the right to use their power to subject the people to tyranny. Indeed when Liberty to resist tyranny seems to be taken away by princes who have taken over, one can justly ask this question; since kings and princes are bound by covenant to the people, to administer law in truest equality, sincerity and integrity; if they break faith and usurp tyrannical power by which they allow themselves everything they want: is it not possible for the people to consider together taking measures in order to remedy the evil?”

Calvin was aware that there were extremes to avoid. He desperately did not want to come across as an anabaptist but he also realized that only God’s authority was absolute and because that was so he asked the question ” is it not possible for the people to consider together taking measures in order to remedy evil.”

Even when Calvin did call for submission to Governments, Calvin’s calls to submit to the governor were not without limit. God established magistrates properly

“for the use of the people and the benefit of the republic.” Accordingly, kings also had charters to satisfy: “They are not to undertake war rashly, nor ambitiously to increase their wealth; nor are they to govern their subjects
on the basis of personal opinion or lust for whatever they want.” Kings had authority only insofar as they
met the conditions of God’s covenant. Accordingly, he proclaimed from the pulpit,

“[S]ubjects are under the authority of kings; but at the same time, kings must care about the public welfare so they can discharge the duties prescribed to them by God with good counsel and mature deliberation.”

“Calvin preached that “there are limits prescribed by God to their power, within which they ought to be satisfied: namely, to work for the common good and to govern and direct the people in truest fairness and justice; not to be puffed up with their own importance, but to remember that they also are subjects of God.”

Calvin even went so far as to write in a Lecture on Daniel 6:22

‎”For earthly princes lay aside their power when they rise up against God, and are unworthy to be reckoned among the number of mankind. We ought, rather, to spit upon their heads than to obey them.”

John Calvin,
Commentary on Daniel, Lecture XXX Daniel 6:22

“We ought, rather, to spit upon their heads than to obey them.”

Where would you hear that in any pulpit in America today. Instead what we get is the necessity to obey even in the face of earthly princes who are rising up against God.

“The nature of wicked princes is much like to warthogs, which if they be suffered to have their snouts in the ground, and be not forthwith expelled, will suddenly have their snouts in all the body; So they if they be obeyed in any evil thing be it ever so little will be obeyed in all at length.”

John Ponet
Magisterial Reformer

‎”When therefore the supreme ruler has become a tyrant, he must be deemed by his own perjury (as against the covenant document with the people) to have freed people from their oath, and not to the contrary, when the people assert their rights against him.”

Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos
(Thought to have been written by a one or two men … both of whom were Calvinists)

“As often as the Magistrate commands anything that is repugnant EITHER to the worship which we owe unto God OR to the love which we owe unto our neighbor, we cannot yield thereunto with a safe conscience. For as often as the commandment of God and men are directly opposed one against another, this rule is to be perpetually observed; that it is better to obey GOD than men.”

Theodore Beza
Calvin’s Successor in Geneva

“Resistance to tyrannical governors was, according to (Calvinist Pierre) Viret, a legitimate act of self defense. He even endorsed the use of disinformation if the tyrant were persecuting as analogous to resisting a band of robbers. If the political leader acted like a criminal, Viret thought he should be treated like a one, and the citizens were justified in resisting him.”

The Political Ideas of Pierre Viret
Robert Dean Linder — p. 131

IV.) Now as to why God relented in giving them a King

a) A first reason God gives them a King despite it being a sinful request is that this is often the way that God deals with sinners. In Romans 1 we read repeatedly that “God turned them over.” God often punishes sin by turning people over to that sin they desire as prioritized over God.

b.) As we consider a 2nd reason why God gave them a King despite the sinfulness of the request we must remember the problem here is not so much the idea of a King as the desire to have a King to be like the rest of the Nations. The sin is in their being dissatisfied with God’s Kingship not in the idea of a King in and of itself. After all, they could have asked for a King who would rule them according to God’s law word. But they didn’t. They asked instead for a King to judge them like all the nations.

Israel was supposed to be unique. It was supposed to be a nation that was a light to the Nations. It was supposed to be a theatre of God’s grace for the Nations to look to and envy. The Nations were supposed to be envious of Israel because she was ruled by God’s law. Now, Israel wants to be like the Nations around her. Here is the sin in the request for a King.

That the problem wasn’t the idea of Kingship itself we note that God had earlier made stipulation as to what Godly Kingship would look like (Dt. 17).

1.) No King allowed who did not arise from their own kin
2.) He would not be allowed horses so as to make offensive war
3.) He would not lead them back into bondage
4.) He shall not accrue to himself great hordes of gold
5.) He shall be busy attending to God’s law seeking to understand and implement it.

So even though they were rejecting God, God gives them a King determining that the role of King would be anticipatory of the coming great King Messiah. The Lord Christ would be the true King of which all previous Kings would be pale representation. The Lord Christ would be earnest for the Father’s glory. The Lord Christ would protect God’s people and lead them into safety. The Lord Christ would give Himself in order to save a people. The Lord Christ would be busy attending God’s law.

So in giving a King in the face of this rebellious request God was creating a Template that only the Lord Christ could fulfill.

Conclusion — Recap