WHERE IS JESUS IN GENESIS?

http://journeyon.net/sites/default/files/documents/Genesis_Overview.pdf

WHERE IS JESUS?

Genesis points forward to the life and death of Jesus throughout, starting at
the very beginning. In the account of Adam’s creation, it is not only the Father
who creates. The Hebrew clearly indicates that the Trinity (God the Father,
God the Son and God the Holy Spirit) is the entity doing the creating. Genesis
1:26 reads, “Let us make man in our image, and after our likeness.” As God the
Son, Jesus is present even at the beginning of God’s interaction with humanity.
Elsewhere, we see in the stories of Genesis several “types” of Christ. A type is
a person who provides a glimpse, or a foreshadowing, of Jesus, and though the
type is incomplete, it functions as a pointer to the greater fulfillment in Christ.
Below are the significant types seen in Genesis.

Adam – Adam is created in the image of God and is, for a time, in perfect
relationship with the Father. Christ, who is actually the person of God, exists
eternally in perfect relationship with the Father and the Spirit. Jesus is
referred to in the New Testament as the second (or better) Adam (Romans 5
and 1 Corinthians 15:45).

Isaac – Isaac points to Christ in two particular ways. First, Isaac is a child of
promise, and the fact that he is born to a very old couple (Abraham was 100
and Sarah was 90) suggests a miraculous birth. Second, and most symbolic, is
the story of Abraham’s near sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22.

God calls Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice to God. In a beautiful portrayal
of the Christ who was to come and die, Abraham and Isaac ascend the
mountain of sacrifice, with Isaac carrying the wood that would burn as fire in
his sacrifice, pointing to Christ, who carried the instrument of his death, the
wooden cross, on his back as he ascended the mount of crucifixion. When the
perceptive young Isaac asks his father where the lamb was for the sacrifice,
Abraham replies, “God will provide for himself the lamb” (Genesis 22:8). As
Abraham raises his knife to kill Isaac, God stops him and provides a lamb ram
instead for the sacrifice. Christ is seen here in the one God provided as a
sacrifice in the place of another.

Joseph – Like Christ, Joseph is the one rejected by those closest to him (his
brothers) because of his status as a beloved son of his father. Joseph, like
Christ, suffers unjustly and yet is exalted to reign.