The Joshua Victor Theory

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Today’s Old Testament reading from Genesis 2 is one of the few brief glimpses of life in the goodness and perfection that God made us for, before mankind’s fall into sin. It’s also a foundational Bible passage of who we are and what we were created for as human beings. God makes Adam in the midst of the Garden of Eden—the original paradise. So who are we? The creation of mankind comes as the highest and most tender parts of the story of existence—God had made everything else which was good—all living plants and animals. But then He pulls aside and with special care and attention, as a potter working with raw clay to make a new vessel, and God personally shapes and forms Adam out of the dust of the earth. His very chemistry was linked to the ground that God would give him to farm. And yes, after Adam sinned, God would promise “ dust you are, and to dust you shall return ”—Adam would die and return to the earth f...

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. Genesis 3 is one of the foundational events in the Bible. We often call it “The Fall” or the “Fall into Sin”. It was a turning point in very early human history. God had just completed creation, and Adam and Eve were in perfect harmony with Him. They tended the Garden of Eden; had access to the Tree of Life. But they had one command: to avoid the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. If they ate of it they would surely die. But how quickly paradise came unraveled, as the devil whispered doubt into Eve’s ear: “ Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’? ” And doubts of God’s Word and commands have plagued humanity ever since. If we could only trust that the wise and all powerful God actually knows and tells us, His creatures, what is best for us, we would be infinitely better off. But ever since Eve first gave room for that doubt, and began to agree wit...

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. In our readings today we hear about the original sin, when Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden, and were thrown out of paradise. In the reading from Romans it tells us of the universal impact of this sin: “just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” I’m sure almost everyone has thought at one time or another, “That’s just unfair! Why should the curse of sin and death would fall on all of mankind because of one man’s sin?” We might think that if we had had the chance, we’d have done differently, or perhaps simply that it is wrong for us to be punished for what someone else has done. Let’s examine that claim that God is being “unfair” in light of the reading from Romans, and see what picture emerges of God. Fair is fair! What does fairness really mean? It is fair to get all that you’ve earned or worked for, which is why ...

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. In the sermon series for Advent, we will look at how the birth and coming of Jesus Christ was foreshadowed and pictured through various examples, peoples, and events, that we call types or shadows. What is a type or shadow? It’s related to prophecy. Prophecies are the God-given messages spoken by His messengers. They explained events both past, present, and future, usually emphasizing the need for repentance and God’s promised actions. Of course Christ, as the coming Savior, is the most frequent subject of prophecy, and Jesus is like the golden thread that runs through all the tapestry of Scripture. A prophecy is spoken or in writing. A type or shadow would be more like an object lesson or even a prototype. It could be a person or event that prophetically alludes to or foreshadows some greater person or event. But this type or prototype is always something inferior to or less than the final reality it points to. T...