In the Beginning the Triune God created the heavens and the earth as His kingdom. God created His first son Adam from the dust of the earth with the mission to protect and cultivate His garden-home and rule over all the other creatures. God gave Adam a wife as a helpmate to cultivate and fill the earth with faithful children.
Adam failed to protect his wife and his garden-home by disobeying God. Adam worshiped and believed the lies of the dragon and ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil that God had commanded Adam not to eat. Through Adam’s disobedience, sin and death entered the world God had made. Adam was cast from his garden-home, his wife’s labor was increased, the ground would no longer produce fruit without toil and estrangement consumed Adam and his relationships. Within this just judgment of Adam, God cursed the dragon and gave a promise that another Son would come and crush the head of the dragon. God decreed the two warring families would come from the wife of Adam; the sons of God and the sons of the dragon. These warring families are the context of the promised heir, the true Son of God who would restore the Creation and Glory of God in His kingdom.
Immediately we see this war in Adam and Eve’s first two sons, Cain and Abel. Cain is jealous of the favor and faithfulness of Abel and so Cain murders righteous Abel. The two factions continue to war and the world is plunged into chaos and ruin. God repents of making man and plans to destroy mankind except for the remnant family of God’s son, Noah. God destroys all living things on the earth with a flood and then makes a new covenant with Noah building on the promises God made to Adam, by hanging His war bow in the sky and vowing never again to go to war against all of mankind.
Yet, more sons of the dragon were born into the world to mock God. Mankind tried to make themselves God, this time, by building a tower that lifted them into heaven. God came down to their tower and confused their speech, further estranging men from one another, scattering them over the face of the earth.
But God chose Abraham as His son to bless and continue God’s mission to fill the earth with His own children and glory (Genesis 12–52). God told Abraham of the Son of promise and expanded the promise to include a land flowing with milk and honey and a blessing for the whole world and every tribe. Overtime, Abraham’s son Israel arrived and became the head of Egypt and the whole world. However, this rise was short lived, Israel became enslaved to Egypt. By the first of God’s prophets, Moses, God called His sons out of slavery in Egypt (Exodus) and killed the sons of the dragon who enslaved them.
God led Israel into the wasteland, providing for them as they went and teaching them how to worship God. God gave Israel the Law as a gift to reveal His character and covenant expectations (Leviticus-Deuteronomy). God led Israel into the land flowing with milk and honey that was promised to Abraham, showing His covenantal faithfulness to generation after generation of faithful children (Joshua).
However the sons of the dragon continued to fight against God, even from within the nation of Israel. God’s sons rebelled over and over again; abandoning their father to become sons of the dragon, devouring one another and the goodness God had given them. They experienced several generations of disobedience and restoration (Judges), even while some of them were redeeming the nations as the sons of God were called to (Ruth).
After the failure of Moses’ line, God sent them another great prophet (Samuel), who anointed first Saul and then David as King over Israel. Saul failed but Yahweh made another covenant with David, specifying that one of his offspring would rule over God’s people forever (1–2 Samuel). But the line of David also failed (1–2 Kings; 1–2 Chronicles), and because of God’s covenant faithfulness and love for His son David, God sent more of His sons as prophets (Isaiah-Malachi), singers (Psalms) and sages (Job; Proverbs; Ecclesiastes) to remind Israel of their Father’s covenant blessings and curses. In the end Israel’s constant unfaithfulness was too much, so God at last judged his people with the curses promised in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28.
Finally, the true Son of God, greater than Adam, Moses and David was born to a virgin in the City of David. And it was God himself. The eternally begotten Son of God who is seen in all the promises and hopes of all the failed sons who came before Him: Jesus, the promised Son; the Heir and King of heaven and earth. Jesus came in the flesh to fight the dragon. Jesus accomplished this by dying for all the treachery of mankind. Jesus obeyed the will of His father unto death and thereby made God truly our Father and us true sons now and forever (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John).
This is not the end of the tale. God’s true Son is even now working and willing the restored sons of God to carry Jesus’ banner to every corner of the earth (Acts). The dragon is thrown down and will be destroyed on the last day with all his children. The Son will come again, to consummate His victory and to restore us not only to our garden-home but to the glorious garden-city (Revelation).
But the most glorious part of this is story is that it’s true. The faithful son was seen in the flesh, and His power is manifested in the new Israel, the church. Who in the power of the Spirit overcome the sons of the dragon who fade and fall and flee before us (Acts, Romans, Ephesians, Titus, Timothy, Hebrews, Corinthians, Galatians) by the name above all names, the King of kings, the eternally begotten of the Father; Jesus Christ our Lord.
Locusts and Wild Honey 