The Redemption Promise of God and the Beginning Conflict  

In His unfathomable eternity, God knew all that would happen in the creation He would bring into existence. All was foreknown by Him. It behooves us to say, "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it" (Psa. cxxxix:6). As we have seen, He created all things for His own pleasure. But His purpose in creation has been dwarfed. The creature He created for His delight and fellowship is now alienated from Him, plunged into lawlessness, in unrest, unhappiness, and under the curse; death rules. But that does not mean the defeat of God. God can never be defeated. All must end in His glory.  

In one of the great New Testament documents we read of "the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Ephes. iii:11). We notice it is an eternal purpose. It goes back before the foundation of the world. It is God's purpose of redemption which He purposed when He foreknew all that would take place. It was purposed in a person. The Person is "Christ Jesus our Lord." His name in eternity is "the Only Begotten Son of God."  

And right at the threshold of human history, on the scene of man's fall, the beginning of lawlessness, God speaking in prophetic promise for the first time announced Him through whom He will execute His eternal redemption purposes. The seed of the woman! That seed is to crush the serpent's head! He is to procure the victory for God over the being of darkness and end sin and its curse. And here is a faint hint, how it is to be accomplished. The heel of the seed is to be bruised; in other words He is to suffer. Such is the germ prophecy of redemption—suffering followed by conquest and glory.  

Were we to follow now the age-long unfoldings of God's redemption promises in Scripture we would have to fill hundreds of pages and even this would not exhaust it. The little seed grows into the tree of promise, ever expanding in its heavenward growth. prophet after prophet announced Him. A complete picture of His person and His work is revealed throughout the Old Testament Scriptures. He is to come from Shem; He is to be of the seed of Abraham; He is to come from the tribe of Judah and finally He is promised to come from the seed of David. What an unfolding! We read of Him as Immanuel, Jehovah manifested in the flesh, that is, in the form of man. He speaks in the history of the Old Testament as the "I Am"; the prophet announces Him as the Wonderful, the Counsellor, the mighty God, the Everlasting Father and the Prince of Peace. The Spirit of God speaks of Him as "the Son of God" (Psa. ii), in eternal fellowship with God (Prov. viii:22-31). He Himself comes down to man in sacred history, He appears in the form of the Angel of Jehovah and manifests His glory.  

His life of humiliation as the seed of the woman is revealed to us in these prophecies beginning with His birth and ending with His suffering, His sacrificial death, His physical resurrection and His ascension to take His place at the right hand of God. He is to come born of the Virgin. His character of lowliness, of holiness and righteousness, His words of grace and His service in the power of the Spirit of God, His miracles, opening the eyes of the blind, making the lame man to leap like a hart, and other works of mercy and power—all and much more is pre-written in the prophetic Scriptures. But most of all His sufferings are foretold. He is to be the man of sorrows, acquainted with griefs, despised and rejected of man. The manner of His death is minutely described a thousand years before it took place— death by crucifixion (Psa. xxii). The suffering and the shame of the Cross, and many other things connected with His death we find in different Scriptures. Historical events and types like the passover-lamb, the sheltering blood, the brazen serpent and others reveal Him and His work. The entire Levitical code of sacrifices and offerings are hundreds upon hundreds of sign-posts all pointing to the one spot— the death He should die. Isaiah the prophet received the great message revealing the fact that His suffering and death would be vicarious. He bears the sorrows, the griefs, the sins of others. He was wounded and bruised not on account of His transgressions, for He never transgressed. Deeper still the announcement that God Himself bruised Him, put Him to grief, made His soul an offering for sin (Isa. liii). We also read that in His burial His body was not to rest in some pauper's or criminal's grave, but that "men appointed His grave with the wicked, but He was with the rich in His death, because He had done no violence, neither was there guile in His mouth" (Isa. liii:9). The fact of His resurrection was also announced a thousand years before it happened "His body could not see corruption" (Psa. xvi). Other prophecies announced the same fact of His physical resurrection, which was also typified by the experience of the prophet Jonah. After His resurrection we behold Him ascended on high as revealed in the one hundred and tenth psalm: "The Lord said unto my Lord, sit Thou at my right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool."1  

But this is not the complete divine forecast of the work of the seed of the woman. The same who is predicted to utter that awful word, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" is to have a kingdom and all the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord, and all the kindreds of the nation shall worship Him (Psa. xxii:27). He will receive the nations for His inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession. The throne of all the earth belongs to the second Man and through Him man's lost inheritance is to be restored. The old serpent, called the dragon, Satan, the devil, will be stripped of his power, so that he can deceive the nations no longer. The seed of the woman, the promised One in His Kingship will also make wars to cease unto the ends of the earth, and all nations will turn swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. All strife and hatred will end, all nations will learn righteousness and dwell together in peace. Poverty will be gone; the hatred of the ages will cease. Groaning creation will then stop its groans and begin its singing, for the curse which sin put here is gone, when the heel of the seed of the woman has done its work. All this awaits its fulfillment. And finally there will be a new heaven and a new earth in which redeemed humanity will dwell for ever and ever, His tabernacle in their midst, so that God will be all in all.  

We must next look briefly to the announced conflict— the enmity between the woman and the serpent, the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. We have seen who is meant by the seed of the woman. The serpent is the author of sin and death. But who is the seed of the serpent? That part of humanity which sides with this sinister being and is under his control. According to Scripture this is true of the entire race in its natural and sinful state. It is a truth which is almost forgotten in Christendom today. Does not God's revelation tell us that the whole world is guilty before God? Is it not written that the natural man by his sins, his acts of lawlessness, is dead in trespasses and sins and walks according "to the prince of the power in the air,"—that is Satan and that such an one is a child of wrath? (Ephes. ii:1-3). Did not our Lord say to the Jews in plain words "ye are of your father, the devil"? Did not John give the same truth when he wrote the inspired words, "He that committeth sin is of the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning"? (1 John iii:8). It is a solemn truth! But from the very beginning a separation took place in the race. It is seen for the first time in the two sons of Adam, Cain and Abel. Of Cain it is written, "he was of the wicked one" (1 John iii:12). But Abel "by faith offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous * * *" (Heb. xi:4). Abel was righteous, acceptable to God, though he was a sinner and shared in his father Adam's constitution, because he had believed the first redemption promise. Cain did not believe and thus remained under the dominion of the serpent. This separation in the human race is seen in the first age, the age before the flood. There were the descendants of Seth, the godly, who believed and found grace in the sight of God and the Cainites, who produced in their unbelief a great godless civilization, which ended with a frightful lawlessness; they were the seed of the serpent. In the subsequent history given to us in the Old Testament Scriptures we find these two classes, those who believed God, trusted in Him, falling in line with His eternal purpose, and those who do not believe, who continue in lawlessness and God-opposition under the control of the author of sin and lawlessness; the latter constitute the seed of the serpent. In a sense therefore the God-fearing, promise-believing Israelites, who looked in faith for the coming of the One seed, are also included in the seed of the woman. God accepted them because they believed; like Abraham who believed the promise it was counted to them for righteousness. In anticipation of the redemption work of the Son of God, God was merciful to all who turned to Him with repentance and faith in the coming Saviour and His salvation.  

The conflict, then, is the conflict between God and Satan, light and darkness, good and evil, truth and error. But the one great work of the power of darkness is to prevent God from carrying out His eternal purpose of redemption. Serpent-like he strikes at the promised seed and all who are in any way identified with Him. He had heard from Jehovah's lips that his defeat would be accomplished through the seed of the woman. Satan being only a creature is neither omnipotent, nor omnipresent nor omniscient. He did not know when that seed would appear. When the two sons, Cain and Abel, are born to Adam, this intelligent being must have speculated who of the two would be the seed of the woman. Eve had named the first-born "Cain" expressing by this name her belief that he might be the seed, for Cain means, "I have obtained the man from the Lord." When Abel turned to the Lord, believed that first promise and God's favor rested upon him, the dark being feared he might be the promised seed and so he used Cain, who on account of unbelief belonged to him, to kill his own brother. He is the murderer from the beginning. He was defeated for Seth took the place of the murdered Abel. The entire Old Testament history reveals the trail of the serpent. In every age, in every century, he is seen active through sin, lawlessness, through violence, rebellion, through lies and deceptions, now appearing as a roaring lion, and then in the form of an angel of light, to oppose God, and to frustrate his purposes.  

The Cainites, the descendants of wicked Cain, were his seed. Under his control they build a great civilization, erected cities, invented musical instruments, became manufacturers and developed agriculture. Every civilization aims at one thing, to improve the world and better conditions and thus eliminate as much of the curse as possible. The story of that first civilization is the same as that of every other civilization, including our own. It ended in failure and increasing lawlessness. With all the inventions and discoveries, different improvements and imagined progress, the moral conditions became worse and worse, illustrating the New Testament truth "the world lieth in the wicked one" and finally the earth was corrupt before God and filled with violence. Unseen evil powers under the control of the fallen angel-prince had helped to hasten the terrible corruption (Gen. vi). That sinister being thought if he dragged down the human race into God opposition and defiance, God would have to destroy it, and thus His purpose of redemption could not be accomplished. "But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." Judgment sweeps the earth once more, the waters of death cover it all, but the ark carries the eight souls through the judgment waters and a new age begins in which God continues in the execution of His plans. The race as a unit had the knowledge of God. They knew Him by His works and tradition also kept that knowledge alive. But it was the serpent who filled their hearts with pride and rejecting the Lord in self-will, to make for themselves a name, they built the tower. They are scattered and in a short time monotheism gives way to polytheism. They become worshippers of idols and follow the road downward as revealed in Romans i:21-26.  

The family of Shem too had followed the drift of the times into idolatry. But God called aside a son of Shem, Abram, whose father, Terah, worshipped idols, and through him God continues executing His purpose. To him is promised the seed. And when the promise was made to Abraham, immediately after, the serpent suggested, through Sarai, to produce the promised seed through the Egyptian Hagar.  

As we cannot follow the trail of the serpent in all the history of Israel we only give a few more illustrations. Pharaoh's attempt to have the male children of Israel in Egypt killed, was inspired by the murderer from the beginning, and so were all other murderous attempts of history to wipe out the nation from which the seed of the woman was to come. One of the most prominent was the attempt of Haman (Esther iii), who through satanic inspiration had succeeded in appointing the day when the whole nation was to perish.  

When it became known that the seed would be a son of David then Satan aims his attacks against the man after God's own heart. Even before David had the definite promise of that son, Satan hated David and would have murdered him through Saul, who belonged to the serpent's seed. A short time after the Davidic covenant had been announced, the dark shadow, getting the knowledge of this covenant, tempted David to sin and the king became an adulterer and a murderer. Satan must have thought that God would be defeated and could no longer use David. Athaliah, the wicked queen, belonged to the Serpent's seed and, under his guidance, she tried to have the seed royal, the offspring of David exterminated. All the wicked kings of Judah and the wicked kings of the ten tribes were linked to the serpent, and through them he attempted to hinder God in the execution of His redemption plan. And what more could we say of the false worship he introduced to corrupt Israel, the idolatrous practises like the worship of Moloch with its horrible sacrifices, the high places, the sacred tree worship, the corresponding moral corruptions which followed and hundreds of other evils which led the chosen people away from God. It was all the serpent's work. The false prophets in Israel, especially in the days of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the prophets who spoke their own dreams, like the modernistic dreamers of today, promising peace, when there was no peace, were his instruments. He also used the fallen angels, the wicked spirits associated with him, to carry on his work of opposing God and His purposes. He moved David to number Israel in his pride and Solomon, with all his material prosperity and glory, was led by Satan into moral corruption and became a worshipper of idols. Thus he manifested himself as the murderer and liar, to corrupt, to obstruct, to dwarf God's great purpose. God is victor throughout this conflict of over four thousand years. When God's hour arrived, the set time, the appointed time, God sent forth His Son born of a woman (Gal. iv:4).  

Throughout these ages of conflict of the serpent and the seed of the serpent, God had in the race those who believed His promises and trusted in Him, who were patiently waiting for the "consolation of Israel" for the coming of the Lamb of God. The serpent hissed at that faithful remnant and would have destroyed them, but they were kept by the power of God. The other non-Israelitish peoples, the great Gentile nations, who were without Christ (they had no promises of a redeemer) who were strangers from the covenants of promise, without hope and without God (Eph. ii:12), were under the power of the serpent, and through his deception they were led deeper and deeper into darkness and into the abominations of polytheism, with its terrible moral corruptions and atrocities. Some nations even became worshippers of the serpent, and in most of these pagan religious systems, as well as their so-called philosophies, the influences of supernatural evil powers can be traced. Satan learns of God's purposes through the revealed Word of God. For the purpose of counteracting God's plan he acquires the knowledge of revealed truth without accepting it.2 From the prophetic Word he learned that not only Israel is to have a redemption, but that the Gentiles will receive the light and the ends of the earth shall hear of Him and be saved. In anticipation of all this he instituted the different systems of idolatries and led these nations into the deepest darkness.  

1 What the death, the resurrection and exaltation of the Christ means, how in it God in infinite wisdom manifests His love and displays the riches of His grace and supplies the lost creature's spiritual need, is briefly stated in the next chapter.

2 He tempted our Lord by quoting Scripture. Demons who possessed human beings, when Christ drove them out, cried out with fear asking, "Hast thou come before the time to torment us?" thereby revealing a knowledge of what Scripture teaches.