In this second part of the book we will be looking at some of the themese that appear repeatedly in the covenants of God with men. These themes demonstrate that the various covenants of God with men unite as one great work of God to accomplish and promise salvation in Christ and the renewal of all things in his second coming. All the Old Testament covenants look forward to the new covenant and direct our attention to the final fulfillment of the promises in him. The individual covenants reveal the meaning and implications of the central promise in greater detail, sometimes by fulfilling in part prior covenants and sometimes by adding new promises.
Our study will include the mother promise of Genesis 3:15, in addition to the covenants with Noah, Abraham, Israel and David. In each of these covenants of grace in the Old Testament a particular theme or themes is prominent. In the mother promise it is the seed of the woman, in the Noahic new creation and rest, in the Abrahamic a numerous seed and the land, in the Mosaic blood and the house of God, and in the Davidic the king. In this chapter we will look at the promise of the seed of the woman and victory over the seed of the serpent.
Modern translations sometimes use the word descendants instead of seed or offspring. The collective nouns seed and offspring are better than the plural descendants because Paul makes a point of the singular in Galatians 3:16 when he says, He does not say, ‘And to seeds,’ as of many, but as of one, ‘And to your Seed,’ who is Christ. He does not, of course, mean that “seed” is not collective for all believers throughout the history of the world, but rather that Christ is the one seed to whom all the promises of the old covenant pointed and in whom all believers become the one seed under whose feet God will shortly crush Satan (Rom. 16:20).
In the mother promise God did three things. First, he made a radical division in the human race. By his fall into sin, Adam had brought the whole race under the dominion of Satan, so that all men are by nature seed of the serpent. But God separated from that fallen seed a new seed, the seed of the woman, those who would be his people in Christ. Secondly, he put enmity between these two seeds, so that there has been conflict between them from the time of Cain and Abel all the way to the present. In fact, from a Christian perspective the history of the world is at its heart the history of that great conflict. Satan tries to destroy the seed of the woman, and the seed of the woman fights for survival and ultimate victory. Revelation 12 has a marvelous allegorical description of it. The great dragon tried to devour the seed of the woman (all Satan’s attacks on the people of God in the Old Testament), but the woman’s child was caught up to heaven (Christ’s ascension), the dragon was cast out of heaven, and spends the rest of this world’s history attacking the woman to whom God gives a place of safety in the wilderness. Thirdly, God promised victory to the seed of the woman. Even while he persecutes the woman, Satan knows that he has just a short time (Rev. 12:12).
All of Biblical history in the Old Testament revolves around this conflict. Over and over again we see the serpent dominant and the seed of the woman in danger of extermination either through its own apostasy or through the persecution of the wicked. But each time God steps in and gives his people the victory. See chart 1.
You are probably familiar with the well-known cycle of the book of Judges: God’s people sinned, God judged them, the people cried to God, God saved. It is the cycle of the individual Christian life sometimes described as the cycle of sin, salvation, service and other times as the cycle of guilt, grace and gratitude. That is fundamentally the same cycle we see, greatly enlarged, in Old Testament history.
In the fall of Adam and Eve the serpent seemed to be victorious, but God cursed him and separated the seed of the woman from the seed of the serpent.
Immediately afterwards there was a long period of increasing dominance by the seed of the serpent. Cain killed Abel, Lamech murdered to avenge himself for an injury and boasted about it to his wives (Gen. 4:19–24), and the sons of God took wives from the daughters of men (Gen. 6:2). There are some who believe that the sons of God were angelis beings, but it is more likely that they were men from the line of Seth, the seed of the woman who replaced Abel. God gave victory to the seed of the woman by destroying all the seed of the serpent in the flood and saving believing Noah and his family.
God answered two problems by the call of Abraham. The first was the tower of Babel. Immediately after the flood, the seed of the serpent reappeared in Ham and his son Canaan (Gen. 9). The flood was not final victory for the seed of the woman. The descendants of Canaan became the chief enemies of Israel, but that belongs to another era of Old Testament history. As the seed of the serpent grew, its rebellion against God appeared again, this time in their attempt to build a tower that reached to heaven (Gen. 11). God confused the languages and out of the confusion rose the first nations of the world (Gen. 10).
But the question in that is, what about the seed of the woman? The answer is in the genealogy of Noah. Genesis 10 traces the genealogies of Shem, Ham, and Japheth for a number of generations. There are two unusual things about that genealogy. First, Shem the oldest son of Noah and the primary representative of the seed of the woman (Gen. 9:26–27), is last in the genealogy. Second, not all of Shem’s genealogy appears in chapter 10:21–31. Eber, a descendant of Shem, had two sons: Peleg in whose days the earth was divided (a reference to the confusion of languages at Babel), and Joktan. Joktan also had sons (vv. 26–29). But what happened to Peleg? We do not find out until the end of chapter 11, after the story of Babel. In chapter 11:10–26 is the rest of the genealogy of Shem, and in verses 27–32 the genealogy of Terah, Abram’s father. Thus, the Scriptures split the genealogy of Shem into two parts that serve as bookends to the story of Babel. God’s answer to the rebellion of the seed of the serpent at Babel was the preservation of the line of Shem and the call of Abram. Of him God promised make a great nation that to exist as the seed of the woman among all the nations of the world.
The second problem in Abram’s life was the barrenness of Sarah. God called him out of Ur, sent him to a land where he remained a sojourner all his life, and promised him a son. But he withheld the son for many years and through many trials. God continued to promise, but Abram had great difficulty believing and several times tried to do for himself what God was not doing. He took Hagar and begot Ishmael. He proposed that Eliezer, his servant be the heir. He fell into the snare of the serpent when he went to Egypt and tried to pass Sarai off as his sister; he endangered the mother of the promised son. The whole of his life in Canaan became more and more intensely focused on the question of the son who would be the child of the promise, the seed of the woman. Finally, when it was abundantly clear that it was utterly impossible for the son to be born, God gave him and again accomplished victory for the seed of the woman.
The history following Abraham is about Israel in Egypt. At first, the seed of the woman prospered there. Joseph became the second most powerful man in the land and Israel multiplied greatly. But the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, multiplied and grew exceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them (Ex. 1:7). However, a new Pharaoh enslaved them and tried to destroy the male children. This was a direct threat to the continuation of the seed of the woman, manufactured by the serpent himself. But God saved Israel, brought them out of Egypt by a mighty hand, and formed them into his people at Mt. Sinai.
Again, after Sinai the seed of the serpent became dominant. The seed of the woman nearly self-destructed two times. First with the calf at Sinai, in the very presence of God himself as revealed on the mountain, and then again in the wilderness. Arising from within the people of God and living in constant rebellion against him, the generation that came out of Egypt perished in the wilderness, and the next generation inherited the promised land. God gave the seed of the woman victory again.
Following the inheritance of Canaan the people of God again became apostate. The book of Judges is a sad and troubling history of repeated and increasing idolatry, and came to an inglorious conclusion with Saul, the king according to the people’s heart. The seed of the serpent seemd to be gaining the upper hand again. But God called David, established the kingdom and made Israel powerful and prosperous under Solomon.
After David and Solomon came another long period of decline and increasing dominance by the seed of the serpent within the nation of Israel. The period of the kings ended with the exile in Babylon and the seed of the woman threatened by extinction through death and the growing indifference of the exiles towards their native country. But God saved a remnant, brought them back to their own land, and gave them again the city of Jerusalem and a temple.
Once more there was decline. Ezra, Nehemiah and Malachi record the beginnings of it, and the fruits of it are evident in the appalling reception of the long awaited Messiah as recorded in the gospels. But it was precisely in the Messiah they largely rejected that God finally began to accomplish a final and lasting deliverance for his people.
That is the great cycle of Old Testament history, a cycle of seeming victory by the seed of the serpent followed by mighty deliverance and preservation of the seed of the woman by the wonders of God’s hand.
All this relates directly to the covenants. Each time the Lord gave victory to his people he confirmed it and final victory by a new covenant. When Adam fell to the serpent’s wiles, God spoke the mother promise. When the world grew wicked and the sons of God married the daughters of men, God sent the flood and made covenant with Noah. God judged the men of the tower of Babel and made covenant with Abraham. Pharaoh threatened, but God brought his people out to Sinai and covenanted with them there. God followed the followd the abomination of the golden calf with a renewal of the covenant at Sinai (Ex. 34:10f), and the rebellions in the wilderness with the covenant recorded in Deuteronomy (Dt. 29:1). The times of the judges and Saul were very bad for God’s people, but God made covenant with David. Even the righteous kings who followed David and Solomon could not turn the people in a lasting way from their idolatry, but through the prophets God began to speak of a new covenant and better promises. He finally fulfilled all the promises of all his covenants in Christ. See Chart 2.
Why is there no specific covenant making at the time of the return from exile? The old covenant was becoming obsolete (Heb. 8:7–13). It was not faultless precisely because its fulfillments were shadowy prefigurings of the better covenant in our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the ultimate seed of the woman and he has achieved a final victory over Satan and all his offspring. We wait only for him to come again and put the finishing touches on the great accomplishments of the cross and resurrection.
Throughout these covenants God continued to speak of the seed of the woman. His promises after the flood were to Noah and his seed (Gen. 9:9), and after Babel to Abraham and his seed (Gen. 17:7). In Egypt, at Sinai and under Joshua, he fulfilled his promises to Abraham that he would multiply his seed, make them a great nation and them the land in which Abraham was a sojourner. He promised that David’s seed would sit on his throne forever. And in the new covenant he fulfilled all these promises in Christ and the calling of the Gentiles, the new seed of Abraham.
Thus, God’s covenants followed great acts of judgment on the world and redemption of his people from apparent defeat. They were guarantees to the seed of the woman of the continuity of his covenant with them and of final victory over the serpent. They fulfilled in part former covenants, enriched earlier promises, and add new promises pointing to a final and much more glorious fulfillment in Christ.
This is the point of the new covenant. It is not new in that it is altogether different and separate from the old but rather in being the fulfillment of the old, God making good on what he had been saying for thousands of years.
But even now fulfillment is not complete. We live in the now and the not yet. Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is (1 John 3:2). We still set our hope on the promises of God, fulfilled in part but to be fully realized only when the Son of David and Abraham comes again to make all things new and to reign forever and ever.
Believers in the New Testament are the continuation of the seed of the woman which God has been preserving and will continue to preserve as long as sun and moon endure. Believing Jews and Gentiles together are the true seed of Abraham (Rom. 2:29), the one new man in Christ (Eph. 2:15), the woman of Revelation 12 to whom God has given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent (Rev. 12:14).
While we remain in the world our business is war with the serpent and all his seed. Bu we are clothed with the armor of God and wield the sword of the Spirit. God will preserve us, and by the preaching of the gospel, not by votes, activism, or rebellion against the authorities that exist, will give victory. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ (2 Cor. 10:4–5). The armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations (Rev. 19:14–15). This is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? (1 John 5:4–5). Therefore, we also will see a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’ (Rev. 7:9–10).