Bible Observations Regarding
The Laws of Heredity
Why does man need to be born again?
Third and Fourth Generation
The Second Commandment
John on the Two Seeds
The Anti-Christ
The Varied Objects of the Enmity
The Curse
“On your belly you will go and you will eat dust all the days of your life.”
“And I will put enmity between thy seed and the woman’s seed.”
“Thou shalt bruise his heal and he will crush your head.”
Satan in the Old Testament
The Enmity in Historical Allegory
I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children
And thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it:
cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Lessons from Genesis
Indwelling Prefigured
Existential Worship
Persecution Begins
The Three Enoch’s and Origins......
Unintentional Sin
Paul on the Two Seeds
Under the Law
Paul on the “sons of God”
John on the Two Seeds
Isaiah on the Two Seeds
Hints at the Controversy between the Seeds
Children of the Jerusalem Above
David on the Two Seeds
Job on the Two Seeds
Abram’s Special Qualifications
Noah’s Children Found Grace
Abraham’s Seed
Seed of the Serpent
Man is in the image of God.
Why does man need to be born again?
This was the question that Nicodemus did not ask.[1]
Peter tells us that in the new birth we are born “not of corruptible seed” but “of the Word of God” that lives and abides forever. Apparently our first birth introduced us into a family that was doomed to a limited existence. As we inherited mortality from our first parents’ seed, so in the new birth we inherit the immortality of the Word that begat us.[2]
Corruptible seed is our fallen human nature. This is clear enough when you read “genetics” for “seed” and “degenerating” for “corruptible.” We have been born of parents with degenerating genetics. That is the sense of “corruptible seed.”
“Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.” 1 Peter 1:22-23.
The decline of our race from its original form has been the outworking of laws as regular as those that oversee the rest of the creation. Knowledge of those laws reveals that our children need not be the next step down on the ladder from Adam. In this study we will call the principles that determine the character of the next generation the laws of heredity.
Generation after generation the laws of heredity have demanded a harvest in harmony with the sowing of those that hate God. In each case of willful transgression the judgment of the second commandment has gone into operation. There God promised that the iniquities of the fathers would be “visited” on their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Third and Fourth Generation
The law itself reads “third and fourth generation.” To find an apparently arbitrary statement in the God-carved stones of immutable morality could surprise us. It is almost a statement of relativity in the midst of a sea of absolutes. The nature and mode of moral inheritance, when understood, makes it plain that “third” and “fourth” represents no arbitrary extension of guilt.
We inherit morality by two avenues. The first, and one that comes naturally to mind when we use the biological word “inherit”, is by genetic information. Children of tardy persons tend to be late.
But it is no less true that parents of tardy children tend to be late. The second source of moral deviation is nurture. The Bible adds abundant data to the sociological controversies over wither of these sources, nature or nurture, plays the greater role.
If we again approach the question, “Why three and four generations?” the data that follows suggests the answer, “Because parents live to have a hand in the raising of their grandchildren or great-grandchildren. They might see their great-great grandchildren, but they have little to do with raising them. They may not live long enough to see a grandchild. But for that matter, they may not have children at all. The Commandment presents the normal case.”
Adam sinned and subsequent generations have borne ever augmenting levels of degeneration. This fact, evident both in the commandment and in our racial[3] history, could be stated “the human seed becomes more corrupt from generation to generation as the parents choose rebellion and pass it on to their children.” In shorter words, “the human seed is corruptible.”
How did it come to be that Adam sinned and defiled his progeny? Back in the first garden we find only holy seed planted by the Creator. Jesus introduced the figure of a garden planted by God in Matthew 13. In the parable there he is asked how corruptible seed came to be in the garden. He answered the question plainly. “An enemy has done this.” Matthew 13:28. That enemy is the Devil, v. 37. In the simple language of Jesus, “the field is the world, the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one,” v. 38.
Yes, men may certainly be children of the Devil. Jesus said as much to the Jews and to Elymas. “You are of your father the Devil.” “O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease to pervert the ways of the Lord?” Jn. 8:44, Acts 13:10.
The seed of the Devil are represented as enemies of God’s children in Matthew 13, John 8, and Acts 13. In these passages noted above and many others found later in this study there appears to be a continuing fulfillment of the promise that God would put “enmity” between the seeds. We will study this later.
The Holy Spirit’s rebuke of Elymas offers hope and hints at the new birth. When the latter of these children of the Devil was asked “will you not cease?” God hinted at the power of the new birth. We may be born again as children of God. Our “enemy” status may die with our “old man.” We may be translated out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of light.
Judas, also called “a devil” by Jesus (Jn. 6:70), was invited to act quickly in his final moments. Jesus, like the Holy Spirit in Acts 13, was calling him to “cease to pervert the ways of the Lord.” His “devil” status could end. The children of the Devil are devils. They are of his spirit. Judas was not unique among the disciples in being “of” the wrong spirit.
James and John were reproved as “not knowing what manner of spirit ye are of.” Peter was addressed as if he were the devil personally, “get behind me, Satan.”[4]
Spiritual children do like their parents. “The lusts of your father you will do,” Jesus said to the Jews in Jn. 8:44. The relation between serving our lusts and being corruptible is very direct. “The corruptions that are in the world” are here “through lust.” 2 Pt. 1:4. Judas’ lust for money, John’s lust for position, and Peter’s lust for an easy time on this earth, each of these would have been sufficient to destroy an apostle had it not been for the new birth that all but Judas accepted.
Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit for the very purpose of freeing us from our oppressive lusts. He could, “for God was with Him.” Acts 10:38. Back in our parable of Matthew 13 we find that “He that soweth good seed is the son of man,” v. 37.
Men who have God’s seed in them cease perverting the ways of the Lord. I Jn. 3:8-10. Men who do not and can not cease sinning are “of the Devil”, “cursed children.” I Jn. 3:8-10, 2 Peter 2:14.
We become children of the evil one very naturally. We are born that way “of bloods.” Further, we are born that way “of the will of the flesh.” We were born that way because of the will of men, of our forbears. Jn. 1:13. Children of God are born none of these ways. They are born of the will of God, v. 12-14.
Jesus, when anointed with the Holy Spirit, was announced by the heavenly voice as the “Son” of God. Immediately he was led into the wilderness “by the Spirit.” Paul states that “as many as are led of the Spirit, they are the sons of God.” Matt. 4:1; Rom. 8:14. And if we are sons, he reasons, then we are “heirs.”
Cosmic events hinge on the revelation of God’s seed. In our Matthew 13 parable the harvest end of the world waits for the difference between seeds to become apparent to the reaping angels. Like angels, like endangered species. “The whole creation” groans under the curse “waiting for the revelation of the sons of God.” When that revelation comes, the earth will be freed from the curse.
This study, I earnestly hope, will open doors of thought to the reading student. For myself the truths centered around the ancient promise of the two seeds have been like the rafters that have connected and stabilized so many walls, so many ideas standing alone in the structure of truth.
-.-.-.-.
The Second Commandment
Deep in the Ten Commandments are gems of thought that illumine today’s controversies. An example can be found in the second commandment where we read of “mercy shown to thousands of them that love [God] and keep [His] commandments.”
Examining the sentence a searching soul would find, to the following questions, the following answers: Do commandment keepers deserve heaven? No, they need mercy. Do lovers of God receive mercy? Yes, if they keep the commandments. Do commandment keepers receive mercy? Not if they have a formal or legal religion. Love is essential.
So as soon as there was a written law there was a written presentation of the saved-by-grace-through-an-obedient-and-loving-faith gospel.
In the same commandment we find the first Biblical enunciation of the laws of heredity. Briefly yet comprehensively the sentence answers questions regarding the impact of transgressions on future generations.
“For the Lord thy God is a jealous God visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of them that hate me and showing mercy to thousands [of generations][5] of them that love me and keep my commandments.”
-.-.-.-.
John on the Two Seeds
The apostle John, more than other Bible writers, enlarges on the theme of the two seeds. The first of his general epistles begins with a series of contrasts between those that know God and those that do not. John makes the application of these contrasts in the second chapter. There he speaks of origins, of those that are “of the Father” and the nature that characterizes those that are “of the world.”
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever. I Jn 2:15-17
Loving to satisfy our appetites and passions, whether stimulated by sight or hunger or the pride of display, is a terminal disease. It will pass away with the lusts that it indulges. Those that indulge are “of the world.” They are the children of men.
John follows the same thought that we examined in Peter’s letter earlier. There Peter said that the Word that is in us “lives and abides forever.” Here John said that he “that does the will of God abideth forever.” Both contrast the ever-living ones with the passing away of “the pride of life” (John) and all “the glory of man,” (Peter).
Peter wrote that the righteous are born “not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, even the Word of God.” John writes here “he that does the will of God” abides forever. Who does the will of God? John answers “every one that doeth righteousness is born of him.”
And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming. If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him. Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God. I Jn. 2:28-3:1.
I see sad irony in the fact that men sing I Jn. 3:1 as if every son of Adam “should be called” a son of God. The immediate phrase before the sentence says that the reader knows “that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him.” The sons of God are those that “abide in Him.” The passage points to disappointment for those who began well but surrendered to their lusts. They will be “ashamed before him at his coming.”
This part of the epistle seems like a commentary on Christ’s own sermon on the two seeds, found in John 8. We will examine that sermon shortly. There also, only those that “continue” in their walk with Jesus are true disciples. Jn. 8:30-32. Those that began believing but turned from truths they disdained are classed as children of the Devil.
The seed, or family, of the serpent can not understand the righteous ones. It does not recognize them as God’s children because it did not know Jesus well enough to notice the family resemblance.
“Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” I Jn. 3:2-3
The likeness of God’s children to Jesus will be most prominent, John teaches, when Jesus appears. We do not need to wait so long, however, to see the likeness of Satan’s seed to their father.
“He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.” I Jn. 3:8-10.
Understandably, many religionists are not ready to credit these verses as meaning what they appear to say so simply. The human heart is loath to admit that it is captive to its own lusts. With the Jews suffering under Roman oppression, human souls cry “we were never in bondage to any man.”
The letter passes on to illustrate the two seeds as manifested in the enmity between Cain and Able. We take up that enmity elsewhere. John brings home the story with a practical conclusion. “Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you.” That is part of being a child of God in the midst of the world’s crooked and perverse offspring.
Those in whom God’s seed “remains” can not sin. This either means that whatever they do can not be sin, as some Calvinists have concluded, or that those who choose to sin no longer retain part of the “seed.” The latter sense alone fits the book, for it is the children of God that may sin and find help in their Advocate Jesus. This would be senseless nonsense[6] if their choices could not be sinful.
The Anti-Christ
When John introduces the idea of antichrist in I Jn. 4:2, he speaks of its “spirit” as something that had been prophesied, for they “had heard that it would come.” This little phrase authorizes the Protestant connection of this passage to the several others by the same author in Revelation where the word “antichrist” does not appear.
Opening the antichrist theme, John explains that the spirit or mindset of Antichrist is not “of God.” There are, he says, two mindsets or spirits in the world and we should try them to find which seed they belong to.