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The Serpent's Seed: Difference between revisions

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:''There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.'' (Galatians 3: 28)
:''There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.'' (Galatians 3: 28)
=Who was the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent?=
''The LORD God said to the serpent,
'':“Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”<ref>The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001), Ge 3:14–15.</ref>
Imagine a group of people, a family, and into the midst of them comes slithering as fast as it can (and you know how fast they can come) a snake, a venomous snake, a poisonous snake, coming right at them. One man goes after the snake, and he begins to stomp on it. Finally he crushes the head and saves the family, but only after, in the process, the snake bites him, the poison goes into him, and he dies. That’s the picture.
What God is saying is - the serpent is not just a snake but is Satan. It represents evil. God is saying that an offspring of Eve, the seed of the woman, a human being, is going to destroy sin and death itself but get a fatal wound in the process. A human being is going to come, and he’s going to destroy sin and death, and in the process lose his life. I wonder who that could be...
The first Adam should have done something like that, not just stood there and let the Serpent destroy his family. The first Adam should have jumped on the snake or stomped on the snake or whatever. But the second Adam will. It’s Jesus Christ. Keep this in mind. In Romans 4 Paul says, “In Christ your sins are covered.” In Romans 4 Paul says, “Blessed is the one whose sin is covered. Blessed is the one to whom God does not impute sin.”
In the whole history of the world, there was only one human being that was only an offspring of a woman.
:''Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.<ref>The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001), Is 7:14.</ref>
This is the prophecy of the coming of Jesus Christ, and what Jesus Christ is going to do is he is going to destroy all the works of the Serpent.
If you go to Revelation 12, where it talks about the Serpent, the Dragon, Satan, and his seed, and the woman and her seed, God is not saying, “From now on, snakes and people will hate each other.” That’s not what he’s saying. “This is how the serpent lost his legs and why snakes and people hate each other.” No.
What it’s talking about is the human race will have only two kinds of people in it. There will be people who follow Satan’s advice in the garden and there will be people who follow the Lord. When it says here, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and hers,” that can’t mean it’s putting hatred in the snake. The snake already hates the woman. It can’t mean it’s putting hatred and enmity in the children of the snake, the followers of the snake, because they already hate God.
What is it saying? The first step of salvation is when God puts in you a hatred for Satan and all his ways. You only begin to move out of moralism and legalism, where you just hate the consequences of bad behavior but you’re afraid and proud, and you move into the position where you actually begin to hate sin.  William Cowper has this great old hymn where he’s talking about how he wants to change. He’s talking to the Holy Spirit. He says:
:Return, O holy Dove, return,
:Sweet messenger of rest!
:I hate the sins that made thee mourn
:And drove thee from my breast.
:The dearest idol I have known,
:Whate’er that idol be
:Help me to cast it from thy throne,
:And worship only thee.<ref>Timothy J. Keller, The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive (New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2013).</ref>


=References=
=References=