Our God is a covenanting God, and we are His covenanted people. Throughout the Bible we see God making covenants with His people; His covenants reveal His desire toward man. The Bible is a book of the revelation of God’s desire toward man.
God expresses His desire toward man in a covenant as a way to provide the guarantee to man and to establish His credibility so that man would trust in Him and be at peace. Even though man fell and was removed from the garden of Eden and from God’s presence, God still appeared to man, sought man, desired to be related to man, and entered into a covenant with man.
In these two weeks we will explore the covenanting God and His covenants – the major covenants that God made with man, the first of which is the covenant He made with Adam.
The First Covenant God made with Man: Christ Coming as the Seed of the Woman (Gen. 3:15)
The first major covenant God made with man can be seen in Gen. 3:15; because man was deceived by the serpent and disobeyed God by taking the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, man became fallen.
In Gen. 3:9 God came to Adam and asked, Where are you? This was His seeking sanctification, just as the woman in Luke 15 lit a lamp and swept the house until she found the lost coin (the lost sinner). Adam fell, was lost, and was deadened in his spirit because of his sin, but God came to him to preach the gospel to him, and Adam became the first believer in the gospel.
In Gen. 3:15 God told the serpent (in the presence of Adam and Eve), And I will put enmity Between you and the woman And between your seed and her seed; He will bruise you on the head, But you will bruise him on the heel.
The serpent is Satan, the woman is Eve, and the seed of the woman signifies Christ and corporately the man-child coming out of the woman in Rev. 12. Christ came as the seed of the woman and died on the cross to bruise the serpent’s head; Satan bruised His feet (the Roman soldiers pierced Christ’s feet with nails) but Christ destroyed the devil on the cross (Heb. 2:14).
Even though Adam fell, God came to him to announce the gospel, the good news, telling him that the seed of the woman (the son of Eve, that is, her descendent) will bruise the serpent’s head (while the serpent will merely bruise Him on the heel). This is a covenant, God’s covenant with the fallen man, in which He promised man to bring forth a seed that will destroy the serpent!
Adam and Eve believed God and His gospel; initially they believed that they would die, but after hearing the gospel, they Adam called his wife, Eve (living).
Later, in Isa. 7:14 God promised that the virgin will conceive and will bear a son who will deliver His people from their sins, and His name will be Emmanuel (God with us). Jesus came as the Salvation of Jehovah, Jehovah our salvation; He came to save us from Satan and to destroy him (Matt. 1:16, 20-21, 23).
Jesus Christ as the Seed of the woman came to be the complete God becoming a perfect man through the dispensing of God into man to destroy Satan and save the believers in Christ from sin and death (Gal. 4:4; John 1:1, 14; 8:58; Heb. 2:14; 1 Cor. 15:53-57).
Mary, a female descendent of King David, was the mother of the promised Christ, the mother of the seed of the woman; in Christ the complete God became a perfect man through the dispensing of Himself into humanity so that He may destroy the devil and save God’s people from their sins, saving them to the uttermost to make them sons of God.
Christ as the seed of the woman came to destroy Satan (to bruise the serpent’s head) and to save the believers in Christ from sin and death (see Heb. 2:14; Matt. 1:20-21; 1 Cor. 15:53-57). Hallelujah, what a covenant!
Thank You Lord Jesus for coming as the seed of the woman to destroy the devil and to save us to the uttermost. Thank You for not leaving us in our sinful and fallen state but coming to preach the gospel to us and to promise us salvation. Lord Jesus, we love You! Today we are living in our spirit because of You! Save us much more day by day from any sin and death until we are filled with You and we can accomplish God’s purpose by being one with You!
God sent Forth His Son and the Spirit of His Son to Sonize us and Destroy Satan in us
God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, to be the seed of the woman and destroy Satan on the cross and redeem us back to God – this is for our judicial redemption; furthermore, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son (the transfiguration of His Son) to save us to the uttermost – this is for our organic salvation (Gal. 4:4-6).
In Gen. 3:15 God promised man that the seed of the woman will come to destroy the devil; in the New Testament Christ came as the seed of the woman, born under law, to redeem those who were under law so that they may receive the sonship.
The purpose and goal of Christ’s redemption is NOT “going to heaven” but sonship, that is, that we would become sons of God (we would be “sonized”).
However, in order for Christ’s redemption and destroying of the devil to be made real and applied to us, God had to send us the Spirit of His Son (which is His Son in resurrection, the transfiguration of Christ) to apply it and make it real to us. Now we testify that we are children of God, and we warmly and dearly call God as our Abba, Father.
Christ came as the seed of the woman to destroy the devil through His death on the cross, and in His resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit to be the reality and application of this to us in our experience.
When we receive the Spirit, we experience the sonship (we become sons of God) and Satan is being exposed and destroyed in us by this conquering seed of the woman in us. Hallelujah! Now we call God as Father, and this warms up His heart and brings us into a strong intimate connection with Him.
Christ Himself became a curse on our behalf so that the blessing of Abraham (the promise of the Spirit) would come to us (Gal. 3:13-14).
The resurrected Christ as the life-giving Spirit is the transfigured descendant of the woman, dispensed into us to bruise the serpent’s head in us and to make us the corporate seed of the woman, the overcoming man-child, to carry out God’s judgement on the ancient serpent and to be God’s dispensational instrument to change the age and usher in the manifestation of God’s kingdom (Rev. 12:5). Witness Lee
The seed of the woman is not only Christ Himself but also the man-child seen in Rev. 12; on His side, Christ destroyed the devil on the cross, and now there’s a corporate seed of the woman, a man-child, who is being prepared to be the reproduction and continuation of Christ to destroy the great dragon.
The woman in Rev. 12 (the fulfillment of the type in Gen. 3:15) is a universal woman, signifying the totality of the people of God – the twelve patriarchs (signified by the twelve stars on the woman’s head), the Old Testament saints (signified by the moon under her feet), and the New Testament believers in Christ (signified by the sun with which the woman is clothed).
The woman in the Bible is the weaker vessel; this bright woman in Rev. 12 has a man-child inside of her, showing that, even though she is weak, there’s a stronger part being formed in her, and the dragon (Satan) wants to eat him. This man-child is the dispensational instrument, and God wants to gain this stronger part, the overcomers, who would be one with Christ to destroy the devil, end this age, and bring in the age of the kingdom.
Hallelujah, God sent forth His Son to be the seed of the woman and destroy the devil, and He sent forth the Spirit of His Son to sonize us and destroy the serpent’s head in us; now we simply need to cooperate with the Lord to be produced as His overcomers, the man-child, to be the corporate seed of the woman who would destroy Satan, end this age, and bring in the millennium age!
Thank You Father for sending forth Your Son to come as the seed of the woman and destroy the devil on the cross. Thank You Father for sending forth the Spirit of Your Son to sonize us and make us God’s sons! Hallelujah, we are now the sons of God, and the Spirit witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God having His life and nature! Lord, bruise in us the serpent’s head and save us to the uttermost. We want to cooperate with You daily so that Satan’s foothold in us would be destroyed, we would be saved in Your life, and we would be produced as the overcomers, the manchild, the dispensational instrument You need to destroy Satan, end this age, and bring in the age of the kingdom!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, brother Ed Marks’ sharing in the message for this week, and Life-study of Genesis, msg. 18 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Exodus (2), week 6 / msg 6, The Covenanting God and His Covenants (1) – Major Covenants That God Made with Man.
- All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
- Hymns on this topic to strengthen this burden:
# Lord, Thou art the “Seed of woman,” / Born to bruise the enemy; / Thou didst take the human nature, / Die to win the victory. / As the very God incarnate, / Flesh and blood Thou didst partake; / Thou thru death hast crushed the devil / And his pow’r of death didst break. (Hymns #191)
# Dear Lord Jesus, we adore Thee, / ”Seed of woman” Thou became; / Of the virgin wast begotten, / Called e’en with a human name. / Taking thus the human nature, / Thou as man the serpent trod; / By the Cross his head Thou bruised / And fulfilled the plan of God. (Hymns #62)
# Come, Desire of nations, come! / Fix in us Thy humble home: / Rise, the woman’s conqu’ring seed, / Bruise in us the serpent’s head; / Adam’s likeness now efface, / Stamp Thine image in its place: / Final Adam from above, / Reinstate us in Thy love. (Hymns #84)
About aGodMan
Who are the overcomers?…The woman in Genesis 3:15 firstly is Eve and secondly is all the people of God, including the virgin Mary, as signified by Eve. Hence, the seed of the woman is mainly the Lord Jesus who was born of Mary. However, more regarding the seed of the woman can be seen in Revelation 12. The woman depicted in Revelation 12 and signified in Genesis 3:15 is a universal woman, and within her is a part called the man-child (Rev. 12:1, 2, 5). In a biblical sense, woman represents weakness, for the woman is the weaker vessel (1 Pet. 3:7). The man, especially the man-child, represents strength. The universal woman of Revelation 12 has two parts: the outer part, which is the woman herself, and the inner part, which is the man-child….All the people of God are the woman, who is somewhat weak, but among all the people of God is a stronger part, which is the man-child, the overcomers….The man-child is also a part of the seed of the woman. (Witness Lee, Life-study of Genesis, pp. 252-253)