( Continued from page 189.)

Chapter V.

A Judgment which is an Announcement of Salvation

In Gen. .3:14-16 God pronounces the doom of man's tempter. Verses 9-13 show that those whom Satan has victimized are objects of divine mercy. God manifests the untruth of Satan's implication as to His love by seeking out the one who has been enticed into sin. "Adam, where art thou?" was a self-evident proof of Satan's lie as to God's interest in the creature He had put in Eden. Further, it told Adam that He loved him still, that He wanted him to come back. The further questions, we may assume, were not in a tone to destroy the effect that this first one produced, but rather to prepare the guilty pair to expect His intervention; and when directly God declared in their hearing Satan's doom, how they must have been amazed at the mercy and grace that was pledged to them! The difference between God's ways with them and His ways with Satan could not but produce wonder and thankfulness in their hearts. They are shown that Satan, being irreconcilable, is not an object of mercy. His enmity to God is eternal-not that he will be able eternally to manifest it-but eternal alienation of will characterizes him; there is no possibility of his repentance, hence no prospect of reconciliation to God is held out to him. On the contrary, though his eternal doom is not fully revealed here, the sentence passed upon him implies his final subjection to a sovereignty which he will never be able to resist.

But let us consider the judgment declared in detail. First, "Thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field," means that of all creatures, Satan is the most degraded. None so abhorrent, none so debased. Then, "Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life," implies a humiliating career. The serpent's grovelings in the dust symbolizes, in God's eyes, the character of Satan's meddling with men; but there is a limitation to it. The time of his activity is specifically defined. His unholy practices will come to an end. "All the days of thy life " means an ultimate cessation of his sinful work, a final subjugation to the sovereignty of God-not in grace, but in judgment, a judgment that will reduce him to eternal inactivity and silence. In hearing this doom upon the serpent, our first parents learned that Satan is not an object of God's mercy; that he is instead a subject of His eternal wrath.

But if God declares His abhorrence of Satan and his work, and indicates his final enforced submission to divine and sovereign power, He also indicates that He has thoughts of mercy in mind for men. He will not be satisfied with merely prevailing over Satan. It is not enough for God to bring Satan's kingdom to an end, to cause the dominion of sin to cease, to force him to yield up his prey, to end the kingdom of death and corruption, to raise the dead and consign them to an everlasting judgment. All this will be a display of His sovereign power, but God must display His grace, the riches of His mercy.

Let us reflect what it would mean if God merely undid the works of the devil. If He acted only in judgment, simply annulled Satan's power, just brought his dominion to an end, none would be recovered to God, none would be saved from the judgment that comes after death. The resurrection of the dead and their eternal judgment would be a decisive victory over Satan, but it would not be an exhibition of what God is, nor of the wealth of His grace.

While we do not find, in what God further says here to Satan, a full revelation of the mercy that is in His heart toward man, there are declarations which must have stirred the souls of our first parents to their very depths. What must have been their emotions when they realized that God entertained the purpose of restoring them to a place of favor-of deliverance out of Satan's hand, of not leaving them to be involved in the implied doom of Satan!

Shall we listen again to the revelations which evidently laid hold of their hearts? First, God speaks of the woman. Satan had poisoned her mind, had put enmity between God and her. He had alienated her from God and made her his own ally. But God says, "I will put enmity between thee and the woman." It means, I am going to do a work in her which will be the annulment of the work you have wrought in her. By deceiving her you brought her into bondage to your power, but she is to Me an object of mercy, of sovereign grace. In grace I will recover her to Myself. In grace I will reinstate her in the place of favor.

This announcement clearly implied her forgiveness. As the woman learns this purpose of God towards her she was warranted to say, The God against whom I have sinned forgives me -freely, unconditionally. What mercy! what grace! Was not the love of God thus poured into her? Could she not then say, The God I have offended becomes my Saviour ?-He whom I have so grievously wronged comes to be my Deliverer! What must have been her joy when she realized that God is a forgiving God-a Saviour! What gratitude and praise must have filled her as it dawned upon her that she was a subject of this sovereign grace of God!

But there was in the revelation a further purpose, for God goes on to say, "And between thy seed and her seed." Clearly, the woman is not to be the only subject of the grace of God. The same grace that lays hold of her is to lay hold of others. There is to be a race of saved ones. Notice is thus served on Satan that the grace revealed to the woman he had victimized will have fruit in her posterity; that there will be those recovered to God after the pattern of her recovery. The sovereign grace of God is to have its victories. It is to rejoice over men delivered from Satan, not by judgment but by grace.

These trophies of God's grace are here called " the seed of the woman," as fruits of the grace that is revealed to her, and of which she is the first subject. Those who are not reached by the grace of God are Satan's seed – a generation of irreconcilables whom divine mercy only hardens. Between these two races there is perpetual antagonism. If the woman, whom Satan used to bring about man's
fall, becomes an object of Satan's enmity on account of divine grace shown her, he will also cherish bitter hatred of those whom God will redeem to Himself.

The full consequences of the grace that is here unfolded are not declared. Of course they could not be openly declared until the time for the New Testament revelations. Yet it must have been evident that the redemption, which God here puts between the woman's seed and Satan's seed, implied a contrast of an enduring character-distinct, eternal issues. In view of these revelations, of what grace would effect, faith must have said, Death cannot be to us, the subjects of grace, what it is to those who die in alliance with Satan; a difference too must be in resurrection between the seed of the woman and the seed of Satan. While the sentence of death in God's government was not withdrawn, being the subject of grace she must have comforted herself in the hope of resurrection; so also of the seed which God was to give her. If it be asked, Could she not also infer a resurrection of Satan's seed? Undoubtedly so; but the further revelation (which we shall directly consider) would be a testimony to her that in the resurrection Satan's seed would be involved in his eternal judgment; while she and her seed would be eternally associated with Satan's conqueror. We may be sure she died in the faith and hope, not merely of rising again, but of an immortal life in the unending favor of God.

But, as already mentioned, there is another revelation here. Our first parents not only heard of a seed as objects of sovereign grace, but of a particular person also with a distinctive and unique position in connection with this race. They learned that of the woman's seed a Man would arise, whom Satan would not be able to overcome, whose feet he would not succeed to turn in the way of sin, but who would triumph over Satan. He must be a sinless Man, therefore, having life in Himself; who in His own person is the annulment of death and corruption.

It is manifest that such a Man must have the first and highest place among those whom grace makes His associates. His is the place of Firstborn among many brethren in virtue of what He is in Himself, able to represent them, to fight their battles, and find for them the path of life.

No doubt Adam and Eve could not then comprehend the full perfections of this particular Seed of the woman of whom God says in their hearing, "It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel." Still, they must have been impressed with God's declaration that a Man was coming who-would annul Satan's power. They heard God speaking of a conflict in which Satan's defeat would be complete and permanent. Their understanding as to the nature of the conflict, no doubt, was very limited. It needed the cross to manifest it in its full reality, but they could perceive that God was speaking of a Man who would triumph over the one who had overcome them.

Furthermore, it must have been clear that this announced victory of the coming Man implied, not merely the frustration of Satan's purposes, but the annulment of his work. I go even further, and think our first parents saw in the announced Victor not merely One with competency to overcome, but title also to make good the pledged grace-not merely Satan's conqueror, but the Source of a life in which they would stand in God's eternal favor.

Having heard of God's purposes of grace (to have a race recovered to Himself and reinstated in His favor) the revelation of a coming Man with power to subdue Satan, was convincing evidence that the grace pledged rested on an immutable foundation. He who has power to overcome Satan has the sovereign right to dispose of the spoil He thus acquires. To those to whom mercy is pledged it will be mercy without limit. Blessed indeed is the portion of those who are the subjects of a grace the channel of which is the Man Christ Jesus-the unique Seed of the woman.

The foundation of the doctrines of the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment is laid here in this sentence upon Satan. New Testament revelations have undoubtedly put them in clearer light, but they underlie the Old Testament communications. They were articles of the faith delivered to the Old Testament saints-a faith built upon the foundation here laid. It revealed, and they looked for, a life beyond death, not merely life in a disembodied state, but life and incorruptibility in a resurrection state. Their light on these things was not the bright light which we now possess. These subjects needed to be illuminated, but there was sufficient light for them to look beyond death, and hope for a condition of life in which mortality would be forever overcome. We will look at a few illustrations of this faith and hope in our next chapter. C. Crain

(To be continued.)