Today we'll examine the role of the original sin in the purpose of God.
From BEFORE the foundation of the earth the purpose of God was to share His Eternal Life with man. This predestinated purpose would be accomplished to the praise of the glory of His grace through the plan of Salvation and Redemption. Listen closely. "God being a Savior, it was necessary that He predestinate a man who'd require salvation, in order to give Himself reason and purpose of being."
Revelation 2:7, "... To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the Tree of Life, Which is in the midst of the paradise of God." This is the future reward to all overcomers of all ages. When the last call to battle has sounded, and our armour laid down, we'll rest in the paradise of God, and our portion shall be the Tree of Life, forever.
"The Tree of Life." Isn't that a beautiful figure of speech? Its mentioned three times in Genesis, and three times in Revelation. In all six places its the same tree and symbolizes the same thing.
But what is the Tree of Life? Well, first of all we have to know what the tree itself stands for. Balaam described Israel as "trees of lign aloes which the Lord planted." Trees throughout Scripture refer to persons, as in Psalm 1. Thus the Tree of Life must be the Person of Life, and that's Jesus.
Now two trees stood in the midst of the Garden of Eden. One was the Tree of Life, the other was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Man was to live by the Tree of Life; he was not to touch the other tree or he'd die. But man did partake of the other tree, and when he did, death entered into him by his sin, and he became separated from God.
That Tree back there in Eden, that Tree which was the source of life, was Jesus. In John, chapters six through eight, Jesus sets Himself forth as the source of eternal life. He called Himself the Bread from heaven that if a man ate he'd never die. He proclaimed He knew Abraham, that before Abraham, He WAS. He prophesied He Himself would give living waters which if man drank he would never thirst again, but live eternally. He showed Himself as the GREAT I AM. He's the Bread of Life, the Well of Life, the Eternal One, the TREE OF LIFE. He was back there in Eden in the midst of the garden even as He'll be in the midst of the paradise of God.
Some think the two trees in the garden were just like the rest of the vegetation God had placed there. Careful students know this is not so. When John the Baptist cried, "The axe is laid to the root of all trees", he wasn't talking of natural trees but of spiritual principles. I John 5:11 says, "This is the RECORD, God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son." Jesus said in John 5:40, "You'll not come to Me, that you might have life." Thus the record, God's Word, states plainly and clearly that Life, ETERNAL Life, is in the Son. It is no other place. I John 5:12, "He that hath the Son hath LIFE; and he that hath not the Son of God hath NOT Life." Now since the record cannot change, be taken from or added to, the record stands that THE LIFE IS IN THE SON... Since this is so, THE TREE IN THE GARDEN HAS TO BE JESUS.
If the Tree of Life is a person, then the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is a person ALSO. It can't be otherwise. Thus the Righteous One and the Wicked One stood side by side there in the midst of the Garden of Eden. Ezekiel 28:13a "Thou (Satan) hast been in Eden, the garden of God."
Here's where we receive the true revelation of the Serpent's seed. Here's what really happened in the Garden of Eden. The Word says that Eve was beguiled by the serpent. She was actually seduced by the serpent. Genesis 3:1 calls the serpent: "more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made." This beast was so close to a human being, yet was pure animal, that he could reason and talk. He was an upright creature, and somewhat in between a chimpanzee and a man but closer to a man. So close to being human, his seed could and did mingle with that of the woman and cause her to conceive. When this happened, God cursed the serpent, changing every bone in his body so he had to crawl like a snake. Science won't find the missing link. God saw to that. But man can see an association of man with animal and tries to prove it by evolution. There isn't any evolution. But man and animal did mingle. That's one of the mysteries of God that has remained hidden. Here its revealed. It happened back there in the midst of Eden when Eve turned away from Life to accept Death.
God said, "I'll put enmity between thee and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed, It shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel". If we give credit to the Word that the woman did have a Seed, then the serpent must have surely had a seed also. If the Seed of the woman was a man-child apart from the man, then the seed of the serpent will have to be in the same pattern. That is, another male must be born apart from human male instrumentality. Every one knows that the Seed of the woman was Christ Who came by the instrumentality of God, apart from human intercourse. Its just as well known that the predicted bruising of the serpent's head is a prophecy about what Christ would accomplish against Satan at the cross. There at the cross Christ would bruise the head of Satan, while Satan would bruise the heel of the Lord.
This Scripture reveals how the literal seed of the serpent was sown in the earth, even as we have the account of Luke 1:26-35, which sets forth how the Seed of the woman came into physical manifestation apart from the instrumentality of a human male. "In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, you are highly favoured, the Lord is with you: blessed are you among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and wondered what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, 'Fear not, Mary: for you've found favour with God. And, behold, you'll conceive in your womb, and bring forth a Son, and shall call His Name JESUS. He'll be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David: And He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of His kingdom there will be no end'. Then said Mary unto the angel, 'How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?' And the angel answered and said unto her, 'The Holy Ghost shall come upon you, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow you: therefore also That Holy Thing Which shall be born of you shall be called the Son of God'."
As the Seed of the woman was literally God reproducing Himself in human flesh, so the seed of the serpent is the literal way that Satan found he was able to open the door to himself into the human race. It was impossible for Satan (who is only a CREATED spirit-being) to reproduce himself in the manner which God reproduced Himself, so the Genesis account tells how he produced his seed and introduced or injected himself into the human race. You'll recall Satan is called the 'serpent.' Its his seed or injection into the human race we're speaking of.
Before Adam ever had carnal knowledge of Eve, the serpent had that knowledge ahead of him. And the one born of it was Cain. Cain was of (begotten or born of) that "Wicked One", I John 3:12.
The Holy Spirit in John could not in one place call Adam the "Wicked One" (for that's what he'd be if he fathered Cain), and in another place call Adam the "Son of God" which he was by creation. Cain turned out in character like his father, a bringer of death, a murderer. His utter defiance of God when faced by the Almighty shows him absolutely un-human-like in characteristics, seeming to surpass any account in Scripture concerning a confrontation of Satan by God. "Unto Cain and to his offering God had not respect. And Cain was furious, and his countenance fell. And the Lord said to Cain, 'Where is Abel your brother?' And he said, 'I don't know: Am I my brother's keeper?' And Cain said to God, 'My punishment is greater than I can bear. Today You've driven me out from the face of the earth; and from Your face shall I be hid; and I'll be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that finds me shall slay me'."
Notice the exact way the record of God sets forth the account of the births of Cain, Abel and Seth. Genesis 4:1, "Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I've gotten a man from the Lord. And she again bare his brother Abel." Genesis 4:25, "And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth.." THREE sons are born, but there were only TWO acts of carnal knowledge by Adam. As the Bible is the exact and perfect Word of God, this is no mistake, but a record for our illumination. As THREE sons were born from TWO acts by Adam, you know POSITIVELY that ONE of those three was NOT the son of Adam. God has recorded this in this exact manner to show us something. The truth is that Eve had in her womb TWO sons from SEPARATE impregnations. She was carrying twins, with Cain's conception sometime previous to that of Abel's.
To those who doubt this is possible, let it be known that medical records are replete with cases where women have carried twins who were of separate ova and separate insemination, with fertilization of the eggs being days apart. NOT ONLY SO, but some of the records show the twins were fathered by separate males.
Worldwide coverage was given to a Norwegian mother who was suing her husband for support for herself and her twins, one of which was white and the other black. She admitted to a Negro lover. The two conceptions were about three weeks apart. In Beaumont, Texas, the records set forth a multiple birth wherein pregnancies were many days apart. So much so that the woman almost died along with one child in childbirth.
Now why did this have to be so? Why was it that the seed of the serpent must come this way? Man was created for God. Man was to be the temple of God. The place of God's rest (the Holy Spirit) was man, the temple. Acts 7:46-51, "Solomon found favour before God, and desired to find a tabernacle for the God of Jacob. But Solomon built Him an house. Howbeit the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet, 'Heaven is My throne, and earth is My footstool: what house will you build Me? saith the Lord: or what is the place of My rest? Hath not My hand made all these things?' You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do you." Satan has known this all along. He also wants to in-dwell man as God does. But God's reserved to Himself that right. Satan cannot do that. God alone appeared in human flesh. Satan could not and cannot do that. He does not have creative powers. The only way for Satan to accomplish what he wanted to do was to enter the serpent in Eden even as he entered by evil spirits into the swine at Gadara. God does not enter animals; but Satan can and will to accomplish his ends. He could not have a child directly by Eve as did God by Mary, so he entered into the serpent then beguiled Eve. He seduced her and by her Satan had a child vicariously. Cain bore the full spiritual characteristics of Satan and the animalistic (sensual, fleshly) characteristic of the serpent. No wonder the Holy Spirit said "Cain was of that wicked one". He was.
Now I want to mention some certain proof that there is a definite affinity between man and animal. It's a physical thing. If we take the embryo cells from an unborn animal fetus and inject them into human beings, the thyroid cells will go to the human thyroid, and the kidney cells will go right to the human kidneys.
Do you realize how stupendous this is? Some intelligence guides those animal cells exactly to the right place. That intelligence accepts those cells. There's an affinity between animal and man. They can't intermingle and reproduce, it's been tried. But in the garden, intermingling did take place and the chemical affinity which still exists proves it. For back in Eden the serpent was an upright creature. He was close to man. He was almost man. Satan took advantage of the serpent's physical characteristics to beguile Eve. Then God destroyed that pattern of the serpent. No other beast can commingle with man. But the affinity is there.
Let's crystallize our thinking on this subject so we can see the necessity of going into the 'serpent seed doctrine'. We start with the fact that there were TWO trees in the midst of the garden. The Tree of Life was Jesus. The other tree is definitely Satan because of what came forth of the fruit of that tree. Now we know both of those trees had a relationship to man or they'd never have been placed there. They must have had a part in the sovereign plan and purpose of God in their relationship to mankind and to Himself or we could never impute omniscience unto God.
The Word definitely teaches that from BEFORE the foundation of the earth, the purpose of God was to share His Eternal Life with man. Ephesians 1:4-11, "He's chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, To the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He has made us accepted in the beloved. In Whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace; Wherein He's abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; Having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He has purposed in Himself: That in the dispensation of the fulness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in Him: In Whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him Who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will." Revelation 13:8, "And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship Satan, whose names are not written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world."
But that Life could not and would not be shared other than through "God manifest in the flesh." This was a part of His eternal and predestinated purpose. This plan was to be to the praise of the glory of His grace. It was the plan of Redemption. It was the plan of Salvation. Listen, "God being a Saviour, it was necessary that He predestinate a man who would require salvation in order to give Himself reason and purpose of being." Multitudes of Scriptures bear it out like the pointed verse of Romans 11:36, "For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are ALL THINGS: to Whom be GLORY for ever. Amen."
Man could not directly come and partake of that Tree of Life in the midst of the garden. That Eternal Life of the Tree had to become flesh first. But before God could raise and save a sinner, He had to have a sinner to raise and save. Man had to fall. The fall which would be caused by Satan, had to have flesh to make fall. Satan had to come through flesh also. But Satan could not come through human flesh to make the fall as Christ would come in human flesh to restore the fallen. But there was an animal, the serpent, so close to man that Satan could get to that beast and through that beast he could get to human flesh and cause the fall, and inject himself thereby into the human race, even as Jesus would one day come and inject Himself into the human race, into human bodies, even to the extent of a resurrection wherein we would have bodies like His glorified one.
Thus what God worked out here in the garden was His predestinated plan. And when Satan had brought about that which was necessary to the purpose of God, then man could not get to the Tree of Life in the garden. Certainly not. It wasn't time. But an animal was taken and his blood shed. Animal had caused the fall, let animal life be shed. Then God resumed communion with man. But there'd come a day when God would appear in flesh and by means of His humiliation, restore fallen man, and make him a partaker of that Life Eternal. Once you see this, you can understand the serpent seed and know that it was no apple Eve ate. No, it was the degradation of humanity by intermingling the seed. radio070.html