Extract From A Letter.
You insist upon the full accomplishing of the bruising of the head of the serpent, or of the destruction of the works of the devil by the Lord Jesus Christ, so as to annul or blot out all trace of the enemy’s power. “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:1515And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. (Genesis 3:15).) “He that commiteth 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.” (1 John 3:88He 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. (1 John 3:8).) The bruising of the serpent’s head by Him who was to have His heel bruised by the same serpent is indeed a precious prophecy of the victory of the Son of God made the Seed of the woman; and it will without doubt or fail yet have its most complete accomplishment according to God’s mind and word. But His own subsequent word, the further unfolding of His mind in the Scriptures, alone can bear light as to this earliest promise.
I might stand, however, on the very terms of this passage, as you do, and at once deny your thought upon it; for you say the promise is of a universal character. It is not what a “partialist,” as you speak, would make it, but it amounts to the full blotting out of the power of the serpent. But if we take the very letter of the word, I say the letter of the word forbids the conclusion that the seed of the serpent are ever to be reconciled to the seed of the woman. Enmity, and nothing but enmity, is to mark their correspondence forever. The passage taken by itself does not hint at any change whatever. Enmity is put between the parties, and nothing beyond that is hinted at. This, if we are confined to the passages, is what we learn; and when I consult Scripture further upon it, I find in John 8 for instance, where the Lord very expressly takes up this thought of the two seeds, calling the Jews who were resisting Him, the seed of the devil, and telling them that the works of their father they would do, describing Himself as from above, and them as from beneath. Here in this most awful and serious discourse our blessed Lord directly says to them, “Ye shall die in your sins: whither I go ye cannot come.” “If ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins.”
Now, dear sir, not to go beyond this, as to Genesis 3:1616Unto the woman he said, 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. (Genesis 3:16). I again say that were I to confine myself simply to the passage, I might insist that enmity between the two seeds is left incurable. No hope of reconciliation at any time, though you insist upon that; and when I open the place where our Lord specially has His thoughts upon the two seeds, He says to the seed of the serpent, “Whither I go ye cannot come,” and faith in Him the only escape from dying in sins, and from this result of such dying not going where He was going.
The apostle is speaking to believers when he says, “The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.” Then as to 1 John 3:9,9Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. (1 John 3:9) the apostle is speaking of the moral virtue of the seed of God in man—that it is a principle of holiness and obedience. That seed remains in the one that is born of God. Life in the Son of God by faith is the same as this being born of God, and in the Son of God is no sin. He is the beginning of the new creation. “He that committeth sin is of the devil;” and the Son of God was manifested for the very opposite purpose—to destroy the works of the devil, not to combine with them, or to aid or vindicate them, but to destroy them—to bring the very contradictory principle into all born of God.
This is what we are taught here. But to argue from these words that the Lord Jesus Christ is so to act as to annul or blot out all the results of sin is wide indeed from the simplicity of the passage. Nay, the very passage maintains the strongest assertion to exhibition of the contrary; for it goes on to declare a manifestation of the works of the devil in the unrighteousness’s and enmities of the devil’s children.
Were the wicked one’s works in Cain destroyed? Nay, they took their full course, and He slew his brother. Are the wicked one’s works in the world destroyed? No; it hates the brethren, as with Cain, a murderous hatred; and no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. The whole world lieth in the wicked one instead of having his works in it destroyed.
J. G. B.