For the Young
GOD tells us in the third chapter of Genesis, and the fifteenth verse, what the first promise is; it says: "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."
These words were spoken about six thousand years ago. They carry us back to the Garden of Eden. That was the place where God put Adam and Eve to live after they were created. What a beautiful place it must have been! God had made to grow there "every tree that was pleasant to the sight, and good for food." The loveliest flowers too were blooming there. No thorns nor briers were growing in that garden.
The birds sang sweetly among its shady groves. Nothing disagreeable, or hurtful, or poisonous was to be found there. The animals were all tame. They played lovingly with each other, as we sometimes see the young lambs playing together in the meadow. How bright and beautiful every thing must have been in that charming place! Well might it be said that "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." Gen. 1:31.
And the reason why every thing was so bright and beautiful and happy in that garden was that there was no sin there.
We know not how long Adam and Eve continued to enjoy the happiness of that blessed place. But, we know that by and by a change came over them and their beautiful home. For after awhile we are told that Satan stole into the garden. Taking the form of a serpent, he tempted our first parents to break the only commandment that God had given them. They yielded to Satan's temptation. They broke God's law. This was the first great sin committed in our world. This was what we call the fall of Adam--or of man. The effect of that one sin was terrible. It was like putting poison into a fountain, and making all the streams that flow out from it poisonous too. Adam and Eve became sinners, and the consequence of this was that all their children also became sinners.
As we think about this, it seems as if we were standing and looking at the brightness and beauty of that garden, and while we are looking the whole scene changes. A heavy cloud arises. It spreads all over the sky. It turns the day to night. It shuts out every ray of light, and leaves those two poor sinners trembling in the dark.
And now God comes down to speak to them about what they have done. They are terribly frightened, and try to hide themselves. But there is no hiding from him. No wonder Adam and Eve were afraid. They had good reason to fear. They knew they had sinned against God, and displeased him. They could not tell what he was going to do with them. He had told them before that if they ate of the tree which he had told them not to eat of--"in the day that they did so, they should surely die." But they had never seen any one die. They did not know what death meant.
Now we remember that Adam and Eve had each a soul, as well as a body. The soul can die as surely as the body. And the soul can die while the body is still living. The souls of our first parents, according to God's word, did die in the day when they sinned by eating the forbidden fruit. And afterwards when they had children, these were all born with dead souls. And this is what the apostle Paul means when he speaks of people as being "dead in trespasses and sins," when they are born into the world. Ephes. 2:1. We are all born with dead souls. And so it was true in this sense as God told our first parents, that, "in the day they sinned they did surely die."
They probably expected that their bodies would die too. And so they stood trembling to hear what God would say to them, or to find out what he was going to do to them. There were three persons before God when this meeting took place in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were there and Satan too, in the form of a serpent. God spoke to them separately, and told what the effect of sin would be upon each of them. What he said to the serpent we read in Gen. 3:14. What he said to Eve we see in verse 16, and what he said to Adam we read in verses 17-19. But still, up to this point God had not told Adam and Eve what he was going to do with them and their children. They did not know whether he was going to have mercy on them and help them, or whether he would leave them to die in their sins. But before he went away from them, on that first meeting after they had sinned, God was pleased to say something to them on this point. What this was we find in Gen. 3:15. "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed, and her seed; and it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."
This is called "the first promise." It is the very first thing in the Bible that points us to Jesus. It showed Adam and Eve that God was not going to leave them in their sins, but that he intended in some way or other to show mercy to them and their children. This must have been a great comfort to them. It must have seemed to them just as if the dark stormcloud, which sin had brought over their sky, had opened above them, and one bright and beautiful star of hope had come shining out upon their darkness. Everything that the Bible tells us afterwards about Jesus was wrapped up in this first promise.
This is the one spring out of which the whole stream of God's mercy to us flows forth. You know what a fine large stream the river Rhine is--as it flows through certain parts of Europe. And yet far up near the top of one of the high mountains of Switzerland, there is a tiny little spring, which a man can span with his hand--I spanned it with my own hand in going over that mountain--and yet, that little spring is the source or fountain from which flows forth the great river Rhine. And so this first promise is the spring from which the river of God's mercy and salvation, for our whole world, flows forth. We cannot tell how much Adam and Eve understood about this first promise. We know a great deal more about it than they did. For we have the whole Bible to help us understand it. And we come now to talk about this first promise in the light which the rest of the Bible throws upon it. "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." And when we come to look at this verse, in the light of the Bible, we can see in it the promise of four things.
In the first place we can see here the promise of a helper.
The part of the verse which shows us this is that in which God says:--"I will put enmity between thee and the woman." The word "thee" here refers to Satan. And here perhaps some one may say,--"Well, but I don't see any promise of a helper here." Perhaps you do not at first; but let us talk about it a little and I think you will soon see it. Now remember what Satan had just done with Adam and Eve. He had persuaded them to give up having God for their Lord and Master, and to take him instead of God. When they did this they gave themselves up to Satan and put themselves in his power.
Let us take an illustration of what we are now speaking about. Suppose we compare the soul of Adam to a fort, or palace. When God created him good, and put him in the Garden of Eden, then that fort belonged to God, with all the goods that were in it. It was God's fort, and God's flag was flying on the walls of it. Satan wanted to conquer that fort, and get possession of it for himself. He knew that God, the owner of this fort, was stronger than he was, and so he did not try to storm the fort or take it by violence. He saw that there was only one way in which he could succeed, and that was by deceit and treachery. He could not batter down the walls of the fort, or force open the gates. So he came to Adam and Eve, and told them lies about God, and tried to persuade them to open the gates of the fort, and let him in. And this was just what they did when they broke God's law, and obeyed Satan rather than God. They opened the gates of the fort to him, and let him in. He took possession of it as his own. He hauled down God's flag from the walls of the fort, and ran up his own flag in the place of it. Then the fort was his, and he expected to remain the owner of it, and of all that belonged to it forever. He supposed that Adam and his children would always be on his side, and that there never would be any more enmity or fighting between them. And if God had not intended to send us a helper, it would have been as Satan supposed. He would have always kept the fort. His flag would always have waved over its walls, and we should all have been left forever in his power.
But God showed that it was not to be so, when he said to Satan--"I will put enmity between thee and the woman." This meant that he would not let Satan keep the fort he had taken by treachery, but that he was going to take it away from him. It was just as if God had said to Adam and Eve, and to all their children; "Satan has gained a great victory over you, but don't be discouraged. Don't give up to him, for I am going to help you." When God said he would put enmity between Satan and the woman, it was just as if he had signalled to our first parents in the language of the popular hymn, saying--
" Hold the fort, for I am coming."
They could not "hold" the whole "fort," but they might get a little corner of it, and hold on to that till they could see what God was going to do for them. And so, in this "first promise," or in these words spoken in the Garden of Eden, one thing that we find is the promise of a helper.
And then in this first promise we find what sort of a helper this was to be. He was to be a-- human--helper.
We are told it was the "the seed of the woman" who was to be this helper. "The seed of the woman" meant some one who was to be born of the woman, or of our mother Eve. It meant one of her children, or descendants. The apostle Paul settles this point, by telling us positively that this "seed of the woman" refers to Jesus Christ, our Saviour. Gal. 3:16.
I suppose that if God had not said that the helper he was going to send was to be one of Eve's children--a human helper--a man--it would have been most natural for Adam and Eve to have expected this promised helper would have been an angel. No doubt the angels from heaven had often visited our first parents while they were in Paradise. They had talked with them freely, and had told them a great many things about God,--about how he had made the world, and about other matters which they would be very glad to know. They knew how much wiser, and stronger, and better the angels were than themselves, and it would have seemed reasonable for them to have expected that the helper promised to them would be an angel. But when God said that this helper was to come as "the seed of the woman," then he taught them that he was to be a man--a human helper. It is supposed by some people that when Cain was born--the first child Eve had-- she thought that he was to be the promised helper: for she said to Adam then, "I have gotten a man, or the man from the Lord." Gen. 4:1. If this was so, she made a great mistake, for the helper promised here did not come till four thousand years after that. How sadly she must have felt this mistake when called to mourn in the bitterness of her sorrow over the death of Abel!
It is a great mercy to us that Jesus, our helper, is a man, and not an angel. If he were an angel he would not know how to help us: he could not feel for us, and sympathize with us, as he does now. The angels were never born children as we were. They never grew up to be boys and girls as we did. They could not tell how boys and girls feel, and what troubles they have to bear. And this is one reason why people-- even good people--have always felt afraid of angels when they have appeared to them. If Jesus our helper, had been an angel, we who are children, could not go to him, as we do now, and speak to him, in the words of that sweet hymn:
"Thou, who once on mother's knee, Wert a little one like me, When I wake or go to bed, Lay thy hand upon my head; Let me feel thee very near, Jesus Christ, our Saviour dear.
"Once thou wert in cradle laid, Baby bright, in manger shade, With the oxen, and the cows, And the lambs outside the house; Now thou art above the sky, Thou canst hear thy'children cry."
The first thing that children do, when they get into any trouble is to run to their mother, and tell her about it. And they do this because they are sure that she will feel sorry for them, and help them. Jesus knows this, because he is a human helper. And so, in one of his precious promises, he says--"As one whom his mother comforteth so will I comfort you." Is. 66:13.
And the apostle Paul tells us that this was one reason why Jesus took our nature upon him, and was born of a woman. In coming to be our helper, he came as a human helper, rather than in any other way, because then he could tell all about our feelings, and would know best how to help us in our troubles. Heb. 2:14-18.
Suppose you break your arm. When the doctor comes in to set the broken bone, and put on the splinters and bandages, it will give you a great deal of pain. And if while you are suffering this pain, a friend, who has had a broken arm, comes in, and sits down by your side, and says--"I am very sorry for you. I know just how you feel, for I remember very well how I felt when my arm was broken;" you would find more comfort in the sympathy of that friend, than if he had never known what it was to have a broken arm.
One of the celebrated kings of England was Henry the Eighth--the father of the queens Elizabeth and Mary. The story is told of him that he used sometimes to disguise himself, so that no one would know who he was. Then he would go about to different places in London, so that he might see what was going on, in a way that he could not do if he should go there openly known as the king. On one of those occasions he got into some trouble, and was taken up by the police. They had no idea that their prisoner was the king, or else they would have released him in a moment. But he would not tell them who he was. And so the policemen put him in the common prison, and locked up there he had to spend the night. It was a cold, dark place, very different from his comfortable palace, and the unknown king suffered a good deal during that long dreary night.
The next morning they let him go, and he went off. On getting back to his palace, one of the first things he did was to send a sum of money to the keeper of the prison where he had spent the night. This money was to be used in furnishing fire and lights, for the benefit of those who might have to be locked in that prison all night.
Now this dark world of ours must have seemed like a dreary prison to Jesus, our blessed helper, when he was living here. And as King Henry, on getting back to his palace, remembered how cold and dark the prison was, where he had been shut up all night, so Jesus our helper, in yonder glorious home where he now lives, never forgets how his people feel, and what they need to comfort them while they are living in this dark world of sin and sorrow. And so we see that when this "first promise" tells us about the helper who was to come to us through "the seed of the woman," it is a human helper to whom it refers.
And then the third thing about this helper of which this promise tells us is--that he was to be a--suffering--helper.
We are taught this when we find God saying to Satan, about the promised helper of men, "thou shalt bruise his heel." We all know that the heel is not a very tender part of our bodies. And yet we know that if a person has to walk about, and work with a wound in his heel it may cause him a great deal of suffering. And when we are told here that Jesus, our promised helper, was to do his work for us with a bruised heel, we are taught that his work was to be done through suffering.
"Thou shalt bruise his heel." If we wish to know what this means, we cannot get a better explanation of it than is found in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. There we see how it is that Jesus Christ, our promised helper, was to suffer for us, and was to do us good by his sufferings. There he is spoken of as "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." There we are told that "he bore our griefs and carried our sorrows." There it is said that "he was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities." Here we see how the very word which God made use of in the first promise is applied to Christ. There it was said "thou shalt bruise his heel;" and here Isaiah says-- "he was bruised for our iniquities."
If we look at the suffering life that our Saviour led while here on earth and then remember what a hand Satan had in causing those sufferings, we shall see how well it might be said that all through the days of Christ's ministry in our world Satan was bruising his heel. Jesus was suffering through all those forty days in which he was led up into the wilderness "to be tempted of the devil." Then it might be said that Satan was "bruising his heel." Jesus was suffering when the Jews found fault with him, and called him hard names; when they said he "was a Samaritan, and had a devil," and that he did his mighty works "through Beelzebub, the prince of the devils." It was Satan who stirred up the Jews to do these wicked things to Jesus, and so in this way he was bruising his heel. And in the Garden of Gethsemane we know what terrible sufferings Jesus passed through. There he said "my soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death." There "being in an agony he fell to the earth, and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground." And then he was dragged before Pilate and charged with crimes he had never committed; he was mocked, and scourged, and crowned with thorns, and spitted on. He was smitten on the face; he was struck on the head with the reed. He was nailed to the cross, and lingered for long hours there in terrible suffering. And when we know that Satan was the leader in all these trials through which Jesus had to pass, how well it might be said of him then that he "was bruising the heel" of Jesus. I am very sure that Satan did not know what great good was to come out of the sufferings that he caused Jesus to pass through, or else he never would have brought them on him.
I suppose that Adam and Eve understood very little of what was meant by this bruising the heel of the promised helper. But we know what Jesus suffered for. We understand why it was that his heel was bruised. You, and I, and all of us have a great interest in it. Jesus was helping us when he let his heel be bruised. He was suffering for us, he was bearing the punishment of our sins. He was our substitute. And a substitute, you know, is one who suffers in the place of another. And here is a story to illustrate the good that follows to us from the sufferings of Christ, or the bruising of our helper's heel. It occurred in the experience of school life, and is told by the teacher, in whose school it took place. It is called--"The Little Substitute."
"Several years ago," says this person, "while I was teaching a school, one of the boys broke the rules of the school. The punishment for his offence, according to the law of the school, was for the offending boy to stand in the corner of the room, in disgrace for a quarter of an hour, and then to receive a whipping. I called him up and told him to go to the place of punishment.
"As he was going, a little boy, younger than he, came to me and asked that he might take the place of the guilty one. I wondered at this and spoke to him about the disgrace, and the punishment he would have to bear. But still he begged that he might go. I consented, and he went and took his companion's place in the corner.
"I was greatly surprised and affected, but thought I could teach the boys a good lesson from this incident.
"The little boy stood out the quarter of an hour, and then bore the flogging like a hero.
"When it was all over I inquired whether the other boy had asked him to take his place.
"'No, sir,' he replied.
"'Don't you think he deserved to be punished?'
"'Oh! yes,' said he; 'he deserved it well.'
"'Then why did you wish to bear the punishment in his place? '
"'Sir, it is because I love him.'
"This filled my eyes with tears. All the school had listened with great interest to this conversation. I then called George--the boy who had been disobedient--and ordered him to go stand in the corner, and receive the punishment himself. In a moment a multitude of voices cried out at once:
"'Oh! sir, that wouldn't be right; that wouldn't be right.'
"'It wouldn't be just either,' said one of the larger boys.
"'Why wouldn't it be right?' I asked, thinking to puzzle this boy. ' Hasn't George broken the rules of the school? '
"'Yes, sir; but you have allowed Joseph to be punished in his place, and now you ought not, on any account, to punish George.'
"'Well, my dear boys,' I continued, ' does what has just happened recall anything to your minds? '
"'Yes, sir,' said several of them, ' it reminds us how the Lord Jesus Christ bore the punishment of our sins.'
'"What name would you give to Joseph for what he has now done? '
"'The name of substitute' was the answer.
"'And what is a substitute? '
"'One who takes the place of another.'
"'And whose place has Jesus taken? '
"'Our place, as sinners,'" was the answer.
And so when we read how "the heel" of Jesus was "bruised," we see that he was a suffering helper; and how he helped, or saved us, by his sufferings.
The last thing that we learn from this promise about our helper is that he would be--a successful --helper.
God taught us this when he said to Satan-- "it shall bruise thy head." The "it" here means "the seed of the woman," or the helper promised to us--or our Saviour Jesus. Satan was to bruise the heel of Jesus; that means he was to cause him a great deal of suffering. But then, on the other hand, Jesus was to bruise the head of Satan, or of the serpent. The head of a serpent is the most tender part of his whole body. Some animals, as the bear for instance, are so strong in the head, that it is hard to hurt them by hitting them there. But if you wish to kill a serpent you strike it on the head. But when it is said that Jesus, our promised helper, was to "bruise the head" of Satan or the serpent, it does not mean that he was to kill him.
There is a verse in the Epistle to the Hebrews which may help us to understand this part of the first promise. It is in the second chapter and the fourteenth verse, where the apostle Paul is speaking about Jesus our Saviour; and he says that "by his death he was to destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil," or as he is here called "the serpent."
Now there are two ways in which we may speak of a person as being destroyed. One of these is when he is killed. Another is when the power he has had to do harm is taken away. But when we are told that Jesus, our promised helper, was to "bruise the serpent's head," or to destroy him, it does not mean that he was to kill him outright, but that he was to destroy, or take away his power to tempt men, and lead them into sin.
Let us take an illustration here from the history of our own times. Some years ago you know, the famous Napoleon Bonaparte was the Emperor of France. He was a great soldier; his greatest delight was to be at the head of large armies; to lead them into battle, and to gain great victories. In his many wars he caused the death of hundreds of thousands of men. It seemed as if there could be no settled peace among the nations of Europe while he was in the midst of them. War followed war just as the waves of the sea roll in after each other. But at last the Duke of Wellington, at the head of the English army, gained a great victory over Napoleon at the battle of Waterloo. Napoleon's army was scattered. He himself had to flee. He was taken prisoner, and confined as a captive on the little island of St. Helena, in the midst of the Atlantic Ocean. In that battle Napoleon lost his empire. That event is always spoken of as the downfall, or the overthrow of Napoleon. And we are in the habit of saying that the Duke of Wellington destroyed Napoleon. If it were right to apply the language of scripture to such an event we might say that he bruised Napoleon's head when he gained that great victory over him. This does not mean that he killed him, or destroyed his life. It only means that he took away his dominion, or destroyed his power.
And this is what Jesus, our great helper, does to Satan. When the first promise said that he was to bruise Satan's head, it did not mean that he was to kill him or destroy his life; but it meant that it was to take away his dominion, or to destroy his power. And Jesus does this in two ways. One way in which Jesus "bruises the head" of Satan is by converting souls, and delivering them from Satan's power.
Until we are converted, and become Christians, we are the prisoners or captives of Satan. The Bible says--"we are taken captive by him at his will." 2 Tim. 2:26. Every unconverted soul is like a fort which Satan has taken possession of, and which he holds in his own power. When that soul is converted, then it is taken away from Satan. His power over it is destroyed. It is handed over to Jesus, and his dominion is established there. This is what the apostle Paul means when he speaks of those who are converted, and become Christians, and says-- "they are delivered from the power of darkness, and are translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son." Col. 1:13. And so, every time that Jesus converts a sinner, and makes him a Christian, it may well be said that he is striking a blow at Satan. He is bruising his head, or destroying his power.
We may take the apostle Paul as our illustration here. He was a very learned man. His mind was uncommonly clear and strong. But before his conversion all his learning and ability were employed in the service of Satan. He had that great man completely in his power. Satan made him, as Paul afterward said--"a persecutor and a blasphemer," and one who was very "injurious" to the cause of the gospel. He did all he could to destroy the followers of Jesus. He imprisoned them, and put them to death. Paul's soul was like a strong fort on the side of Satan. It was altogether in his power.
But when Paul became a Christian, what a wonderful change took place! He began at once to preach that very gospel which before he had been laboring to destroy. He went all up and down the world telling about Jesus and his wondrous grace and love. He became the greatest preacher that ever lived. Multitudes of people were converted by him. He established churches wherever he went. He wrote thirteen out of the twenty epistles which the New Testament contains. His writings have been a blessing to the church and to the world for eighteen hundred years. And here we see how Jesus bruised Satan's head, or destroyed his power, when he converted Paul's soul. And he does the same, in some degree, every time that a soul is converted. This is one of the ways in which the first promise is fulfilled, and Jesus, "the seed of the woman, bruises the serpent's head."
But there is another way in which the promise will be fulfilled, and Jesus will bruise Satan's head, and this will be by delivering the world from his power. He has not done this yet; but he certainly will do it by and by. This is what the apostle Paul means when he says--"The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly." Rom. 16:20. Satan is now called "the God of the world," 2. Cor. 4:4, and the "prince of the power of the air." Ephes. 2:2. But the Bible tells us that the time is coming when Satan will be driven out of the world. We read (Rev. 20:1-3) how a mighty angel will come down from heaven, and bind Satan in chains, and lock him in the bottomless pit. Then he will be a prisoner or captive, and his power will be destroyed, just as Napoleon Bonaparte's was when he was made a captive in the lonely island of St. Helena. Then Satan will not tempt, or deceive men any more. This will be a blessed world then. There will be no wicked people in it. Nobody will be cross or ill-tempered. There will be no swearers or liars. Nobody will cheat then. There will be no robbers or murderers then. No prisons or penitentiaries will be needed in those happy days. "Then men will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks, and they will learn war no more." Then "the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf, and the young lion, and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them." Then "the people shall be all righteous;" "and they shall not hurt, nor destroy, saith the Lord, in all my holy mountain." And when this "good time comes," and all the world is as bright, as beautiful, and as happy as the Garden of Eden was before sin entered there, then this first promise will be fulfilled; and we shall see how clearly Jesus spoken of in this first promise has been a helper--a human helper-- a suffering helper--and a successful helper. All the work that Jesus was to do for us, and for our world was wrapped up in these wonderful words --"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."
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