Immediately after the Fall, while Adam and Eve are being addressed by God for violating the prohibition against eating from the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil,” God makes a promise to the serpent and Eve. From Eve, a seed will be born that will crush the serpent’s head.
15and 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)
This Seed refers to Jesus Christ, who broke the power of Satan and robbed him of his hold on humanity by dying on the cross. At that moment, the consequences of Adam and Eve’s transgression are reversed, and humanity is reconciled with God. The death resulting from the transgression is thereby nullified. As Paul beautifully puts it:
54…Death is swallowed up in victory.
55O death, where is thy sting?
O grave, where is thy victory?
(1 Corinthians 15:54b-55)
However, God chooses not to act immediately and all at once. Instead, God’s salvation plan is slowly rolled out over time.
Humanity’s choices have such dire consequences that God must decide to put an end to humanity. Only eight people—Noah and his family—survive God’s great judgment.
5And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. 7And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them. 8But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.
(Genesis 6:5-8)
However, immediately after the flood, things do not improve. Man continues to choose for himself. They try to build a tower that reaches to heaven to indicate that they do not recognize God as the highest authority but themselves. At this time, the next step in God’s plan of salvation emerges: He chooses one man, Abram, to carry out His plan. Abram lived with his family first in Ur of the Chaldees, near the Euphrates River’s mouth, and later in Haran, closer to the river’s spring. God calls Abram to leave this area—connected to Babel and its tower—and his family behind to go to a land where he and his descendants will live.
1Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: 2and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: 3and I will bless them that bless thee (Abram), and curse him that curseth thee (Abram): and in thee (Abram) shall all families of the earth be blessed.
7And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land:
(Genesis 12:1-3; 7a)
Later, God made a covenant with Abraham that encompasses both the old covenant from the time of Moses and the new covenant in Christ. This covenant is God’s unconditional, unilateral commitment with eternal implications.
7And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.
(Genesis 17:7)
However, Abraham has two sons, both of whom are part of the covenant. Not only is Isaac circumcised, but Ishmael is also. However, after Isaac is born, Ishmael is sent away with his mother because he will not remain part of God’s plan. In Galatians 4, Paul explains that these two sons are symbolic: Ishmael, the son of the flesh, is connected to the old Jerusalem and physical Israel; Isaac is connected to the new Jerusalem and the church of Jesus Christ.
22For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. 23But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. 24Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. 25For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. 26But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. 27For it is written,
Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not;
Break forth and cry, thou that travailest not:
For the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.
(Isaiah 54:1)
28Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. 29But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now. 30Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman. 31So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.
(Galatians 4:22-31)
Physical Israel can only be seen as an interlude until the promised offspring, Jesus Christ, appears. Just as Abraham had to send Ishmael away, God put an end to the old covenant to make way for a new covenant established by Jesus’s blood.
28for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
(Matthew 26:28)
John expresses it eloquently when he begins his gospel:
11He came unto his own (his people), and his own (his people) received him not. 12But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: 13which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
(John 1:12-13)
Clearly, the new people of God are worldwide and are no longer limited to physical Israel. All who have accepted Him are included. The true people of God are those who are connected to Jesus Christ through the covenant. Holding fast to physical Israel and her covenant is tantamount to refusing to send Ishmael away, which has great consequences. You will never fully understand the depth of the new covenant if you think you still need to hold on to the old covenant. Paul says that covenant is doomed to disappear.
13In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.
(Hebrews 8:13)
Therefore, with the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE, the Temple service and all associated ceremonies came to a definitive end, as did the Old Covenant and its priestly service. The focus is not so much on the physical offspring of Abraham as it is on the spiritual. Just look at how Paul elaborates on this in Galatians 3.
16Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.
26For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. 27For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. 29And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
(Galatians 3:16; 26-29)
Jesus Christ is the promised offspring and heir of the promises. We, the Church of Jesus Christ, are in Christ the offspring of Abraham and therefore heirs. Ultimately, it is all about Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, and no one or nothing else.
