(Re-edited 2009.02)

With the advent of Abraham, God sets out to establish the specific route of his promised seed.  With Noah being the deluge's only surviving patriarch, the seed, Christ Jesus, unavoidably had to come through him. 

After the flood, as mankind's numbers were growing, God needed to prepare the 'soil' that the seed would need to grow up in; thus Abraham was chosen.

(YLT) Genesis 3:14, 15, "And Jehovah God saith unto the serpent, `Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou above all the cattle, and above every beast of the field: on thy belly dost thou go, and dust thou dost eat, all days of thy life; 15and enmity I put between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; he doth bruise thee--the head, and thou dost bruise him--the heel.'"

The identity of this woman remains controversial.  Some say it is Eve, which it cannot be since she is long dead and couldn't bring forth Christ 4,000 years later; others say that the woman refers to God's heavenly organization of angels.  Since all the angels came to existence through the pre-human Christ, how can that be?  How can his children bring forth their mother?  Yes, that is right.  In Proverbs chapter eight, Christ is synonymous with the female personified wisdom.   About Christ we are told that all things came to be through him and for him.  In this sense, we must understand that gender roles are fluid and dependent upon function in the Biblical narrative about heaven and these symbols.  Thus the woman could refer to Christ himself.  This one is God's wife to judge from Proverbs chapter eight.  He is God's wife, God's son, God's ransom, God's Amen.  We are after all talking about functions and symbolism, not about the gender of animals, or fleshly individuals.  Unfortunately, the seed also refers to Jesus Christ, while the head being bruised refers to Satan being crushed.  As the seed is Christ, it would be strange if he were to be his own mother.

Gal 3:16, "To Abraham were the promises made and to his seed. He saith not, And to his seeds, as of many: but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ." (DRC)

(091206)
Briefly, Bible study and meditation shows in Isaiah 66:7:10, that the woman is Zion.  This is explained on this page (link)  Revelation twelve  that this must refer to Israel (spiritual), all of Israel.  All the saints are taken out of spiritual Israel, to become priests-kings with Christ.  (Ref: Rev 7:4)  The nation of Israel is many times referred to in the Bible as God's wife, it is quite appropriate that she then would be the mother of this government.  This mother gives birth to these saints, to this child of Revelation 12.

 

 

The focus happened by means of covenants, more familiar to us as contracts.

God concluded a covenant with Abraham that affects and will affect billions of people.  The terms that affect us were:

Galatians 3:7-9, "Know ye therefore, that they who are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. 8And the scripture, foreseeing, that God justifieth the Gentiles by faith, told unto Abraham before: In thee shall all nations be blessed. 9Therefore they that are of faith, shall be blessed with faithful Abraham."(DRC)

Genesis 12:1-3 "Now the LORD had said to Abram, Depart from thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, to a land that I will show 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, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." (Webster)

In this fashion, God established through whom the promised Seed, the Messiah, the Christ should come.  Also, at this very early stage, God promised to benefit all mankind through this seed.

The circumcision served as a seal, a proof of the covenant relationship that Abraham and his descendants had with Jehovah.  It also served as a anti-type of the true circumcision of the heart that Christians must have; this circumcision is gender neutral.

 

Genesis 17:10-11, This is my covenant which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee--that every male among you be circumcised. 11And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and that shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. (Darby)

The creation of the Abrahamic covenant was a major event since this covenant remains functional forever.

 

 

What most Israelites might want to forget about their relationship with God is that the Law Covenant was a bilateral covenant, and therefore conditional.  Since God cannot lie we know that God holds up his side of contracts whether needing negative or positive reinforcement ; thus the burden of continuation, of fulfillment, remains solely on the people with whom this covenant is made.

The law covenant stated that those who kept it would earn the right to life by works of law.  Faith was not needed to gain life – it was life through works.  In this manner, a perfect man able to keep the law perfectly would EARN the right to life without death as long as he did so.  This was a key issue of the covenant since it disregarded completely the need for faith!

Several key issues treated below.  The scriptures below prove: 

A. that anyone obeying the law covenant perfectly earned life.

Romans 10:5, "For Moses wrote, that the justice which is of the law, the man that shall do it, shall live by it." (DRC)

Leviticus 18:5, "Ye shall therefore keep my statutes, and mine ordinances; which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am Jehovah." (ASV)

B. that God promised to destroy a disobedient nation! 

Deuteronomy 28:20-22, "Jehovah will send upon thee cursing, discomfiture, and rebuke, in all that thou puttest thy hand unto to do, until thou be destroyed, and until thou perish quickly; because of the evil of thy doings, whereby thou hast forsaken me. 21Jehovah will make the pestilence cleave unto thee, until he have consumed thee from off the land, whither thou goest in to possess it. 22Jehovah will smite thee with consumption, and with fever, and with inflammation, and with fiery heat, and with (1) the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew; and they shall pursue thee until thou perish." (ASV)

Deuteronomy 28:1-2 ( These verses contain the promised blessings if they were obedient)
Deuteronomy 28:15 (Here Jehovah promises maledictions on the disobedient)

C. that anyone hung on a tree would be cursed.

Deuteronomy 21:22, 23, "And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree; 23his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt surely bury him the same day; for he that is hanged is accursed of God; that thou defile not thy land which Jehovah thy God giveth thee for an inheritance." (ASV)

D. that the priesthood was through Aron's line.
E. and that the priests had to sacrifice animals to get forgiveness of sins for the nation.

Numbers 3:6-10 (These scriptures and many others concern the priesthood, Aron's sons and the Levites)

Anyone reading Deuteronomy above must wonder if what happened during Hitler's evil reign was part of that prophecy?

Important Point

The laws regarding who served as priests were so rigid that the priests returning from Babylon who had lost their family registers and therefore couldn't prove their genealogy were forbidden to function as priests.

Ezra 2:62, "These sought their genealogical register, but they were not found; therefore were they, as polluted, removed from the priesthood." (Darby)

This point is important today when no Jew or Israelite possesses a family register since these were destroyed in 70CE by the Romans.  For this reason, the Jewish religion can not be practiced in the manner prescribed by the Law Covenant, in the manner approved of by God.

Because of this, we have not only scriptural proof but also historical proof to the fact that fleshly Israel no longer is God's covenanted people.  A person of faith can not find any other reason for the historical developments since Christ's death.