THE COVENANT VISION

MINISTRY.

P.O. Box 3192.

Mount Druitt Village.

N.S.W. 2770. AUSTRALIA.

Phone: 02-9833-3925. Fax: 02-9833-4397.
 
 

E-Mail: fdowsett@idx.com.au
 
 

Senior Pastor and Co-Founder:
 
 

FRANK W. DOWSETT. J.P.
 
 

The Heritage

of

Israel.



 

By Frank W. Dowsett.

Part Seven.


The Covenants & The Promises.   Part 2.
 
 

The Adamic Covenant.


 
 
"And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
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.
Unto 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.
And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."
 Thus we read in Genesis 3:14-19 of the covenant that God made with Adam.  It was an unusual covenant in some ways, because it contained both good and bad news.  As we pointed out in our previous study, these covenants were in fact prophecies of what was to happen in the then future.  But they were absolutely guaranteed.  They were going to happen whether or not we liked it, or whether or not we agreed with it.  This was an unconditional covenant in the sense that God’s decisions as outlined therein were not conditional on Adam or any of his descendants doing anything about their condition.  It was also totally unconditional in respect to the ‘seed of the serpent’ and God’s promise of both the enmity which would develop between the two seeds, and the ultimate victory of "the seed of the woman" over "the seed of the serpent".
 The bad news was that Adam and his descendants would, from that time on, become subject to the curse which they had automatically inherited as a result of the sin of disobedience by himself and his wife Eve.  It might be opportune to realise at this stage that this curse was an unconditional one, not an everlasting one.  The sentence of becoming subject to the condition of death was something that neither Adam nor his descendants could do anything about.  But in the foreknowledge and planning of God, it was to be reversed at some future time by the "death penalty" being transferred to our Lord Jesus Christ, a contingency not understood by Adam at that time.  So as far as Adam was concerned, he was in a lot of trouble, and in future he was going to have to work for his living in lieu of the free provision of God, with the end result of death rather than continued life.
 On the other hand, the good news was that his seed, through Eve, was going to be ultimately triumphant over the seed of the serpent who had so disastrously deceived them.
 But in order to fully understand the overall position, we should go back a bit.  Prior to their fall from grace, Adam and Eve lived in a condition of absolute perfection.  It was the plan and purpose of God to use these two people to bring forth a special race, referred to as "The Sons of God", through whom He would bring correction and restitution to the rest of the world.
 That plan or intent has never altered.  The only change that has been made is in the manner in which it is to be achieved.  It is now to be accomplished by no less a Person than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.   We read in Acts 3:19-21;
 
"Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord;
And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you:
Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began."
 The purposes of Almighty God never change.  When He completed His creative work as set forth in Genesis chapter one, it is recorded there in Genesis 1:31;
 
"And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good."
 When our Lord Jesus Christ returns it will be for the purpose of setting in motion the restoration, or restitution, of all things of which the prophets have spoken, back to their original state of perfection.  And it will be Adam’s sons, then fully restored to their originally intended position of "Sons of God" who will be the instrument through which He will achieve this.
 So we see that there is nothing haphazard or disconnected with the statements in the New Testament.  They are all in accord with the Master Plan.
 At this stage of our study, it is, I believe, quite important to understand what it was that our fore-parents did to warrant the sentence of death.  As pointed out in our previous study, and contrary to what is expounded by some as the "seed-line theory", I do not believe for one moment that it had anything to do with Eve having sexual relations with Satan.
 Let us read Genesis 3:6;
 
"And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat."
 Now one thing becomes quite plain from the above account.  Whatever it was that Eve did, Adam did the same!  This poses a problem as far as I’m concerned.  If Eve had sexual relations with Satan or his representative, then this must have been what Adam did, which would make him the first recorded homosexual.  Or alternatively, the ‘serpent’ might have brought along a rather seductive female companion for the purpose of tempting Adam.  In view of the claim that the alleged relationship between Eve and the serpent is supposed to have resulted in the conception and ultimate birth of Cain, the Bible is notably silent on any such similar result from the union of Adam with some possible partner.   However, it is not silent about the parentage of Cain.  In Genesis 4:1 we read the catagorical statement;

"And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, . . ."

Personally, I’m blessed if I can understand why such theories as the "seed line" are expounded in the first place.  The Bible explains itself, and doesn’t require our personal interpretations.  But we have to search for this knowledge.  It’s not always obvious.  So it is that when we turn to Deuteronomy 30:15-20, we read this statement;
 

"See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil;
In that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it.
But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them;  I denounce unto you this day, that ye shall surely perish, and that ye shall not prolong your days upon the land, whither thou passest over Jordan to go to possess it.
I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:
That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them."


 The sin which Adam and Eve committed was that they ate of "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil".  What, we may ask, is the nature of this "good" and "evil" ?   I’m sure that it is no coincidence that the above reading identifies "good" as "life", and "evil" as "death".  The "tree of the knowledge of good and evil can therefore be understood as representing the knowledge of life and death.  Secondly we note that the "tree" was one of "the knowledge" of something.  It wasn’t a tree of good or of evil, or of life or of death.  It was the source of "knowledge" of something.  The only ‘tree’ which is referred to as having an intrinsic quality in itself is "The Tree of Life".  It therefore becomes apparent that whilst the condition of death existed, the Lord did not want His newly formed creature to know about it, let alone experience it.  The tree of life was there, and fully and permanently available to Adam and Eve.  Whilst they were obedient to God, they would continue to experience the condition of life.  But the warning was clear.  If ever they sought the knowledge of the existence of the condition of death, they would immediately become subject to that death condition, and automatically forfeit their condition of continuing life.  But as we are told that "as in Adam all die", so it is true that as in Adam we are all tempted.  Just put up a "wet paint" sign and watch to see how many people touch the surface to see if the sign really means what it says.

 Now let us have a look at the following portion of the above reading;
 

"I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:
That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days:"
  It is quite obvious that the condition of "life’ depended totally upon "obedience".   It must then surely follow that the sin which our forefathers committed was essentially "disobedience to God’s Laws".   We read above;
 
 "In that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply:"
 Let us look for a moment at the consequences of this act of disobedience.  It is good that we all look at the consequences of sin.  All too often we concentrate merely on the sin itself, without realising the dreadful consequences that can, and mostly do, arise as a result of the wrong we do.  The consequences of Adam’s sin, or disobedience, has lasted for several thousands of years.  Not in his wildest dreams would he have ever contemplated this, any more than we do today.  Perhaps we should give a lot more serious contemplation to the commandments and statutes of our Lord, and His requirement that we obey them.
 Firstly, Adam lost the close communion which he had, to that time, experienced with God.  From the account in Genesis chapter three and verses 8 to 12, it is apparent that Adam walked and talked directly with God.  One might ask how he could do this in view of the fact that later we are told that to look directly upon God would bring instant death.  But we must remember that at that time, Adam had not sinned.  I believe that he was then ‘clothed’ in a covering of ‘glory’, similar to that which surrounded God, and which insulated him from any detrimental affect from being in the direct presence of God.  It is very interesting to note that some very early drawings of man found in various places show men as being in what is presently described as a ‘space suit’.  This has given rise to the conjecture that at some time in the distant past, space creatures have visited the earth.  Personally I think that these drawings simply represented Adam in his "pre-fall" condition, surrounded by what was perceived as a covering, or suit, of light.
 Does that sound far-fetched to some?  Well, consider the statement in Matt. 13:43;
 
"Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear."
 Let him hear indeed.  But be that as it may, immediately upon Adam sinning, that covering disappeared, and left both himself and Eve naked, both before God, and to each other.  We read in Gen. 3:7-13;
 
7  "And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
8  And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.
9  And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?
10  And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.
11  And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
12  And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
13  And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat."
 Sin, through disobedience, had robbed them of the very thing that made it possible for them to have direct personal contact with God.   But God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, had already initiated a plan whereby that glorious covering would be restored to His people.
 His covenant, His promise for ultimate peace and ultimate protection, and indeed every promise there was ever mentioned from that day on, or from that point in His work, were all made in relationship to the people that came from this man Adam, and it was all for their ultimate restoration and blessing.
 But times have not changed have they?  Adam immediately blamed Eve.  Why not?  She was the only other person around, so it must be her fault.  Eve, on the other hand, couldn’t find anyone else around, so she blamed the serpent.   So it has been ever since.  We always blame everyone else for our sins.  We might fool ourselves, or even our neighbours and friends, but we certainly can’t fool God.
 The resultant punishment and curse fell equally upon both parties; both the tempted, and the tempter.  Adam, as we stated previously, now had to work for his living.  Eve was to experience pain and suffering in childbirth, which to that time had, or would have been, absolutely painless.  Our forefathers didn’t do us any favours, did they?
 As for "the serpent", he was relegated to a position lower than the lowest of God’s creatures.  What a comedown!  But the worst part of the sentence of punishment was still to come.  The loss of both parties’ previous exalted position brought about an envy between them which was to last for thousands of years.  There was now to be a condition of permanent opposition and hostility between those who, as the "seed" of "the woman", as representing the ancestral line through which came the people and nation of Jacob/Israel, and the "seed" of "the serpent", as represented by the ancestral line of Esau/Edom, of whom our Lord Himself  said were of their father the devil, who was a murderer and liar from the very beginning.
 In just the same way in which the twin sons of Isaac, Jacob and Esau, became bitter opponents, their descendants carrying on that battle to this day, so from the beginning, the twin sons of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, represented the earlier and primary manifestation of this principle.  For those who may question my statement that Cain and Abel were twins, I would point out that whilst the Word mentions the birth of both lads, it only records Eve as conceiving once.
 So the pattern for all future historical events was forged.  The battle was joined, as they would say in days of old.  The die had been cast, and there was going to be only one winner.  There have always been two opposites.  They are found in every avenue of human experience.  There is good versus evil.  There is right versus wrong.  There is positive versus negative.  There is up versus down.  There is hot versus cold.  There is north versus south.  There is west versus east.  And there is God versus Satan.  And as the old poem tells us, "And never the twain shall meet".
   And so in summing up, we now have the two parties. We have God on one hand, who told our first parents that which was right, and then we have Satan on the other hand, who tried to defy God and who induced them to do that which was wrong. Now I should point out that I’m not talking about Satan necessarily being personally there as an individual at that time. It was almost certainly an agent of Satan as distinct from Satan himself.  The word used in the text is the "serpent". This is translated from the Hebrew "nachash" which according to Strong’s #5172/5175 means "to hiss, i.e., to whisper a (magic) spell, an enchanter".  This was certainly not a snake as we know them.  The entire incident loses its meaning and intent if we go around talking about a snake such as a death adder or a boa-constrictor opening it’s mouth and having a chat with someone. Even God had a conversation with whatever this "serpent" represented, and as we have seen, passed sentence of judgment upon it.
 Now this introduces a very interesting possibility.  As we have previously remarked, I do not for one instant believe that Eve engaged in sexual relations with Satan, thereby producing a literal ancestral seed-line directly descended from him.  But what if this "serpent" was a member of the pre-Adamic creation of Genesis chapter one?  Could it be possible that Eve, and subsequently Adam, was "magically enchanted" into having sexual relations with these other pre-adamic people, because it had been presented to them as something very desirable, thus producing a natural seed-line from them through Eve, and thus into the Adamic race which sprang from Adam and Eve?  This may pose a problem to some as to Cain and Abel being twins.  But it is a medically certified fact that a woman can give birth to twins, each of whom was fathered by different men.  I personally checked this out with my family doctor prior to making this suggestion.  If this were the case  -  and I am only presenting this as a possible alternative to the whole question  -  then we would have the very first incidence of miscegenation, or race mixing, otherwise referred to as fornication, the very sin which Satan has perpetuated through the Adamic races ever since.  This would also prove the enormity of this sin, being that which caused the downfall of "The Sons of God" from the very beginning.  The ramifications of this possibility are quite staggering when compared with the present situation in which today’s Israel nations find themselves.  But as I have said, this is only speculation, and I leave it to the individual reader to study this possibility for themselves.
 Whatever the circumstances may have been at the time, one thing is certain.  God introduced an enmity between these two seeds which was to continue until one of the parties would be ultimately destroyed.  That was the unconditional promise that God made regarding what had happened. Let us again read what God said to ‘the serpent’ as recorded in Gen. 3:15;
 
"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."
 This enmity that God introduced between these two seeds was to be evidenced in two ways.  Firstly, the enmity from the seed of the woman would "bruise" the serpent’s head.  The word "bruise" means, according to Strong’s #7779, "to snap at, to overwhelm, or break".  This is what the woman’s seed was to do to the head of the serpent’s seed.  On the other hand, the serpent’s seed was to bruise only the heel of the woman’s seed.  The attack upon the head was intended to destroy that particular party.  But the attack on the heel would only trip up the other party.  It would cause them to stumble, without necessarily being destroyed.  And therein lies the significant difference in what God promised.  Ultimate destruction for the followers of Satan, and final victory for the followers of God.
 But there is something reminiscent about this statement. Where do we hear something like that again? At the birth of Jacob and Esau we find a very similar situation, but the parties are reversed.  The account said that Esau was born first, and Jacob had hold of his heel.   In the birth of those two twins at a later date, God revealed how He was going to remedy and reverse that situation. Initially, because of the sin which had been committed, the serpent was to bruise the heel of the woman’s seed.  This promise has certainly been achieved by the descendants of the serpent’s seed, those who later came from the descendants of Esau, whom Jesus Himself designated as "the children of the devil".  This Edomite/Idumean race is still with us today, and increasingly and openly causing us to stumble in sin and degradation.  They now have virtually total control of our lives.  But notice how wonderfully God indicated how this would be ultimately reversed in the manner of the birth of Jacob and Esau. The position had been reversed.  It was now Esau who was being held at the heel.  In other words, the time was to come when Esau would no longer hold us by the heel, causing us to stumble, but Jacob would cause the same thing to happen to Esau.  These people don’t become the seed of Satan by natural human generation. They become the children of Satan because they become worshippers and followers of Satan. In the very same way, we are the children of God because we worship and follow Him.
 And it’s a very real situation. Today we have these two systems derived from these two seeds, in conflict. We have the system of God, and we have the system of the enemy, the Devil, Satan, the serpent, or by whatever name he is known. This conflict is in full operation throughout the world, but especially within our Israel nations.  The enmity is there for all to see.  Sadly, very few have the slightest idea as to what is happening, nor of the victory which a loving and faithful God has promised for His people.
(To be continued).
 

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