A hundred years before Christ an altar was found in Gaul with this inscription: TO THE VIRGIN WHO IS TO BRING FORTH. According to the first promise of God in Gen. 3:15 there is coming the seed of the woman. This is an unusual term. Always elsewhere in the scripture we are told that someone is the seed of a man--that it is a man that brings forth and begets. All through the record we are told that a person was the son or daughter of this man or that man. But in Genesis we have this unique and singular example of someone who is to be the seed of a woman. This is clearly VIRGIN MOTHERHOOD, and hence one born of a miracle, one begotten of divine power, the Son of God. His great task is to be bruised in the heel by the seed of the serpent, and yet He is to bruise the serpents seed in the head and thus destroy him. That was the original revelation. The seed of the woman has been generally accepted as fulfilled in the birth of Jesus Christ, as conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin, triumphing over death, satan, hell and the grave by His death and resurrection, which is surely correct beyond a shadow of a doubt. Yet there is always in Gods economy a larger fulfillment or a further fulfillment, the harvest from the original seed planted, and there is a constant unfolding of the many-faceted wisdom and truth of God until it becomes resplendent with the glory of its eternal increase and revelation. We do not belittle the fact that Jesus Christ fulfilled this promise of Gen. 3:15, but let us not stop there and fail to see the further unfoldings of fulfillings, for the truth is like a pebble dropped into the ocean of knowledge that begins with a small ripple but continues with ever-widening waves until it reaches the vast shores of infinite wisdom. The Virgin holds a sheaf of wheat and that seed of wheat Christ appropriates as a symbol of Himself. It seems a most singular thing that in that long ago Eden the Lord God told the serpent that THE SEED of the woman would bruise his head. Why did He not say that the MAN that should come from the woman would bruise the serpents head? Why did He refer to that man as HER SEED, the seed of the woman? It will be a great blessing to your heart to understand the vital truth that seed is not only the product of some other life before it but seed is also that which possesses the power to REPRODUCE ITSELF and its kind many thousand fold from generation to generation. Seed is thus that which stands for INCREASE. On a certain day some Greeks approached the disciples of Jesus with the request, Sirs, we would see Jesus. This request was promptly carried to Jesus by Andrew and Philip, to which our Lord gave this strange and very remarkable reply: The hour is come that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn (grain) of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit (Jn. 12:23-24). In this cryptic statement Jesus likened Himself to a seed, a grain of wheat, which was to fall into the ground and die. He would be sown as a seed into the earth and be raised again. Not only would He be raised in glorification, but in centuries yet to come THIS SEED, which was Jesus Christ, would produce a vast harvest of many sons of God in His exact image and likeness. NO SEED is raised from the earth as just a singular seed, there is always an increase, the natural law of progression being first the blade, then the ear, then the FULL CORN IN THE EAR. Only one seed was planted in the earth, and the Christ who came out of that Palestinian tomb was not the harvest- merely the blade breaking the ground. The multitude that will appear in the time of harvest will be THE SEED of THE SEED, the increase, every one bearing the image and likeness of that CHRIST SEED which was planted in death. I am certain that the Lords reply was an enigma to those men to whom He spoke. The Greeks looking for Jesus could hardly be expected to comprehend a mystery so deep and eternal. They made their earnest request, Sirs, we would see Jesus, and He responded with His mysterious dissertation. We are not told whether Jesus ever consented to have these Greeks interview Him, but in answer to their request He gave the oblique reply, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. His message to them was simply this: If they saw Jesus at that time they would see only one seed, one grain in the image of God--the man Christ Jesus. But there would be more, much more to CHRIST than appeared to them that day! A whole universal field of ripened grain was to follow in His likeness, born of that original seed, imbued with the very same life, raised in the same resurrection, who would be the sons of God and the Christ even as He is a Son of God and the Christ of God. The many sons would form ONE CHRIST, Head and body, each having the seed of life in himself.
Posted on: Mon, 28 Oct 2013 12:33:21 +0000
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