COVENANT

COVENANT

15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” (Genesis 3:15)

A 3 Part promise.

Antagonism the serpent and mankind. (between satan and the church)

Light and darkness cannot be mixed, nor can believers and unbelievers.

The development of the two divergent seeds is seen throughout Scripture. eg Cain/Abel, Ishmael/Isaac, Esau/Jacob, Herod (of Esau)/Jesus (of Jacob)

Satan will bruise the woman's heel. (Jesus on the cross.)

Jesus' (the woman's seed - the last Adam) heel was bruised by satan on the cross in treading satan underfoot while overcoming him.

At the cross Jesus overcame Adam's sin (death) and reconciled us to God through His righteousness. However, we as the church have to fully develop this righteousness so that we might finally bruise satan under our (the church's) feet at the end of the age.

Satan will be crushed by the woman's seed. (Jesus' church at the end of the age.)

The serpents heart is in his head. In Greek the word 'bruise' means 'to crush completely, to shatter'.

This part of the covenantal promise has yet to be fulfilled as satan will be brought down by the seed of the woman by the mature 'sons' of God known, amongst other things, as the manchild, the overcomers, the bride, the double anointing, etc..

Satan has always tried to destroy the 'manchild' as he knows they will be the source of his destruction.

God provided clothes (to replace their previous spiritual covering) for Adam and Eve out of skins. ie. sacrifice of the innocent blood of an animal. (Picture of Jesus)

21 The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.

a. INNOCENT BLOOD SHED FOR ADAM'S SINS: God was the first to shed innocent blood. It was the only price acceptable to Him to 'cover' - literally in this case through the skins - Adam's sin. This is, of course a beautiful picture of God Himself coming as Jesus, the Lamb of God, to take away the sin of all the world.

b. MAN TRIES TO COVER HIS OWN NAKEDNESS: To hide the shame brought about by sin. (Genesis 3:17)

Today we try to do this by our own 'works'. Works cannot save us, only faith in Jeus, the sinless blood of the Lamb, which cleanses us from sin.

Participants to suffer:
1. Serpent - Lost its legs, hated by mankind. (Genesis 3:13)
2. Woman - Pain in childbirth
- Submission to her husband. (Genesis 3:16)
3. Man - Hard toil to live
- Death. (Genesis 3:17-18)
4. Earth - Produce weeds. (Genesis 3:17-18)

All creation is looking forward to the reversal of these.

Picture of:
1. Satan and the church.
2. The price of sin.
3. The ultimate price of sin - death.
4. Sinners and saved.

MAN is now:

* Fearful of God's presence (Genesis 3:10) because of the shame of his nakedness.

* Driven from Paradise and the presence of God. (Genesis 3:23-4)

* Dead spiritually, from the day he sinned, and literally.

* Needing new birth to regain eternal life.

1. Exit from Eden through sin. (death)
2. Multiplication of mankind.
3. Division into godly (Abel and Seth) and ungodly (Cain) groups of people on the earth.
4. One obedient man (Enoch) taken to heaven without first dying.
5. All men degenerate except Noah.
6. The flood to destroy mankind.

God got thoroughly angry with His creation and decided to destroy it and start again with His one honorable servant, Noah.

The consequences of sin are far greater than most of us appreciate, as we are so used to living with it!

But God didn't desire things to be this way, then or now.

We ignore the consequences of sin at our peril.

Ancient Babylonia - The Kassite Dynasty

The Kassite Dynasty was founded in Babylonia (1595 BC) and, as previously mentioned, very little is known about them other than a list of the names of their kings. One of the early kings after 1595 BC was Agum-kakrime, who boasted that he ruled over most of Babylonia and that he brought back to statue of the god Marduk, which had been carried off by the Hittites when they had sacked Babylon. There is an ancient literary composition in which Marduk himself described his sojourn in the land of the Hittites.