FALLEN ANGELS

 

(From: An Alphabetical Analysis, part one, C. H. Welch)

 

An examination of the early chapters of Genesis most surely justifies the primeval prophecy concerning the enmity that should exist between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. In this article we hope to exhibit as far as possible the teaching and meaning of Genesis 6.

 

‘And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose’ (Gen. 6:1,2).

 

The fifth chapter of Genesis is ‘The book of the generations of Adam’ and his sons together with their ages are given down to Noah and his three sons ‘And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham and Japheth’ (verse 32). At verse 9 of chapter 6 the book of the ‘generations of Noah’ is introduced which extends to Genesis

9:29 where it ends with the words: ‘And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years: and he died’. The first eight verses of Genesis 6 belong to the previous section, ‘The book of the generations of Adam’ as the following structure taken from The Companion Bible will show:

 

A 5:1,2. Unfallen Adam: ‘of God’ (Luke 3:38).

B 5:3-5. Fallen Adam, and his years. The total 930, and the first 130.

C 5:6-27. The progeny of Adam, and their deaths.

D 5:28-32. Noah, and his promise of ‘comfort’.

A 6:1,2. The fallen angels: ‘sons of God’.

B 6:3. Fallen Adam, and his years. The total 930 and the last 120.

C 6:4-7. The progeny of the fallen angels, and their threatened destruction.

The Nephilim.

D 6:8. Noah and his possession of ‘grace’.

 

It will be seen that this book of the generations of Adam falls into two parts. Genesis 5:1-32 recording the genealogy of the natural descendants of Adam, while Genesis 6:1-8 introduces the abnormal and the unnatural. In the structure given above it is already assumed that ‘the sons of God’ are ‘fallen angels’ and that the progeny of their illicit marriage were the Nephilim - a word left unexplained in the structure. These subjects we must now consider, and the following sequence seems to be the most helpful.

 

(1) Has there been a ‘fall’ among the angels?

(2) If so, could these angels be called ‘the sons of God’?

(3) In view of Luke 20:35,36 how can we speak of ‘the progeny’ of the fallen angels?

(4) Who and what are ‘The giants’ and ‘The nephilim’?

(5) What is the significance of the words ‘and also after that’? (Gen. 6:4).

 

Our first question is, ‘has there been a fall among the angels?’ While the word ‘angel’ is often used without qualification, there are a number of occasions where the writer says ‘the holy angels’, ‘the angels of God’, ‘the angel of the Lord’, ‘His angel’, etc., that at least make it possible that there are angels, that could not be thus indicated.

 

We read in Matthew 25:41 of a place of punishment ‘prepared for the Devil and his angels’ and in Revelation 12:7 we read of war in heaven, Michael and his angels, fighting with the Devil and his angels, and by reason of their defeat Satan and his angels are cast out of heaven into the earth (Rev. 12:7-13). Unless, therefore we are to believe the monstrous doctrine that God actually created the Devil and his angels in their present state, there must have been a ‘fall’ among angelic beings. Further, when the Devil and his angels were expelled from heaven, it does not say in Revelation 12 that they dispersed themselves throughout the limitless spaces of the universe, it tells us that Satan at least ‘came down’ to the inhabiters of the earth, ‘having great wrath’. It is not only a fact that angels fell, but it seems fairly certain that fallen angels find an abode in the earth among the sons of men. The book of the Revelation deals with the Day of the Lord and the time of the end, and like the passage in Ephesians 2:1-3, it shows that Satan, though fallen, was not bound. With this knowledge we approach two other passages of Scripture, which speak of a fall among the angels, which, by reason of the context, compel us to fix upon Genesis 6 as the date and occasion of their fall. The two passages are here set out side by side that they may be the better compared:

 

2 Peter 2:4-6

Jude 6,7

‘For if God spared not the

angels that sinned, but cast them

down to hell, and delivered them

into chains of darkness, to be

reserved unto judgment; and

spared not the old world, but

saved Noah the eighth person, a

preacher of righteousness,

bringing in the flood upon the

world of the ungodly; and

turning the cities of Sodom and

Gomorrha into ashes condemned

them with an overthrow, making

them an ensample unto those that

after should live ungodly’.

‘And the angels which kept not

their first estate, but left their

own habitation, He hath

reserved in everlasting chains

under darkness unto the

judgment of the great day.

Even as Sodom and Gomorrha,

and the cities about them in

like manner, giving themselves

over to fornication, and going

after strange flesh, are set forth

for an example, suffering the

vengeance of eternal fire’.

 

 

Let us note in some measure of detail the extraordinary features of these two passages. These angels ‘sinned’, they also ‘kept not their first estate but left their own habitation’. The reader is aware that the basic meaning of ‘sin’ is ‘to miss the mark’ (Judges 20:16), and it is evident by the expansion given by Jude, that some of the angels appear to have ‘kept not’ and ‘left’ the position allotted to them by God and to have transgressed bounds which He, the Creator, had set. The word translated ‘to keep’ in Jude 6 is tereo. It is employed by Paul when he speaks of keeping one’s virginity (1 Cor. 7:37), keeping one’s self pure (1 Tim. 5:22), being preserved blameless (1 Thess. 5:23). Jude uses the word five times, as follows, ‘preserved in Jesus Christ’, ‘the angels which kept not’, ‘He hath reserved in everlasting chains’, ‘to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness’ and ‘keep yourselves in the love of God’.

 

The angels therefore failed to keep themselves pure, they failed to preserve their integrity, they failed to keep the trust committed to them. Jude specifies the particular failure that was their sin, thus: ‘they kept not their first estate’.

 

Alford translates this, ‘those which kept not their own dignity’. Weymouth reads: ‘Those who did not keep the position originally assigned to them’, and Moffatt renders the passage ‘the angels who abandoned their own domain’. The word translated in these various ways is the Greek arche ‘beginning’ (John 1:1) and in the plural ‘principalities’ (Eph. 1:21). These angels ‘left their own habitation’. There are two words that are translated ‘to leave’ in the New Testament. One aphiemi, which means ‘to send away or dismiss’, the other, various compounds of leipo, which mean lack, forsake, abandon, leave behind. The word used by Jude is apoleipo ‘to leave away from one’s self, to leave behind’. Paul uses the word of ‘the cloak’ that he had left at Troas (2 Tim. 4:13), and of

Trophimus, who had been left at Miletum, sick (2 Tim. 4:20). The word translated ‘habitation’ is oiketerion, a derivative of oikos ‘a house’ or ‘a home’, and occurs in 2 Corinthians 5:2 where it refers to the resurrection body:

 

‘For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house (oiketerion) which is from heaven’.

 

The apostle contrasts ‘the earthly house of this tabernacle’ with ‘the house which is in heaven’, and earnestly desired the exchange. The angels that sinned left their ‘own body’, and the apostle speaking of the resurrection says ‘to every seed its own body’ (1 Cor. 15:38). Before the seed is sown it is likened to ‘bare’ grain, gymnos ‘naked’ (1 Cor. 15:37); before the oiketerion is entered, the believer is looked upon as unclothed or ‘naked’ (2 Cor. 5:3) and these, apart from Hebrews 4:13, are the only occurrences of gymnos in Paul’s epistles. The angels, therefore, when they left their ‘own’ (idios) body, the one that was ‘proper’ (1 Cor. 7:7), ‘private’ (2 Pet. 1:20), they descended to an ‘unclothed’ condition, or were ‘naked’. The reader will now appreciate something of what is intended in Genesis 3:1 where we read, ‘Now the serpent was more subtil’ remembering that the word translated ‘subtil’ is the Hebrew arum, and the word translated ‘naked’ of our unclothed parents is the Hebrew word arom, both words being derived from the same root. It would appear from the use made of such words as ‘naked grain’, ‘not being found naked’ and the conception of the resurrection as a condition that can be described as ‘clothed upon’, that man at his creation must be thought of likewise as ‘naked grain’, and that he would have continued as such without shame, until the transformation took place, equivalent to resurrection, when being glorified and given his destined place above the angels, he would then be clothed upon.

 

The coming in of sin and death however exposed man to the attack of the enemy, and so the Lord ‘clothed’ our first parents with coats of skin, symbols of the redemptive covering made by Christ until resurrection is attained. All mankind from Adam to the end of the race are conceived of as being ‘naked’, all need the covering provided by redeeming love, and all who attain unto the resurrection of life and righteousness will at last find themselves fully clothed.

 

The fact that oiketerion is used to speak of the resurrection body of the believer and of that which the angels sinfully left, raises a question. In what way can we speak of the ‘body’ of an angel? We must remember that the apostle declares that ‘flesh and blood’ cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and that consequently at the resurrection we shall all be changed. We shall not, however, exchange a body to become pure spirit, we shall exchange the body of our humiliation, for a body like unto the Lord’s body of glory:

 

‘It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body’ (1 Cor. 15:44).

 

At this, the apostle paused, realizing apparently the need for explanation, so he adds ‘there is (such a thing as) a natural body, and there is (such a thing as) a spiritual body’. ‘A creature without any bodily form is wholly inconceivable, since that which is created, can only work and subsist within the limits of time and space, and since it is corporeality alone that confines the creature to time and space. God alone is infinite, an absolute Spirit. He alone exists above and beyond time and space’ (Kurtz). ‘Only combining itself with matter, can mind bring itself into alliance with the various properties of the external world: only thus can it find and be found, be known or employed, be detained or set at large ... an unembodied spirit, or sheer mind is NOWHERE’ (Fleming). ‘We might as well say of a pure spirit, that it is hard, heavy, or red, or that it is a cubic foot in dimensions, as say that it is here or there, and that it has come and it is gone’ (Taylor).

 

Amongst the ‘Fathers’ who ascribed corporeality to angels, are Origen, Clement of Alexandria, Caesarius and Tertullian. Now if it is possible for those whose bodies are at present flesh and blood to be translated to a plane ‘like unto the angels’, then it seems equally possible for angels to descend into the lower plane and possess bodies like unto men. When we read of the visit of the angels in Genesis 18, they are described as ‘men’, whose ‘feet’ could be washed, and who could partake of a meal composed of ‘butter, milk, cakes made on the hearth and a young calf’ (Gen. 18:1-8). Two of these ‘men’ turned their faces towards Sodom, and are called ‘two angels’ in Genesis 19. Abraham, according to Hebrews 13:2, entertained angels unawares. There is no indication of make- believe about the record, and this and other appearances of angels in both the Old and the New Testament confirm the fact that they have bodies, but bodies which in their ordinary sphere are invisible to the eye of man, but which can become visible when occasion so demands.

 

We have therefore arrived at the following conclusion. Angels have sinned. The sin of the angels associated with Noah and the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha is partly to do with the forsaking of their own proper sphere, and of leaving the body natural to their state, and of descending to the human plane, with bodies to all appearance at least like those of mankind. The fact that Peter connects the sin of these angels with the flood, God ‘spared not’ the angels, He ‘spared not’ the old world, establishes one link with Genesis 6. The sons of God who saw the daughters of men could have been angels. The items numbered 3 to 5 before are treated under the headings GIANTS and NEPHILIM, which should be consulted. For another aspect of this teaching, see IN ADAM .

 

TWO SEEDS

 

(Excerpts from the dialogues on The Reconciliation of All Things, C. H. Welch, 1924)

 

Scripture categorically declares that some things are ‘not of God’ (1 John 3:8-12), and among them those things which are ‘of the Devil’.

 

The Amorites

 

‘They are NOT all Israel, which are of Israel: neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, in Isaac shall thy seed be called -- the children of the promise are counnted (reckoned) for the seed’ (Rom. 9:6-8).

 

Israel’s history furnishes a digest of the greater purpose of the ages. The words ‘all in Adam’ are to be understood by the parallel words ‘all Israel’, and inasmuch as they are not all Israel which are of Israel, so they are not all in Adam which are of Adam. In both cases there is in operation the law that sets aside ‘Ishmael’ and reckons only such as are ‘in Isaac’ as children of the promise and the true ‘seed’.

 

God Himself says that the choice took place:

 

(1). Before the children were born and

(2). Before they could have done either good or evil; that the choice was

(3). Not of works, but that

(4). The purpose of God according to election might stand.

 

The whole subject resolves itself into a recognition of the fact of a ‘purpose of election’ and a ‘promise’.

 

God has revealed the general principles of the great purposes of the ages in the history of His people

Israel.

 

What Abraham is to Israel, Adam is to man, and you will remember that descent from Abraham was not sufficient to constitute one a child of promise, but that the true seed were called ‘in Isaac’. Therefore we must be prepared to find that descent from Adam likewise is not sufficient to establish one as a child of promise, but one must have been chosen ‘in Christ’, which limitation is indicated in the line that comes down from Adam to Seth, not from Adam to Cain. Israel are the age-people, and shadow forth the age purpose.

 

Isaiah 44:7 (A.V.) reads ‘the ancient people’. The original is am-olam. Happily we are quite agreed that the interpretation of the Hebrew olam and the Greek aion should be ‘age’, and not ‘ever’, ‘eternal’ and the like. You will see that this age-people are called the Lord’s ‘witnesses’ in the next verse. The theme of the chapter and Israel’s witness is that of idolatry, but we have not gone far enough to consider the bearing of idolatry upon the purpose of the ages yet.

 

Take for example the millennial kingdom which is the goal of Israel as the age-people. The blessings which are there limited to ‘all My holy mountain’ foreshadow the wider blessings of a new creation. Then again the Divine name Jehovah is specially connected with Israel and the ages: ‘Jehovah, the God of your fathers -- this is My Name FOR THE AGE, and this is My memorial unto all generations’ (Exod. 3:15 author’s translation).

 

The am-olam, the age-people, find in Jehovah the El-olam, the God of the age (Gen. 21:33). Largely because of their typical character, the story of that one nation occupies the bulk of the Scriptures. The book that opens with the record of creation closes with the story of one man and his twelve sons (Genesis). The record of creation occupies 34 verses, the story of the tabernacle twelve chapters.

 

‘But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: FOR THE INIQUITY OF THE AMORITES IS NOT YET FULL’ (Gen. 15:16).

 

The will of God shall be accomplished, but not without conflict. There is an enemy at work. And just as Israel’s bondage in Egypt was connected with the iniquity of the Amorite, so the bondage of the true seed is connected with Satan and the mystery of iniquity. Israel enter into the inheritance held by the Amorites and exterminate them. The true seed will enter into their particular inheritance, and the seed of the wicked one, the names of whom not being in the book of life, will be destroyed.

 

Israel’s bondage was not primarily connected with Israel’s sin, but with God’s forbearance and long-suffering with a sinful race that had started its course before an Israelite had been born. You will find the same principle in operation just before Israel are redeemed out of Egypt. Before one of the plagues fell God warned Pharaoh that if he did not let Israel go, it would result in the loss of his firstborn. Yet plague after plague fell in the longsuffering of God before that dreadful night overtook Egypt. After that you will remember Pharaoh and his host made one more desperate attempt against the Lord with the result that the Lord said:

 

‘The Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever (the age)’ (Exod. 14:13),

 

and when the waters returned and covered the Egyptians we read:

 

‘There remained not so much as one of them’ (Exod. 14:28).

 

This utter destruction coming upon the second revolt finds its parallel in Revelation 20, where, when Satan gathers the nations that are in the four quarters of the earth against the beloved city after the millennium, we read:

 

‘Fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them’ (verse 9).

 

Returning to the Amorites, you will remember that with them, as with the remainder of the Canaanites, nothing less than utter extermination was ordained of God. You will find one further parallel in connection with the flood.

 

Remember that Methuselah’s age indicates the long suffering of God, for his name means ‘At his death it shall be’, or words to that effect, and in the year that Methuselah died the flood came, and that was utter extermination of man, woman, child, and beast, except those who entered the ark with Noah.

 

‘The Horims also dwelt in Seir beforetime; but the children of Esau succeeded them (or as the margin reads inherited them), when they had destroyed them from before them, and dwelt in their stead; AS ISRAEL DID UNTO THE LAND OF HIS POSSESSION, which the LORD gave unto them’ (Deut 2:12).

Deut 2:20: (That also was accounted a land of giants: giants dwelt therein in old time; and the Ammonites call them Zamzummims;
Deut 2:21: A people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims; but the LORD destroyed them before them; and they succeeded them, and dwelt in their stead:
Deut 2:22: As he did to the children of Esau, which dwelt in Seir, when he destroyed the Horims from before them; and they succeeded them, and dwelt in their stead even unto this day:
Deut 2:23: And the Avims which dwelt in Hazerim, even unto Azzah, the Caphtorims, which came forth out of Caphtor, destroyed them, and dwelt in their stead.)

Summary of Deut. Ch. 2:12-23:

 

ESAU. -- His inheritance possessed by the Horims. These were ‘destroyed’ by Esau, who ‘succeeded’ them, ‘and dwelt in their stead’ (Dt. 2:12).

 

MOAB. -- His inheritance possessed by the Emims. They are described as ‘giants’ and ‘as the Anakims’ (Dt. 2:9-11).

 

AMMON. -- His inheritance possessed by the Zamzummims. These also were ‘giants’ and ‘as the Anakims’. They were ‘destroyed’ and Ammon dwelt in their stead (Dt. 2:19-22).

 

Deut 2:32: Then Sihon came out against us, he and all his people, to fight at Jahaz.
Deut 2:33: And the LORD our God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people.

 

There you see the reason for this series. Israel find the Amorite in possession and, before they can enter into their inheritance, they have to destroy the Amorites. These were the ‘giants’ with walled cities, that terrified the spies who went to spy out the land. This destruction you will find repeated most emphatically by Amos in chapter 2:9:

 

‘Yet destroyed I the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath’.

 

Who are the antitypical Amorites who must be dispossessed in the fuller sense of the term?

 

‘Spiritual wickedness in high (heavenly) places’ (verse 12).

 

Certainly the parallel holds good there. Where the special blessings of the church are, there the spiritual Amorite is to be found. This term ‘Canaanite’ or ‘Amorite’ includes, I see:

 

‘Principalities and powers, rulers of the darkness of this world’ (verse 12).

 

The Amorites typify angelic (evil) beings.

 

The expression ‘all things’, in ‘all things are of God’ is limited, as ‘all Israel’ is limited, to the ‘seed’ and the ‘promise’; but a few passages of Scripture will help us. Let us turn to John 8. In verse 33 it is recorded that certain Jews claimed descent from Abraham, and this is admitted by the Lord in verse 37: ‘I know that ye are Abraham’s seed’.

 

Here we can place the Amorite; he too could say, ‘We be Adam’s seed’, and we should have to reply, ‘I know that ye are Adam’s seed’.

 

The Lord however continued:

 

‘I speak that which I have seen with My Father: And ye do that which you have seen with your father’ (John8:38).

 

Here a distinction is drawn. You might of course say that ‘My Father’ indicates God, and ‘your father’ indicates Abraham, but this would be untrue. The Lord’s meaning is made clear in verse 44:

 

‘Ye are OF YOUR FATHER THE DEVIL’.

 

The Greek words are ek tou patros. In verse 47 we read that the Lord says:

 

‘He that is OF GOD heareth God’s words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are NOT OF GOD’.

 

The Greek words are ek tou Theou. Here we have a perfect parallel. We have it positively stated that these men were of their father the devil, and negatively that they were not of God. Turn to Matthew 13 and read the parable of the tares in verses 24-30, the reference is to a false wheat, the Eastern dewan.

 

Its typical meaning is explained by Jesus. Let us turn to the explanation of the parable.

 

‘The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the CHILDREN OF THE WICKED ONE’ (Matt. 13:38).

 

Here you have wheat typifying the sons of the kingdom, and dewan the sons of the wicked one.

 

‘The enemy that sowed them is the devil -- They shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend (the word offence refers to traps set to catch the unwary, the first trap being set in the garden of Eden itself by this enemy), and them that do iniquity (lawlessness); and shall cast them into a furnace of fire’ (Matt. 13:39-42).

 

Will you note at this point that the words of the parable, ‘bind them in bundles to burn them’, are interpreted as a literal furnace of fire?

 

In Matthew 7:23 the Lord says:

 

‘Then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity (lawlessness)’, and Matthew 13:41 speaks of ‘them that do lawlessness’.

 

In Matthew 23:28 those to whom the Lord’s ‘woe unto you’ is addressed are said to be ‘full of hypocrisy and lawlessness’, and these are further addressed in verses 32 and 33:

 

‘Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers, ye serpents, ye progeny of vipers. How can ye escape the judgment of Gehenna?’ (Author’s translation).

 

Compare this with the ‘tares’. Matthew 24:12 says:

 

‘Because lawlessness shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold’.

 

Here are all the occurrences of ‘lawlessness’ in Matthew, and they appear to refer to some one definite thing, and not to the sins and shortcomings of men in general. We must reserve judgment on this until we examine ‘the mystery of lawlessness’ itself. Meanwhile we will turn to 1 John 3. In the fourth verse we read, ‘for sin is the transgression of the law’, literally ‘the sin is the lawlessness’.

 

Sin is essentially that Satanic system headed up in the mystery of iniquity, and so 1 John 3:8 says:

‘The one doing lawlessness is of the devil: for the devil sinneth from the beginning’ (Author’s translation. cf. John 8:44).

 

Here we have ek tou diabolou, ‘of the devil’. In 1 John 3:9,10 we read:

 

‘Whosoever hath been begotten of God (ek tou Theou) does not do sin; for His seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin because he hath been begotten of God (ek tou Theou). In this are the CHILDREN OF GOD manifest and the CHILDREN OF THE DEVIL’ (Author’s translation).

 

In verse 12 we are taken back to the beginning of things:

 

‘Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one (ek tou ponerou), and slew his brother’.

 

Am I not therefore Scriptural when I limit the scope of the term ‘all things are of God’, and when I refuse to confuse this term with that which is ‘of the devil’?

 

The last reference (1 John 3:12) takes us back to Genesis 4:1. At the birth of Cain, Eve exclaimed, ‘I have gotten a man, even Jehovah’ (Hebrew, Ish eth Jehovah). Eve believed that this first son born was the promised seed who should bruise the serpent’s head. Scripture reveals the awful fact that instead of being the promised seed Cain was the first of the seed of the serpent; he was ‘of that wicked one’.

 

Jehovah is a title of Christ, and Eve’s hope was fulfilled in the birth of Christ:

 

‘For unto you is born this day -- a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord (Jehovah)’ (Luke 2:11).

 

Reading on in Genesis 4, we find Cain’s descendants given as far as Tubal-Cain. Cain built a city and its name Enoch means ‘dedicated’. To whom it was dedicated seems evident, for the action is repeated after the flood by Nimrod who carried on the secret of lawlessness.

 

The Two Seeds

 

From the birth of Cain onward to the Giants of Noah’s day, the Canaanites of Joshua’s time, and the ‘tares’ sown by the enemy, there has existed side by side with the true seed ‘the children of the wicked one’. Not until these ‘tares’ are bound in bundles and burned can the ‘righteous shine forth in the kingdom of their Father’. The seed of the wicked one being ‘of the Devil’ cannot be ‘of God’ and are not included in the ‘all things’ that make up the new creation.

 

Cain’s line ends in proud boasting (Gen. 4:24). Seth, the seed appointed in the place of Abel, has a son, and he is called Enos, meaning ‘frail’. The truth named man frail. This was an opportunity to be used by the wicked one to further his own plan, and so we read:

 

‘Then one commenced to be called IN THE NAME JEHOVAH’ (Gen. 4:26 author’s translation).

 

The same emphasis on ‘the name’ recurs at the building of Babel:

 

‘Let us make us a name’ (Gen. 11:4).

 

The name is Jehovah, and the great antichristian mystery is here seen appropriating that blessed name for its own awful ends. We shall get a fuller answer to your question as to how a man can bear the name of Jehovah when we study the subject of redemption. Your other question, ‘How can this be?’ is more difficult to answer. For one thing Scripture itself is very guarded and uses somewhat veiled terms. Then again it is difficult to speak openly upon these themes, but we can keep in mind the blessed answer which the angel Gabriel gave to Mary, when he said:

 

‘The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God’ (Luke 1:35).

 

Now inasmuch as some are called the children of God and others the children of the devil, we must allow the possibility implied in this verse. Let us go on to Genesis 6. Here we read:

 

‘The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose’ (Gen. 6:2).

 

The result was that ‘there were giants in the earth’ (verse 4).

 

The sons of God are contrasted with the daughters of Adam, and this title is used of angels (Job 1:6). That there has been a fall of angels Jude 6 makes plain, and that their fall has some close connection with the depravity of Sodom the words ‘in like manner’ and ‘strange flesh’ indicate (verse 7). These angels left their own habitation (oiketerion). This word is used in 2 Corinthians 5:2 of the resurrection, and suggests that the angels left their spiritual body. These are the ‘spirits in prison’ who fell in the ‘days of Noah’ (1 Pet. 3:19,20; 2 Pet. 2:5). Their progeny are called Nephilim and Rephaim. Noah alone carried the seed uncontaminated, and of him it is written:

 

‘Noah was a just man and uncontaminated as to his pedigree’ (Gen. 6:9 author’s translation).

 

This shows how far the evil one had succeeded in sowing the field with his tares. There could be but one result; the destruction of all living except those saved in the Ark.

 

The pedigree of the Amorites

 

The next incident brings us down to the Amorites.

 

Were not the Amorites men, just as much as the Israelites?

 

The Amorites were descendants of Canaan, and you will remember that some unexplained sin of unclean character brings down upon Canaan the curse.

 

To the serpent God said ‘Thou art cursed above all cattle’.

 

To Cain the Lord said ‘Thou art cursed more than the earth’. [The Authorized Version reads: ‘And now art thou cursed from the earth’, but the Companion Bible note reads: The Hebrew accent (athnach) after "cursed" suggests "more than the ground".]

 

To Canaan Noah said ‘Cursed be Canaan’.

 

Contrary to common belief no curse was pronounced upon either Adam or Eve. The first man to be cursed is Cain. The second is Canaan. The words of Genesis 6:4, ‘and also after that’, refer to Canaan and his descendants.

 

The same evil interference that had caused the flood now peopled the land of Canaan, and when Abraham, the true heir, entered into the promised land, we are told ‘the Canaanite was then in the land’ (Gen. 12:6).

 

Just as the corrupted race had to be destroyed by the flood, so the smaller and local corruption of the Canaanites had to be exterminated by the sword of Israel. The slaying of Sihon king of the Amorites and Og king of Bashan is followed by the refrain in Psalm 136:19,20:

 

‘For His mercy endureth for ever’.

 

Satan’s plan to corrupt the true seed

 

I leave you to continue to trace this evil attempt to corrupt the seed of God. You will see more meaning perhaps in the two instances of Pharaoh and Abimelech (Gen. 12 and 21) and Abraham’s strict prohibition to his servant that he should not take for his son Isaac one of the daughters of the Canaanites.

 

The case of the giant Goliath is another full type, foreshadowing the Babylonian dynasty which forms the theme of Daniel’s prophecies. If through the weakness of the flesh the Canaanites were not utterly destroyed, Scripture is clear as to the issue. The command had been:

 

‘But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save

alive nothing that breatheth’ (Deut. 20:16-18).

 

When at length Israel enter into their inheritance it is written:

 

‘In that day there shall be NO MORE the Canaanite in the house of the LORD of hosts’ (Zech. 14:21).

 

While, by the interference of Satan, there has come through Adam the seed of the wicked one (Adam’s wife and daughters), so through Adam (Adam’s daughter) has come the true seed of God, called the seed of the woman, who shall ultimately crush the serpent’s head.

 

The purpose of this terrible thing will be more clear to you when we study the question of the two mysteries in Scripture. Meanwhile let me say that I am at liberty to take the words ‘all men’ in their fullest sense, providing I do not join together what God has kept asunder, and speak of those concerning whom He says they are ‘of the devil’ as being ‘of God’. If we keep in mind the Lord’s words, ‘An enemy hath done this’, and realize what it is that the enemy has done, we shall perceive that the recognition of the two seeds in Scripture is practically a master key to the purpose.

 

The Kinsman-Redeemer

 

Scripture reveals three outstanding features which are fundamental to a true conception of redemption:

 

1) The redeemer must be next of kin.

 

2) The redemption touches:

(a) A forfeited inheritance,

(b) Bondage.

 

3) The redeemer is also the avenger.

 

Hebrew 2:14,15 reveals Christ as the great Kinsman-Redeemer (‘flesh and blood, He likewise -- ‘), exercising the twofold office of redeemer (‘deliver -- bondage’), and avenger (‘destroy -- the Devil’). The provision of the cities of refuge was not for a ‘murderer’. Satan was a murderer from the beginning.

 

This Divine kinsman is seen in John 1:1 and 14:

 

‘The Word was GOD. The Word was made (became) FLESH’.

 

Galatians 4:4,5 emphasizes this kinship also:

 

‘When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem’.

 

Hebrews 2:14,15 speaks most definitely of this kinship:

 

‘Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage’.

 

‘For verily He took not on Him the nature of angels’ (Heb. 2:16).

 

1. The Lord did not assume angelic nature, but limited His kinsmanship to mankind.

2. The angels are not laid hold upon to rule in the kingdom that is coming (see parallel in verse 5).

3. The fear of death did not lay hold upon angels, but men, therefore Christ did not become an angel, but a man.

 

There is another element in the scriptural conception of the kinsman-redeemer that we have not considered, but which finds an expression here in Hebrews 2:14,15 in the two words:

 

‘That He might destroy -- and deliver’.

 

The kinsman was both redeemer and avenger. You will read in Numbers 35:19 and other places of the ‘revenger of blood’.

 

The double office is suggested in the words of Isaiah 63:4:

‘The day of vengeance is in my heart, and the year of my redeemed is come’.

 

The same is found in 1 John 3:5-8:

‘He was manifested to take away our sins -- For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil’.

 

Here the works of the devil are to be destroyed; in Hebrews 2:14 the devil himself is said to be destroyed.

 

Colossians 1 suggests that ‘principalities and powers’ come under the power of redemption, being this one side of the picture. Colossians 2 presents the other; and when they are brought together, the kinsman-redeemer and avenger, the twofold office fulfils the double statement. The avenger is seen in Colossians 2:15:

 

‘And having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it’.

 

So that you must understand that at the very same time and by that very same cross, some principalities and powers were reconciled and some spoiled. Now the Old Testament type absolutely forbids the idea that the kinsman could ever be an avenger upon those who were redeemed by him, neither could he redeem those who were the objects of his vengeance.

 

Murder precluded from City of Refuge

 

‘The murderer shall surely be put to death’ (16-21).

 

Satan is a ‘murderer from the beginning’, his work is intentional, there is nothing ‘unawares’ about it. He

is called ‘the enemy’. Further, Numbers 35:31 says:

 

‘Ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, which is guilty of death: but he shall be surely put to death’.

 

Kinship and Redemption

 

‘As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive’ (1 Cor. 15:22), must be interpreted with the type in view. Without repeating what we have seen as to Cain, the Amorites, the giants, and the two seeds, we realize that Christ is not kinsman to such. They may be connected physically with Adam, just as many were connected physically with Abraham; yet the words ‘in Adam’ stand for something more than this, and

1 Corinthians 15:22 pledges the redemption and new life of the children of the promise. Further, Isaiah 26:14 speaks of some who though dead shall not live:

 

‘They are dead, they shall NOT LIVE; they are deceased (the Rephaim, elsewhere called "giants"), THEY SHALL NOT RISE’.

 

These therefore could not have been ‘in Adam’, for if they had been they would have the hope of resurrection before them. In contrast we read in verse 19:

 

‘THY DEAD -- shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise’.

 

Jehovah’s dead are in His keeping and they have been ransomed from the power of the grave, death hath no more dominion over them. It is otherwise with the seed of the serpent:

 

‘The earth shall cast out the dead (Rephaim)’ (Isa. 26:19).

 

‘ In that day the LORD -- shall slay the dragon that is in the sea’ (Isa. 27:1).

 

Coming back to the subject of redemption, we learn:

 

(1) Redemption can only be effected by the next of kin.

(2) Who at the same time is the avenger on the enemy.

(3) The two main types for which redemption was provided are:

(a) A forfeited inheritance (Ruth).

(b) Bondage (Lev. 25:47-52).

(4) That resurrection life is the outcome (Hos. 13:14; Psa. 49:7-9; Job 19:25-27).

(5) That in this new life the redeemed are reinstated, the adoption is realized, the inheritance secured, the bondage removed, and the way made clear for the outworking of the original purpose of God.

 

Boaz, not only redeemed the forfeited inheritance, HE MARRIED THE WOMAN. Our security for ever is that we are not only redeemed by His precious blood, but made one with Himself; that is our stay.

 

The Mystery of His Will

 

God did not plan sin, but He provided against it. His original purpose is spoken of as His will; the provision against sin and death is spoken of as the ‘mystery of His will’. It was the will of God that Israel should be ‘head and not tail’, but upon their temporary failure the mystery of His will was put into operation, placing Nebuchadnezzar upon the throne, and giving dominion to the Gentiles until such time as ‘all Israel shall be saved’.

 

Two distinct Mysteries

 

Two mysteries run through the ages, viz., the mystery of godliness, and the mystery of iniquity. Both have relation to claims of Deity. The satanic mystery finds its goal in the man of sin, the son of perdition, who sits in the temple of God, showing himself as God. The mystery of godliness finds its goal in the exaltation of the Son of man, the Son of God, with every knee bowing and every tongue confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. The one mystery ends in destruction and is called ‘the LIE’, the other ends in glory and is called ‘the TRUTH’. Scripture declares that ‘no lie is of the truth’, and the workers of iniquity, who have even cast out demons in Christ’s name, are repudiated by Him.

 

Running through the ages, Scripture indicates two distinct mysteries. They are true parallel lines that never meet. The one is called:

 

THE MYSTERY OF GODLINESS,

and the other,

THE MYSTERY OF INIQUITY.

 

The one is ‘of God’, and the other is ‘of the wicked one’. The one is manifested in Christ, the other in Antichrist. They have many features in common which will help you to see that the one is an awful counterfeit of the other. It is the work of ‘the enemy’ who sowed ‘tares’ in the field. The mystery of iniquity is expressed in the claim:

 

‘I WILL ascend into heaven,

I WILL exalt my throne above the stars of God:

I WILL sit also upon the mount of the congregation --

I WILL ascend above the heights of the clouds;

I WILL be like the most High’ (Isa. 14:13,14).

 

The mystery of godliness finds its expression in the words of Philippians 2:5-9:

 

‘ -- Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant -- Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a (the) name which is above every name’.

 

You can hear the echo of the mystery of iniquity in the garden of Eden, ‘Ye shall be as God (Hebrew, Elohim)’, and again at its consummation:

 

‘ -- the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God’ (2 Thess. 2:3,4).

 

The Devil sinneth from the beginning

 

Away back before the age-times there was one who answered to the following description:

 

(1). Full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.

(2). Had been in Eden the garden of God.

(3). Covered with precious stones.

(4). Was the anointed cherub.

(5). Was upon the holy mountain of God.

(6). Walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.

(7). Perfect at his creation.

 

These words are taken from Ezekiel 28, and I think you will agree that they are not applicable to any human being.

 

As a result he was cast out from the mountain of God, and the judgment pronounced was:

 

‘I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire’ (Ezek. 28:16).

 

Here we have a spirit being who bears the name both of ‘Christ’ (for he is called the ‘anointed’) and ‘cherub’. The derivation of the word cherub is controversial: our own conclusion (which however we will not press) is ‘like the greatness’, and this seems echoed in the words ‘I will be like the Most High’. Michael’s name seems to challenge this, for it means ‘Who is like God?’ You will observe in Genesis 3 that the cherubim balance the serpent in the structure.

 

The Goal of the two Mysteries

 

All I now say is that originating with the anointed cherub, who was cast out as profane, is the mystery of iniquity, the goal of which is the usurpation of the throne of God. The origin of the mystery of godliness is found in the true Christ, the true Anointed, Who when the work of redemption is accomplished presents to the Father the perfect result, that God may be all in all.

 

These two mysteries come to a crisis in the Book of the Revelation. There ‘the mystery of God is finished’ (Rev. 10:7). With the ending of the mystery comes the ending of the present period of bondage and alienation. The purpose of God shall have been accomplished, the utmost opposition of the enemy thwarted.

 

It was strange that there should have been one called ‘the Christ’ or ‘anointed’ other than the Lord. But it is entirely in line with a principle that runs throughout the record of the ages. The first in order of time is not the first in order of purpose. Always the type sets forth that evil is allowed its opportunity first, but that the true purpose is found in the second. Let us make a list:

 

The first and false anointed, the first “christ” -- Ezek. 28.

The last and true Anointed, Christ -- The Lord Jesus.

The first son. -- Cain.

(Abel, killed by Cain) Seth -- The true seed.

The first son. -- Ishmael.

Isaac. -- The true seed.

The first son. -- Esau.

Jacob. -- The true seed.

The first man. -- Of the earth.

The second man. --

The Lord from heaven.

The first king of Israel. -- Saul.

David. -- The true king.

 

The same may also be said of the angels. Though angels, principalities and powers belong to a family created before man, nevertheless man is destined to take a place ‘far above principality and power’, ‘the saints shall judge angels’, and though made ‘for a little lower than the angels’ man the second family is the true heir of glory. It will not be possible to pursue our theme much further, although there still remains a great deal untouched.

 

1 Corinthians 15:24-28

A 15:24-. The end.

B a 15:-24-. WHEN He delivers up the kingdom.

b 15:-24. WHEN He abolishes all rule.

c 15:25-. FOR He must reign.

d 15:-25. Till all enemies under foot.

d 15:26-. The last enemy; death abolished.

c 15:-26. FOR He hath put all things under His feet.

b 15:27. WHEN. The one exception.

    a 15:28-. WHEN. The Son Himself subjected.

A 15:-28. That God may be all in all.

 

Adam and Christ.

 

In this amplification, which occupies verses 45-49, the relation of Adam to Christ and the resurrection is brought out in the following passages:

 

‘The first man Adam a living soul’.

‘The last Adam a life-giving spirit’ (R.V.).

‘The first man of the earth’.

‘The second man the Lord from heaven’.

‘The image of the earthy’.

‘The image of the heavenly’.

 

The next item is that of the destruction of the last enemy.

 

‘When . . . . . . . Then’

 

The end is attained ‘when He shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father’, and this is not done until all enemies are abolished, and all the redeemed are placed in their proper rank under Christ. The abolishing of death is timed for us in 1 Corinthians 15:54 by the words, ‘When -- then’. Isaiah 25: 8 contains the verse quoted in 1 Corinthians 15:54. It is in a context of Millennial administration:

 

‘Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the LORD of hosts shall reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before His ancients gloriously’ (Isa. 24:23).

 

‘And in this mountain shall the LORD of Hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined. And He will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of His people shall He take away from off all the earth: for the LORD hath spoken it’ (Isa. 25:6-8). (See also Isa. 26:1 and 27:1).

 

A further note of time is given in 1 Corinthians 15:52 ‘At the last trump’. In Revelation 11, at the sounding of the seventh trumpet, ‘the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ’. Immediately there follows reference to the ‘great power’ and the ‘reign’ and the ‘time of the dead’, and the ‘destruction of them that destroy the earth’. These Scriptures therefore place the period in view as being before the second death. Death was virtually destroyed when Christ rose from the dead:

 

‘Who hath abolished (katargeo) death’ (2 Tim. 1:10).

 

Death will be actually destroyed when the last of the dead stand before the great white throne. Death will be manifestly destroyed when it is cast into the lake of fire.

 

Genesis 6, 7, and 8:

 

‘Behold, I will destroy them’ (6:13).

‘Behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh’ (6:17).

‘Every living substance was destroyed’ (7:23).

‘I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake’ (8:21).

 

Destruction and curse are what is written of the flood, not purifying.

 

The Gospels speak of the flood coming and taking all away:

 

‘The flood came, and destroyed them all’ (Luke 17:27; see also Matt. 24:38,39).

 

There is no writer left now other than Peter:

 

‘And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person -- bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly’ (2 Pet. 2:5).

 

That does not speak of purifying. The only reference that speaks of cleansing is 1 Peter 3:20,21, but the type of salvation or purifying is the ark that saved Noah, not the flood that destroyed the ungodly.

 

The Second Death

 

Death can only be called sleep with resurrection in view.

 

1 Corinthians 15:26, ‘The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death’. An examination of the chapter reveals that the only death that is in view is that brought in by Adam. This death is destroyed at the resurrection, as the amplification shows that ‘death is swallowed up in victory’. The new heavens and the new earth follow immediately upon the casting of death into the lake of fire (Rev. 21). This same sequence is found in 2 Peter 3 where the new heavens, the new earth, and the day of God follow the burning up of the earth and its works, and the passing away of the heavens. The end, that God may be all in all, i.e., ‘the day of God’, follows hard upon the destruction of the last enemy (1 Cor. 15:24-28). That last enemy is the death which came upon all men through one man’s sin.

 

There is no room in any of these passages for the resurrection from the lake of fire. Not one whose name is found written in the book of life enters the second death. Satan’s seed, those who worship the beast and receive his mark, these we are distinctly told have not their names written in the book of life. Here is the final division of the two seeds. The ‘tares’ are burned in the fire; the ‘wheat’ are gathered into the barn. The very order is important. The tares are destroyed first. Those who teach a resurrection from the lake of fire at long last must either deny this order, teach that the burning of the tares changes them into wheat, or believe that the manifestation of the sons of God is indefinitely postponed.

 

‘And the Devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever’ (Rev. 20:10).

 

That lake of fire was burning at the commencement of the Millennium (Rev. 19:20). Aionion fire is

Gehenna, as you can see by comparing Matthew 18:8,9, and is connected with Isaiah 66:24 (see Mark 9:48). This aionion fire must be local if it is burning right through the Millennium, and is accessible from Jerusalem, when all flesh come up to worship (Isa. 66:20,23).

 

The lake of fire, however, spoken of in Revelation 20:14,15 is:

 

(1). After the great white throne.

(2). Has no reference to the Devil and his angels, and

(3). Is specifically called the second death which Gehenna is not, and, by the parallel of 2 Peter 3:12, involves both the heavens and the earth.

 

‘The fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death’ (Rev. 21:8).

 

‘I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that NO LIE IS OF THE TRUTH’ (1 John 2:21).

 

‘If anyone be in Christ, there is a new creation; the old things have passed away; new things have come in; but the all things are of God, Who has reconciled us’ (Author’s translation of 2 Corinthians 5:17,18).

 

 

 

THE BOOK OF JOB AND THE ENIGMA OF THE AGES

 

(Excerpts from Studies in the Book of JOB, C. H. Welch, 1952)

 

Gesenius gives the meaning of the word that supplies the name ‘Job’, as ‘to be an adversary to any one, to persecute as an enemy, to hate’, and twice Job himself uses this word, when he complains that God Himself held him, or counted him ‘an enemy’ (Job 13:24; 33:10), while the very presence of the great Adversary in the introduction of the book intensifies the meaning of Job’s name. Is it anything to be wondered at (except in the worshipping recognition of an all embracive providence) that Moses uses the same word in Genesis 3:15 when he speaks of the ‘enmity’ between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent? Can we not see that in the experience of Job, we have an early record of the out-working of that enmity? a problem which Moses himself must have pondered, and for which the revelation of Genesis 3, coupled with the actual conflict of Job, provides an answer. Job, one of the seed of the woman, was indeed ‘bruised in the heel’ in this terrible conflict.

 

Think of Moses reading the words of Job 38:4-11:

 

‘Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth ... when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? or Who shut up the sea with doors ... thick darkness a swaddlingband for it, and brake up for it My decreed place, and set bars and doors, and said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed?’.

 

That which is revealed in the early verses of Genesis 1 is here clearly implied. In the thirtieth verse of the same chapter in Job we meet with the expression ‘the face of the deep’ which is found in Genesis 1:2, and nowhere else except in the similar context of Proverbs 8:27, which in a peculiar manner is retrospective about the book of Job.

 

Elihu knew that a ‘firmament’ had been ‘stretched out’ as indicated in Genesis 1:6-8, using the very verb raka which gives us the word translated ‘firmament’ and which is translated in the margin of the A.V. ‘expansion’ and in the R.V. margin ‘expanse’.

 

‘Hast thou with Him spread out the sky?’ (Job 37:18).

 

It will be remembered that Genesis 1:2 reveals a prehistoric catastrophe ‘The earth became without form (tohu) and void (bohu): and darkness was upon the face of the deep (tehom)’. This revelation is anticipated in the book of Job, where he says:

 

‘He stretcheth out the north over the empty place (tohu), and hangeth the earth upon nothing’ (26:7), and in the passage where God asks:

 

‘Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? or hast thou walked in the search of the depth?’ (tehom 38:16).

 

Across the whole Bible as a background to the purpose of the ages can be written the words of the parable ‘An enemy hath done this’; and not until this enemy is destroyed can the goal of the ages be attained. Job and his friends make further reference to the facts recorded in Genesis 3 many times bewailing the state of man who is ‘born of a woman’. They cannot see how such can be ‘clean’ (15:14; 25:4), and say that ‘Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble’ (14:1). In this there is no uncharitable or unchivalrous reference to any particular ‘woman’, it is stating a universal truth, a truth which must be acknowledged even though the mother that bore him be most beloved. Job goes back not only to Adam and his transgression; not only to the guilty covering of the fallen pair with leaves; not only to the curse that produced thorns and thistles; but to the consequences of the fall as pertaining to Eve particularly: ‘I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children’ (Gen. 3:16). These subjects of revelation found in Genesis 3, together with the enmity of the Serpent and his seed, underlie most of the trouble and sore distress that runs through the book of Job. Moses came from a land where the dead were mummified in the belief that the soul of the departed revisited the body at times, and where the Pert em hru (the book of the dead) was common property. When he read the book of Job he would not find a single word to justify belief in the natural immortality of the soul, or that a man once dead, would ever revisit the scenes of his earthly life; he would find exactly opposite doctrines; he would realize very vividly the mortality of man and the absolute necessity for resurrection if ever man was to ‘live again’.

‘Now shall I sleep in the dust; and Thou shalt seek me in the morning, but I shall not be’ (Job 7:21).

 

‘Remember, I beseech Thee, that Thou hast made me as the clay; and wilt Thou bring me into dust again?’ (Job 10:9).

 

Here, in the second part of this last verse, is language identical with Genesis 3:19.

 

‘They shall go down to the bars of the pit, when our rest together is in the dust’ (Job 17:16).

 

‘His bones are full of the sin of his youth, which shall lie down with him in the dust’ (Job 20:11).

 

That there was a store of teaching available to the enquirer, the language of Bildad the Shuhite makes plain:

 

‘Enquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers’ (Job 8:8).

 

If Job could ‘enquire’ of this former generation, and ‘search’ the wisdom of the fathers, it must have existed in some accessible form. Granted that such wisdom of ancient days was accessible, it will not appear strange to read words which seem an echo of the Deluge, ‘All flesh shall perish together’ (Job 34:15). Dr. Samuel Lee says of this passage ‘the very words used of the historian of that event. See Genesis 6:17; 7:21’. Job also speaks of those angelic beings ‘the sons of God’ (38:7) as does the writer of the prose introduction (Job 1:6; 2:1). Nowhere in the whole of the Old Testament is there a purer monotheism than that found in the earliest of all its books. Nowhere is creation more emphatically predicated, or the mortality of man endorsed. The record of Adam, of the Serpent, of the coming in of sin and death, as more fully revealed in Genesis 1 to 3 is anticipated in the book of Job, and it is impossible to overestimate its value to Moses in those formative years in the house of Jethro in Midian.

 

The book of Job stands at the forefront of Revealed truth in the form of a kephalis or summary, and indicates to the reader that in the enmity exhibited by Satan to one of the ‘perfect’ or true seed is set forth in dramatic summary the conflict and purpose of the ages.

 

‘Let the day perish wherein I was born’ and ends ‘I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came’ (Job 3:3 and 26).

 

As this last verse stands, its relation with the general tenor of both the chapter and the book as a whole may not appear too obvious, but after examining the actual words employed, the comment of Dr. Samuel Lee, appears to point to their true intention:

 

‘If I rightly apprehend the drift of the context here, Job means to have it understood, that he is conscious of no instance in which he relaxed from his religious obligations; or of no season in which his fear and love of God waxed weak; on this account, it was the more perplexing that such a complication of miseries had befallen him.

 

The best answer to all which is, the matter found in the two preceding chapters’.

 

Job complains:

 

‘Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in?’ (Job 3:23).

 

Have we never in some periods of our pilgrimage cried out in a similar way? Yet, upon examination, it appears that Job was misreading the true meaning of some of his experiences. True he was suffering an unparalleled attack and being kept in ignorance of his real enemy, yet he would be but adding to his misery if it should so turn out, that like Francis Thompson in ‘The Hound of Heaven’, he mistook the shadow of the outstretched wing for the withdrawal of favour. If for reasons known to the Lord it is best and safest to be kept for a while in the shade, is it not folly to clamour for a light? During the Great War none liked the ‘black-out’ and many rebelled against its impositions, but many lives were spared by its observance nevertheless. Of course, in the case of the ‘black-out’, with all our grumbling we did know that there was an enemy, but Job was not so informed, and we must be very careful when judging him. The words ‘why is light given’ are in italics in the A.V. and are rightly brought over from verse 20, verses 21 and 22 being parenthetical.

 

In what way was Job ‘A perfect man’?

 

Keys to the enigma of the Ages. No. 1

 

The place that the book of Job occupies in its relation to the rest of Scripture, may be illustrated by two passages in the epistle to the Hebrews. When the apostle arrived at the close of chapter 7, and before he advanced from the subject of the Priest to the subject of the Offering, he paused to give a summary: ‘Now of the things which we have spoken, this is the sum’ (Heb. 8:1), and the word translated ‘sum’ is the Greek kephalaion. Coverdale translated this ‘the pith’, and Moffatt renders the passage ‘the point is this’.

 

Parkhurst gives as one of the meanings of kephalaion ‘a sum, summary or recapitulation of a discourse’ and points out that the ancients literally added up, as they used to put the sum total at the head and not at the foot of an account. Further, by referring to Ezekiel 2:9,10, where the LXX uses the word kephalis, we learn that the volume spread out before the prophet was written ‘within and without’, or as in The Revelation ‘a book written within and on the backside sealed with seven seals’. The writing on the back being a summary of what was written within. Upon reaching Hebrews 10 the apostle there indicates another ‘summary’: ‘In the volume of the book it is written of Me’ (Heb. 10:7), where the word ‘volume’ is a translation of the Greek kephalis. The book of Job stands at the forefront of Revealed truth in the form of a kephalis or summary, and indicates to the reader that in the enmity exhibited by Satan to one of the ‘perfect’ or true seed is set forth in dramatic summary the conflict and purpose of the ages. If we want a key to the sacred Volume we need seek no further, the key hangs at the door, we cannot step over the threshold of divine truth without passing it, let us no longer ignore it but use it again and again in our quest for truth.

 

Our studies in the book of Job thus far have been mainly to do with the material and form of the book; the problem with which the book is concerned has hardly been touched upon. We are conscious, as we hear Job’s agonized remonstrances and mark the blind groping of his three friends, that if they had known what we know, if they had had revealed to them the contents of the first two chapters, how different would have been their approach to the problem of Job’s sufferings, and how different the solution at which they arrived. We now turn to these two revealing chapters, conscious that they are an unveiling, revealing motives and movements in the spiritual world about which we have no experimental knowledge, yet which influence man at every turn. We believe that if any of our readers were asked to give some Scriptural account of such subjects as ‘sin’ ‘Satan’ or ‘sons of God’, that they would be able to present a fairly comprehensive and true account. Nevertheless, as we approach these revealing chapters, let us be well prepared to find depths that we have never sounded, and even if some of our discoveries on these themes may at first sight appear rather far-fetched, such is our conviction that we should expect to find a key in these two chapters, not only to Job’s enigma but to the greater problem of the ages, that we must permit no prejudice to rob us of gaining further light from our search. Now, as our space is not unlimited, and as we cannot conceive of any reader who has followed this series thus far being unacquainted with the subject matter of the first two chapters of Job, we shall not occupy space in detailing the structure nor of relating the story of Job’s calamities.

 

The first subject to consider will be the statement made in Job 1:1, and repeated in 1:8 and in 2:3, that Job was a ‘perfect’ man:

 

‘That man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil’ (Job 1:1).

Two facts present themselves at once, as we read these words: (1) In the estimate of God the condition ‘perfect’ takes precedence of all else; (2) That the word ‘perfect’ represents something other than uprightness, fearing God and eschewing evil.

 

The word translated ‘perfect’ is the Hebrew word tam, it occurs just seven times in Job, the ‘perfect’ number.

 

The word occurs in other forms, tom (Job 4:6; 21:23), tummah (Job 2:3,9; 27:5; 31:6) where it is translated ‘integrity’, and tamim (Job 12:4; 36:4; 37:16) and tamam (Job 22:3). The basic meaning of tam is completeness’, tamim is constantly employed of the Levitical sacrifices that were ‘without blemish’. This word is used of Noah and of Jacob. Ezekiel has joined Noah, Daniel and Job together in ‘righteousness’, but what is there common to Noah, Jacob or Job? How were each of these men ‘perfect’?

 

‘Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations’ (Gen. 6:9).

 

It is evident that even as ‘just’ and ‘perfect’ do not mean the same thing, so, as two different words are used in this same verse for ‘generations’, both must be examined.

 

When we read ‘these are the generations of Noah’, the word so translated is the Hebrew toledoth, a word derived from yalad ‘to beget or to bear’. When we read that Noah was ‘perfect in his generations’ the word so translated is the Hebrew dor, a word that occurs in Genesis seven times. This word refers rather to one’s contemporaries than to one’s ancestry or descendants, and the difference could be expressed by using ‘generations’ to translate toledoth, and ‘a generation’ to translate dor. Noah was, in some particular, different from his contemporaries not only in his righteousness, but in that he was ‘perfect’. The LXX here translates the word by the Greek teleios, a translation we must keep in mind. While tamim, the word used in Genesis 6:9, is variously translated complete, upright and the like, which accounts for thirty-seven occurrences, it is translated ‘without blemish’ forty-four times and ‘without spot’ six times, or fifty times in all, to which, if we add such synonyms as ‘sound’ ‘perfect’ ‘complete’ ‘undefiled’ and ‘whole’ we leave only fifteen occurrences, out of eighty-seven, for other renderings. When we compare, for example Numbers 29:26, ‘fourteen lambs of the first year without spot’ with Numbers 29:32, ‘fourteen lambs of the first year without blemish’, we perceive that no essential difference is intended by the alternative renderings. Noah was ‘without spot or blemish’ in his generations. It is impossible to read the words ‘without blemish and without spot’ and not associate Noah and Job with the great purpose of redemption as described in the epistles of Paul.

 

Now the flood with which Noah is so closely related, is also definitely connected with the corruption of the human race when ‘the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men’. ‘There were giants (nephilim "fallen ones") in the earth in those days’ (Gen. 6:4). It appears that Noah alone had been preserved intact and uncontaminated, where ‘all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth’. Jacob is said to be ‘a plain man’ (Gen. 25:27), the word here being the Hebrew word tam which is used of Job. Jacob was ‘perfect’ or ‘without blemish’. The LXX has adopted a peculiar word here in Genesis 25:27 to translate the Hebrew tam, it uses aplastos, something ‘unmoulded, unshapen’ hence anything ‘in its natural state’, ‘ingenuous’.

 

It will be recalled that on two occasions Sarah was taken by a heathen monarch into his harem, and that twice a miraculous interposition of the Almighty was necessary to save the true seed from contamination (Gen. 12:10-20 and 20:1-18). Whatever estimate we may have formed of the personal character of Jacob, he was as ‘unblemished’ as Noah or as Job in this respect. It may be objected that Esau was of the same parentage as Jacob and would therefore be equally ‘unblemished’. That is so but in appearance at least, Esau was somewhat monstrous, he is described as being ‘red, all over like an hairy garment’ (Gen. 25:25), a characteristic that persisted in manhood (Gen. 27:11,16,23). Esau’s abnormal appearance, was an outward sign of his inner estrangement from grace. The epistle to the Hebrews calls him ‘a profane person’ for he despised his birthright, whereas, with all his faults, Jacob’s very acts of deception were because he prized the blessing of Abraham above all else. Moreover, Esau is called ‘a cunning hunter’, and the word so translated is identical with that used of Nimrod (Gen. 10:9), and is also the word used eight times over in Genesis 27 in reference ‘to venison’ which occupies so conspicuous a place in the act of deception. Jacob, with all his faults, was ‘unblemished’, hence his association with Noah and Job as being in the line of the true seed.

 

Now the reader may perceive that the reason why Satan afflicted Job as he did, appears to have some definite purpose behind its apparent insensate animosity. Job was a ‘perfect’ man, unblemished, without spot, in other words one of the seed of the woman, and so in extreme contrast with the seed of the serpent. Satan therefore had some fiendish satisfaction in heaping upon Job’s devoted head all the loathsomeness of botch and blain. It is commonly supposed that Job was made to suffer from a disease called elephantiasis, a disease which converted the ‘perfect’ (aplastos) Job, into an apparent monster. The ‘boils’ with which Job was inflicted are connected with leprosy (Lev. 13:20), and was one of the plagues of Egypt (Exod. 9:9-11) and is called ‘the botch of Egypt’ in Deuteronomy 28:27. There is a blessed hope in Elihu’s statement, that upon the provision of a ransom, ‘his flesh shall be fresher than a child’s: he shall return to the days of his youth’ (Job 33:24,25), for when Job’s captivity was turned (Job 42:10) and restoration was made to him, one of his daughters was named Keren-happuch, ‘horn of beauty’ or ‘paint box’, suggesting that Job’s flesh had indeed been restored ‘fresher than a child’s’. The subject of the two seeds of Genesis 12 and 20 (a subject that is in the background of Genesis 3, 4, and 6), which underlies the parable of the wheat and the tares and provides the key to unlock such problematic passages as ‘ye are of your father the Devil’ and ‘Cain was of that wicked one’, will find illumination in a careful study of Job, and the book of Job in its turn will be better understood in the light of this strange yet true doctrine of the ages.

 

‘Sin’, ‘Satan’, and the ‘Sons of God’

 

Keys to the enigma of the Ages. No. 2

 

We have found that the word ‘perfect’, as used of Job, provides a key to unlock some of the problems of the book. Job was one of the true seed, like Noah he was perfect in his generations and consequently was an object of Satanic enmity. One of the keys to the enigma is sin, and the reader may be pardoned for objecting that there is little reason to believe that any fresh light upon so fundamental a subject will be forthcoming. Nevertheless we ask all ‘to search and see’.

 

Job’s piety and watchful care is manifested in his concern lest his sons had ‘sinned’ when ‘feasting’ on his ‘day’, and so we find Job offering sacrifices, saying ‘It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts’ (Job 1:5). We believe that if the majority of believers were asked a series of questions concerning this vital doctrine of ‘sin’, their answers would reveal that certain scriptural facts that bear upon its meaning had entirely eluded them.

 

If we turn to the book of Genesis, it would be natural to expect that chata ‘to sin’, or the noun chet or chattath would meet us in the third chapter, but it is not so. The word in Genesis 4:7, as The Companion Bible and most commentators agree, should read ‘a sin offering lieth at the door’. Sin was rampant during the 2,000 years which are covered by Genesis 2 to 11, yet never once do we meet with the word. The extraordinary fact is that chata ‘to sin’ meets us for the first time in the book of Genesis in the twentieth chapter. Our interest therefore should be quickened by this first fact, to go on and discover what the character of the sin was that is so signally emphasized and what bearing it can have upon Job 1:5. Abraham is found sojourning in Gerah, and we are struck by his opening words ‘And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, "She is my sister"‘, and we are reminded of the incident recorded in the twelfth chapter. There, Abraham feared that Pharaoh would forcibly take Sarah into his harem, and if he knew that Abraham was indeed her husband he would probably remove that obstacle from his path by taking Abraham’s life.

The sequel we know, ‘The LORD plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai his wife’.

 

Much the same thing happened again at the court of Abimelech. He too ‘sent and took Sarah’ and once again the Lord intervened, saying to Abimelech in a dream ‘Behold, thou art but a dead man, for the woman which thou hast taken; for she is a man’s wife’ (Gen. 20:3). It is in the reply made by the Lord to Abimelech that we meet with two words, tom ‘integrity’, the same word that in a slightly different form is translated ‘perfect’ in Job 1:1, and with the word ‘sin’:

 

‘Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart; for I also withheld thee from sinning against Me: therefore suffered I thee not to touch her’ (Gen. 20:6).

 

Abimelech also recognized the enormity of his deed saying to Abraham ‘What hast thou done unto us? And what have I offended (chattath) thee, that thou hast brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin (chataah)?’ (Gen. 20:9). Here Abimelech recognizes that even though his motive had been pure, his action would have been ‘sin’.

 

The same is confirmed by the words of the Lord in Genesis 20:6. (In connection with this special aspect of ‘sin’ it should be noted that the only ones who are called ‘sinners’ in the book of Genesis were the men of Sodom, Gen. 13:13). The next occurrence of the word chata is found in the words of Jacob, ‘I bare the loss’ recorded in Genesis 31:39, which the reader will see is not pertinent to our enquiry. We have to leap from Genesis 20 to Genesis 39 before we meet the verb again. And what will the offence be that is thus singled out for such distinctive treatment?

 

It is found in Joseph’s reply to the inducements of Potiphar’s wife, ‘How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?’ (Gen. 39:9).

 

Moreover, consider the very peculiar interruption of the narrative that takes place at Genesis 37:36:

 

‘And the Midianites sold him into Egypt unto Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh’s, and captain of the guard’.

The narrative is interrupted by the recorded events of Genesis 38, which have no reference whatever to Joseph or to Egypt, and the thread of the story is picked up again in Genesis 39:1, where we read ‘And Joseph was brought down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him of the hands of the Ishmeelites which had brought him down thither’. The interpolation of Genesis 38 is therefore intentional.

 

When we read its contents we are struck with the evident contrast that is intended between Judah and Joseph. Judah was convicted righteously of dealings with a (supposed) harlot, the evidence being the pledge he had given, his signet, bracelets and staff (Gen. 38:15-18,25,26). Joseph was most unrighteously condemned because of the ‘evidence’ given by Potiphar’s wife, ‘he left his garment with me’ (Gen. 39:18).

 

We should be dull of hearing indeed if we failed to perceive that ‘sin’ in Genesis has particular reference to interference, in type at least, with the purity of ‘the seed’. This does not in any way alter the fact that all transgression is sin, we are simply facing the fact that where we might have expected the word to be used in Genesis, the fact is, that for wise purposes to which we will do well to give heed, sin is particularly associated with the corruption of the true seed and, of necessity, the corruption of the Messianic line. The very fact that in Genesis 3 the judgment pronounced upon the woman has to do with ‘sorrow’ and ‘conception’ and ‘bringing forth children’, points to the same direction. The fact that in the New Testament Cain is said to be ‘of that wicked one’ is a further weight in the scale, as is the fact already noted that the only people who are called ‘sinners’ in the whole book of Genesis, are the ‘men of Sodom’ (Gen. 13:13).

 

But this is not all. Why should Job have been so anxious lest his sons had ‘sinned’ on the ‘feast day’? The word ‘feast’ is derived from the Hebrew word shathah ‘to drink’, a word that meets us in the story of Noah (Gen. 9:21). There, Noah is discovered by his son overcome with the wine produced in the new conditions that governed the earth after the Flood. Details are purposely withheld, but when Noah awoke from his drunken sleep he prophetically cursed an unborn child - Canaan! If we are guided by the recorded sin of Reuben, we shall arrive at the answer to our question ‘who was Canaan’s mother’? The Canaanites are most evidently an accursed people, ‘the seed of the Serpent’, and it is this persistent attempt in Genesis chapters 3,6,9,12 and 20 to find an entry into this world for the false seed that illuminates the opening verses of the book of Job, and with it sheds a light upon the conflict of theages.

 

That the Saviour Himself intended his disciples to believe that there were two seeds in the earth, and that one of them was sown by ‘the enemy’ the devil, the parable of the wheat and the tares is proof. The Divine explanation of this parable leaves us with no room to intrude evil doctrine into the story; the seed is definitely described as being either ‘the children of the kingdom’ or ‘the children of the wicked one’ and what Job feared, with the example of Noah before him, was that by the same means the enemy might take an awful advantage of the ‘feasting’ and spread corruption.

 

In Job 1:5, the A.V. reads ‘cursed God’ and the translation of the word barak by ‘curse’ has occasioned considerable difficulty to translators and commentators. Barak occurs in the Hebrew Old Testament 329 times, of which over 300 occurrences are translated ‘bless’. It is not as though the Hebrew language was poorly furnished with words that definitely mean ‘to curse’; the writer of the introduction to Job had choice of at least five strong words with this meaning. Why should he have used the word which is so generally rendered ‘bless’ if he intended the extreme opposite? The Massoretic note in the margin of the Hebrew Bible draws attention to the fact that here in Job 1:5,11; 2:5 and 9 occur four of the ‘eighteen emendations of the Sopherim’. The Sopherim (from saphar to count, to number) came into evidence in the days of Ezra, and their labours were looked upon as the authorized version of the sacred text. In eighteen passages where it seemed to them inadvisable that the name of the Lord should be compromised, the Sopherim altered the offending word as they did in these four passages in the book of Job. In order that the reader may sense this scruple of the Sopherim we mention the two other emendations found in the book of Job. In Job 7:20 the words ‘unto Thee’ were amended to read ‘to myself’, and in 32:3, the words ‘condemned Job’ were substituted for ‘condemned God’. The law of Moses contains a punishment for any who ‘curseth his God’ (Lev. 24:15); and once again it is not without some bearing on the subject before us, that this one occasion of cursing God in the law of Moses should have originated in ‘the son of an Israelitish woman, whose father was an Egyptian’, who moreover, was found striving with a man of Israel in the camp (Lev. 24:10). In the unaltered original of Job 1 and 2 the Hebrew word qalal ‘curse’, as found in Job 3:1, would be found where the reader now finds the emendation ‘bless’.

 

The narrative now leaves Job and his sons, to reveal another matter of importance in the unravelling of the problem of Job’s sufferings, and the greater problem of the ages:

 

‘Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them’ (Job 1:6).

 

In Job 38:7 the ‘sons of God’ are most certainly angelic beings and are associated with the ‘morning stars’ and their rejoicing at the laying of the foundations of the earth. When next we meet the title ‘The sons of God’ it is in that chapter of Genesis that speaks of the Flood in the days of Noah. We learn from Jude 6, that some angels fell, and their fall is in some way closely connected with the sin of Sodom (Jude 7), these were spirits in prison in the days of Christ, ‘which sometime were disobedient ... in the days of Noah’ (1 Pet. 3:19,20). According to Job 1, among the sons of God who presented themselves before the Lord was Satan. The name Satan comes thirteen times in the book of Job, a feature that will not pass unheeded by those who are acquainted with numbers in Scripture, the number 13 being the numerical factor of titles of Satan in both Hebrew and Greek. To give one example: the Hebrew word Satan equals the number 364 = 13 x 28, while Satan in the Greek = 2197 = 13 x 13 x 13.

 

The title Satan occurs in but four other places in the Old Testament. Let us examine these passages.

1 Chronicles 21:1. Satan stands up against Israel and provokes David to number Israel. The consequences are disastrous, as a reading of the chapter will reveal. What is, however, a feature seldom or never connected with this attack of Satan, is the contextual association of one of the evil seed:

 

‘And yet again there was war at Gath, where was a man of great stature, whose fingers and toes were four and twenty, six on each hand, and six on each foot: and he also was the son of the giant ... they fell by the hand of David, and by the hand of his servants. And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel’ (1 Chron. 20:6,8; 21:1).

 

This numbering of Israel is recorded in 2 Samuel 24:1, and if we will read 2 Samuel 21:20-22, we shall see that the evil seed is still in the background. They are again mentioned in 23:6 as ‘the sons of Belial’. No mention however is made in these records of the temptation of Satan, because the books of Samuel and of Kings give the history from the human standpoint, but the books of Chronicles going over the same ground, give the spiritual background and reveal the spiritual forces that were at work. Consequently in 2 Samuel there is no mention of the temptation of Satan, but 1 Chronicles 20 is like Job 1 and 2, it lifts the veil, and reveals the hidden unknown spiritual opposition of which neither David nor Joab were aware.

 

Turning to Psalm 109:6-10 we read ‘Set thou a wicked man over him: and let Satan stand at his right hand.

When he shall be judged, let him be condemned ... Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg ...’. By observing the correspondence of this Psalm, we find verses 6-15 balancing verses 28,29, ‘Let them curse, but bless Thou’ and discover that verses 6-15 should be prefaced by the word (saying) making the whole passage a parenthesis, indicating not David’s words but the cursing of his enemies.

 

To read the whole Psalm is to traverse the experience of Job himself. When ‘the wicked’ would curse the child of God, he can think of nothing so bad to say, as ‘Let Satan stand at his right hand’ so that when he shall be judged, he may be condemned. This is evidently what is in view in the challenge of Satan regarding Job.

 

Zechariah 3:1,2, the last reference to Satan in the Old Testament, shows this attitude of Satan against Israel and particularly against Joshua the High Priest. ‘Satan standing at his right hand to resist him’. The word translated ‘to resist’ is the verb satan. Here Satan is seen acting in character. The feminine form of the word sitnah which occurs but once, is translated in Ezra 4:6 ‘an accusation’, and ‘Jeshua’, the same high priest that is called ‘Joshua’ in Zechariah is here (Ezra 3:2; 4:3). Adversaries oppose the building of the temple, who on the human side are men named Bishlam, Mithredath and Tabeel (Ezra 4:7), similar characters to the better known adversaries of Nehemiah, namely, Sanballat, Tobiah and Gershom. Zechariah 3, like Job 1 and 2, lifts the veil, and these human adversaries are seen to be tools in the hand of Satan. Satan’s place at the right hand is that of the Accuser. Christ’s place there on our account enables every believer to face the challenge ‘Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died ... risen ... Who is even at the right hand, Who also maketh intercession for us’ (Rom. 8:34).

 

Job learned that his ‘own right hand’ could not save him (Job 40:14) he longed for an intercessor, a daysman, who would represent him before the judgment seat of God. He knew that such a Kinsman-Redeemer lived, and even though he went down into death, that he would be vindicated at the last. So, the veil is lifted in Job 1 and 2, to let light in upon the nature of Job’s sufferings and to illuminate the problem of the ages of which the book of Job is an inspired epitome. The margin of Job 1:8 shows us that Satan had ‘set his heart’ on Job, and for His own wise purposes, not fully revealed, our Lord gives Satan permission to attack this servant of the Lord. After the unparalleled attacks upon his family and possessions, Satan is again given further permission to attack Job himself, with the limitation ‘but save his life’. We understand the intention of Satan’s words ‘skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath, will he give for his life’ (Job 2:4), but to explain the figure is exceedingly difficult. Barnes occupies one and a half pages in his commentary reviewing the various explanations offered by commentators with little result.

 

Job’s patience was under the severest test. After the first attack of Satan it is written ‘In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly’. After the second attack, it is written ‘What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips’; but after the intervention of Eliphaz the Temanite, Job’s patience collapsed and he cursed the day of his birth. Had Job known the facts revealed to us in Job 1 and 2 he would, we are sure, have acted and spoken very differently.

 

‘The patience of hope’

 

Keys to the enigma of the Ages. No. 3

 

The End of the Lord

 

Keys to the enigma of the Ages. No. 4

 

The problem of pain and of apparent unequal distribution of suffering; the total disregard, in natural events, of relating the life and character of the sufferer with the heaviness of the stroke endured, these and similar subjects have tormented the minds of sensitive men and women since the dawn of time; yet here, at the threshold of revelation, is a book that epitomizes the problem of the ages and deals with this very thing. In the opening chapters of Job is made known that which was hidden from Job and his friends - the enmity that must exist between the two seeds and which underlies the problem of the ages. The overruling grace of God, bending all these things to the accomplishing of His ‘end’, shines as a light in a dark place. Argument can never resolve the problem of evil.

 

Philosophic research is vain. Tradition can offer no solution, and religion no solace; all that Job could do, and all that we can do, is to ‘trust’, to lean hard upon the fact that God is both righteous and good; both wise and kind; and at last He will be justified in all His ways, and the sufferer ‘come forth as gold’.

 

The Goal of the Ages foreshadowed

 

The book of Job contains in dramatized form the problem of the ages, and in the opening and closing chapters, the key to the enigma is supplied. We who read the complete book, have the advantage of Job and of his friends, for we see that Job’s trouble arose, not so much from his own doings or circumstances, but from the enmity that is inherent between the two seeds. Satan is seen attacking Job, whose name actually means ‘The Attacked’. God’s permission of the evil endured by Job was, as we learn, limited. His life could not be touched. We have also seen that there are two essential features in this great outworking of the Divine purpose. Patience, ‘Ye have heard of the patience of Job’ and End, ‘and have seen the end of the Lord’. The fact that Job received ‘double’ for all his sufferings and loss is stressed at the close of the book. In the first chapter he is said to have had ‘seven sons and three daughters’, he also possessed 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen and 500 she asses. In chapter 42 we learn that the Lord turned the captivity of Job, and gave him twice as much as he had before. The Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning, and he had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen and 1,000 she asses (42:10,12). The number of his children was not doubled, but he was given seven sons and three daughters as at the beginning. The names given to the three daughters suggest that Job had been entirely delivered from the loathsome disease that had been inflicted upon him for Jemima probably means ‘as the day’, betokening Job’s emergence from the shadow of death. Kezia means ‘cassia’ (Psa. 45:8), and Keren-happuch ‘horn for paint’, indicating rare beauty. The comment is added:

 

‘And in all the land were no women found so fair as the daughters of Job’ (Job 42:15).

 

By the time that Moses had been raised up to be the deliverer and law-giver of the chosen people, the testimony of tradition had become distorted and valueless as may be seen in the vain endeavour of Job’s three friends to solve his problem by appeals to that source. The testimony associated with the stars had become corrupted, the day was drawing near when a great prophet should be raised up to give to Israel, and through them, to the world, a written revelation of Truth. Moses opens the book of Genesis with the sublime words ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth’. If his own mind and that of others in Israel to whom he had shown the book of Job upon his return from the land of Midian had been prepared by the lengthy appeal to the wonders of creation that occupy the closing chapters of the book of Job, the epitome of Genesis 1:1 would come with even greater force. To us, who read the book of Genesis and have not the knowledge supplied by the book of Job, the entry of the serpent into Genesis 3 is an enigma. Moses and those who had read the book of Job would have been prepared for such initial intrusion and would have seen the attack upon Adam and Eve in the light of the subsequent attack upon one of the woman’s seed.

 

The lesson for us who are teachers or students, seems to be that wherever possible, students and teachers should make themselves acquainted with the book of Job as a necessary preparation for the greater study of all Scripture.

 

Let us rejoice that we not only hear of the patience of Job, but also that we have ‘seen the end of the Lord’ wherein we find the solution not only of Job’s problems, but also of the age-long problem concerning all who pass through the wilderness of this world, and the way which leads to the goal of the ages, when all tears shall be wiped away, Satan and his seed destroyed, and God All in all.

 

 

Parable Miracle and Sign

C.H. Welch, 1949

 

The Wheat and the Tares

 

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

 

In dealing with the Sower, we considered the course of the several ministries, or ‘sowings’, of the word of the kingdom. We saw how the various grounds depicted not only the state of the human heart universally, but the characteristic of the hearers at different points of the history of the kingdom proclamation. To meet the possible difficulty that might arise as to the reason why the gospel of the kingdom should be so long refused is the purpose of the next parable. The key words are ‘an enemy hath done this’. The scene is not changed, but the symbols are. We have a wheat field before the mind, as in the previous parable, but now we are definitely told that ‘the field is the world’. Further, the sower in this instance is ‘the Son of man’. Let us look at the parable before we consider its interpretation.

 

First consider its structure:

 

a A man sowed good.

Seed.

   b Enemy sowed darnel.

Enemy.

       c The blade sprung up.

Growth.

           d Then appeared the darnel.

Fruit.

a Didst thou not sow good seed?

Question.

   b An enemy hath done this.

Enemy.

     c Shall we gather the darnel?

Growth.

        d Let both grow till harvest.

Fruit.

 

The very first thing which we must notice is that whereas the parable of the Sower occurs in the three

Synoptic Gospels, the parable of the Tares is found only in Matthew. This enables us to see that this particular parable has exclusive reference to the kingdom of the heavens, and must not be applied to outside subjects.

 

Before going further we will set before the reader a rather more literal rendering than that of the Authorized

Version or the Revised Version:

 

‘Another parable placed He before them, saying, The kingdom of the heavens hath become like a man sowing good seed in his field; but while men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed darnel through the midst of the wheat, and went away. But when the wheat sprang up and brought forth fruit, then appeared the darnel also. Then the servants of the householder came near and said to him, Sir, was it not good seed thou didst sow in thy field, whence then hath it darnel? But he said unto them, A man that is an enemy did this.

 

But the servants said unto him, Wilt thou therefore that we go and gather them together? But he said, No: lest at any time while gathering the darnel ye uproot along with it the wheat. Let both grow together until the harvest, and in the harvest season I will say unto the harvesters, gather together first the darnel, and bind it into bundles with a view to the burning it up; but the wheat bring together into my barn’.

 

Our first consideration must be to settle, if possible, the true meaning of the servants, the wheat, and the tares. Christ’s explanation, in answer to the disciples’ question concerning the parable, was as follows:

 

Parable

Interpretation

‘He that sows the good seed ......

is the Son of man.

And the field ............................

is the world.

And the good seed ....................

are the sons of the kingdom.

And the darnel..........................

are the sons of the evil one.

And the enemy that sowed them

is the devil.

And the harvest ........................

is the consummation (sunteleia) of the age.

And the harvesters....................

are the Angels’.

 

‘Just as, therefore, the darnel is gathered together, and by fire is burned, so will it be in the consummation of the age; The Son of man shall send forth His angels, and they will gather together out of His kingdom all cause of offence (skandalon means more than a stumbling stone - literally it is "the catch of a trap"), and those that are doers of lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear’.

 

This is the inspired explanation of the parable. It does not deal with the gospel, but with the hearers of the gospel. In the parable of the Sower the seed typifies ‘the word of the kingdom’, while the ground represents the hearts of the various hearers. In the parable of the Tares the whole case is altered. The seed no longer represents the word, but the sons either of the kingdom, or of the wicked one. The ground no longer represents the hearts of the hearers, but the world. Commentaries are worse than valueless; they are positively harmful if they ignore the interpretation given by the Word of God itself.

 

The parable tells us that the prime cause of the defection and apostasy of Israel is to be seen in the attitude and work of Satan. Throughout the course of the ages Satan has sought to overthrow the purpose of God in

Christ. The primeval promise of Genesis 3:14,15 introduces the reader to the conflict of the ages. ‘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’. The purpose of the ages centres in Christ (Eph. 3:11, Revised Version margin). The antagonism of Satan is directed against this purpose. Every step of the way this opposition is seen.

 

Adam and Eve are placed in the garden. Dominion is given them. They are tempted and fall, and if the penalty had fallen upon them, the coming of the seed must have been frustrated. Cain slays Abel, and God gives Seth ‘instead’, thereby showing that ‘Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother because he was righteous’, was the tool in the hand of Satan who sought to prevent the coming of the Seed. The irruption of the ‘sons of God’, and the corruption of the seed of man, ending in the flood (Gen. 6), was another attempt to prevent the coming of the Seed. As yet Satan did not know through which family of the descendants of Adam the promised Seed should come, so he sought to pollute the whole race. Immediately after the flood Noah utters a prophetic word, which pointed out Shem as the chosen one.

 

Soon Abraham is called, and the promise of the land and of the Seed is given to him. Satan now centers his attack upon this man and this land. Taking advantage of the delay mentioned in Genesis 11:31, the evil one peopled the land of Canaan with the Nephilim, the Giants, the sons of Anak, and the Rephaim. The reading of Genesis 11:31 with 12:5,6 is very solemn:

 

‘And they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto

Haran. and dwelt there’.

 

‘And they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came ... And the

Canaanite was then in the land’.

 

The denial of Sarai both in Egypt and Gerar (Gen. 12:10-20, and 20:1-10) is connected with Sarai being taken into the harem of the monarch, and with divine interposition and warning. The repetition of these things is not merely to show Abraham’s frailty, but to show the twofold attempt of Satan to contaminate the line of the Seed. Space will not allow us to trace the ever central attack through the long course of Israel’s history. The massacre of the male children by Pharaoh is echoed by the same evil work of Herod. The parable of the Tares gives us the method adopted by Satan when he found that in spite of all his efforts the long promised Seed had come, and that the Messiah had proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom, and that some had received the message.

 

Referring back again to Genesis 3, we must notice that there are two seeds mentioned. The Seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. Now as we translate the one, we must in all fairness translate the other.

 

Therefore, if the Seed of the woman is Christ, the seed of the Serpent is Antichrist; if moreover we may extend the term to include believers, so must we allow the term to include unbelievers. The parable before us exposes the policy of the wicked one. Change of purpose he does not know, but change of tactics he will ever allow so that he may draw nearer to his end.

 

Among those who were professedly the religious people of the day, and in their own estimation ‘sons of the kingdom’ were those who were really ‘sons of the wicked one’.

 

Matthew 3 opens with the ministry of John the Baptist. The voice of the forerunner was heard:

 

‘and Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the country round about the Jordan went forth unto him, and were being baptized in the river Jordan by him, openly confessing their sins’ (Matt. 3:5,6 Author’s translation).

 

By reason of the fact that John proclaimed that ‘the kingdom of the heavens is at hand’, all who came to be baptized were professedly those who desired a place in that long hoped-for kingdom. Here it is that we catch a glimpse of the Devil’s seed, ready to be sown among the good wheat:

 

‘But seeing many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said unto them, Offspring of vipers, who has warned you to flee from the coming wrath?’ (Matt. 3:7 Author’s translation).

 

We must not be too hasty in concluding that these Pharisees and Sadducees all turned back; John immediately continued:

 

‘Bring forth fruit worthy of repentance, and do not think to say within yourselves, We have Abraham for our father, for I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham’ (Matt. 3:8,9 Author’s translation).

 

John warns them that though they may look so much like the wheat that it would be impossible to distinguish them then, yet when Christ came He would reveal the secrets of many hearts; the fruit would manifest which was wheat, and which was darnel, which were the sons of the kingdom, and which the sons of the wicked one. After referring to the exceeding greatness of Christ, John uses a figure which links this passage very suggestively with the parable before us:

 

‘Whose fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly cleanse His threshing-floor, and will gather together His wheat into the granary, but the chaff will He burn up with fire unquenchable’ (Matt. 3:12 Author’s

translation).

 

Some may have heeded these stern words, but many we know refused the witness, and became the enemies of the Lord and His work. The words of John to the Pharisees and Sadducees find an echo in the words of

Christ in later passages. In the very chapter which precedes this one of kingdom parables, and where the rejection of Christ reached a climax, we find reference to these ‘tares’, the seed of the wicked one. The subject (chap. 12:22-37) refers to Satan’s kingdom, and in verses 33,34 the Lord says:

 

‘Either make the tree good, and its fruit good, or make the tree corrupt and its fruit corrupt. For from the fruit the tree is known’ (Matt. 12:33 Author's translation).

 

This last sentence is entirely in harmony with the parable. The tares, or darnel, are the Arabian zowan, which grows among the corn. Even the native farmers cannot distinguish between the wheat and the tares with sufficient accuracy to enable them to weed out the latter. The moment, however, that the wheat and the zowan begin to head out, a child could distinguish between them.

 

Continuing the quotation of Chapter 12:34 we read:

 

‘Offspring of vipers, how can ye speak good things, being wicked?’ (Author’s translation).

Again in Matthew 23:33 the Lord says:

 

‘Serpents, offspring of vipers, how should ye flee away from the judgment of Gehenna?’ (Author’s translation).

 

In John 8:30-32 we have the two kinds of believers or disciples:

 

‘As He was speaking these things, many believed on Him. Jesus said, therefore, unto the Jews who had believed on Him, If ye abide in My word, ye are truly My disciples; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free’ (Author’s translation).

 

The Lord Jesus ‘needed not that any one should bear witness concerning man, for He knew what was in man’ (John 2:25). His words, addressed to those who had believed, exposed their inner selves. ‘They answered Him, seed of Abraham are we ... our father is Abraham’. Here we have a link with the ‘offspring of vipers’ (Matt. 3:7), and this is used by the Lord in His reply, ‘Ye are of your father the Devil, and the lusts of your father ye choose to be doing’. How soon the Lord’s words divided the wheat from the tares! It is the same in John 6:59-71 :

 

‘Many of His disciples, therefore, when they heard, said, This is a hard saying, who can hear it? ... There are some among you who do not believe; for Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that did not believe, and who it was would deliver Him up ... Did not I make choice of you, the twelve, and yet from among you one is a devil’ (Author’s translation).

 

The servants could not distinguish the true from the false, but the Lord knew what was within before it developed its fruit.

 

Satan’s attempt to spoil the kingdom purpose will fail, as all else of creature craft must do if directed against the Lord. The harvest time, however, has not yet taken place; that is reserved until the consummation of the age. Matthew 24:30,31 gives us the commencement of this great harvest:

 

‘And they will see the Son of man coming upon the clouds of heaven, with great power and glory. And He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet, and they shall gather together His chosen’ (Author’s translation).

 

Much more could be said, but our space is limited. We believe that sufficient has been produced from Scripture to assist the student in arriving at a true understanding of this parable. The reader should bear in mind the opening words of the parable. ‘The kingdom of the heavens has become like, etc.’. The phase which the kingdom had taken consequent upon Matthew 12 is here depicted. We shall deal with the closing words of the interpretation when we consider the corresponding parable of the Drag Net.

 

May we be thankful for every exhibition of divine knowledge, wisdom and love, over-ruling and defeating the enemy of truth, and may we ever seek to glorify the Lord our God by fruitful lives, shunning, as we would poison, any approximation to the dissembling and hypocritical spirit which is set forth under the figure of the ‘darnel’.

 

 

 

The Kingdom of God In Heaven and On Earth

 

(A Study of the Kingdom of God throughout the Bible, STUART ALLEN, 1981)

 

The Rule of God and Satan's Opposition

 

At the commencement we must be very careful that we start in the right place. Many expositors commence with the New Testament and ignore the testimony of the Old Testament. This is a fundamental mistake, for God's conception of His kingdom had already been made known in the history and prophecy of the Old Testament. As a matter of fact, in type, it began with the first man, Adam, who, as we have seen, was in reality a king, having been given by God complete dominion over the whole earth and its inhabitants, foreshadowing the future dominion of The King of kings and Lord of lords. From the very beginning, God has manifested His sovereignty in His rule over creation and this is at the very heart of the stupendous plan of the ages centered in the Lord Jesus Christ (Eph. 3:8-11). Sometimes He has used mediators in the carrying out of His divine rule, for the astonishing fact which permeates the whole Bible is that God, while able to accomplish everything by His wisdom and almightiness alone, yet desires to use created beings as channels to accomplish His will. The more we think about this and realize our own sinfulness and inadequacy, the more wonderful it becomes.

 

God's conception of perfect rule is the rule of one mind, not the governance of committees nor of the many along democratic lines. It goes without saying that this one ruler must be absolutely perfect and righteous, for past history gives a vivid account of what happens when unlimited power is put into failing human hands. `All power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely' is a dictum that cannot be gainsaid. Democracy is the safest and best form of human rule to minimize this, but it certainly cannot prevent corruption from occurring and ruining the realm over which human rule is exercised.

 

There is no doubt whatsoever that God's rule is that of a supreme king and therefore His kingdom can be designated as theocratic. G. N. H. Peters, in his great work, The Theocratic Kingdom (1:216) says:

 

`The Theocracy is a government of the state by the immediate direction of God. Jehovah condescended to rule over Israel in the same direct manner in which an earthly king reigns over his people ... with wisdom worthy of Himself, He assumed not merely a religious, but a political superiority, over the descendants of Abraham. He constituted Himself, in the strictest sense of the phrase, King of Israel and the government of Israel became, in consequence, strictly and literally, a Theocracy'.

 

While we recognize this, we must never forget that this rule, stated above, is often carried out through created beings and we shall find this right throughout the Bible as it unfolds the purpose of God.

 

Adam was placed by the Creator as head and ruler of the earth. Had he not sinned and passed the `virus' of sin and its consequence, death, to the whole human race, mankind, in its perfection, would have been an outward manifestation of the kingdom of God. Upon the failure of our first parents, they were deposed from the exalted position they had been given and because of this, the door was thrown open wide to the activity of the great enemy of God, namely Satan, who had already ruined the heavenly regions by his fall involving, as far as we can judge, many of the angels. From this point onwards, the stupendous battle of the ages commenced which tremendously complicated the outworking of God's will for heaven and earth. This meant nothing less than the need for the complete eradication righteously, of both sin and death, for God's perfect kingdom is impossible of attainment until these enemies to His purpose are removed, and only God Himself could undertake so mighty a task.

 

There was no created being in heaven or earth who could successfully assume such a responsibility. The action of God then was primarily redemptive, and this necessarily underlies the whole conception of God's kingdom in earth and heaven and it therefore permeates the whole of the Word of God. To miss this, is to miss everything and to end up by concocting unattainable dreams which finally lead to hopeless despair.

The first startling evidence of Satan's bitter animosity to God and the redemptive plan that spells out his utter defeat (Gen. 3:14,15), was in the first born son of Adam and Eve. In Genesis 4:1 Eve says `I have gotten a man from the Lord' or more literally `I have gotten a man, the Lord' (i.e. Jehovah). She evidently thought that God's promise of a seed that would crush the serpent (Satan) was now realized, but the New Testament reveals that Cain, her first born, was `of (ek) the devil' (1 John 3:12). Here is a deep mystery which is not explained, but there is no doubt that the Word of God clearly teaches that there are two seeds on the earth, one of God and one of the Deceiver (compare `thy seed' and `her seed' in Genesis 3:15 and note the parable of the tares and the wheat and the Lord's interpretation of it (Matt. 13:24-30; 36-42).

 

The obvious aim of Satan was to corrupt the true seed so that the divine promise of Genesis 3 would be ruined and the birth of Christ impossible of fulfillment. Satan would then be triumphant. The early chapters of Genesis record the fact that this nearly succeeded. Only one man and his family were free of the evil one's contamination (Gen. 6:9) and the violence and wickedness that filled the earth (Gen. 6:5,11-13) was so great that there was only one thing left to do by God and that was to destroy the perverted seed and commence afresh with Noah and his family. It was like cutting out a gigantic cancer and making a new beginning.

 

From Noah's time onwards government was clearly placed in the hands of man again by God:

 

`And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish (fill) the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered' (Gen. 9:1,2).

 

Noah was, as it were, a second Adam and picks up the kingdom theme once more. In his rule, man must now take account of human life. This life was given by God and belongs to Him and therefore man is warned that he is answerable to God for it:

 

`... and for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal.

 

And from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man' (Gen. 9:5 N.I.V.).

Nothing less than the death penalty is now prescribed by God (verse 6) for murder and the reason given is that murder blots out the image of God. It was in this image that Adam had been created (Gen. 1:26). Men today imagine they are progressing by abolishing the death penalty. In their ignorance, this command of God is often thought of as barbaric and part of the Mosaic law which is obsolete today. Actually it was given centuries before Moses and Israel came into existence and was a regulation to all humanity, not just one nation.

 

In trying to improve on God's command, men only play into the hands of Satan, who, in Christ's words, was a murderer from the beginning (John 8:44).

 

We set out the correspondences between Adam and Noah:

 

ADAM

NOAH

`Be fruitful, and multiply, and

replenish (fill) the earth' (Gen.

1:28)

`Be fruitful, and multiply, and

replenish (fill) the earth' (Gen.

9:1)

Possible judgment in the

background (Gen. 1:2)

Judgment in the background

the Flood (Gen. 6:7)

`Let the dry land appear' (Gen.

1:9)

`The ground was dry' (Gen.

8:13)

Have dominion and subdue it

(the earth) (Gen. 1:28)

Fear and dread of the animal

world (Gen. 9:2)

The image of God (Gen. 1:27)

The image of God (Gen. 9:6)

Three sons (Gen. 4:1,2,25)

Three sons (Gen. 10:1)

Nakedness covered (Gen.

3:7,21)

Nakedness covered (Gen.

9:22,23)

Cain cursed (Gen. 4:11)

Canaan cursed (Gen. 9:25)

The ground cursed (Gen. 3:17)

The ground no more cursed

(Gen. 8:21)

 

 

After the flood there was evidently another irruption of fallen angels (Gen. 6:4 and note `after that'), but this was not on the same scale as before. Later on we shall read of the giant Goliath who opposed David, and of Og, king of Bashan, whose bedstead in equivalent modern terms was approximately 18 ft. long and 8 ft. wide! Satan, however, did not depend on this alone to defeat God and His plan for the establishment of His kingdom on earth. Being vanquished along these lines, he started a religious system at Babel, headed by Nimrod, the mighty hero and hunter, a descendant of Ham. It is significant that the first mention of a kingdom in the Bible is that of Nimrod (Gen. 10:10). Here was Satan's answer to the kingdom of God. The great Satanic system of false religion and worship began at this point, sometimes dipping underground as in the heathen mysteries with their darkness and immorality, but finally coming out into the open at the end of this age in `Babylon the great' described in Revelation 17 and 18 as the `mother (source) of harlots and abominations of the earth' (17:5).

 

All the ancient religions were derived from Babel, in which we can see truth that has been utterly distorted by the great deceiver. The key figures were Nimrod and his wife Semiramis, who, when deified, became the central figures in the various religions of the pagan world. All have the travesty of the `mother and son' in one form or another whether it was Egypt (Isis and Osiris), India (Isi and Iswara), Asia (Cybele and Deoius), Greece (Ceres, mother and babe), Rome (Fortuna and Jupiter), and China (Shing Moo, with her child in her arms). Papal Rome has the Madonna and Child, not realizing what she is perpetuating. Greek and Roman mythology spread the darkness still further with its heroes and gods under various names derived originally from Nimrod and Semiramis. The whole was the Satanic travesty of the Seed of the woman in Genesis 1. Nor are we free from its deadly effects today, for it has entered Christendom in all sorts of ways. The reader may be surprised to know that hot cross buns and Easter eggs are primarily pagan in origin, originating from the heathen rites of Babylon. (For further details the reader is referred to The Two Babylons by Alexander Hislop). In Jeremiah 7:18 we have apostate Israelites offering cakes in worship to the `queen of heaven', probably the fertility goddess Ishtar who was identified with Venus, another form of Semiramis (see also Jer. 44:17,19) We can now well understand why Jehovah separated Israel from the nations around who were steeped in idolatry and immorality. When Israel got involved with the surrounding paganism, the inevitable happened and the nation became contaminated with these things, thus playing into the hands of Satan, and in this way working diametrically against God's kingdom purposes.

 

The activities of the evil one are extended further in the false unity that was engineered at Babel and recorded in Genesis 11. Verse 1 tells us that `the whole earth was of one language and of one speech'. The building of the city and tower was with the object ` ... lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth' (verse 4). Unity was essential if Satan was going to get control of the human race and dominate to the ends of the earth and this was foreseen by the Lord:

 

`And the LORD (Jehovah) said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do' (verse 6).

To foil the enemy, there was no need to destroy the race as before. All God needed to do to break this false unity was to confound their speech so that they could not understand one another. Language can be the greatest of barriers between people and this is what resulted from the Lord's action:

 

`So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city' (verse 8).

 

It is interesting to remember that much later on, during the period covered by the Acts of the Apostles, God did the opposite and removed the hindrance of foreign language by the miraculous gift of tongues (Acts 2:7-12) thus speeding up the spreading of the gospel over the civilized earth.

 

Those who can discern `the signs of the times' (Matt. 16:1-3) must see the fact that, in a similar way today, the world is being formed into one great unity or federation and the condition of Babel is being repeated. The many mergers that we see happening everywhere and concentrations of power into fewer and fewer hands, can only lead to this. The great money power that, behind the scenes, is running the present world system, is largely operated by those with great influence who may be described as `one-worlders', that is, they are aiming at nothing less than a world federation which means the lowering of the nations of the west and the lifting up of the `third world'. Much that is happening today which is puzzling, begins to make sense once this is perceived. Satan is attempting to do once again what he did with the nations at Babel to unite them so that, at the right moment, his representative, the Antichrist, can be brought upon the scene and take control of the whole earth. We shall be dealing with this later on when we trace the kingdom theme in prophecy.

 


Tasters of the Word (YouTube), videos recientes: "Astronomía y Nacimiento de Jesucristo: Once de Septiembre Año Tres A.C.", "Estudio sobre Sanidades" (en 20 episodios), "Jesus Christ, Son or God?" and "We've the Power to Heal":http://www.youtube.com/1fertra


Tasters of the Word (the blog, with: "Astronomy and the Birth of Jesus Christ"):http://fertra1.blogspot.com

 

And a commercial before we go:

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