Studies in the Gospel Message
THE subject of the Sabbath school lesson for May 17, the seventh in the present series, is The Coming of the Seed. There is one thought which runs like a thread of gold throughout the whole Bible. In some places it appears in varied forms as a direct statement, and in other places it is implied; but in one form or another it gives its color to all the teaching of the Scripture. This central idea of the gospel is God’s gift of his own Son to be one with the human family, to be the head of a new humanity, to be “the man Christ Jesus,” through whom the Father’s original purpose for man and this earth should be fully accomplished. This is the gospel of the kingdom. In the unfolding of this gospel from the time when it was first preached in the garden of Eden (Gen. 3:15), the hope of salvation from sin has been made to rest upon the manifestation of God in the flesh in the person of his Son, the coming of the Son of man. It was the seed of the woman who should bruise the serpent’s head. It was “to Abraham and his seed” (Christ) that the promises were made. It was “a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren” (Deut. 18:15), whom Moses foretold. The whole book of Ruth sets forth the fact that the Redeemer would be a near kinsman according to the flesh. Isaiah gave his name as Immanuel (Isa. 7:14), or “God with us,” and taught that this Wonderful One would be united to the human family by birth. Isa. 9:6. To David it was revealed that through the coming seed his house and his kingdom should be established forever. 2 Sam. 7:12-16. The prophet Daniel was divinely instructed as to the exact time when “the Messiah the Prince” should appear among men. Dan. 9:24, 25. And so “all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after” made this their theme, and “showed before of the coming of the Just One.” Acts 3:24; 7:52. All these promises and prophecies grew out of, and were simply the development of, the one original promise of the coming of the seed of the woman, who should bruise the head of the serpent. The whole plan was present in the mind of the Lord, and entered into the original promise, and it was all included in the one idea of the coming of the Seed. When this gospel has fully accomplished its work, its final and open triumph over sin and Satan will simply be the last step in the coming of the Seed. In the working out of God’s plan and purpose for our salvation and complete restoration, there are two definite events which, when taken together, constitute the fulfillment in its outward features of the promise of the coming of the Seed. These events are usually called the first and second advents of our Lord. Strictly speaking, they are simply two prominent experiences in the fulfillment of the one promise of the coming of the Seed. No such expression as “the first coming” or “the second coming” is found in all the Old Testament prophecies. Of course various events are set forth in the prophecies which can only be fulfilled by the first and the second coming of our Lord, but in the prophecies they seem to be regarded as simply different parts of one complete whole,—the coming of the Seed. After the Son of God was actually manifested in the flesh as the Son of man, he himself spoke of his going away and his coming again; the men in white apparel, who stood by when he ascended into heaven, said, “This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven;” and in writing his epistle to the Hebrews the apostle Paul has assured us that “unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.” In this coming the second time will be found the glorious consummation of all that was included in the promise of the coming of the Seed. All the promises of salvation and blessing which have been made to humanity have been made to humanity in Christ the Seed. We have nothing and can receive nothing apart from him. It was not man as man who should bruise the serpent’s head, but it was the Seed. The original promise of the land to Abraham, which is shown in the letter to the Romans (Rom. 4:13) to include the whole earth, was not made to Abraham primarily, but it was said, “Unto thy seed will I give this land.” The promise of the everlasting kingdom was not made to David directly, but instead it was said, “His seed also will I make to endure forever, and his throne as the days of heaven.” This seed is Christ, “the son of David, the son of Abraham.” As all the promises were made to the Seed and to humanity in the Seed, so all the promises will be fulfilled to the Seed and to humanity in the Seed. “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.” “And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” God gave the inheritance, the6land, the earth, to Abraham by promise, and he gave it to Abraham by promise by promising to give it to his seed, and the essential thing in the promise and in the fulfillment of the promise was the coming of the Seed. If the Seed should fail to come, there would be no giving of the land to Abraham, since it was to be given to Abraham, and to us as his seed, by giving it to the Seed which was to come, and to us in him. This is the eternal purpose. It is plain, therefore, that all our hope centers in the coming of the Seed. And this does not mean simply the looking forward to a definite date in the future when we may expect “the manifestation of his coming.” It includes all that was involved in the original promise of the bruising of the serpent’s head. It means “being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.” It means the actual fulfillment of the promise, “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. . . . At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. . . . If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” It means the experience of being children of “the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed,” and of knowing that unto us God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless us in turning away every one of us from our iniquities. And it also means to be “looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” And so to-day we look for the final step in the development of the original promise in Eden, waiting and working “till the seed should come to whom the promise was made.” And while the scoffers say, “Where is the promise of his coming?” we know that “the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness,” and that the long delay is because he is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” And yet “the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night.” This gospel of the kingdom, this gospel of the coming of the Seed, “shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” “And there shall be delay no longer.” This is the generation which will witness the consummation of the promise in the coming of the Seed. “Lift up the trumpet, and loud let it ring;
Jesus is coming again!
Cheer up, ye pilgrims, be joyful and sing;
Jesus is coming again!”