Chapter 1
In The Beginning
In the Holy Scriptures, we need to first look at the Book of Genesis to find what happened to mankind to bring the purposes of the feasts, the harvests and the resurrection. After God had finished His creation on the sixth day, He saw that it was “very good” which would mean perfect. Genesis 1:
31 “And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”
Now, when one looks at chapter three in Genesis, one can find that the fall of mankind changed everything. The world was then, and even until now, in a fallen state and mankind walked in a sinful, fleshly body. God had given His judgment for their sin to Satan and mankind. The verse that I will first focus on is Genesis 3:
15 “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”
God announces to Satan that he will be at enmity between him and the “seed” of the women. This verse becomes the first prophecy of the Bible. It is very deep in meaning and gives mankind the first glimpse of hope after the fall in the Garden of Eden. To look closer at this verse, one can look at the Hebrew word for “enmity” which is 'eybah. This can be translated as “hatred”. So Satan and his “seed” along with the woman and her “seed” shall have hatred towards one another.
Now historically, in the Old Testament, men were known for their “seed” in the bringing of offspring. What did God mean by the “seed” of the woman? As one continues through the Old Testament, one will find hundreds of prophecies of a coming “messiah” or savior. God gave mankind a clue to Genesis 3:15 in Isaiah 7:
14 “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”
One can see that the “seed” of the woman was actually a prophecy of a virgin birth. There is no seed coming from a man! Immanuel is translated “God with us”. What an amazing and encouraging proclamation to mankind! God himself would be born from a virgin and walk the earth. One can interpret the “woman and her seed” being Eve and her offspring, which is all of mankind, and one can also interpret this to be the virgin mother of Jesus Christ and the prophecy of the messiah to come.
In Genesis 3:15, the messiah was also prophesied to accomplish something very important. Satan, or the “serpent”, was to have his head crushed by the messiah…”it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” So the messiah was to come and win a major victory over Satan. In case you were born yesterday, I will reveal what this victory was to be. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was a victory over sin and death for mankind. I will discuss more about the importance of this later.
With this victory, Satan has been condemned already by God.
Ezekiel 28: 14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.
16 By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.
17 Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.
18 Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffic; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.
Satan will continue to be the “prince of this world” until Jesus Christ comes back to take back this world from him in His second coming. From the Garden of Eden, Satan then had an endeavor to prevent the birth of the messiah; this would cause God’s promise of redemption to be broken. One can only speculate that Satan’s condemnation would become void as well. As Satan knows He has lost, he desires to bring as many down with him as he possibly can. He has actually deceived many to believe that he can still win!
In the book of Genesis, one can see that there seems to be a spiritual chess match of moves and counter moves by God and Satan; this progresses on through the Old Testament. If one looks at Genesis 4: 26 “And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the Lord.” This is a mistranslation from the original Hebrew. The Targum of Onkelos has this verse saying “desisted from praying in the name of the Lord” The Targum of Onkelos in Israel is the most highly respected manuscript of the original Hebrew text. If one were to see that Enos was really the first apostate in history, the sons of Seth should be considered the first apostates and not “sons of God”. These sons of Seth probably had been influenced by Satan. That is mere speculation, but from the rest of scripture, one can probably conclude that to being so. If one wanted a second opinion on Genesis 4:26, one can look in the Book of Jasher. This is an accurate history book of the times before the flood and even after. The word of God refers to the Book of Jasher and its truths in Joshua 10:13 and 2 Samuel 1:18. The book of Jasher quotes in chapter 2:
“And Seth lived one hundred and five years, and he begat a son; and Seth called the name of his son Enosh, saying, because in that time the sons of men began to multiply, and to afflict their souls and hearts by transgressing and rebelling against God.”(1)
Satan, knowing that he needs to somehow stop this birth of the messiah, brings apostasy to mankind. He sent a remnant of fallen angels to entice the daughters of men. The seduction of these women to these godlike angels was an ingenious way to corrupt the DNA of mankind so that the messiah could not be born. A hybrid “seed” of the women would not bring the perfect redemption for mankind. In Genesis 6, one can see that Satan almost succeeded.
Genesis 6: 4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.5 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.7 And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.9 These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.
1. The Ancient Book of Jasher, p. 12
Most of us know the story in the Bible about Noah and the flood. As one can read in Genesis, Noah and his family will repopulate the earth. Notice how evil continues to show up while God always counters that evil with amazing countermoves to outsmart His adversary. After God confuses the languages and scatters the populations (Genesis 11), one can see similar occult religions scatter along with them. The mystery religion from the Tower of Babel scattered everywhere the people had scattered. Every ancient culture shows their history in sun god and moon goddess worship. From Greco-Roman Isis/Osiris and Horus to Baal/Ishtar and Tammuz of Babylon, the same basic idol worship of the gods existed to the farthest locations on the planet.
Meanwhile, as Abraham was to be blessed by God with the land of Israel, God gave him insight on what His plan was for Abraham’s generations to come. This was a prophecy of the captivity of Israel in Egypt and then the exile back to the land. God informed Abraham that the Amorites were being given four hundred years to repent of their wickedness, then God would send the children of Israel back to the Promised Land.
Genesis 15: 13 And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; 14 And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance. 15 And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age .16 But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.
God would use Joshua, the Judges and later King David to rid the land of the pagan idolatry and the hybrids that had returned. Satan knew that Israel was the promised nation that the “seed” of the woman would come out of. With Satan’s dominion of angels and demons, he obviously could hear the conversation happening between Abraham and God. Satan knew that after four hundred years Israel would be returning to that land God had promised full of milk and honey. Having heard God tell Abraham this, Satan then could plan for their return four hundred years later.
Numbers 13: 32 And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature. 33 And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.
Satan set a huge trap for God’s chosen nation. When the people of Israel returned back to this land, there was a culture of hybrids and occult religions already there. God knew that if He didn’t command a total annihilation of these hybrid cultures, this already mixed hybrid race would be prone to interbreed with His chosen nation that was to bring in the messiah. God showed no mercy to those nations with the interbred DNA of the angels. They were not human nor were they redeemable. God’s redeemable are those that are made in His image, while the hybrids with their corrupted DNA, can never be redeemed.
Satan continued to seduce Israel to idolatry all the way into captivity to Assyria and then Babylon. It seemed sometimes almost hopeless to the faithful of God.
Lamentations 1: 3 “Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude: she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest: all her persecutors overtook her between the straits.”
God knew that His ultimate plan for the redemption of mankind depended on the preservation of a nation set apart from the others whom were corrupt both spiritually and genetically. God had a plan for salvation of the human race and Satan was no match for Him.
Back when Moses brought Israel out of Egypt, God prepared them for their re-entry back into the Promised Land. He cleansed them from an evil, hard hearted heathen that caused division and rebellion amongst them. He gave them the Ten Commandments as well as his expectations and laws to abide in. The Ten Commandments were given to point out ones sins that they were committing and to show them that they needed forgiveness for the evil that they had committed against God. They were commanded to perform sacrificial blood atonements for their sins. The severity of sin was made very bloody and disturbing. Little did they know that this was to prepare them for their redeemer that was to come to them in the near future.