God who sees the end from the beginning had a plan of salvation and hope for Adam and his posterity at the very moment he sinned. He gave them the promise that the woman’s seed would in due time crush the seed of the serpent (sin) in the head.
From that time to this, the faithful have looked with expectant eyes for the fulfillment of that promise and the seed of the woman who would strike sin the death blow. Eve evidently thought it might be Seth. Always man is in a hurry to rush but God does things in his own good time, not because he is “slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but He is long suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
Abraham first received the promise from God of a seed in which all the nations of the earth would be blessed when he was seventy-five years old. Time went on and Abraham and his wife grew older with no sign of a child. During this time Abraham and Sarah attempted to take matters into their own hands to help God. Ishmael was born as a result, and his seed has been a thorn in the side of the true seed ever since.
Paul tells us of the faith of Abraham during this time. Against “hope Abraham believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be. And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb: He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; and being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness.” Paul concludes with an exhortation that this was not written for his sake alone that this kind of faith was imputed to Abraham but for our sake also that we might have the same kind of faith Abraham had in trusting that God will perform for us the same promise that we might become heirs with Abraham of that promise.
In God’s own good time Isaac was born. Sarah rightly prophesied when she said, “Cast out this bondwoman and her son: for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.” Paul in contrasting these two seeds tells us that “he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.” It will ever be so until the promises are completely consummated.
The promise that God had made to Abraham to give him the land for an everlasting inheritance was repeated to his son, Isaac, and to his grandson Jacob.
Many years passed before the next promise was made to David which expanded the promises of land and seed to include the throne and kingdom. David was a king and so he would understand when God told him that “I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom.” From the things David said at the time and later in the Psalms it is evident that he understood and believed that God would not lie unto him and that “his seed would endure forever, and his throne as the sun before God.” Peter also tells us that because David was a prophet and knew God he therefore spoke with confidence of these sure words of promise.
In Hebrews we are told that all these “died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.”
It is a wonderful hope we have that if we have faith like Abraham and David then we too will receive the fulfillment of these promises and be made perfect with them. With Paul we say, “I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers: unto which promise our twelve tribes instantly serving God day and night, hope to come.”
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One