Immediately After The Fall in Eden, even in the depths of that midnight darkness, a ray of light shone down from heaven — the Seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent ‘s head. This promises complete doom for the kingdom of darkness. And it fully implied that the cause of light, truth and righteousness should finally obtain a complete victory.
The promise detailed
After this gracious and glorious promise had been the chief foundation of all the hopes of God’s people for two thousand years from Adam onward, God was pleased to point out the particular family from whence this Seed and mighty deliverer should spring. And He intimated what a universal blessing this Savior should be to all the nations of the earth. And in thy Seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed, said God to Abraham. This again plainly supposed that the cause of truth and righteousness, notwithstanding the dark state the world was in, should yet, in due time, universally prevail over the whole earth. This same promise was repeated again and again to Abraham, and afterwards to Isaac and Jacob.
From the days of Moses to the days of Solomon, God did, besides repeated promises of the same thing, by a great variety of wonderful works shadow forth the glorious day.
David and Solomon were types of Christ — David, who Messiah-like, subdued the enemies of Israel all around, Solomon who built the temple and filled Jerusalem with riches and glory.
He who has done all these things, can easily break to pieces the kingdoms of the earth, make truth victorious, and set up the new Jerusalem in all her spiritual glory and there set the Son of David upon the throne.
When shall these things be?
But when shall the Son of David reign? When shall the cause of truth and righteousness thus prevail? Perhaps the very time was designed to be shadowed forth in the Law of Moses, in the institution of their holy days. Said God, who always had this glorious season of rest in view, The seventh day shall be a Sabbath of Rest So perhaps after six thousand years are spent in labor and sorrow, the seven thousandth shall be a season of spiritual rest and joy, a holy sabbath to the Lord. And as God the Creator was six days in forming a confused chaos into a beautiful world, and rested the seventh, so God the Redeemer may proclaim a general liberty to an enslaved world as in the year of jubilee.
Same promise in prophets and apostles
These things shadowed forth in types were also expressly declared by the ancient prophets from the days of David and forward to the end of that dispensation.
The same things are in the New Testament, and largely opened to view in the Revelation of John. So both Old and New Testaments join to raise in us, who live in these ages, the highest assurance that it is God’s design to give His Son the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession. For all kings shall bow down before him, and all nations shall serve him. And the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and all nations shall flow into it. They shall learn war no more. For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High God. And the Jews shall be called in, and the fullness of the Gentiles. And Christ shall reign on earth a thousand years.
God’s promises are sure to be fulfilled
God has been faithful to His promises from the beginning of the world. The promised Seed has been born, and the serpent has bruised his heel; and methinks now God’s faithfulness should lead us to believe that the Seed shall bruise his head.
The Son of God has been offered as a sacrifice of atonement to open the way for the honorable exercise of God’s grace. As all power and authority in heaven and earth is already given into his hands, will he not bring every nation, kindred and tongue to bow the knee to God? When things have been ripening these six thousand years, and are now so nearly every way prepared for the total destruction of the kingdoms of men, can we imagine that God will let the opportunity slip? Rather, ought we not firmly to believe that when everything is quite ripe, then God will arise, make bare His arm, and fill the whole world with His glory, as all the holy prophets have spoken?
The above declaration of Bible truth (only a very small part of a very long document is reproduced here) was published in Woodbury, Connecticut in 1740, by what may be the first ecclesia in America to be based upon the promises of God and the Hope of Israel. The principal author was Joseph Bellamy (1 719- 1 790), a precocious farm boy who graduated from Yale University at the age of sixteen and set up (according to one local historian), “a sort of Bible seminary in this tiny backwoods settlement which showed bold, independent thinking.”
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One