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The True Character of God in Christ, January 14
I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and
her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.
Genesis 3:15
, RSV.
The enmity referred to in the prophecy in Eden was not to be confined merely
to Satan and the Prince of life. It was to be universal. Satan and his angels were to
feel the enmity of all mankind. “I will put enmity,” said God, “between thee and the
woman, and between thy seed and her seed.”
The enmity put between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman was
supernatural. With Christ the enmity was in one sense natural; in another sense
it was supernatural, as humanity and divinity were combined. And never was the
enmity developed to such a marked degree as when Christ became an inhabitant of
this earth. Never before had there been a being upon the earth who hated sin with so
perfect a hatred as did Christ. He had seen its deceiving, infatuating power upon the
holy angels, and all His powers were enlisted against it.
The purity and holiness of Christ, the spotless righteousness of Him who did
no sin, was a perpetual reproach upon all sin in a world of sensuality and sin. In
His life the light of truth was flashed amid the moral darkness with which Satan had
enshrouded the world. Christ exposed Satan’s falsehoods and deceiving character,
and in many hearts destroyed his corrupting influence. It was this that stirred
Satan with such intense hatred. With his hosts of fallen beings he determined to
urge the warfare most vigorously; for there stood in the world One who was a
perfect representative of the Father, One whose character and practices refuted
Satan’s misrepresentation of God. Satan had charged upon God the attribute he
himself possessed. Now in Christ he saw God revealed in His true character—a
compassionate, merciful Father, not willing that any should perish, but that all should
come to Him in repentance, and have eternal life.
Intense worldliness has been one of Satan’s most successful temptations. He
designs to keep the hearts and minds of men so engrossed with worldly attractions
that there will be no room for heavenly things. He controls their minds in their love
of the world. Earthly things eclipse the heavenly, and put the Lord out of their sight
and understanding....
Satan reached only the heel; he could not touch the head. At the death of Christ,
Satan saw that he was defeated. He saw that his true character was clearly revealed
before all heaven, and that the heavenly beings and the worlds that God had created
would be wholly on the side of God.... Christ’s humanity would demonstrate for
eternal ages the question which settled the controversy (
Selected Messages 1:254,
255
).
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