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God, Who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts" is an
indication that this record subserves spiritual purpose.
We are therefore prepared to find that what is said of the seed of "herb" and of "fruit
trees" will be also true of "the seed" in its highest and spiritual sense.
Three items of interest call for notice.
The expression "yielding seed", or as it is literally "seeding seed", brings before us the initial
fact that a succession, a progeny is in view.
The statement "after its kind" assures us that the continuance or succession preserves its
relationship and likeness to the parent seed. Intermixture is apparently disallowed.
"Whose seed is in itself" further impresses us with the bounds that are set, and which are not to
be transgressed.
These features are true of plants and of animals, but when we learn, as we shall when
reading Gen. 3:, that there is One, Who is called The Seed of the Woman, Who is in
conflict with another seed, the seed of the serpent, these statements take upon themselves
a deeper significance. The power and purpose of a seed to continue the line, and its
relation to the creation of man "made for a little lower than the angels" should be noted.
So far as we know, angels are separate creations, "they neither marry nor are given in
marriage", and have no seed. Adam, by his creation, was allied to the animal world in
that he could be the father of a succeeding race, and so distinct from the angelic world,
where progeny is unknown. In this, the Scripture suggests that he was a figure of Him
that was to come, the second Man and the last Adam, who in a higher and spiritual sense
was to "see His seed".
Unlike the angels, all men are derived from a common ancestor, and are made of "one
blood", and the teaching of Rom. 5: shows that Adam and Christ stand as type to
antitype and that "as by one man's disobedience many were constituted sinners so by the
obedience of One shall many be constituted righteous". Mankind are organically one as
the angels never could be.
When Seth was born, his mother called his name Seth, "for God, said she, hath
appointed me `another seed' instead of Abel, whom Cain slew" (Gen. 4: 25). Here we
have reference to both the attack upon the true seed, and to its preservation. The Ark was
prepared by Noah at the command of God with the express purpose of keeping seed alive
upon the face of all the earth (Gen. 7: 3) and the destruction of all flesh by the flood is
intimately connected with the abnormal alliance of the sons of God, with the daughters of
men, and their resulting hybrid progeny, the seed of the serpent. With Noah's seed,
preserved in the Ark, the covenant of Gen. 9: 9 was made.
The next reference to a seed is that of Gen. 12: 7 where the promise of God to
Abraham is expressed in the one sentence "unto thy seed will I give this land". The Bible
record is one of conflict, and this conflict is between two seeds, the establishment of the
line through which that seed should come, namely that of the descendants of Shem, and
the family of Abraham, occupies the bulk of the O.T. Scriptures. Ishmael is passed by
and Isaac is chosen, Esau is set aside and Jacob chosen. Of the sons of Jacob, Judah is