Thursday, March 10

He will crush your head.Gen. 3:15.

The Edenic promise not only emphasized that the instigator of the rebellion in the garden of Eden and all ill effects of his action would be done away with but also identifies the means by which this would take place. Who would the woman’s offspring prove to be? Since the offspring is to crush the serpent’s head, that is, “bring to nothing” the spirit creature Satan the Devil, the offspring would have to be a spirit person.  Therefore, the woman giving birth to the offspring would also be of a spiritual nature. While the offspring of the serpent proliferated, the identity of the offspring and the woman remained a mystery for almost 4,000 years. Meanwhile, Jehovah made several covenants that identify the offspring and assure His servants that the offspring would be the means by which God would undo the disaster that Satan had brought on the human family.

COMMENTARY

All of the symbols originally introduced in Genesis are presented again in the concluding book of the Bible —Revelation, specifically, the 12th chapter.

The serpent is interpreted to be Satan, the Devil. And the seed, or offspring of the woman are those who have the work of bearing witness to Jesus.

Their bearing witness to Jesus is not merely by preaching and distributing literature, but by their course of loyalty to Christ even when facing a flood of persecution during the short period of time following the Satan’s ouster from heaven. And the woman who gives birth to the “male child” is revealed to be an organization since “she” exists not only in heaven, but also on earth.

The birth of the Kingdom is unquestionably the greatest event in the history of the world. Unfortunately, the Watchtower has turned it into a non-event.

Consider, for example, what is revealed in Revelation and the Watchtower’s explanation. Revelation 12:13-17 states: “Now when the dragon saw that it had been hurled down to the earth, it persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child. But the two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman, so that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is to be fed for a time and times and half a time away from the face of the serpent. And the serpent spewed out water like a river from its mouth after the woman, to cause her to be drowned by the river. But the earth came to the woman’s help, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the river that the dragon spewed out from its mouth. So the dragon became enraged at the woman and went off to wage war with the remaining ones of her offspring, who observe the commandments of God and have the work of bearing witness concerning Jesus.”

As most of Jehovah’s Witnesses likely are aware, the Watchtower claims that Satan’s great wrath is a thing of the past. Supposedly the three and one-half times took place from 1919 to 1922. Afterward, Satan unleashed a flood of persecution that concluded coincident with the ending of the Second World War. That is when the “earth” opened up and swallowed the flood disgorged by the dragon. (The earth being the stable, democratic part of Satan’s turbulent system.)

So, it’s all over folks. Revelation is an open and shut book. Aside from the destruction of Babylon the Great and Armageddon, it’s finished. Although the short period of time allotted for Satan to vent is wrath is apparently still ongoing, now for more than a century, the withering deluge of persecution the demons unleash is a thing of the past, logged into the annals of theocratic history —at least that is what Jehovah’s Witnesses have been deluded into believing.

The reality is, none of the judgments contained in Revelation have come about —yet.

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