How long wilt thou go about, O thou backsliding daughter? for the Lord hath created a new thing in the earth, A woman shall encompass a man.

Try sometime checking the smorgasbord of commentaries on the internet, and you will find a dizzying array of disagreement and very unsatisfying suggestions to what all will agree is a very cryptic and controversial passage. But I say, what did you expect where there is hidden glory like this?, as the example I showed in the debate over how Isa 49:5 should be translated.

I took greatest comfort to learn that in many of the commentaries it was acknowledged that the early church fathers understood this of the virgin conception of the Messiah. I am 100% sure they were right. They affirmed this in the face of the nay saying of the sophisticated scholarship of their day. Today, only a rare few “fundamentalist hillbillies’ affirm such an antiquated notion. But I say, behold the context!

It is given by Jeremiah as God’s remedy for Israel’s perpetual backsliding. It is presented as the basis for the righteousness that enables Israel to receive the promised salvation the restoration of ‘a pure language’. As always, the setting is the post-tribuational day of the Lord.

What makes this cryptic statement commend itself as a reference to the virgin birth of the woman’s seed? It is ultimately transitional. It is placed between Israel’s continual tendency to backslide and the promise of final salvation and inheritance of the Land. This mysterious insertion is made the pivot on which all else turns. Israel’s long awaited inheritance of the promise begins as the result of this new thing that Yahweh will created in the earth, first this, then that.

Notice too it’s remarkable parallel language to the Song of Isaiah (Isa chapters 7-12). It makes you wonder how conscious Jeremiah was of Isaiah’s prophecy of the virgin when he would use such similar terms at this juncture in a context announcing the end of backsliding and the everlasting salvation of covenant promise.

Recall Yahweh’s challenge to Ahaz to ask a sign, but not just any sign. Make it hard, Ahaz! Ask for a sign as great as anything that can be conceived in the heights of heaven or the depths of the earth. Now THAT’S quite a sign!

Of course, Ahaz waxes pious and declines. This is when the Lord seizes upon the king’s feigned modesty to give, not only Ahaz, but now all Israel a sign of His own choice (notice the pronoun, ‘you’, goes from singular to plural in the Hebrew, expanding the recipients of this sign to all Israel).

In keeping with the context of the question and the answer of God, this sign must exceed anything within the conceivable bounds of nature in heaven above or earth beneath. It is, of course, the sign of the virgin conception whereby a woman encompasses a man (goes around, avoids, circumvents, bypasses).

This is the new thing in the earth that has never been created before. It is without precedent, since on it turns the turning of Israel’s captivity. And so, in a wondrous providence of unimagined, inconceivable, transcendent glory, we sing “Oh come, Oh come, Immanuel, and ransom captive Israel ….” Exactly!, as only a manchild conceived by a virgin WITHOUT, APART FROM the help of man could bypass the fallen nature and be in a position to reverse the curse for all who had fallen under it through sin.

How does one reverse the curse that has passed upon all humanity through the transmission of a fallen nature that none can escape (in sin I was conceived) unless that one is brought into the world in a unique way that bypasses the fallen nature?

This is the logic of the virgin birth, and it is fully present in the original promise. Remember too, Adam and Eve knew the experience of paradise and would have been intimate with the magnitude of the change that passed on the whole observable created order. But they had this promise. When this would come, they did not know, but they knew how it would come. It would come by a man born to the woman (already implying some distinct contrast from the role of the man in procreation).

The woman’s son would reverse the curse through a substitutionary wound that he would endure on behalf of those who had fallen under the curse through sin. (Remember, God had taught them the principle of sacrifice as necessary to any covering of sin). How, therefore, does this not imply sinlessness? The prophets surely recognized this, as the scripture is clear that they understood that Messiah should suffer and be “cut off” before His exaltation to glory (Dan 9:26; 1Pet 1:11). It is therefore, much easier to see then the implication of Eve’s exclamation, “I have gotten a man by the help of the Lord!” However, in the Hebrew text, the word “help” does not appear. It is supplied by translators. It is more accurately translated, “I have gotten a man (or ‘manchild’), the Lord”, some translate, “even the Lord”.

Very probably, Eve thought she was the woman who would bring the savior into the world. Obviously wrong about the time and the person, she nonetheless understood that for the curse to be reversed and paradise restored, a very extraordinary power would have to attend the promised manchild. Is it possible she thought this power might by the Spirit of Lord with whom she had walked and communed in the garden? That is speculative, but the predominant conditions in which the freshly fallen pair found themselves certainly implied a great power would have to attend the one born to conquer the one who had brought them, and the whole of creation under the power of death observed all around them.

Obviously, Eve didn’t understand that the promised seed would come without the help of the man in the sense of natural procreation, but her jubilant exclamation may suggest that she might have intuited that the only one who could conceivably accomplish to the conquer the power of sin and death would have to be, in some sense, God. Perhaps, as in the case of Caiaphas, Eve spoke not of herself, but in the position as the mother of all living, prophetically anticipates the necessary deity of the manchild. In any event, it is at least inviting to consider the possibility in view of the unique form of the Hebrew text. But this is not at all critical to our argument.

Even if we take the more natural assumptions of most commentators that Eve could never have been in possession of even an incipient shadow of such a ‘high Christology’, it is no less a plain fact that the promise of Gen 3:15 carries in it the seed of just such a high Christology of virgin conception and substitutionary atonement. How so? Because in order for one to reverse the curse, that one cannot be under it.

THAT is the maxim the whole of scripture anticipates and demonstrates gloriously. Through later revelation, particularly the episode with Isaac’s stay of execution, by which Abraham was able to look ahead and see Jesus’ day, it became clearer and clearer that only an innocent sufferer, free from the taint of sin, could ever break its dominion through a sacrifice that would avail for all the election of grace and secure the everlasting inheritance of all the seed. How would this be? Answer: “a woman shall encompass a man.”

But there is something that points even more decisively to the necessity of the unique begetting of the coming One. It is the issue of the nature of the sin nature. Sin must be overcome, not by an “hero” who would master the inclination towards the sin that all flesh is born ‘under’. That would be works. On the contrary, the Messiah would be free of the false presumption of strength, i.e., the human view of strength. In a sense, none born of woman was ever so weak and blind as He who could see and judge so perfectly whose only strength was the Spirit of the Lord.

By bypassing the help of man in his conception and perfect life of obedient faith, the divine Messiah would bypass the curse of self reliance. Though tempted beyond our ability to conceive, He would never venture one word or action on His own initiative or strength. By never speaking or doing anything of Himself, His humanity was preserved and perfected as the habitation of all the fullness of God.

It was His glorious weakness, free of any mixture of ‘man’, receiving nothing of the help of man. This is how His humanity could be the habitation of all the fullness of God in a body (a body you have prepared me). To this one, uniquely begotten Son, the Spirit could be given without the measure, because there was nothing of our common fallenness in Him to hinder or limit that fullness.

It was this perfection that alone could be accepted as substitute and sacrifice for sin. The author of sin and death would bruise ‘His’ heel, and God would turn this bruising to mortally wound the head of Satan who has the power of death and thus reverse the curse, bringing the kingdom of God to earth as it in heaven.

It’s all right there in the most pregnant promise in the Bible, as nothing in all subsequent unfolding revelation is not found fully present in that first seed of promise. Simply glorious to contemplate. “Known unto God are all His works from the beginning …”

Reggie

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Do you have anything on how Satan’s removal from the heavens puts him in a less powerful place than he currently occupies?

We have to be very careful of our words here. The only sense that the Satan’s power is restricted will be in his ability to accuse the believer’s conscience. He is already without legal right, but his removal by Michael in the middle of the week ends his access to accuse in some unprecedented way. It’s there in the text!

Certainly the once and for all victory of Christ has ended Satan’s legal right to any believer’s conscience, but there you see that when Michael prevails to cast Satan down (an event that is clearly in the middle of the week; Dan 12:1), he is particularly described as “the Accuser of the brethren,” who, until he is cast down by Michael at the beginning of the tribulation is able, in some sense, to accuse the regenerate servants of God, albeit illicitly. What are the implications of this?

I believe there is a profound reason for this, but first notice that the line up of these events all happening at the mid point of the last week. This shows that it is the clearing of heaven from Satan’s abiding presence, is not only a powerful milestone on the way to the coming of the kingdom (the removal of the restrainer), but Michael’s victory accomplishes an unprecedented open heaven, as it were, that significantly announces the presence of the kingdom in power, and this announced presence of the kingdom is significantly 3 1/2 years BEFORE Jesus’ return. Something major has happened! I believe that what is in view is the heavenly enforcement of Christ’s victory by a church that has come to travail in analogy to Daniel’s intercession and self abasement. It is what I call the ‘conquest of the veil’ on a corporate scale unprecedented since Pentecost, as anticipated in Jesus’ exclamation, “I saw Satan fall as lightening from heaven.”

The Accuser’s removal announces the significantly related power and liberty of the overcoming church. The timing here lines up perfectly with other passages that show a breakthrough of mighty anointing that comes upon the ‘maskilim’ in significant timing with the abomination of desolation that marks the mid-point of the seventieth week (Dan 11:31-35; 12:7-10). Very significantly, this is also the time that the two witnesses receive their power. What is happening to the witnesses is happening to all the godly remnant, an anointing of power to do exploits (greater works?) and turn an innumerable multitude to righteousness. At the same time the man child is caught up, Satan is cast down, and as God’s people apprehend their place with Christ (in figurative analogy to Jesus’ birth and ascension), Satan comes down to bring the final woe to the earth dwellers. I call this the great transition and it happens in both the realm of light and the realm of darkness, the ultimate point of divide.

All adds up to something very transitional at this point, not only in the realm of darkness on the side of the mystery of iniquity, but also the side of light and power of the truth. It is a profound spiritual apprehension of the gospel by a church that is now completely poured out. It’s a new Pentecost! It empowers for the last great thrust of the gospel that will draw the net on an innumerable multitude. But the actual power of Satan, so far from being limited or ‘less’, is actually intensified. It is no longer distributed between heaven and earth but is now concentrated, fully and finally on the earth. For those who dwell in heaven (not a term for only departed saints and angels but all the people of the Spirit, whether in heaven or earth), it means the greatest break through of kingdom power since Pentecost. But for the ‘earth dwellers’ (a term meaning, not mere habitation of the earth but the sensual unregenerate who have their life in the earth), it will mean the time of unequaled woe.

Not time to enter into it here, but we must ask; how is it that something that has always been true concerning Satan’s fatal defeat at the cross and the rightful freedom of every believer from his accusations is, in some sense, being reiterated just here, immediately upon Michael’s removal of Satan, an event that we know does not happen until the standing up of Michael at the middle of the week, 3 1/2 years before the Lord’s return? I believe the answer has all to do with the believer’s relation to the veil. Here’s what I mean:

In the spiritual realm, there is a constant war against the veil of the flesh that is especially felt by the child of God. Every believer is in a war against the temptation to put confidence in the flesh, but not only at the conscious level. This is one important purpose in our pruning and the unique and tailored things we must pass through, much of which is involuntary, appointed and orchestrated by the Lord. Our maturity in Christ has all to do with the degree of brokenness and freedom from the impediment of that residual measure of self reliance that limits and hinders the fuller, manifest power of His life in us. This is what Paul made the constant object of his prayer, enjoining the prayers of the saints to the end that “Christ might be magnified in my MORTAL body.” This is the sense that he hoped to ‘attain’ to the resurrection of the dead. He was speaking of the power of the resurrection as a present potential and goal.

This is simply the well established biblical principal that our strength is our weakness, and our weakness is our strength, and why it is that it is only when Israel comes to the end of their power that their great transition comes (compare Deut 36:32; Dan 12:7). We understand what happens to the saints in the middle of the week when we can conceive that God has in mind a corporate fullness of Christ in the tribulation church that has become completely emptied of the last remains of the hindrance of strength. This is why Christ is revealed at the end of the law, because it is the Spirit’s quickening of the law that destroys all hope in the flesh. Christ is the end of the law because He is revealed at the end of strength. I’m not trying to be technically exegetical here, only interested to communicate a profound principle of the Spirit’s working. Spurgeon called it, ‘the withering work of the Spirit.” This most ultimate weakness and divine emptying of the godly remnant will empower the true body for an ultimate corporate fullness and witness that will significantly parallel the 3 1/2 years of His ministry beginning with the baptism of John.

Because of what will have transpired in the first half of the week, the true bride of Christ will have been greatly emptied of the last remains of confidence in the flesh, which is the strength of the veil and what holds the church back from its ordained apostolic fullness. The first half of the week will be very crucially employed to crowd and constrain the church to a place it would never have otherwise been able to go corporately. Thus my analogy, “when you are become of full age, another will gird you and take you where you would not have gone.”

It is the church’s coming through to this glorious weakness and self emptying that will receive the help of Michael. This is in significant analogy to what happened in response to Daniel’s urgency of self abasement and prevailing intercession. This breakthrough in the accomplishment of ultimate things is not only incidental to a fixed time, though it is that too. It is the issue of intercession, the filling up of the prayers of the saints, but not without the deep spiritual travail of intercession and self emptying that will be accomplished in the saints facing the final and ultimate trial, Simply put, as the greater the victory over the residual remains of self reliance in the believer brings the greater manifestation of His power and life, just so, the last great straightening and emptying of the church in the spiritual and prophetic travail that will come especially in the first half the week, will bring the great release of resurrection power and life of Jesus in the corporate seed of the woman, His body. So much that is ultimately transitional and decisive converges at the middle of the week and we need to probe and understand why!

Up until the middle of week, the believing church of God will have been greatly exercised and deeply processed and constrained through mighty displays of prophetic fulfillment and flesh destroying revelation of the truth. This will be in full and sober view of all that is now very near at hand. I call it the great straightening of the church. It is very related conceptually to Paul’s reference to his deep travail till Christ be formed in the wavering Galatians. It is the kind of travail that we see with the heavenly woman. That is true initially in the new birth, yes, but the same dynamic is no less true in principle and pattern in our maturation process and no less in the maturation of Christ in the corporate body as eschatologically anticipated in Eph 4:13. It is all by revelation and grace alone, and nothing of the self determination of well meaning religious zeal. The church, true church, will be profoundly emptied and divested of the last remnant of confidence in the flesh, which is the strength of the veil that hinders and holds back the power of the life of Christ from full manifestation in any believer’s life, but in this case, the corporate body (man child?).

I believe the man child is not only a personal but also a corporate figure. It is not only Jesus, as the ultimate personal seed, but the collective seed of the woman, the people of the Spirit. The sense that the corporate man child is caught up is not, as some have suggested, a pre-trib or mid-trib rapture. The catching up is indeed in the middle of the week in immediate connection with Michael’s dejection of Satan, but it is not of the physical body, since we know it is not the time of the resurrection (Paul puts his own resurrection at the last trumpet with all who are in Christ; 1Cor 15:23, 52). It implies rather a spiritual birth and ascent, comparable to Christ’s own ascension to God’s right hand where every believer arose and ascended with Him, as now ‘sealed and set down’. I think of the way that Jesus could say of Himself that He was presently ‘in heaven’ even as he spoke with Nicodemus on earth.

With Satan’s forcible removal by Michael, heaven has been cleared of the one who hinders, and this is taking place as the church has come through to a corporate fullness through the end of every misplaced, distributed, or mixed confidence. It implies unprecedented freedom and power on a corporate scale not seen since Pentecost. The church has, as it were, ascended, or rather fully grasped and apprehended its ascended position and sealed identity with Christ as sealed and seated at God’s right hand. It is only the old old story, the simple gospel of Christ, but in a much fuller apprehension of things already true but now much more perfectly and powerfully apprehended because of the great and glorious weakness that God has brought His church. It is the ultimate possession of our possessions, as when Paul so greatly groaned to apprehend that for which he was apprehended.

All of this happens on the side of light at nearly or exactly the same time that the mystery of iniquity is being revealed through the casting down of Satan, whereupon the deadly wound is healed, which results in the resurrection of the sea beast as the ultimate incarnation of Satan. The whole book of Revelation, the opening of the seals by Lamb, is all about this final manifestation of the mystery of iniquity that ends the ‘time of the nations’ and finishes the mystery of God (Rev 10:7) in HIs return, which Satan knows better than the church is impossible apart from the birth / resurrection of the Jewish nation (natural branches), and why he goes to exterminate the woman with fevered urgency once he sees his time is short.

Well, this is getting too long again, but you get the idea. I know this will be thought speculative, but while I have some admitted ‘loose ends’ in all I understand of what must converge to accomplish the great transition in the middle of the week, of some things, I am very sure. There is something very transitional and transformative ahead for the church that we must come to together before the last witness, which I love to call, ‘the final thrust’. God has something to prove and demonstrate through His church before He vindicates His covenant publicly in Israel’s return, which at that time will be no less the church of the one new man.

There is also something cosmic and world changing that takes place in heaven and on earth when this already despicable antichrist is revealed as THE Antichrist by what I believe will be a literal, bodily resurrection from the dead. The implications will be seismic.

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On Sat. night you made a remark in passing about the proto-evangel in Genesis. I think you said that the “unpacking” of Gen 3:15 is found in Daniel. I wonder if you could expand on that for me. I’ve been teaching on the everlasting gospel starting there in Genesis and I’d like to hear your perspective as it relates to Daniel.

Hardly enough could be said about Gen 3:15. It is the seed bed, not only of the gospel but of the whole comprehensive mystery of God that is finished with the 7th trumpet (Rev 10:7). The two seeds establish the two lines of men by which the plan of redemption can be traced from beginning to end. It is more than Messiah and Satan. It anticipates the line of the ungodly making up the city of man, mystery Babylon, and the line of the children of the Spirit who are headed up in the Messiah who form corporately the city of God, the heavenly Zion.

These two lines are really two natures, the nature of Satan in fallen man and the nature of God in His saints. These two natures that run through the whole of humanity come to their fullness and perfection in a personal incarnation in the two princes of Dan 9:25-26. Both the seed of the serpent and the woman’s seed are ordained to come to ultimate perfection and final manifestation in a personal incarnation. Paul will speak of the “mystery of godliness” (1Tim 3:16) and its antithesis, the “mystery of iniquity” (2Thes 2:7). The mystery of iniquity that is presently working, comes to final revelation in the ‘man of sin’ after the one who is restraining is removed. As Jesus would be the ultimate Seed of the woman who perfects in His humanity the mystery of godliness, so also the seed of the serpent must come to a similar fullness of Satan in the flesh. Thus, the two princes of Dan 9:25-26 fulfill two distinct mysteries that bound the present age between the two comings of Christ.

As an aside, the “revelation” of the Man of Sin implies something much more than merely identifying who he is by his actions, as popularly taught. Scripture shows many recognizable events that lead up to his abominable act in the temple (Isa 28:15, 18; Dan 8:25; 9:27; 11:21-31). These will identify him well before the time of his ‘revelation’ as the Man of Sin. The revelation of the Man of Sin concerns, not mere identification, but the transitional moment that Satan fully enters the mortally wounded beast as he ascends from the abyss to become the “beast that was, and is not, and yet is” (Rev 11:7; 17:8).

The mystery that I believe the Spirit intends to convey is that the same beast that descends into the abyss upon the event of the mortal wound, ascends with its healing to become the “beast that was, and is not, and yet is.” This means that the 8th beast that “must continue a short space” is none other than the risen 7th. Upon his rising, he becomes the composite beast (Rev 13:2; 17:11), now endowed with “all power” and signs and lying wonders (2Thes 2:9). As uniquely begotten Son was given the Spirit without the measure (Jn 3:34) so that in Him should dwell all the fullness of God (Col 1:19; 2:9), just so, by a miraculous transition, the Antichrist will fill up the full measure and image of his father, the Devil.

By observing the clear parallel between the time that Michael stands up to begin the unequaled tribulation in Dan 12:1, and Michael’s heavenly victory that casts Satan down to earth to begin his ‘short time’ (Rev 12:7, 10, 12), we can see that Satan’s eviction happens at the same time the mortally wounded beast is ascending from the abyss to begin the last 42 months of the desolation of Jerusalem and persecution against the saints (Rev 11:2; 13:5). Manifestly, Satan’s ‘short time’ and the ‘short space’ that the revived beast ‘must continue’ (Rev 12:12; 17:10) is the brief period of the unequaled tribulation.

Michael’s eviction of Satan marks the great transition point in heaven that very closely precedes the abomination of desolation on earth that starts the great tribulation (Dan 9:27; 11:31; 12:1, 11 with Mt 24:15, 21; Rev 12:7-14). If the casting out of Satan and the revival of the mortally wounded beast intersect to bring forth the beast that was, and is not, and yet is, this suggests that the temple is entered by a man who has only very recently risen from the dead. The revelation of the long working mystery of iniquity means that the man of sin now incorporates in himself all the fullness of what the former beasts were only in part, just as Jesus filled up in His holy person all the fullness of God. This is how the ‘prince that shall come’ fulfills the mystery of iniquity as the incarnation of the serpent’s seed, which is necessary before Jesus can return (2Thes 2:3, 7-8). Thus the revelation of the Man of Sin is not merely the point at which he can be identified, but much more particularly the moment that Satan becomes fully incarnated in the revived “beast that was, and is not, and yet is” (Rev 17:8).

Significantly, the time of Satan’s ultimate exposure in the Antichrist, with the casting down of the accuser of the brethren, is also the time that the two witnesses receive power, and not only the two witnesses, but we notice from a number of passages that this is also the same time that a great anointing is shown to rest on maskilim (the wise who have understanding; Dan 11:32-33; 12:3, 10 with Rev 11:3, 12:10-11). It is amazing to contemplate that the most manifest and abundant fulfillment of prophecy since Messiah’s first advent will accompany the greatest empowerment of the church since Pentecost. This will result in the evangelization of a multitude too great to number that will come out of ‘the tribulation, the great one’ (Dan 11:32-33; 12:3 with Rev 7:9, 14).

So the great transition that takes place in heaven affects more than the revelation of the Man of Sin. The casting down of the accuser will also accomplish an unparalleled release of the Spirit and power upon the godly remnant. The first half of the week will have been crucially instrumental in crowding the godly remnant to the kind of intercession that will receive the help of Michael in displacing the one who hinders. Besides ‘the accuser of the brethren’ (Job 2:4; Zech 3:1-2; Rev 12:10), Satan is also called the one who hinders, withstands, or resists (Dan 10:13; Zech 3:1; Ro 1:13 with 1Thes 2:18; 2Thes 2:7).

As you know, it is my view that Satan is the restrainer whose position in heaven is holding back the revelation of the mystery of iniquity, which is holding back the day of the Lord (2Thes 2:2-3, 7-8). So long as his place in heaven can be retained, the day of the Lord cannot come, the kingdom cannot come (Rev 12:10; 11:15), and the mystery of God cannot be finished (Rev 10:7). This is why Satan is in no hurry to bring forth the Antichrist, as popularly supposed.

This is where the church has it turned just around. We tend to think it is Satan’s great ambition to bring forth the Antichrist, but this is the last thing he wants, because his exposure in the Man of Sin will mean that his time is short. (This is why Satan must go after the woman with an urgent and desperate fury when he sees that his time is short, because he knows that the preservation of a remnant from among the Jewish race is indispensable to the public vindication of God’s irrevocable covenant with them.)

Satan’s eviction by Michael in the middle of the week is very much to be compared to the resistance of the demon prince of Persia who “withstood” the angelic messenger until he was taken out of the way by this same Michael (Dan 10:13). Doubtless, this is the background of Paul’s thought on the much disputed question of the identity of the restrainer. It is also strongly confirmed by John’s depiction of Michael’s forceful removal of Satan as a prior necessity before the kingdom of God can fully come on earth with the finishing of the mystery of God (Rev 10:7; 11:15; 12:10).

Notice how the same event that signals great woe to the earth dwellers (Rev 12:12) marks a mighty break-through of heavenly glory and victory for the saints (Rev 12:10-11). “”Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ.” Why? Because the accuser of our brethren is cast down …” (Rev 12:10). Daniel then becomes a type of the ‘maskilim’ (wise / understanding) of the last days (Dan 11:32-33; 12:3, 10) when a pre-determined sequence of foretold events will move the godly remnant to a place of ultimate urgency and intercessory travail that will be answered in Michael’s pre-tribulational victory over Satan. Thus setting in motion the tribulation that MUST precede the day of the Lord and the full coming in of the kingdom of God on earth (Dan 12:1, 11; 2Thes 2:3, 7-8; Rev 12:10; 11:15).

John’s sea beast who rises from the abyss with the healing of the mortal wound (Rev 11:7; 13:1-3; 17:8) who persecutes the saints for 42 months (Rev 13:5), is surely the man of sin who reveals the mystery of iniquity as the incarnation of the serpent’s seed. It is important to see that this trans-historical (Rev 17:10), multi-headed, multi-horned beast is ultimately embodied in a man, I believe a resurrected man, the man of sin.

Those who want to make Jesus the one who confirms the covenant in Dan 9:27 argue that is not the ‘prince that shall come’ but Messiah, the anointed prince who is cut off (Dan 9:26), who stops the sacrifice by His death in the middle of the week. There are a number of problems with this view, not least is the observation that in every other mention throughout the book of Daniel, it is always the evil prince that stops the regular sacrifice (Dan 8:11; 11:31; 12:11). Moreover, the desolation of Jerusalem described in Dan 11:31; 12:11 comes approximately 3 1/2 years before the end in Dan 12:11, and this is consistent with the sacrifice being stopped in the middle of the week. It is particularly inconsistent to make the ‘consummation’ / ‘end’ described in Dan 9:27 to be merely the end of the city in 70 A.D., whereas in every other mention, ‘the end’ has in view the post-tribulational deliverance of Daniel’s people and the resurrection of the dead (Dan 12:1-2, 13; Mt 24:21, 29-31; Rev 12:7-14).

In summary, if the final week of years has in view the Antichrist as “the prince that shall come,” then we must infer a gap between Messiah’s atoning death at the end of the 69th week and His return after the Antichrist has fulfilled the mystery of iniquity in the last half of the 70th week. The first 69 weeks brings us to the beginning of the gospel and the 70th is preserved to bring in His return. If the 70th week concerns the revelation of the mystery of iniquity and the finishing of the transgression, then it is impossible that 70th week could have followed the 69th week in unbroken succession as argued by those who want to make Jesus the one who confirms the covenant and stops the sacrifice. The much maligned “gap” is in perfect keeping with the greater mystery of the gospel, which reveals a hidden age between these two polar mysteries, the mystery of godliness and the mystery of iniquity that bound the present age.

Curiously, Daniel never uses the term, ‘day of the Lord’, but the unequaled tribulation and the “finishing of the transgression” (Dan 8:24; 9:24) is clearly the last stage in Israel’s long history of covenant discipline that ends in the day of the Lord. The age long discipline of the covenant foretold by Moses in Lev 26, Deut 28; 31-32, continues till the new heart is given at a time of “great tribulation” (Deut 4:29-30; 29:4; 30:1-6). The discipline of the covenant does not end with a probationary return to the Land. We see this in the fact that the return from Babylon still looks ahead to a future unequaled tribulation climaxing in the day of the Lord (Jer 30:7; Dan 12:1; Zech 14:1; Mal 4:1). Israel is not assured of secure preservation in the Land until the “bringing in of the “everlasting righteousness” of the “everlasting covenant”(Jer 34:40; Dan 9:24). This righteousness is ‘revealed’ in the gospel (Ro 1:17).

Daniel knew the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and others who spoke of this righteousness that must come before the nation could be established in abiding security in their Land. Jeremiah had shown that in that day when Israel would dwell safely, the righteous Branch, Israel’s King, would be called, “the LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS” (Jer 23:5-6). I believe it is incorrect to suppose that this everlasting righteousness is only brought in at the end of the 70th week. Like “reconciliation for iniquity” (Dan 9:24), the everlasting righteousness came in for the church at the end of the 69th week. It will yet come in for ‘all Israel’ at the end of the tribulation, which, of course, is also the end of the 70th week.

This conforms perfectly to what was foretold by Isaiah in Isa 8:7-14. The teaching would be “bound up and sealed among my disciples” until God’s face is no longer hidden from the house of Jacob. Note that the face of God remains hidden from Jacob until the Spirit is poured out at the great day of the Lord (Eze 39:22, 29; Zech 12:10; Joel 2:28-29; 3:1-2, 16-17, 21). While the greater part of Israel would stumble, the mystery of the kingdom and the gospel (the sealed vision) would be revealed to the believing disciples, who await its revelation to the surviving remnant of Israel at the post-tribulational day of the Lord. It is that unveiling that births the nation ‘at once’ and ‘in one day’ at the end of a final time of national travail and great affliction (Deut 4:29-30; Isa 13:6-8; 26:17-18; 66:8; Mic 5:3; Hos 5:15; Jer 30:6-7; with Eze 39:22; Zech 3:9; 12:10; Mt 23:39; 24:30; Acts 3:21; Ro 11:26; Rev 1:7). The redemption of Israel is inextricably bound to the hope of resurrection (Ro 11:15), as all roads lead to that great transition called, day of the Lord, which the NT treats as a synonym for Christ’s return.

We see in Rev 12 that the seed of the woman is both corporate and personal. It is therefore a great error to limit the woman’s travail to Mary, or the man child only to Jesus. The figure of the woman and the man child is far more sweeping, envisioning, not only the personal Seed, but the corporate seed of the woman which includes not only the spiritual seed, but also the physical seed through whom alone the promise of the everlasting covenant can be fulfilled in an all holy Jewish nation as the theocratic head of the nations.

The end of the covenant that will realize the return of the natural branches (Ro 11:27) envisions the glorious convergence of the earthly and heavenly Zion at Christ’s return. The woman is an inclusive figure that includes the elect nation, I would say, even in its unbelief as the abiding object of an irrevocable election, and also the believing ‘remnant of her seed who keep the commandments of Jesus’. Thus, the woman represents both Israel and the church, as the righteous remnant within the still elect nation.

Now notice a great mystery: Isa 66:7-8 shows the astonishing anomaly of the birth of a man child BEFORE the woman travails. Then, only AFTER Zion’s travail, the nation is born in one day.

“Before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child. Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children.”

This is the riddle that Rev 12 will solve. If we understand the woman to represent both the heavenly and the earthly Zion, we see that it is the heavenly Zion that brings forth the man child BEFORE the great tribulation. This stands in marked contrast to the earthly Zion whom Satan tries to exterminate before the covenant can be fulfilled in their return (Isa 59:21; Ro 11:27). Hence, there is one travail of the woman before the tribulation, and there is another travail of the woman that ‘IS’ the tribulation. It is only “when Zion travails’ that a nation is born in one day (Isa 66:8). This is in marked contrast to the ‘pre-tribulational’ travail that births the man chid BEFORE the pain of Israel comes in what is clearly the great tribulation (Isa 66:7 with Rev 12:1, 5-6). Obviously, the birth of the nation in one day refers to the post-tribulational day of the Lord, not May 14, 1948, as popularly taught.

The post The Two Seeds appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

On Sat. night you made a remark in passing about the Proto-Evangelium [“the first gospel”] in Genesis. I think you said that the “unpacking” of Gen.3:15 is found in Daniel. I wonder if you could expand on that for me. I’ve been teaching on the everlasting gospel starting there in Genesis and I’d like to hear your perspective as it relates to Daniel.

Hardly enough could be said about Gen 3:15. It is the seed bed, not only of the gospel but of the whole comprehensive mystery of God that is finished with the 7th trumpet (Rev 10:7). The two seeds establish the two lines of men by which the plan of redemption can be traced from beginning to end. It is more than Messiah and Satan. It anticipates the line of the ungodly making up the city of man, mystery Babylon, and the line of the children of the Spirit who are headed up in the Messiah who form corporately the city of God, the heavenly Zion.

These two lines are really two natures, the nature of Satan in fallen man and the nature of God in His saints. These two natures that run through the whole of humanity come to their fullness and perfection in a personal incarnation in the two princes of Dan 9:25-26. Paul will speak of the “mystery of godliness” (1Tim 3:16) and its antithesis, the “mystery of iniquity” (2Thes 2:7). The mystery of iniquity that is presently working, comes to final revelation in the ‘man of sin’ after the one who is restraining is removed.

As Jesus would be the ultimate Seed of the woman who perfects in His humanity the mystery of godliness, so also the seed of the serpent must come to a similar fullness of Satan in the flesh. As the uniquely begotten Son was given the Spirit without the measure (Jn 3:34) so that in Him should dwell all the fullness of God (Col 1:19; 2:9), just so, by a miraculous transition, the Antichrist will likewise fill up the full measure and image of his father, the Devil. Thus, the two princes of Dan 9:25-26 fulfill two distinct mysteries that bound the age between the 69th and 70th weeks of Daniel.

We must understand that the “revelation” of the Man of Sin implies something much more than merely identifying him by his actions, as usually understood. Scripture reveals a number of recognizable events that lead up to his abominable act in the temple that will identify him well before his ‘revelation’ as the Man of Sin (Isa 28:15, 18; Dan 8:25; 9:27; 11:21-31). The ‘revelation’ of the Man of Sin signifies that transitional moment that Satan fully enters the mortally wounded beast as he ascends from the abyss to become the “beast that was, and is not, and yet is” (Rev 11:7; 17:8).

The mystery that I believe the Spirit intends to convey is that the same beast that descends into the abyss upon the event of the mortal wound, ascends to become ‘the beast that was, and is not, and yet is’ (Rev 11:7; 13:14; 17:8, 11). Upon his ascent from the abyss, he becomes the composite beast who now embodies the fullness of that spirit / nature of Satan that was only partially seen in the former beast kingdoms (Rev 13:2; 17:11). This mystery is that all of this is now concentrated in a man (Rev 13:18),  as now endowed with “all power and signs and lying wonder” (2Thes 2:9).

In what follows, I want to show that the one who begins as a ‘despicable’ person (in God’s eyes), and who comes in disarmingly to obtain the kingdom, not by war or by ordinary means of succession, but by deceit and blandishment (Dan 8:25; 11:21, 23), is the same leader (scripture calls him a king) who will rise from the dead. This supreme demonic miracle (ordained by God as necessary before Christ can return) will move the whole of the unsaved world to marvel as they “behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is” (Rev 13:3; 17:8).

The miraculous healing of the head wound is further described as an ascent up out of the abyss (Rev 11:7; 17:8).  Obviously, the mortal wound is the descent; its healing is the ascent. I believe this is the strong delusion that God has determined to send on those who have already manifested a determined and resolute hatred for the truth (2Thes 2:11). It will mean irreversible reprobation (Rev 14:9-11), the point of no return.

A comparison of Dan 12:1 with Rev 12:7-14 makes clear that the unequaled tribulation starts when Michael stands to cast Satan down to earth. Plainly, the eviction of Satan intersects in time with the ascent of the Antichrist from the abyss with the healing of the mortal wound (Rev 13:3, 12; 17:10). At the same time, or nearly the same time, the abomination is being placed in Jerusalem to begin the tribulation (Dan 9:27; 12:11; Mt 24:15-16, 21; 2Thes 2:4; Rev 11:2).

Whether this demonic resurrection takes place very shortly before his invasion of Israel, or shortly upon his forcible arrival in the city is an open question. It has been reasonably suggested that this miracle of resurrection is how he is able to secure the unified cooperation of the ten kings in the ‘secretly planned’ assault on Jerusalem that finds Israel off guard, dwelling securely under the false presumption of lasting peace (Isa 28:15, 18; Eze 38:8-9; Dan 8:25; 11:23, 27-31 with 1Thes 5:3).

Notice the relation between Satan’s expulsion and the coming of the kingdom in Rev 12:10. Why is it that the kingdom does not come in all its fullness until Satan is cast down? I believe it is for the same reason that the day of the Lord cannot come until the one who is restraining is taken out of the way. The removal of Satan as the one who hinders (1Thes 2:18) permits the mystery of iniquity to be revealed in the man of sin as the personal embodiment of the beast that returns from the mortal wound. This alone explains why all of heaven rejoices with such great jubilation over an event that will mean such woe and suffering for the earth (Rev 12:10-12).

When scripture is carefully compared, it becomes apparent that this will be realized through a miracle of death and resurrection that will cause the entire unsaved world to “wonder when they behold the beast who was, and is not, and yet is” (Rev 13:3: 17:8). Nothing else is so well calculated to so powerfully deceive the multitudes. It is a divine judgment for those who have not received the love of the truth, particularly in the face of such abundant evidence from prophecy that we know will be declared under great anointing at that time (2Thes 2:11; Rev 13:3-4, 14 with Mt 24:14; Rev 12:10; Dan 11:33; 11:2; Isa 28:11-12).

Many interpret the healing of the wound as the resurrection of one of the kingdoms of antiquity, such as Rome or the Ottoman Empire. It is hard to see how something as gradual and naturally explained as the revival of a former world kingdom could so well account for the kind of deception that such an astonishing miracle will send upon the world of the unsaved. Furthermore, the revival of a former kingdom would hardly require the casting down of Satan, whereas Satan is very committed to resist a forced entrance into the body of Antichrist, since the revelation of the mystery of iniquity will mean that is time is short (2Thes 2:3, 7-8; Rev 12:12).

This explains why the mortal wound in one of the beast’s heads so nearly appropriates the language of Gen 3:15. As much as Satan was fatally wounded at the cross, the death of the Antichrist (by the mortal wound) is significantly timed in relation to Michael’s enforcement in heaven of the victory of calvary. For this cause, the death of the Antichrist means the end of  Satan’s tenure over the nations, because his resurrection will mean the soon end of the composite beast (Dan 7:11; 2Thes 2:8) through which Satan has ruled over the nations as the god of this age.

All the evidence points in the direction that the desecration of the temple at Jerusalem is in close connection with the casting down of Satan, which results in the resurrection of the Antichrist. It must not be missed that Satan’s casting down is in close, I would say immediate, connection to the healing of the mortal wound, which the best reading of the evidence shows to be the actual resurrection of the man of sin.

Whereas it is true that the beast who speaks great words, persecutes the saints, and kills the two witness at the end of the 3 1/2 years (Rev 11:2-3; 13:5), is represented as a man (Dan 7:8; 11:21, 36-37; 2Thes 2:4; Rev 13:18), he is much more. He belongs to a multi-headed, multi-horned composite beast (Rev 13:2; 17:10-11) that reaches back across all the great, God opposing kingdoms of the biblical record. Clearly, Rome is the 6th head of this beast, as contemporary to the apostle John who received the Revelation in the first century A.D. (Rev 17:9-10). From John’s place in time, only one more head remains, and it will continue only a ‘short space’ (Rev 17:10). How then does the Spirit speak of an 8th?

The riddle is solved when we understand that the 8th head that goes into perdition is the risen 7th who “was, and is not, and yet is” (Rev 17:8, 10). In this way, the 7th and last head continues a ‘short space’ as the 8th, since the 8th is manifestly the return of the 7th. After continuing the ‘short space’ (the 42 months), the 8th beast, as the risen 7th, goes into perdition. Notice that the beast is cast into the lake of fire one thousand years before ‘the rest of the dead’ (Rev 20:5) or even Satan (Rev 20:10-15).

As the eighth, he incorporates in a single individual all the power of evil that has been behind the great world kingdoms of the gentiles that have usurped and resisted the promised rule of God over all the earth.  As Satan manifest in the flesh, the risen man of sin becomes the ultimate embodiment of that composite, trans-historical beast, that has been the instrument through which Satan has exercised his rule over the nations until the times of the gentiles be fulfilled.

As much as Michael’s casting down of Satan marks the great transition point in heaven that has its counterpart in the abomination of desolation on earth to begin the tribulation (Dan 9:27; 11:31; 12:1, 11 with Mt 24:15, 21; Rev 12:7-14). And as much as we believe that Satan’s expulsion intersects with the healing of the deadly wound, we have before us compelling evidence that the temple of God at Jerusalem is entered by a man who has only very recently risen from the dead.

The revelation of the long working mystery of iniquity means that the man of sin now incorporates in himself all the fullness of what the former beasts were only in part, just as Jesus filled up in His holy person all the fullness of God. This is how the ‘prince that shall come’ fulfills the mystery of iniquity as the incarnation of the serpent’s seed, which is necessary before Jesus can return (2Thes 2:3, 7-8). Thus the revelation of the Man of Sin is not merely the point at which he can be identified, but much more particularly the moment that Satan becomes fully incarnated in the revived “beast that was, and is not, and yet is” (Rev 17:8).

Significantly, the time of Satan’s ultimate exposure in the Antichrist, with the casting down of the accuser of the brethren, is also the time that the two witnesses receive power, and not only the two witnesses, but we notice from a number of passages that this is also the same time that a great anointing is shown to rest on the maskilim (the wise who have understanding; Dan 11:32-33; 12:3, 10 with Rev 11:3, 12:10-11). It is amazing to contemplate that the most manifest and abundant fulfillment of prophecy since Messiah’s first advent will accompany the greatest empowerment of the church since Pentecost. This will result in the evangelization of a multitude too great to number that will come out of ‘the tribulation, the great one’ (Dan 11:32-33; 12:3 with Rev 7:9, 14).

So the great transition that takes place in heaven affects much more than the revelation of the Man of Sin. The casting down of the accuser will also accomplish an unparalleled release of the Spirit and power upon the godly remnant. The first half of the week will have been crucially instrumental in crowding the godly remnant to the kind of intercession that will receive the intervention of Michael who will accomplish the final removal of Satan from his position in heaven as the one who hinders the revelation of the mystery of iniquity and by so much, the coming of the kingdom (compare 2Thes 2:7 with Rev 10:7; 11:15; 12:10). Notably, Michael’s removal of Satan as an obstruction to the full coming in of the kingdom (Rev 12:10) is very much to be compared to the removal of the opposing prince of Persia who stood to resist the mighty revelation that was fighting to break through in answer to Daniel’s prayer (Dan 10:10,12-14).

[Note: Besides ‘the accuser of the brethren’ (Job 2:4; Zech 3:1-2; Rev 12:10), Satan is also called the one who hinders, withstands, or resists (Dan 10:13; Zech 3:1; Ro 1:13 with 1Thes 2:18; 2Thes 2:7).]

As you know, it is my view that Satan is the restrainer whose position in heaven is holding back the revelation of the mystery of iniquity, which is holding back the day of the Lord (2Thes 2:2-3, 7-8). So long as his place in heaven can be retained, the day of the Lord cannot come, the kingdom cannot come (Rev 12:10; 11:15), and the mystery of God cannot be finished (Rev 10:7). This is why Satan is in no hurry to bring forth the Antichrist, as popularly supposed.

This is where we have it turned just around. We naturally tend to think it is Satan’s great ambition to bring forth the Antichrist. But this is the last thing he wants, since his full exposure in the Man of Sin will mean that from that time, his time is short (Rev 12:12). His power over the nations is at an end. (This is why he goes after the woman with an urgent and desperate fury. He knows that the preservation of a remnant from among the Jewish race is indispensable to the public vindication of God’s irrevocable covenant with them; Isa 59:21; Ro 11:27.)

Satan’s eviction by Michael in the middle of the week is very much to be compared to the resistance of the demon prince of Persia who “withstood” the angelic messenger until he was taken out of the way by Michael (Dan 10:13). Doubtless, this is the background of Paul’s thought on the much disputed question of the identity of the restrainer. It is also strongly confirmed by John’s depiction of Michael’s forceful removal of Satan as a prior necessity before the kingdom of God can fully come on earth with the finishing of the mystery of God (Rev 10:7; 11:15; 12:10).

Notice how the same event that signals great woe to the earth dwellers (Rev 12:12) marks a mighty break-through of heavenly glory and victory for the saints (Rev 12:10-11). “”Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ.” Why? Because the accuser of our brethren is cast down …” (Rev 12:10). Daniel then becomes a type of the ‘maskilim’ (wise / understanding) of the last days (Dan 11:32-33; 12:3, 10) when a pre-determined sequence of foretold events will move the godly remnant to a place of ultimate urgency and intercessory travail that will be answered in Michael’s intervention.

It is clearly NOT the false prophet, but John’s sea beast who rises from the abyss with the healing of the mortal wound (Rev 11:7; 13:1-3; 17:8). It is he who reveals the mystery of iniquity as the incarnation of the serpent’s seed. It is important to see that this trans-historical (Rev 17:10), multi-headed, multi-horned beast is ultimately embodied in a man, I believe a resurrected man, the man of sin. So which prince takes away the daily sacrifice? That is the question that will decide whether we can say that the ‘coming prince’ of Dan 9:26 is the man of sin, and not some other, such as Antiochus IV, as suggested by Jewish scholars, or Titus, as suggested by most Christian scholars of replacement orientation? The answer to this question will decide whether the 70th week of Daniel followed the 69th in unbroken succession, or whether we must see a gap between the death of Christ and the advent and career of Antichrist.

Those who want to make Jesus the one who confirms the covenant in Dan 9:27 argue that is not the ‘prince that shall come’ but Messiah, the anointed prince who is cut off (Dan 9:26), who stops the sacrifice by His death in the middle of the week. There are a number of problems with this view, not least is the observation that in every other mention throughout the book of Daniel, it is always the evil prince that stops the regular sacrifice (Dan 8:11; 11:31; 12:11). Moreover, the desolation of Jerusalem described in Dan 11:31; 12:11 comes approximately 3 1/2 years before the end in Dan 12:11, and this is consistent with the sacrifice being stopped in the middle of the week. It is particularly inconsistent to make the ‘consummation’ / ‘end’ described in Dan 9:27 to be merely the end of the city in 70 A.D., whereas in every other mention, ‘the end’ has in view the post-tribulational deliverance of Daniel’s people and the resurrection of the dead (Dan 12:1-2, 13; Mt 24:21, 29-31; Rev 12:7-14).

In summary, if the final week of years has in view the Antichrist as “the prince that shall come”, then we must infer a gap between Messiah’s atoning death at the end of the 69th week and His return to destroy the Antichrist at the end of the 70th week. As the first 69 weeks brings us to the revelation of the gospel with the cutting off of the anointed prince (Dan 9:26), the 70th is preserved to bring in His return after the mystery of iniquity has been revealed in the ‘prince that shall come’. Therefore, it is no more possible for the 69th week to have followed the 70th week in unbroken succession than for the advent and career of Antichrist to have followed immediately upon the death of Jesus. To infer a gap between these two antithetical mysteries of incarnation is in perfect keeping with ‘mystery of the gospel’, which reveals a heretofore hidden age between the two advents of Christ. This is the mystery that so profoundly tested Israel, over which all but the elect would stumble.

Curiously, Daniel never uses the term, ‘day of the Lord’, but the unequaled tribulation and the “finishing of the transgression” (Dan 8:24; 9:24) is clearly the last stage in Israel’s long history of covenant discipline that ends in the day of the Lord. The age long discipline of the covenant foretold by Moses in Lev 26, Deut 28; 31-32, continues till the new heart is given at a time of “great tribulation” (Deut 4:29-30; 29:4; 30:1-6). The discipline of the covenant does not end with a probationary return to the Land. We see this in the fact that the return from Babylon still looks ahead to a future unequaled tribulation climaxing in the day of the Lord (Jer 30:7; Dan 12:1; Zech 14:1; Mal 4:1). Israel is not assured of secure preservation in the Land until the “bringing in of the “everlasting righteousness” of the “everlasting covenant” (Jer 34:40; Dan 9:24). This righteousness is ‘revealed’ in the gospel (Ro 1:17).

Daniel knew the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and others who spoke of this righteousness that must come before the nation could be established in abiding security in their Land. Jeremiah had shown that in that day when Israel would dwell safely, the righteous Branch, Israel’s King, would be called, “the LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS” (Jer 23:5-6). I believe it is incorrect to suppose that this everlasting righteousness is only brought in at the end of the 70th week. Like “reconciliation for iniquity” (Dan 9:24), the everlasting righteousness came in for the church at the end of the 69th week. It will yet come in for ‘all Israel’ at the end of the tribulation, which, of course, is also the end of the 70th week.

This conforms perfectly to what was foretold by Isaiah in Isa 8:14-17. The teaching would be “bound up and sealed among my disciples” until God’s face is no longer hidden from the house of Jacob. Note that the face of God remains hidden from Jacob until the Spirit is poured out at the great day of the Lord (Eze 39:22, 29; Zech 12:10; Joel 2:28-29; 3:1-2, 16-17, 21). While the greater part of Israel would stumble, the mystery of the kingdom and the gospel (the sealed vision) would be revealed to the believing disciples, who await its revelation to the surviving remnant of Israel at the post-tribulational day of the Lord. It is that unveiling that births the nation ‘at once’ and ‘in one day’ at the end of a final time of national travail and great affliction (Deut 4:29-30; Isa 13:6-8; 26:17-18; 66:8; Mic 5:3; Hos 5:15; Jer 30:6-7; with Eze 39:22; Zech 3:9; 12:10; Mt 23:39; 24:30; Acts 3:21; Ro 11:26; Rev 1:7). The redemption of Israel is inextricably bound to the hope of resurrection (Ro 11:15), as all roads lead to that great transition called, day of the Lord, which the NT treats as a synonym for Christ’s return.

We see in Rev 12 that the seed of the woman is both corporate and personal. It is therefore a great error to limit the woman’s travail to Mary, or the man child only to Jesus. The figure of the woman and the man child is far more sweeping, envisioning, not only the personal Seed, but the corporate seed of the woman which includes not only the spiritual seed, but also the physical seed through whom alone the promise of the everlasting covenant can be fulfilled in an all holy Jewish nation as the theocratic head of the nations.

The end of the covenant that will realize the return of the natural branches (Ro 11:27) envisions the glorious convergence of the earthly and heavenly Zion at Christ’s return. The woman is an inclusive figure that includes the elect nation, I would say, even in its unbelief as the abiding object of an irrevocable election, and also the believing ‘remnant of her seed who keep the commandments of Jesus’. Thus, the woman represents both Israel and the church, as the righteous remnant within the still elect nation.

Now notice a great mystery: Isa 66:7-8 shows the astonishing anomaly of the birth of a man child BEFORE the woman travails. Then, only AFTER Zion’s travail, the nation is born in one day.

“Before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child. Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children.”

This is the riddle that Rev 12 will solve. If we understand the woman to represent both the heavenly and the earthly Zion, we see that it is the heavenly Zion that brings forth the man child BEFORE the great tribulation. This stands in marked contrast to the earthly Zion whom Satan tries to exterminate before the covenant can be fulfilled in their return (Isa 59:21; Ro 11:27). Hence, there is one travail of the woman before the tribulation, and there is another travail of the woman that ‘IS’ the tribulation. It is only “when Zion travails’ that a nation is born in one day (Isa 66:8). This is in marked contrast to the ‘pre-tribulational’ travail that births the man chid BEFORE the pain of Israel comes in what is clearly the great tribulation (Isa 66:7 with Rev 12:1, 5-6). Obviously, the birth of the nation in one day refers to the post-tribulational day of the Lord, not May 14, 1948, as popularly taught.

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