Sabbathought: The Seed of the Woman (Christmas message I)

The Christmas Story begins many eons ago in the courts of heaven when One stepped forward and said, "Here am I, send me". The One was Jehovah, the Firstborn of the Father, who was born into mortality as Jesus Christ, to be the Redeemer of all mankind.

Why was a redeemer even necessary? Because the purpose behind the plan was for mankind to become as their heavenly parents living in a fullness of joy forever. Such a result is not easily achieved. It would take a real test with real trials and real experiences. Because of their agency, many would fail and fall short of the quest. All would need a rescue from the depths of this hard experience.

Another offered himself but on his terms, easier terms, a guaranteed salvation. But such is not possible, for that would have destroyed the agency of man, and all would have been for nought.

The setting of earth life must be a veiled one, a forgetting of former glories and joys, a reduction in capacity and abilities. It would take a Fall to provide the right setting.

Thus the Creation---Fall---and subsequent Atonement become the three great doctrinal pillars of the eternal plan of our God for the salvation and joy of His children.

It is in this context that we find in Genesis chapter 3 the first earthly clue of this Redeemer, the mortal beginnings of the Christmas Story. It is in verse 15, and the key phrase is found as the Lord God curses the rebel Satan, whose scheme was rejected in the premortal council, and who has now conspired in the Garden of Eden to thwart the plan by causing the Fall of Adam and Eve.

Satan "knew not the mind of God" and that the Fall was necessary, planned, and inevitable. He thought he was frustrating the plan. Not so. The Fall was foreordained, deliberate, and preconceived as we know from the doctrine that Jesus is the Lamb prepared and "slain from [before] the foundation of the world".

In the cursing of Satan the Lord pronounces that He will put enmity [antagonism, hostility] between Satan and the woman, and between Satan's seed [followers] and her seed.

In all of the human family there is but One who can qualify as "her seed"---the seed of the woman. It is Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, of one who never knew a man before she conceived this Child. Jesus is the seed of the woman. All the rest of us are the seed of man and woman, showing that we are direct heirs of the fall of our father Adam; Jesus was not.

This is the Doctrine of Divine Sonship. It is the foundation truth of the gospel. Even the Atonement itself grows out of it. Unless Jesus is God---even the direct Son of God---conceived directly by God the Father---He could not perform the exquisite and essential atonement.

Our verse in Genesis 3 goes on to say that this seed of the woman shall bruise [crush, grind, overpower] the head of the serpent, Satan, and all the evil he stands for and sponsors.

This is the beginning of the Christmas Story. Our Christmas carols are full of this doctrine, as we shall discuss this month, as also our sacrament hymns are. It is all one story of Creation---Fall---Atonement. Because we were present in the original councils and courts on high we carry a vague memory of this story into mortality with us. This is why the human heart rejoices over the Christmas Season. The Hebrew cry, "Hosanna!"---shouted by the throngs as Jesus entered Jerusalem on the donkey---means "Save us now!"

We all shout in our hearts, Hosanna! Save us now! O Lord. It is difficult, though possible, to smother in the human heart these instinctive feelings. The Christmas Story kindles and emblazes them anew. A regular and humble study of the sacred word of God can eventually bring the same feeling throughout the year and years of mortality.

A final thought to summarize these doctrines: it makes all the difference whether we see ourselves as mortal beings having an occasional spiritual experience, or as eternal spirits enduring a necessary mortal experience. As we sense and grasp the doctrine it becomes more and more clear that in truth we are eternal beings, struck from the spark of our God, undergoing an often painful, but deeply purposeful mortal experience. This view gives added hope to our quest to become like Him in the end.

Happy Christmas!

Steve