The following is an edited version of the lecture given on 26th August, 2006 in the series entitled "In the Beginning."   Return, O backsliding children,' says the LORD; 'for I am married to you.    (Jeremiah 3:14)   Be Fruitful and Multiply; Fill the EarthSo the LORD God said to the serpent: "Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. And 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." To the woman He said: "I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; in pain you shall bring forth children; your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you." Then to Adam He said, "Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat of it': cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you shall return." And Adam called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.  (Genesis 3:14-20)   In Genesis chapter 2 verse 7 it says, "The LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being." Then, God said to the man, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die" (Verses 16-17).   Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."  (Genesis 1:26-28)   If you read through from chapter 1 to chapter 2 of Genesis, you may be aware that chapter 2 appears to be an extension of chapter 1. This is because at the beginning of chapter 2 it says that on the seventh day God rested. It is very important to understand, however, that the content of chapter 2 from verse 4 where it says, "This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens," right through to the end of the chapter blend in with the events that we read about in chapter 1, particularly in regard to the sixth day.On the sixth day of the creation, God created the man and the woman in His own image (See Genesis 1:24-31). In Genesis chapter 2 we find that when Adam saw the woman that God made for him, he said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh" (Verse 23). Then God commanded the two of them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth"(Genesis 1:28). He gave them this command so that they would bring children into the world. From time to time on the news these days we hear reports of how the birthrate is on the decrease in Korea. Of course, if a couple are physically unable to have children, that cannot be helped, but the command to be fruitful and multiply was the first law that God gave to mankind as soon as He created us, and yet many people are living contrary to this law. God said, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it," and, "Have dominion over all things." Such is the authority that God gave to man.   The Land that Was CursedIn Genesis chapter 3, there is something that God said before He cursed man.   So the LORD God said to the serpent: "Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life.  (Verse 14)   God said to the serpent, "You are cursed more than all cattle and more than every beast of the field." It was not only the serpent that was cursed; all cattle and every beast of the field were also cursed, but the serpent was cursed more than the others. Why was this? It was man who had been commanded not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and man who had disobeyed this command, so how did it come about that the cattle and all the beasts of the field were also cursed? Now let's take a look at verse 17.   Then to Adam He said, "Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat of it': "Cursed is the ground for your sake."   This came about because man disobeyed God's word and ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The ground was cursed. Also, in verse 14, which we read earlier, it says that the serpent was to eat dust all the days of its life. When Adam disobeyed God's command not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God spoke these words of a curse to the serpent, the woman, and Adam. Hidden away within these words, we find prophecies regarding matters that would take place in the far distant future and tremendous incidents that would take place in the history that began to unfold from this point on. Also, as the image of the nation by the name of Israel is revealed to the world here, there is a suggestion of the many incidents that this nation would have to go through in the course of their history.  In the letter to the Ephesians, it says that God had prepared one particular body before the foundation of the earth -before God created the heavens and the earth (See Ephesians 1:4-5). This was the predestination of the Church. There is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit who make up the Holy Trinity. In His heart, this triunal God was preparing the history of the Church through which He would form a partner in love for God the Son. This is what was predestined. If you read the letters to the Ephesians and the Colossians, you will find that this is the Church that was predestined. This is very different from the theory of predestination, which claims that certain individuals who have been predestined will automatically go to heaven whether or not they believe in God and whether or not they commit sins in the course of their lives. The predestination to be found in the Bible is not a matter of individuals but of the Church. The Church is a body made up of all the Christians who have been born again in this world from the day of Pentecost until now. If we are not careful, it is easy for us to think that God also predestined Israel from the beginning, but let's think about the passage from Genesis chapter 3 verse 14, continuing through into chapter 4 and the events that later surrounded Abraham. God said to Adam, "Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat of it'"(Genesis 3:17), and He said to the serpent, "I will put enmity ... between your seed and her Seed" (Genesis 3:15). If there is one point that we can see through verses like this, it is the heart of God the Father when He went out to look for Adam, calling out, "Adam, where are you?" after Adam had eaten the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This was the heart of a father searching for his long-lost son. There is nothing that can be compared with the heart of God as He went in search of man. It was in the course of all this that the plan for the nation by the name of Israel began to be formed.   Israel, the Seed of the Woman  And 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)   Since it says "the Seed of the woman" here, you may think this woman is Mary. This is because Jesus was born to this woman who had never experienced any kind of physical relationship with a man. This is definitely true, but if we read through the Old Testament very carefully, we find that an image of a woman is presented there. This woman is Israel.In the book of Jeremiah, we find that the frustrations in God's heart regarding Israel in the north and Judah in the south are expressed through the words of the prophet Jeremiah.   The LORD said also to me in the days of Josiah the king: "Have you seen what backsliding Israel has done? She has gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree, and there played the harlot. And I said, after she had done all these things, 'Return to Me.' But she did not return. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it.  (Jeremiah 3:6-7)   When it says Judah here, it does not mean the individual by the name of Judah who appears in Genesis; it means the land of Judah.   "Then I saw that for all the causes for which backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a certificate of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but went and played the harlot also. So it came to pass, through her casual harlotry, that she defiled the land and committed adultery with stones and trees. And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah has not turned to Me with her whole heart, but in pretense," says the LORD. Then the LORD said to me, "Backsliding Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah. Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say: 'Return, backsliding Israel,' says the LORD; 'I will not cause My anger to fall on you. For I am merciful,' says the LORD; 'I will not remain angry forever. Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against the LORD your God, and have scattered your charms to alien deities under every green tree, and you have not obeyed My voice,' says the LORD. 'Return, O backsliding children,' says the LORD; 'for I am married to you.'"  (Jeremiah 3:8-14)   The land of Israel in the north and the land of Judah in the south, which consisted of the tribes of Benjamin and Judah, make up the land that is now called Israel. Israel in the north was destroyed first, when it was invaded by the Assyrians (in 722 BC). After that, in 586 BC, Judah was also destroyed when the people living in that land were taken as captives to Babylon. It was at a point in time when this complicated series of events was drawing to a close -about 600 years BC- that God moved the man by the name of Jeremiah to write these words.Here in verse 14, however, it says, "'Return, O backsliding children,' says the LORD; 'for I am married to you.'" As people living in the age of the Church, we read in the Bible that the Church is being built up in this world as the body of Christ. And we know that the relationship between a man and a woman in this world is a shadow of the relationship between Jesus Christ and the Church. In passages from the Bible like the letter to the Ephesians, we can read about the relationship between a man and a woman. Nevertheless, the relationship between God and the nation of Israel, as it appears in the Old Testament before the day of Pentecost, is presented in the Bibl

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