I John 3: 8
In this chapter we are continuing to cite from Elder Lemuel Potter's 1880 booklet titled ""UNCONDITIONAL ELECTION STATED AND DEFINED; OR, A DENIAL OF THE DOCTRINE OF ETERNAL CHILDREN, OR TWO SEEDS IN THE FLESH" and can be read (here). It is a lengthy treatise and much of it is repetitious and not very well organized and we are only citing those portions of it that have substance. The web site above is from the web page of the "Primitive Baptist Library" and does not format Potter's writings against Two Seedism very well. His pamphlet were copies of articles he wrote in his church paper "The Church Advocate." In the pamphlet Potter listed eleven doctrinal tenets that are held to by Two Seeders, though there were disagreements among Two Seeders. Having already considered articles one through six, we will in this chapter begin with tenet number seven. Potter wrote, giving us the following citation from a Two Seeder:
"7. "Hence I will say without any fear of successful contradiction from the Word of God, that if the greatly multiplied stood in Adam before the curse was pronounced in consequence of the transgression, the non-elect are safe, for what God blessed in Adam He could not curse; for James informs us that every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." - Herald of Truth, by M. Loveridge, Vol. 3, p. 5."
By "the greatly multiplied" there is reference to that Two Seed tenet that says that a result of Satan sowing his seed in Adam or Eve, that God multiplied the human seed, so that now not only will the children of God be born into the human race, but a host of other humans of the seed of Satan, and that this is what is implied in God saying to Eve that he would "multiply" her "sorrow" and "conception." (Gen. 3: 16) However, that may not be what the text says. On that text the learned Dr. John Gill wrote:
"I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception, or "thy sorrow of thy conception" (a), or rather "of thy pregnancy" (b); since not pain but pleasure is perceived in conception, and besides is a blessing; but this takes in all griefs and sorrows, disorders and pains, from the time of conception or pregnancy, unto the birth; such as a nausea, a loathing of food, dizziness, pains in the head and teeth, faintings and swoonings, danger of miscarriage, and many distresses in such a case..." (Commentary)
Of course, when the Lord said this to Eve it was not intended for Eve alone, as if she alone would suffer travails in conception. Rather, Eve stands for all women who become pregnant and who are thus cursed as a result of her sin and that of her husband Adam.
Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges gives this commentary:
"...thy conception] Lat. conceptus tuos. But LXX τὸν στεναγμόν σου = “thy groaning,” according to a reading which differs by a very slight change in two Hebrew letters. This is preferred by some commentators..."
Pulpit Commentary says: "A hendiadys for "the sorrow of thy conception" (Gesenius, Bush)."
However, Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament says:
"I will greatly multiply (הרבּה is the inf. abs. for הרבּה, which had become an adverb: vid., Ewald, 240c, as in Genesis 16:10 and Genesis 22:17) thy sorrow and thy pregnancy: in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children." As the increase of conceptions, regarded as the fulfilment of the blessing to "be fruitful and multiply" (Genesis 1:28), could be no punishment, והרנך must be understood as in apposition to עצּבונך thy sorrow (i.e., the sorrows peculiar to a woman's life), and indeed (or more especially) thy pregnancy (i.e., the sorrows attendant upon that condition). The sentence is not rendered more lucid by the assumption of a hendiadys. "That the woman should bear children was the original will of God; but it was a punishment that henceforth she was to bear them in sorrow, i.e., with pains which threatened her own life as well as that of the child" (Delitzsch)."
It is possible that the oracle does mean that the number of children to be born will be greater because of sin. The Lord told Adam and Eve to "be fruitful and multiply" (Gen. 1: 28), and this before they had sinned. So when the Lord pronounced the curse on woman, saying he would "multiply" her "conception," he may have meant that she would be more fruitful and multiply, but if so it would have to be a cursed consequence and not a blessed one. It does not seem right to think that the blessing of being "fruitful" would be enhanced by the apostasy of Adam and Eve. Recall that the Psalmist said: "Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them (children)" (127: 5 nkjv). So, it is incongruent to say that Eve's punishment would be to have more children. It seems, therefore, that the right interpretation is as the commentators indicate, as previously cited, which say that the text means that Eve and women would have multiplied travail in birthing children.
That is not to deny, however, that Eve's sin would also often cause abortions, deformed offspring, etc., beyond the multiplied pains of pregnancy and childbirth. The same thing could be said about sexual intercourse itself, which would have been painless to Eve before her transgression, but often is painful for women today who are under the curse placed upon women by the fall of Adam and Eve.
So, even if the text says that more children will have been born than would have been born, had Adam and Eve not sinned, it does not necessarily mean what Two Seeders read into that assumed fact.
The Two Seeders, as we have seen in earlier chapters when noticing what they taught about the parable of the wheat and tares, have strange views on it. In that parabolic story, the owner of a field first sowed wheat in it, and existed for a time without any tares (weeds). Then sometime later an enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat. In the interpretation that Jesus gives of this parable we see what each item in the story represents. The wheat represented the children of God and the tares the children of the Devil.
So, what is strange and novel about the Two Seed interpretation?
First, it must be their idea that the children of God existed as seed before being planted in a human body, yea, even preexisting in Christ (in him as a Mediator possessing a third nature, a composite of his divinity and humanity).
Second, likewise it must be their idea that the children of the Devil existed as seed before being planted in a human body, yea, even preexisting in the Devil.
Third, it must be their idea that some are born wheat and some born weeds, therefore some born to stay wheat and be burned up and some born to stay tares and be harvested for the owner (farmer) of the field.
Fourth, it must be their idea that those who are wheat have always been wheat, and have always been saved, and therefore never were tares, and therefore never lost.
Fifth, it wholly gives a new meaning to why God created human beings, and what was his purpose in planting the preexisting wheat seeds into humans, and what was his purpose in making it possible for the Devil to sow tares in his field.
Sixth, it calls into question why the need for a resurrected body for either the wheat or the tares. If the bodies are simply temporary houses for preexisting souls, for the purpose of developing or training those souls for life in eternity, then it seems like there will come a time when the physical bodies no longer serve their purpose, and death simply returns a soul to its source, whether God or Satan.
But, such a Two Seed interpretation is broadening the elements of the parable beyond what was intended. The main elements of the parable are these:
1) there are lost sinners in the world as a result of the work of the Devil, and
2) there are saved sinners in the world as a result of the work of Christ, and
3) both saved and unsaved will exist together until the time of the harvest.
If the Two Seed ideas on the parable are correct, you would expect Christ, in his interpretation of the parable, to give the Two Seed interpretation. But, he did not. Let us notice some things from the parable.
“The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared." (Matt. 13: 24-26 nkjv)
Good seed was sown first and this means that God originally made Adam and Eve good. The enemy sowing tares came after. This is what we see in the opening chapters of Genesis. But, we cannot make every detail of the parable have some hidden meaning. If so, what do the words "while men slept" mean? It can't mean while God slept, nor while the angels slept, and it cannot mean men in general, for only Adam and Eve existed when the Devil first sowed his seed (false ideas) into the mind of Eve. Also, the results of the enemy sowing tares did not need to wait for the grain (wheat) to sprout and produce a crop.
Potter wrote this in rebuttal to the seventh tenet of Two Seedism, given above:
"7. We presume this item was intended for two seed doctrine; and we have frequently been asked the question, "Do you believe the two seed doctrine? If the above is two-seedism, we do not now, nor never did believe it. We believe that the children of God, or the elect transgressed the law, which brought them under the curse. This item denies the curse being pronounced on the elect. We do not believe the law holds any claims on a people who never transgressed it. The above places the curse on "the greatly multiplied," and yet denies their being in the transgression. We believe the objects of God's redemption to have been under the curse. We read in the Bible, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." Gal. 3: 13. We cannot divine how they could be redeemed from the curse, if they were never under it. We do not believe the non-elect were redeemed, yet the above would necessarily make them the subjects of redemption; for the elect could not be cursed because God had blessed them, so the curse must have been placed on the non-elect, and they that were under the curse were the ones Christ redeemed. This makes the non-elect safe any way you turn it according to the writer above quoted."
This is a good rebuttal by Potter. However, I am a little puzzled by his assertion that he never believed in this tenet of Two Seedism, saying "we do not now, nor never did believe it." We have seen where Potter confessed that he favored Two Seedism for many years and it was not till around 1880 that he felt that he must attack it. Perhaps he did not believe this tenet of Two Seedism when he favored Two Seedism. After all, there are varieties of Two Seedism, some holding one tenet and another not. He says that he always believed that the redeemed were cursed, under wrath, because of sin, just as the unredeemed. He disagrees with those Two Seeders who affirmed - "what God blessed in Adam He could not curse." As we have seen, Daniel Parker was inconsistent on this point. He would affirm that the Devil's seed could be saved if they chose to be saved, on one hand, and then say that they could not on the other hand. Parker did not believe that any being created in God's image could be damned.
Further, consider the fact that the blessed Jesus was made a curse for us. (Gal. 3: 13) But, if God cannot curse what he had blessed, then he could not curse the blessed Jesus. In fact, many things that were originally blessed by God were later cursed by him. If God cannot turn blessings into curses, then can he turn curses into blessings? Adam and Eve were blessed while living in Eden, but when they rebelled against their God, they were cursed by him.
Potter wrote further and gave us tenet number eight:
"8. - "The non-elect are no more related to the elect than the cocklebur is to the corn, both growing in the same field." - Elder G. Dalby, in Herald of Truth."
This is what Two Seeders often said when talking about the parable of the wheat and the tares, saying that the wheat were never tares, and vice versa. We saw in a former chapter where Elder Joshua Lawrence, a first generation leader of the Hardshells of the Kehukee Association, strongly disagreed with this idea, affirming that the wheat were once tares. By this he means this is so in respect to what they are in themselves, that the saved were once unsaved, the regenerate were once unregenerate, the justified were once condemned, etc. He does not mean that the elect were once non-elect. The elect and the non-elect are "related" by both being descendants of Adam and Eve, both born in sin and under wrath. Jacob and Esau were twins, related to each other, and yet one was loved and chosen before he was born, and the other was hated and rejected before he was born.
In reply to this tenet Potter wrote:
"8. Cain is considered one of the non-elect, and the Bible recognizes Cain and Abel as brothers. Every Bible reader knows that after Cain had killed Abel, the Lord inquired of Cain where his brother was. Gen. 9: 9. "Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil and his brother's righteous." I. John iii, 12. To be brothers, is to be children of the same parents. There must be quite a similarity, or a oneness in the nature of two brothers, if they both partake of the nature of their parents; and we can see no reason why Cain would not be as likely to partake of the nature of his parents as Abel. Jacob and Esau were brothers, as every one knows who is acquainted with the Bible. Matt. i: 2. They must be more related and more alike than corn and cockleburs."
Paul plainly says that believers were once children of disobedience and under God's wrath "even as others." (Eph. 2: 3) This fact is also seen in Romans 3: 10-12. All are alike condemned for the one sin of Adam. (Rom. 5: 12-18) "In Adam all die" (I Cor. 15: 22). All come from the same lump of clay, whether they are vessels of mercy afore prepared for glory, or vessels of wrath fitted for destruction. (Rom. 9)
Potter wrote:
"God has made all things for himself; yea, even the wicked, for the day of evil." Proverbs xxi. 4. Then the wicked are not an emanation from the devil, as men, or produced, or brought forth by or from the devil, as the plant comes forth from the seed. For God made them, and he either made them when he made Adam, or he made him afterwards; or before. All the man the Bible gives any account of being made, was Adam, and it is generally conceded that when the Lord made him, he made all his posterity in him. God, then, made the wicked; not that he made them wicked, but he made them, and they became wicked. If the Bible ever says one word about the people of God pre-existing the creation and formation of Adam, we have so far failed to find it."
Potter attacks one of the chief errors of Two Seedism, one which says that the Devil's children were not created by God. This view says that there is more than one Creator. That is gross heresy indeed. When Potter says that "it is generally conceded that when the Lord made Adam that he made all his posterity in him," he should have explained that further. This is what the Two Seeders said loudly and began to make inferences from that fact.
If it is true that every person whoever is born into the world existed in Adam when Adam was created, then how could there be a multiplied increase in the number of children as a result of Adam and Eve's sin? When Eve sinned and God cursed her with the prospect of bringing forth all the persons of the Devil's children, were they in Adam originally or placed in him after his original creation and after they had sinned? When did the children of the Devil originate in Adam?
Potter is correct to say that the Bible no where says that anyone actually existed before they were conceived in the womb. They did exist in God's foreknowledge, and were represented by the Son of God, to whom they were given and promised by a covenant between the Father, Son, and Spirit. But, we cannot rely too much on arguments from silence. Are there not bible passages which state that a person's birth into the world is when they begin to exist? Yes, many. Why does Potter not cite those passages.
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