But, like the others, it was older than the law and the prophets. Notices of Christ and His ways and His doings for us were the earliest manifestations of the mind of God. Happy for our hearts to know this! And, accordingly, this Kinsman-duty had been prescribed in very early days. When the sword was committed to Noah, it was published. "At the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed." But it was understood as a divine principle even before then. Cain trembled before this law, which, as his words intimate, must have then been known everywhere. Genesis iv. 14. It was, indeed, a part of the very first promise. "It shall bruise thy head" announced it. For that sentence told the Serpent, that man’s Kinsman, the Woman’s Seed, would avenge on him the wrongs done by him upon the family. And this duty Christ will perform when He casts the old Serpent, "which is the Devil and Satan," with death and hell, into the lake of fire.³⁰ ³⁰ The Kinsman _delivering_ and the Kinsman _avenging_ deals with an enemy or a wrong-doer, and not, as in the case of _repurchasing_, with a righteous claimant. There is, however, this difference: in the case of delivering, the Kinsman only rescues his brother or relative out of the hand of the enemy; in the case of avenging, he visits the blood of his brother or relative upon the head of the enemy. Christ will deliver us from the hand of death at the _beginning_ of the Kingdom (1 Corinthians xv. 54), He will avenge us upon the head of death at the _close_ of the Kingdom. 1 Corinthians xv. 26. Such are among the duties which a Kinsman, according to the mind and reckoning of the Lord, owed, and such is the glorious performance of them by our great Kinsman. And wondrous is it to be entitled thus to write of Him! wondrous that the necessary and instinctive dictates of nature are suggested by the Holy Ghost as the ground, warrant, and character of the love of Christ to the Saints! that, as I said before, whatever nature tells me I owe myself, that Christ tells me He owes me; and now, I may add, whatever nature tells me my kindred owe me, that also Christ tells me He owes me. And again I ask, Can any thought respecting the place into which the love of the Son of God has brought Him, surpass this? Can the imagination form the idea of a more intense and devoted affection?