_"We have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts." 2 Peter i. 19._ The destructive critics have pushed their work far into the field of both prophecy and exposition. They have relegated to the domain of mythology the clear and unequivocal historical statements of Scripture. Where the intrusion of their mythological theory was too large a demand to make on our credulity, they have attempted a radical exegesis in proof of their assumptions. They claim to have discovered that the Church in all the past has misconceived the first prophetic promise given to man. That promise was given to our first parents immediately after the fall. God said to the serpent (Gen. iii. 15): "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel." Our critics have two objections to the interpretation that has always been given and maintained by Christian scholars and by the Church as a whole. First, that "the seed of the woman" does not refer to the Messiah, but to the human race, which is to bruise the serpent's head. Second, that the serpent engaged in seducing Eve, and here placed under the curse, does not refer to Satan. In replying to the objection that the Messiah is not referred to in the passage, let it be said that the pronoun is a pronoun referring to a person. It is so translated in the Revised Version. "_He_ shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel." It is not the human race, but he, an individual person. This person was not to be the seed of the man, but of the woman. The announcing angel said to Mary, "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." (Luke i. 35.) The child to be born was to be literally and truly "_the seed of the woman_," and that was the Messiah, the only person of the entire human race of whom that could be said. We are not left, however, to an exegetical statement alone, although that is absolutely unequivocal. The promise was repeated to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, and to David. The seed of the woman was to be the Messiah, the Christ, triumphing over the power of Satan. The race has not triumphed over Satan, but has been a failure. The Holy Spirit has settled the question in Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, iii. 16: "Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. _He saith not, and to seeds, as of many_ (or, the human race), _but as of one, and to thy seed which is Christ_." On the human side, our Savior was of the line of Abraham, and David, but was singularly and literally "_the seed of the woman_," being the Son of God.