The beautiful story of salvation finds it’s planned location in the church of which Jesus said, “I will build my church” (Matt. 16:18). No, the church does not save, but she is where the saved are added. Luke wrote these words revealing what was taking place sometime after that great Pentecost day following the ascension of Christ to the right of God: “Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved” (Acts 2:47). So, if we ask the question: “Where are the saved today?” The correct answer is: “They are in the church Jesus built.”
From the seed of woman, Eve, in Genesis 3:15, it is a story of the bloodline of the “seed.” With this blood Jesus purchased the church; as Paul said to the elders of the church in Ephesus: “Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Spirit hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood” (Acts 20:28). Notice, as one is added to the church, through obeying the gospel, the last step being baptism; it is this point at the Holy Spirit had Paul write: “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?” (Rom. 6:3). Paul also wrote: “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:13. Baptism is the one place, the point at which, one reaches the blood of Jesus and the one body, which is the church (Eph. 1:21-22). Therefore, we have found that baptism and being added to the church goes through the bloodline of the seed of woman; who is Jesus of Nazareth.
Jesus is the heart and spirit of the seed of woman! All in the Old Testament was pointing to his coming; all four gospel accounts point to his arrival; while the last twenty-three books of the New Testament point back to his having been here. It is the blood of that sinless one; of which Peter wrote: “the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Pet. 1:19) which is the story of salvation! Someone may object to so much importance on the blood, the bloodline, but in Hebrews it is written: “… without shedding of blood is no remission” (Heb. 9:22). It is not just the shedding of any blood, but the shedding of “the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot!” The old hymn which rings our, “nothing but the blood” got it right! Once more keep in mind, the blood, salvation, and the church all meet in the blood of Jesus, the seed of woman. In the bruising of his heel (Gen. 3:15), his death on the cross where his blood was shed, we find our salvation in the church which he purchased with this blood.
It needs to be understood, when one minimizes the church of the New Testament, they are also minimizing “the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot!” With this “precious blood” he purchased the church; and “For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ” (1 Cor. 12:12). No matter how many obey the gospel, by which one is added to the church, we are yet one body, and so is Christ. As there is one Christ, one body, one church, there is one story of salvation and all are made possible by the bloodline of the seed of woman; thus, the story of salvation!
The one story of salvation is the story of the Bible. God created them male and female in the image of the God created he them; thus, we are all the “offspring” of God (Acts. 17:28). It was not God’s intention that man sin, but at the end of the first series of sins, God announced a means by which sin could be overcome, by being forgiven; thus, his words to the serpent in the garden: “And 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” (Gen. 3:15). The bloodline of the seed of the woman was carefully guarded throughout the both the Patriarchal age and the age of Moses, then, reaching its end in the seed of Mary; Jesus of Nazareth!
No wonder the angel of the Lord said to the shepherds abiding in the field: “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10-11). Which this, the story of salvation had come to earth!
— Frank R. Williams