Articles
Jean
Wright
First and foremost, Jean is a lover of the Lamb, a lover of God and of His Word,
and a lover of His presence. She has been a student of the Word for many years.
In 1974 she officially enrolled in Fountain Gate Bible School and received a
Bachelor of Theology degee from Fountain Gate in 1978. She taught as a
Bible teacher at Fountain Gate for ten years. Later she received a Master
of Theology Degee from Shalom Bible College and Seminary and in 1994 received
the Doctor of Theology from Shalom. In 1996 she and her faithful husband
of many years founded Word of the Cross Ministries. Jean believes that
there is a need in the lives of all believers for a foundation of sound Biblical
teaching. Her desire is to cut a straight path in the Word of God for
others to follow. Her passion is for the inward revelation of Christ.
Her prayerful expectation is for revival in the church in America. Her
vision is for the nations. She has traveled to several nations within the
last ten years, Cuba being her latest assignment. Recently the Lord has
given her a vision for focused prayer for youth and children, emphasizing the
urgency of reaching the youth of this generation for God's purposes.
Satan's Enmity Against the Woman
[Given to Jean Wright, April, 1985.]
This revelation came to me after three days of seeking the Lord concerning
the woman issue, especially about women in ministry. I was teaching a
Bible school class when a question was asked about women's roles. I wanted
to hear from the Lord and not just what other people were saying although I did
read others' comments and interpretations. I spent time before the Lord,
and He spoke various things to me. On the third day, after I had put aside
my reading and studying, the Holy Spirit began to speak to me. I hurriedly
began to write down, as accurately and clearly as possible, all that He was
saying. As my teacher, Dr. Fuchsia Pickett often said, "Truth when it
leaves heaven is pure, but it does have to come through imperfect human
vessels." I do not claim infallibility in what is given. The
revelation, however, explained so much to me about my own life. The
understanding given was very liberating.
The Holy Spirit's classroom began in Genesis 3:15. The thoughts that He
brought to me follow in the order given by the Spirit.
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and
her seed. He shall bruise thy head and thou shall bruise His heel.
Daniel 11:37
Neither shall he [the antichrist or the antichrist spirit] regard the God
of his fathers nor the desire of women.
He next brought to my mind an article I had read a few years prior that told
of the "circumcision" which some Muslim women undergo so that they cannot have
pleasure in sexual relations with their husbands. 1 Then He
said, homosexuality and man and woman living together without marriage are both
strategies of the enemy to express his enmity toward women - men turning to men
rather than man to woman; the woman denied the security of the covenant
relationship of marriage.
Consider the lot of women through the centuries. In heathen lands, she has
been considered a thing or a possession, not a person. Girl babies are
even today killed at birth simply because they are females. 2
Sometimes the mother who bore the girl baby also is killed. The lot of
women can only be explained as Satan expressing his enmity toward the woman as
foretold in Genesis 3:15.
Through the ages the one that God purposed to be a protection for the woman -
the father or a husband - has often been the one that her enemy has used to
express his hatred toward her. Consider the wife abuse, child abuse and
incest that are so prevalent in families today. Three times in Ephesians
5:25-33 God commanded the man to love his wife. In the same passage, the
same command to love is not given to the wife. The question has been
raised concerning this omission. The Holy Spirit spoke that God commands
the man to love his wife in order that he not be the tool of the enmity of
Satan. The man must not allow his tendency to anger to become an avenue
through which Satan's hatred of the woman can be expressed. The woman is a
type of the Church, who has been under the dominion of Satan and the world.
If God could so ordain the events in Joseph's life so that he is the most
perfect human type of Christ in the Old Testament, could He not ordain woman's
life as a type of His Church? 3 The women's lib movement
is the last big attempt by Satan to deceive the woman and keep her from coming
into her true liberty in Christ.
Throughout the centuries since Christ, the church has acknowledged that Christ
liberated woman and raised her to a position of honor and respect. Yet
church tradition, "church fathers," and the whole religious system have served
as a tool for Satan to express his enmity and to keep her subordinate to men.
In some cases, women are kept under the total control of men. This abuse
has been justified by the deliberate mistranslation and misinterpretation to the
Scriptures.4
Immediately the Holy Spirit brought to my mind the curse pronounced on those who
add to or subtract from His Word. 5 And then He said,
"They do err, knowing neither the Scriptures nor the power of God." Matthew
23:29 I believe He was speaking of the power of God to raise the woman above the
enmity of Satan and to put Satan under her feet. And then the Holy Spirit
said that Jesus gave the message of His resurrection to a woman because the seed
of the woman had overcome and defeated her enemy, Satan. The issue of the
place of women and the place of women in ministry is the result of the enmity of
Satan against her - the bearer of the seed who would destroy him.
Then the Holy Spirit returned me to Genesis 3:13. Eve's response to God's
question, "What is this that thou hast done?" was, "The serpent beguiled me and
I did eat." Eve exposed Satan's works. She put the blame on Satan.
Eve did not accuse God as Satan had accused God to her. She did not side
with Satan but made a choice and sided with God against Satan. Yes, Eve
sinned by eating the forbidden fruit, but she did not reject God. Eve knew
the serpent deceived her. Satan's full design against Eve failed;
therefore, Satan hated her and has had enmity toward the woman every since.
Satan's enmity extended to her Seed - Jesus Christ, mankind's Deliverer and
Redeemer, who defeated Satan, crushing his head. Her spiritual seed,
through Christ, against which Satan now wars, is all true believers who form the
Body of Christ, the Church. That spiritual seed will wrest the kingdoms of
this world from Satan. In other words, these overcomers will enter into
the full victory of Christ's work. The woman, the Church, is still
persecuted and hated by Satan. 6
Note Adam's faith in Genesis 3:20. He called his wife, Eve, the mother of
all living, right after God had just pronounced death to him, "Dust thou art and
unto dust shall thou return." By naming her Eve, which means living, Adam
was expressing faith in the Seed of the woman that would bruise Satan's head.
Adam and Eve were driven from the garden but both were forgiven and cleansed and
clothed with coats of skin. Though forgiven, they, and the whole human
race, suffered the consequences of their sin.
Then the Holy Spirit spoke this important word. God designed a canopy of
love for the woman because she is the special object of Satan's hatred, not
because she is weak, inferior or more easily deceived than man.
Satan's enmity is also against the natural seed [children] of the woman, which,
of course, is all mankind. He hates the woman because she is the bearer of
the seed. She brings forth the children who will have the opportunity to
be born into the family of God and become sons of God with authority over him.
This, stated again, explains the pitiful lot of women in many parts of the
world.
When the woman also bears the seed of the Word, there is a special hatred
against her and her descendants. The protection for her and the children
in the home is for the husband to provide that blanket of love that God designed
for her to have.
In completing this revelation, the Holy Spirit spoke this incredible word to me
:
Satan will rejoice over the fall of the harlot- the great whore- Mystery
Babylon- because, in her fall, his full enmity against the woman will be
expressed. Again, this is a statement that I wanted to omit because the
Scripture does not say in Revelation 17 that Satan rejoiced over the harlot's
fall although it does say she is hated by the Beast. However, I knew that
the things I had written above were not by own thoughts but that the Holy Spirit
by this final word was just bringing to fullness the revelation from the seed of
truth that was begun in Genesis 3:15.
And God's Promise:
The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. Romans
16:20
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities,
against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against
spiritual wickedness in high places. Ephesians 6:13
And they overcame him [the great dragon, that old serpent, called the Devil,
and Satan, which deceives the whole earth] by the blood of the Lamb, and by
the word of their testimony: and they loved not their lives unto the death.
Revelation 12:11 (see verse 9)
NOTES_________________
1 In 1993 the Dallas Morning News ran a series of articles on
violence against women. The April 18th article was on "female
circumcision," a rite which is practiced in twenty-five African nations and is
spreading to other nations where Africans have migrated. According to the
World Health Organization, as cited by the Morning News, 100 million women and
girls around the world have been circumcised. It is called a rite of
passage when it is performed on young girls as they enter puberty, although it
may be performed at different ages according to the tradition. The
procedure may cause death, difficult childbirth, and serious health problems as
well as infertility. This is nothing less than female genital mutilation
-not circumcision. The rite encourages female dependency and preserves
male dominance, the article stated.
2 An article in National Right to Life, March 30, 1994,
reported that a Princeton demographer, using data comparing expected male/female
sex ratios in various countries to the actual figures, estimates that 60 million
women are "missing" worldwide. A Harvard economist used different
techniques to arrive at her estimate of 100 million. The same article
quoted an United Nations report that cited a study of 8,000 aborted fetuses at a
Bombay, India hospital of which 7,999 were females.
3 This is a statement I wanted to leave out, but to be faithful
to all that God said through His Spirit, I included it. We want to make
the facts clear that God has not been in all the injustice, abuse, ill-treatment
and violence against women. As we have already seen, it is the work of her
bitter enemy, Satan. What I feel He was saying is that just as God
permitted Joseph to suffer the rejection and hatred of his brothers, the false
accusations, the slander, the injustice and neglect, so God has permitted His
women to experience similar things. The mistranslations and wrong
interpretations of His Word have contributed greatly to keeping women bound and
hindering them from coming into their destinies as daughters (even sons) of God.
But as a type of His Church, He will raise her up even as He did Joseph, for the
Church cannot come into her full maturity without her. It takes both men
and women to bring forth the fullness of Christ in the Church. It likewise
requires the ministry of both men and women to bring the church to maturity.
4 An example of misinterpretation: For this cause ought the
woman to have power on her head because of the angels. (1 Corinthians
11:10) In the margin of many Bibles, you will find this interpretation of the
word power- a covering, the sign that she is under the power of her husband.
This is the same interpretation given by Vincent, a Greek scholar. He
gives this amazing commentary on the word power (exousia) in the above verse,
where, according to him, it does not have the same meaning here as in other
places: "Not in the primary sense of liberty or permission, but authority; used
here of the symbol of power, i.e., the covering on the head as a sign of her
husband's authority." Here we have an example of tradition influencing
interpretation.
The Greek word used in this verse for power is exousia, which literally means
freedom of action ; the right to act; the right to exercise power. This
indicated the woman had a right to speak, to teach, to prophesy, to preach.
J. Sidlow Baxter in his notes on 1 Corinthians says, "The very 'authority' which
she was to wear on her head (some form of head-dress then in vogue as the proper
thing), other than being meant to advertise inferiority and subjection, was that
which protected her right to speak."
I Timothy 2:15 is a verse that is very difficult to understand because of the
way it is translated. Erroneous teaching has been the result. Women
are not saved by bearing children but through the Child-bearing, that is, by the
birth of the [divine Child.] (Amplified Bible) Just as man is saved by
Christ, so woman can know full redemption through Christ, the seed of the woman.
5 Revelation 22:18,19; Proverbs 30:6; Deuteronomy 4:2
6 Revelation 12:4b-5a, 13,17.
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