Who Are the "Seed" of the Lord Today? In the Spirit, Isaiah lamented that the coming Messiah was to be "cut off from the land of the living", and asked, "Who shall declare his generation?" In other words, the Messiah would die without "generating", or fathering, any children, yet, there was a promised "seed" or "offspring". Who are they?

Psalm 22, penned almost 500 years before the prophet Isaiah's writings, answered the important question which Isaiah asked. In the last two verses of this Psalm, David prophesied, "A seed shall serve him; it shall be counted to the Lord for a generation."

Jesus never married in the flesh, but he has a bride! He never produced any offspring in the flesh, but by the power of the Holy Ghost, he has fulfilled the prophecy which said, "Behold I and the children which God hath given me...." He has attained the title, "everlasting father".

In that verse from Psalm 22 concerning the children, or generation, of Jesus, the Spirit said, "a seed shall serve him". This could not possibly refer to human seed, for Jesus never fathered any children. It does, however, refer to those who receive the Seed of God, the Holy Ghost.

In other words, only God's children have the power to worship, or serve, the Father as His holiness demands. "God is a Spirit," said Jesus, "And they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." The only people who can possibly fit the description of "the seed who shall serve the Lord", are those who are the seed of Christ. Those in whom is the Seed of God are the only ones capable of serving God acceptably, "in spirit and in truth", because "the Spirit is truth". All other forms of worship, be they never so well orchestrated, are vain displays of man's self-willed approaches to the Almighty.

The Holy Ghost is the Seed with which God sowed another Israel to Himself. Spirit-baptized people are "the children of the promise", whom Paul said "are counted for the seed." This is "the Israel of God", the Zion "called by a new name", the generation of Christ. Every time another is planted in the vineyard, "the Spirit bears witness". The prophet said: "They shall HEAR Jezreel", and the sound of Jezreel is the Holy Ghost speaking in tongues through the newly-born child of God. The word, Jezreel, means, "the Lord will sow". Playing upon the name of that ancient Israelite city, the Lord said, "And they shall hear Jezreel. And I will sow her unto me in the earth." This is a prophecy of what happened in Acts 2:4, when "they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak in tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance." When this miraculous, divinely-inspired utterance occurred, as God sowed His seed in the earth, Hosea's prophecy was fulfilled that "they shall hear Jezreel", for "Every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these Galileans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?" (Acts 2:6-8). Did they not hear Jezreel, "God sowing" His Seed in the earth?

Hosea's prophecy of hearing God's Seed being sown is similar to Jesus' description of the new birth in John 3:8. According to Jesus, the consistent feature involved in every new birth experience is the "sound" of it. He said, "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof...so is every one that is born of the Spirit." This is exactly what the disciples experienced on the day of Pentecost. And this is what Hosea foretold when he said, "they shall hear Jezreel".

The Holy Ghost is the seed of the kingdom of God. This is why Paul taught, "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his" (Rom.8:9b). You will remember the words of Jesus, "Ye must be born again". We are born into the family of God when the Seed of God, the Holy Spirit, enters into our hearts. When Hosea prophesied of Jezreel, the sowing of the Lord, he was speaking of the body of Christ, those who "were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (Jn.1:13).

In the Old Covenant, one was an Israelite because he was born an Israelite. In this New Covenant, one becomes a member of "the Israel of God" by being born of the Spirit. Peter described this new Israel as "Being born again, not of corruptible [human] seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever" (1Pet.1:23). Centuries before the regenerating baptism of the Holy Ghost came, one of those "holy men of God" who "spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost", prophesied of the new Israel, the body of Christ (Hos.1:10): "The number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God."

Paul added this comment concerning God's mercy extended to the Gentiles: "What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith (Rom.9:30).

To the Gentiles, under the Old Covenant, it was said, "Ye are not my people". But the Spirit now proclaims through every one "in every nation" who receives Him, "Ye are the sons of the living God". God continues in Hosea to say that, even though we Gentiles were desolate of God's grace and knowledge, His new Israel, the body of Christ, will be a larger nation than was His first Israel. The Spirit moved Isaiah to prophesy to the barren Gentiles (Isa.54:1): "Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord."

What a glorious heritage is ours in Christ! When we receive the Spirit of God, and begin to speak in tongues, we "know the joyful sound". How blessed are we that God has chosen us. It is only to His glory that He has done that which He purposed to do upon those who knew nothing and cared nothing for His purpose. "We love him", John wrote, "because he first loved us." And though from the lofty heights of man's pride, we who follow after the Spirit may seem very small, yet the Lord is our refuge and hope. It is he who "turns the world upside down", who abases the proud and exalts the humble. The wicked may mock our gates and our praise, but our hearts are encouraged by the love of God in Christ. Some ridicule the hungry hearts who earnestly "ask, seek and knock" for the baptism of the Holy Ghost, but every time the Holy Ghost is given and another regenerated soul cries out "Abba Father" as it is sown by the Spirit into the Kingdom of God

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