Genesis 3:14-15 "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel" ( v. 15).
Since the early days of the church, scholars and theologians have found in Genesis the first announcement of the coming Messiah. Today's passage gives us what is called theprotevangelium - the "first gospel."
The context of this passage is well-known to most of us. Having thumbed their noses at God by eating the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve find themselves alienated from their Creator (Gen. 3:1-13 ). Before He pronounces His righteous judgment upon them, however, the Lord curses the tempter. The serpent will crawl upon the ground and lick the dust. He will bruise the heel of the woman's offspring or, in other translations, "her seed," and her seed will bruise the serpent's head (vv. 14-15).
This pronouncement has cosmic significance. The serpent in this passage is no ordinary reptile, he is Satan, the adversary of God and His people (Rom. 16:20; Rev. 12:9). The Lord pledges to put enmity between the serpent and the woman's seed (Gen. 3:15). This conflict is God-initiated and perpetuated. It has a visible reminder in snakes who lick the dust of defeat, but the one whose head will be bruised - the one who will suffer a crushing blow - is the Devil himself.
It is the identity of the woman's seed that tells us this passage is messianic. Grammatically, "seed" is a collective singular and can refer to a whole group of people. The woman's seed cannot be every child of Eve because Scripture calls God's human enemies "the children of the Devil" (John 8:39-47 ), thereby identifying some people as the serpent's seed. If the Lord's enemies are the seed of the serpent, then His friends among mankind must be the victorious woman's seed. These will suffer bruising from the evil one before bruising his head. God's people will suffer, but they will win in the end (for example, Ex. 1, 14).
However, even the friends of the Almighty cannot defeat Satan themselves. They need a representative to fight on their behalf. We have seen that this One is King Jesus, who as the Son of David defeated Satan on the cross for our sake. He is the seed of the woman par excellence who suffered the worst bruising of all so that He might crush the Devil (Col. 2:13-15).
Proverbs 21:31 tells us that "the victory belongs to the L ord." Jesus defeated death, sin, and the evil one on the cross and now shares with us the benefits of His conquest. No problem of ours is too formidable for the Lord. There is no sin that we cannot overcome if we are in Him. There is no enemy of ours that can finally defeat us. Be encouraged today that our Savior has won a great victory, and, therefore, we who are in Him need not worry about tomorrow.
For further study:
The Bible in a year:
For the weekend:
INTO the WORD daily Bible studies from TableTalk Magazine, Matthew Studies. Copyright © 2008 by Ligonier Ministries.
Galatians 4:4-5 "When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law" (v. 4).
Our study this month has dealt mainly with the miraculous birth of the Savior in Bethlehem. This Messiah, we have seen, comes in fulfillment of the Old Testament promises. In the interest of looking at the biblical prophecies about Jesus more closely, we will take a short break from Matthew and follow Dr. R.C. Sproul's teaching series Coming of the Messiah as our guide.
Across the United States this day, many college students are sitting under professors hostile to the New Testament. Parallels are often drawn between Greek myths of dying and rising gods and the biblical account as proof that the Scriptures are just another work of mythology. Unfortunately, young people are too often unprepared for this onslaught and begin to doubt the Christian faith.
However, as those familiar with ancient literature well know, these similarities are superficial. The Greeks made no real attempt to defend their myths as historical while the Bible grounds itself in real space and time. Luke 2, for example, locates the birth of Jesus during the reign of Caesar Augustus and the governorship of Quirinius, both of whom were real people. The evangelist assumes that we will take his account at face value - that Jesus was a real person who lived in space and time. Scripture is also clear that God became incarnate in the person of Christ Jesus (John 1:14 ). Ancient Greeks abhorred this idea because they believed the physical body to be corrupt, unlike the spiritual realm. Many other such differences between the Bible and pagan thought could be cited.
We must not miss the emphasis Scripture places on history. God's Word is clear that the events it describes actually occurred, and even tells us our faith is in vain if events like the resurrection of Jesus never happened (1 Cor. 15:14 ). Yet, Scripture does not give us every detail concerning what happened between the time of Adam and the apostles; it often omits pedantic figures and details (as was common in those days) in order to relay God's plan of redemption (2 Kings 20:20-21). When time was "full," when all things were perfectly ready, the most significant event of all took place - Jesus was born (Gal. 4:4-5 ). Tomorrow we will begin to study what the Old Testament says about this fullness of time.
College students are not the only ones who face attacks on the historicity of Scripture. Hollywood, the Internet, apologists for other religions, and so on bombard us with assaults on Scripture's integrity. The Bible is the most vilified book on the planet, and yet its stories are regularly found to be historically reliable. Take time to find some resources on the historicity of Scripture so that you may be able to answer its critics ( 1 Peter 3:15-16).
For further study:
The Bible in a year:
INTO the WORD daily Bible studies from TableTalk Magazine, Matthew Studies. Copyright © 2008 by Ligonier Ministries.
