Continued from Last Week

The Protoevangelium (the First Gospel)

Genesis 3:15 and the Edenic Prediction

Genesis 3:15 is often called the "first gospel" because it is the original proclamation of God's plan and promise to the entire world. While it is true that this statement is found in a sentence that denounced the tempter of Eve in the Garden of Eden, it does give us our first glimpse of the individual who was to come and offer salvation to the world.

The word "seed/offspring is the root word from which the term Messiah came. That makes Genesis 3:15 literally the "Mother of all Prophecies." It is the germ promise from which all other promises flow.

It is a strange paradox that our first parents (Adam and Eve) began human history with a sin that ended up expelling them from the garden. In the middle of this bleakness and dark tragedy of God's curse we find the first hope and rays of God's grace shinning through this darkness.

This "serpent" is named as the tempter of the woman. For theological context it becomes necessary for us to identify this serpent. Notice his intellect, his cunning, and his knowledge. Something more than a "mere" snake" is in this message. What has always been interesting to me is that this "snake" speaks as if he has access to the mind of God.

"This serpent" is being personified, for the pronoun used of him in Hebrew is the second person, masculine, singular (you). The text refers to him as "you." Furthermore, the serpent of this temptation is the serpent of the final conflict. He is someone whom a future male descendant of the woman will strike a crushing blow to his skull. The designation "the serpent" (hannahas) may be a title or name given and maybe not a particular shape at all. In fact, creeping things had already been made back in the first chapter Genesis and in that chapter God called them "good." Given the facts of the book of Genesis, we can identify this serpent as none other than Satan himself.

In the NT we have this "serpent" identified as Satan.

Paul prayed with an obvious reference to this OT text:

And in Revelation 12:9 we find:

We have identified the Serpent, but who is the "seed" or "offspring?" The word "seed" is a generic term but the context of Gen. 3:15 plainly tells us that is a male descendant of the woman. This can be no other than the Messiah. The most striking thing that happens in verse 15 is the suffix on the Hebrew word "heel" (his). This cannot refer to the woman since any reference to her must be in feminine gender nor can it be a reference to the serpent since he will be the object of the male's attack. The reference to "his heel" is the correct translation which is congruent with "He will crush your head." It is also noteworthy that this text was understood by the Jewish community, in many different writings, to point to the Messiah almost three hundred years before Jesus was born.

Here is a break down of what the text says.

God deliberately places an "enmity" (a word used five times in the OT and it indicates hostility person to person, never hostile actions exchanged by animals). This hostility is between (1) the serpent" (2) the woman Eve,. God also plans that this "enmity" will continue between (3) Satan's seed/offspring and (4) the womans seed/offspring. That there is a male descendant of the woman who will crush the head of Satan while the latter (Satan) merely bruises the heel of this male seed (the cross). While Satan will bruise the Messiah's heel, the Messiah will literally crush Satan.

Three battles are depicted here: a personal one between the woman and Satan in that day (1 and 2 above), another one between the posterity of both the woman and Satan in the future (3 and 4 above) and the final battle where Jesus will defeat Satan on the cross.

It seems I always end up at Hebrews 2:14 and I think there is a good reason why. The message of Hebrews 2:14 rings true with the rest of the biblical cannon and even the Jewish Apocryphal books. Listen to 1st John 3:8:

Here we have an association between sin and death and yes even a reference back to Eden. The Wisdom literarture has a similar story.

And yet we read more:

Perhaps the poet says it best:
"He hell in hell laid low,
Made sin, He sin o'erthrew
Bowed to the grave, destroyed it so,
And death, by dying slew___S.W. Gandy

We have a hint as to how the early humans understood the coming one in Eve's response after she had given birth to her son (Gen.4:1). She named him "Cain" and explained, "I have gotten [a verb that sound like the noun Cain] a man," adding "even the Lord." That was Martins Luther's translation. If Luther was correct then Eve understood that a promised male descendant bringing salvation to the human race was to be in someway divine. But it must also be stated that if Eve had any inclination about the coming One who was to be divine, her timing was certainly off.

Once again, we come back to the foot of the cross where we realized the promised plan of God as being fulfilled.

Lane Rogers

The Bible actually proclaims that sin and death entered this world through one man's sin.

It of course is a myth that sin entered the world because of Eve's sin.

Adam was without excuse. He sinned with his eyes wide open. Eve was deceived. _________