MESSIAH FIRST PROMISED

The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all the cattle, And more than any animal of the field; On your belly you shall go, And dust you shall eat all the days of your life. “And I will put enmity (open hostility) between you and the woman, And between your seed (offspring) and her Seed; He shall [fatally] bruise your head, And you shall [only] bruise His heel.”

Genesis 3:14-15 (AMP)

But when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive our adoption as sons.

Galatians 4:4-5 (BSB)

This is why the Son of God was revealed, to destroy the works of the devil.

1 John 3:8b (BSB)

God showed up for their evening walk but found Adam and Eve hiding from Him. God, knowing what had happened, asked Adam three questions: How do you know you are naked? Who told you? Did you eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Thus, ensued the first “blame game.” Adam blamed the woman and ultimately God by pointing out that God had given him this “helper.”  However, God had told Adam directly the command to not eat of the tree, so he should have known better than to participate in eating the fruit when Eve gave it to him. Then God turned to Eve and asked her what she did. She blamed the serpent (really Satan, the enemy of God and all humankind,) saying he deceived her. After hearing His family’s case, God turned to the serpent and said, “For this you are cursed, crawl on the ground and eat dust all the days of your life.” God continued with the curse of the serpent; but in so doing, He was giving Eve the first prophecy concerning the Savior, the Messiah, to come. Yes, snakes (serpents) bite the heel and we stomp their heads; but there is more to this prophecy. Satan is the enemy of humanity, constantly trying to prevent people from having a right relationship with their Creator. Crucifixion is one of the few forms of execution that “bruises the heel” as the spike is driven through the feet and the heels pushed hard against the cross. But as Jesus’ heels were bruised, He was delivering the deathblow to Satan’s head. Satan is truly a “dead devil walking.” Eve and Adam were the first humans to hear this promise that Satan would ultimately be destroyed by Eve’s Seed (singular) which would be Jesus. Usually “seed” denotes sperm, but it was by the woman’s seed that deliverance would come. Mary conceived Jesus by the Holy Spirit without the normally necessary benefit of a human man’s sperm, so Jesus was Mary’s Seed and ultimately that of Eve.

Father, thank You for the record of the Messianic Prophecies in the Old Testament which enable us to see their fulfillment in the New Testament account of Jesus’s incarnation.