The Promise of the Coming Christ: Discovering Jesus in the Old Testament
[This week, talking about the Promise of the Coming Christ, I want to direct your attention to our book Knowing the Truth about Jesus the Messiah[1]. The description in that book regarding Genesis 3:14-15 beautifully illustrates the promises fulfilled in Christ. This blog is slightly modified from that book.]
“So the Lord God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this… I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel’” (Genesis 3:14-15, authors’ personal translation).
The context of this passage is the temptation and Fall of Adam and Eve by the deception of “the serpent.” Who is “the serpent”? Revelation 12:9 and 20:2 identify him as “the devil, or Satan.”
For those who accept only the Hebrew Scriptures as authoritative, the serpent in Genesis 3:14 cannot be just an animal. The serpent must be a person. The word enmity in the Hebrew Scriptures is a specialized word that always refers to hatred between persons.[2]It is never used to describe enmity between an animal and a person.
In this passage Satan has already deceived Adam and Eve. All three are now being addressed by God. What God says is astonishing!
Carefully examining this text, we find a number of things: God is speaking to the serpent, who is not an animal and is identified in the book of Revelation as “Satan.” God says He will put enmity (irreconcilable hatred) between the serpent (Satan) and the woman. God says this enmity will spread to the serpent’s seed and the woman’s seed. But then God suddenly speaks specifically of “one” of Eve’s seed, a “he,”[3] a male descendant. God announces this one, “he,” will someday bruise the head of the serpent (Satan), and Satan will bruise his heel.
So there are five participants spoken of in this verse: 1) Satan; 2) the woman; 3) Satan’s seed; 4) the woman’s seed; and 5) finally, one from the woman’s seed, the “he” who bruises Satan’s head but is bruised in the heel by Satan.
What does it mean for the male descendant of the woman to “bruise” Satan’s head? Translators have rendered the Hebrew word bruise as “crush.”[4]This is because it more clearly fits both the meaning of the word and the context. The actual Hebrew word means to “break or smite in pieces; greatly to injure or wound.”[5]
Though the same Hebrew word is used (both the head and heel are “crushed”), we see that one of the wounds is irreversibly fatal, the other is not. Why? The reason is the location of the crushing. In the head, this is irreparable—it is too vital an organ to survive being crushed. But this is not true for the heel. To crush someone’s heel is to inflict a serious but not irreparable wound.
If a man steps on a snake’s head, it will be irreversibly crushed—thus the imagery points to the serpent’s wound as being fatal. On the other hand, a crushed heel may be nursed back to health. This is why the great Hebrew scholar Franz Delitzsch has said this verse is teaching “the definite promise of victory over the serpent… because it suffers the deadly tread.”[6]In brief, God is saying the male seed of the woman will be victorious over Satan because he (the serpent) will be mortally wounded.
Does Eve’s male descendant in this verse refer to the person of Jesus Christ? It is clear that it must refer to some future man, and God Himself will add other identifying signs to answer this question. Jesus does fit the requirements spoken of here. Jesus Himself said that He had come to destroy the works of the devil (John 12:31; 16:11; cf. Hebrews 2:14; 1 John 3:8). Has anyone else in human history ever made such a claim? When Jesus died on the cross, He provided and made available salvation for all mankind (John 3:16). He broke the power Satan had exercised over all humanity, and now provides victory over sin and the devil. Because of Jesus’ death on the cross and His resurrection, He inflicted a fatal blow to the devil’s domination over man (Acts 10:38; 26:15-18; Ephesians 4:8; Colossians 2:15; James 4:7). In the future, at Jesus’ second coming, He will permanently defeat the devil by removing him from the earth and casting him into hell forever (Romans 16:20; Revelation 20:10). The text also talks of the seed (offspring) of the serpent and the seed (offspring) of the woman.
The offspring of Satan would refer to the demons or fallen angels who followed Satan in his rebellion. All through Scripture we are told that “Satan’s seed” tries to destroy humanity (John 8:44; Revelation 12:9; 16:14). The “seed of the woman” obviously would refer to all her children, to all humanity.[7]
God describes the scope of the conflict. It will involve all future generations, “between your [Satan’s] seed and her [the woman’s] seed” (1 Peter 5:8; 1 John 5:19).
Satan’s success in deceiving Adam and Eve resulted in their spiritual separation from God (Genesis 3:8,21-24). And Satan will continue to deceive and wreak havoc on the seed of the woman and all humanity (Revelation 12:9; 20:2,3). Yet in the future, God promises a male descendant of the woman will crush and defeat Satan and his seed.
Is not this the gospel message? Didn’t Jesus say He had come to give His life a ransom for many and to destroy the works of Satan (Matthew 20:28; John 12:31; 16:11), to proclaim release to the captives, to set free those who are downtrodden (Luke 4:18)? In other words, this text in Genesis 3 is already speaking of Jesus, the Savior, who would come to reverse the destructive works of Satan on all of humanity.
- John Ankerberg and John Weldon, Knowing the Truth About Jesus the Messiah (ATRI Publishing, 2011) ↑
- H.C. Leupold, Exposition of Genesis (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1978), p. 164; cf. William Wilson, Wilson’s Old Testament Word Studies (McLean, VA: McDonald Publishing, n.d.), p. 145; Walter C. Kaiser Jr., The Old Testament in Contemporary Preaching (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker 1973), p. 39. ↑
- The King James Version made a mistake here. The translators ignored the third person masculine, singular pronoun, and so wrote “it.” But the grammar clearly indicates “he.” ↑
- Leupold, Exposition, p. 166. ↑
- Wilson, Wilson’s Old Testament Word Studies, p. 57. ↑
- Franz Delitzsch and Paton Gloag, The Messiahship of Christ (Minneapolis, MN: Klock and Klock, 1983), Book 1, p. 26. ↑
- There is also a reference to the conflict between the human followers of Satan or Christ who have either one or the other as their respective spiritual heads (Matthew 23:33; John 8:44; Galatians 3:26-29; Ephesians 4:15; 1 John 3:1,8; 5:19). ↑
