The Protoevangelium

The Protoevangelium, the First Gospel. That's the title that has been given to our text for today in Genesis 3 15. And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed.

He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. So why has this text been called the Protoevangelium? The First Gospel. It is found in what H.C. Leupold has called the most tragic chapter in all the Bible. And I think if we would think about it, we would no doubt agree with that assessment.

And ADW Pink says this is one of the most important chapters in the Bible because it is basic to our understanding of the human condition as it presently exists in the world. So many people are perplexed. What's wrong with this world? Why can't we make things right? Why is there so much injustice? Why is there so much crime? Why is there so much hostility?

Why is everything topsy turvy? And unless you understand the Bible and what it tells us, and particularly this chapter, which is the foundation of it all, you will remain perplexed and you will be discombubulated. As you endeavor to make things right and find that it cannot be done. What has happened to this world is bigger than anything that man is able to resolve. And our understanding of this chapter and our understanding of our text for today is critical to our understanding truth. And so this chapter in the Bible explains what went wrong, and this chapter gives us the solution to how to see things made right, not by the work of man, but by the work of the God-man, the one who became man, in order to accomplish what we and ourselves as fallen humanity could not do.

So we're going to look at Genesis 3 15 in four sections. First of all, an examination. Secondly, an investigation. Third, an explanation.

And finally, an application. So hang on. Here we go.

An examination, an initial look at the text. We actually have to start that back into verse 14 because without that, we don't really even understand what is being said in verse 15. And so we begin at verse 14. So the Lord God said to the serpent, serpent, because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle and more than every beast of the field on your belly. You shall go and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed.

He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. We see in verse 14, an initial declaration of punishment. And in verse 15, an additional level of punishment. An initial declaration of punishment, which we read at the beginning of verse 14, were words spoken by God, the one who is the righteous judge who has the right to inflict judgment and the one who is all powerful.

So he has the power to enforce the punishment, which he declares. And these words were spoken by God to the serpent. And that, of course, is puzzling if we don't understand what that's all about. If we hadn't read the chapter that we just did read a little bit ago, we would say, what? The serpent?

But that's what it says. The Lord God said to the serpent in response to the serpent's activity, because you have done this, says God. And that, of course, requires that we look back in the preceding context, which we shall do in a moment. But God spoke these words because of what the serpent had done and gave to the serpent a very severe punishment. Twice he says, more than.

More than. I will curse you more than all the cattle and more than every beast of the field. A very severe punishment is inflicted upon the serpent because of his part and whatever took place that we do not understand unless we have read the entire chapter.

And this punishment involves, on the physical level, a humiliating transformation. And on your belly you shall go and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. The details behind that statement are not given to us, but the implication seems clear enough that apparently this serpent formerly walked upright. And now as judgment, he is going to be forced to crawl on the ground. The serpent apparently was a very majestic creature, a very majestic animal, one of the highest creatures that God had made.

But now he's going to be one of the lowliest creatures, crawling on the ground and being forced to partake of dust just simply because he is consigned to this location on the ground. That's the initial declaration of punishment. But then we move from that into our text in verse 15 and read about an additional level of punishment that moves really from the physical into the spiritual, but the exact connection is not easy to figure out in every case. But now we read, and this is in addition to what I said, what God said in verse 14, and I will put enmity between you, the serpent, and the woman, and between your seed, the seed of the serpent, and her seed. He, the seed of the woman, shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.

That's the text. That's the protoevangelium. God said in addition to the judgment of changing your physical form from an upright, beautiful creature to a lowly, despised, crawling-of-the-dust serpent, but in addition to that, I'm going to impose enmity. I'm going to impose hostility. I'm going to impose conflict, warfare between you, the serpent, and the woman, and between your seed, the serpent's seed, and the woman's seed.

Now, if we've grown up in a church, we've heard these words many, many times, and we might not stop and think how strange they are. What is the serpent's seed? Indeed, even what is the woman's seed? That's a little easier to understand, but the serpent's seed. And how does this enmity and warfare work out between them that God has imposed? But there is imposed hostility, and there is inflicted injury.

And for this, I drop to the bottom of the text for my second point. And that is, and you, serpent, shall bruise his heel, the heel of the woman's seed. And so there is inflicted injury.

The serpent injures the woman's seed. You shall bruise his heel, but then there is inflicted destruction. So on the one hand, inflicted injury, the bruising of the heel of the woman's seed by the serpent, but there is ultimately inflicted destruction because this one whose heel you bruise is going to bruise your head.

And the difference there is in the location of the injury. Some translations change the verb and make it bruise in the case of the heel and crush in the case of the head, and that's actually borrowing language from Romans, as we'll see in a moment. But actually in the Hebrew, the word is the same. And if it's a strictly literal translation, however you translate the one word, you should translate the other. Bruise his heel, bruise his head, strike his heel, strike his head. There's several different ways to translate this Hebrew word. I don't think in any case you would think in terms of crush his heel and crush his head.

That seems to be beyond the realm of what this word indicates, but it's the location that makes that significant difference. It's one thing to receive an injury on the heel. It's another thing to receive a blow to the head.

And especially when we learn from the New Testament that that blow is fatal. So this is the additional level of punishment, but all of this raises some questions. Two things in particular. Number one, what is the nature of the seed that is referred to? What is the nature of the serpent seed? What is the nature of the woman seed? And number two, which goes along with it and helps us in trying to discern the meaning of it, how do we understand the singularity of the woman's seed? I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. And normally when we use the word seed, we think of it in terms of plurality.

There's descendants. There are many, many people that come out of a union that could be traced back, in this case, to the first woman, Eve. But instead of thinking in terms of a large progeny, a large number of descendants, the singularity suddenly imposes itself in a rather stark and puzzling way. And so the enmity is between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed.

He, the woman's seed, he, singular, shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his singular heel. Those are some of the puzzling things that we need to figure out. But in looking at the text thus far, we have this much information, I think, that is clear enough. And that is, number one, conflict has now invaded a formerly tranquil world. Prior to this, perfect harmony, no conflict, no arguing, no strife, no misunderstanding. A perfect marriage.

Sometimes people talk about that in this world today. Those two people have a perfect marriage, but we understand that that has to be relative because ultimately there's no such thing as a perfect marriage, no matter how good it is. But in this case, there was until chapter 3 of Genesis. There was a perfect marriage. There was no misunderstanding.

There was no suspicion. There was nothing that marred the wonderful, marital, humanity, the perfect harmony that God created between Adam and Eve. There was nothing that had marred that until something changed all that. And conflict has invaded a formerly tranquil world, not only conflict into the marriage of Adam and Eve, but conflict into the family of Adam and Eve as their children are born, and it's not long until one of their own sons kills another one of their sons. Tragedy, tragedy, tragedy. In fact, this seems to indicate that there's going to be enmity that is going to go on and on and on.

It's going to fill the world. Conflict has invaded the formerly tranquil world, our text reveals. And number two, injury and destruction have been pronounced upon the world.

There's going to be the bruising of heels and the crushing of heads in some fashion. But the third thing, and probably the most important thing, is that mercy has been promised to a fallen world. That's why this is the protoevangelium, the first gospel, because gospel means good news. And in all of this tragedy, we do learn that the enemy who brings all of this conflict and destruction upon the world is going to be destroyed.

The woman's seed is going to inflict a fatal blow upon the serpent's head. And so you really can't even examine this text very far without moving beyond an animal that is a serpent to something bigger than that, and of course chapter three tells us what that is. And so we're in the midst of our investigation. We've looked, or we actually have finished up, I correct myself, our examination of the text. And now we move into our investigation, secondly.

And our investigation is going to go in two areas, to two places. Number one, the immediate context in Genesis 3, 1 through 13, which we read earlier. And then number two, some additional insights from the New Testament Scriptures. The immediate context tells us that there was a great temptation of Adam and Eve in the garden, verses 1 through 5. There was a great fall in the garden, that's verse 6. And there was a great change that took place as a result of this fall in verses 7 through 13.

Let me see if I can explain it, summarize it quickly. There was a great temptation that came to the human family by means of a crafty, crafty creature, a crafty, crafty animal that God had created. The serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field. Again, we don't get the details, but we've already seen how evidently the serpent walked upright, the serpent was, now we learn, was exceedingly cunning, exceedingly wise, exceedingly intelligent, apparently was the most intelligent of all the creatures God made, which maybe explains why when he spoke to Eve, she didn't express shock that he could talk. Even today, the scientists around putting microphones underwater in front of dolphins to listen to them, beep, beep, beep, and figure out language and other animals. And scientists seem to be convinced that there really is communication that goes on among animals. There is some low level compared to human, but there is nevertheless communication that goes on between them.

There's animal language, which the members of the same species can understand. Well, before the fall, we don't know how much higher was this ability in all of the animal kingdom, and what we're dealing with is the animal, the creature, that apparently was created the highest of the high and had very, very high intelligence and was very cunning and very crafty. And this serpent came to Eve, apparently by herself initially, but Adam came and joined her before this was over, and he asked an insinuating question. Has God indeed said, has God really said that you can't eat of all the trees of the garden?

You say, well, that's sort of a straightforward question, but it's what it insinuates. Did God really say that or didn't he? Possibility of doubt. When God said that, was he being good and kind and loving and merciful, or was there something else going on in God's activity, in God's plan, when he told you that you could eat of the trees of the garden? And so we see this troubling response by Eve. She responds to the question and says, well, yes, he said we can eat of all the trees of the garden except one, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the midst of the garden. God said we can't eat of that one, and God said we can't even touch it lest we die. Now, right there, most students of the Bible have identified another problem because there's nothing in the text to indicate that God said if you touch it, you'll die. He said if you eat of it, you'll die. So here is a generally correct response, but there is a dangerous exaggeration.

Again, on paper, just looking at it, it doesn't look like a very large exaggeration, just a little bit, but oh, the implication. God's prohibitions are so large. God's favors are, Eve minimized God's goodness, minimized God's favors, as if eating of all the trees of the garden wasn't gracious enough.

But one restriction, you can't eat of this one, you can't even touch it. God is just so overbearing. God is so demanding. And that's her troubling response to which the serpent comes back with a fatal contradiction and says, oh, no, you'll not die. A lie.

You'll not die. But, and he insinuates that God's character is defective when he says, the problem is God knows that you'll, if you eat of this fruit, you'll understand the difference between good and evil and you'll become like God. In other words, God's protecting his territory. God's jealous of his prerogatives. God knows that you will become something like junior gods if you do this. That's why God is keeping you from it.

Insinuations and, and, blaspheming, really, the very nature of God. And so this temptation had its effect upon Eve, and we find the Great Fall in verse six. As the woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasant to the eyes, desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate and gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Eve partakes because she decides that there's not anything dangerous about this fruit. After all, there's no good reason for God to have prohibited them from eating of it.

Why? This, this fruit is desirable. It is pleasant. It is beneficial. It's good food. It's beneficial to the body. It's beneficial to the mind.

It's going to make me wiser. And so she takes the, the lye, takes the bait, hook, line, and sinker, and she eats of the fruit, and her husband has apparently joined her at that time, and he realizes apparently what's happened, and she gives him the fruit, and he probably makes a split second decision, and he eats of it as well. We're not sure. Some have speculated that he couldn't bear to think, he knew that sin would separate Eve from him if he didn't join her in that, and he couldn't bear to be separated from her. So great was his love for her.

That's a possibility, but it's only a speculation. We're really not told why he made this decision, but for whatever reason, he did it understanding what he was doing. The Bible makes that clear later. Eve really was deceived. Adam was not deceived, but he chose to sin anyway, and so he joined Eve in this sinful disobedience. Now, I'm calling Adam's wife Eve, even though he doesn't name her that until later in the chapter, the part we didn't even read.

She just called the woman, the woman, the woman, and later Adam names her Eve because she is the mother of all living. So there's a great temptation, there's a great fall, and that brings about a great change. The consequences of this sin we read about in verses 7 through 13.

Let me summarize what happens and then read it again, and that should suffice. But in this great change, the pure becomes impure, God's presence becomes undesirable, God's word becomes uncomfortable, and man's reasoning becomes defensive. The pure becomes impure, then the eyes of them both were opened and they knew that they were naked. The pure, it was pure before sin, but now the pure becomes impure. They realized they were naked and there was something wrong with that, as there had not been before, but now there was.

The pure becomes impure. God's presence becomes undesirable. They heard the sound of God walking in the garden. They hid from him. God called to them, where are you? We heard your voice in the garden, we're afraid because we were naked.

They always looked forward to God's presence. They looked forward to these rendezvous in the garden with God, but now because of sin, God's presence, instead of being sought and delightful, is now undesirable. They don't want to be in his presence. God's word becomes uncomfortable. And he, that is, God said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat? They're squirming.

You don't have to read that in the text to know that that's what's going on. They're squirming at the word of God. God's word is making them uncomfortable.

It's bringing conviction to their souls. But man's reasoning becomes defensive. They haven't been brought to true repentance yet because the man said, the woman that you gave to me with me, she gave me of the tree and I ate. And the woman said, it's the serpent that you created and put in the garden.

He deceived me and caused me to eat. And instead of owning their wrong and acknowledging it and repenting of it, they start blame shifting. Adam says, it's not my fault. It's Eve's fault. Eve says, it's not my fault. It's a serpent's fault. And by insinuation, it's really your fault, God, because you made the serpent. What a great change has taken place in humanity because of sin. These things that we're so accustomed to, because this is all we have known, being born of a sinful race into a sin-cursed world.

And so our world is filled with impurity. God's presence is really not desirable to most people in this world, though many times there are gods made in the image of man, either many times just mentally, that men will worship. If they can make God acceptable to themselves, they're happy to accept such a God into their presence. But the God of the Bible, the one true God?

No, not that one. God's word becomes uncomfortable. People don't seek God's word. They aren't drawn to it naturally.

They are when God's Spirit works in their hearts, but they're not drawn to it naturally. I think I told you back at the beginning of our church, when our church was only a few months old, some of our people really loved Southern gospel music. Some of you love it now.

I enjoy listening to it myself, to be honest with you. But some of our people really enjoyed Southern gospel music, and they said, Pastor Barkman, if you would just have a few quartets in and start having some good gospel Southern music, we could pack this place out. It wasn't this place.

It was the other building over on Moran Street, which wasn't too hard to pack out. But we could really pack this place out. That would really make this place grow. That would make it sing. People love that. They would come.

And I said, yeah, that's the problem. And if you build a church on Southern gospel music, you're going to have a shallow church with a lot of people who've come for the wrong reasons. I know you can fill a building that way, but the question is, can you honor the Lord? And can you truly get God's word across to people's hearts and minds that way?

Or does that become a barrier to truth? People aren't drawn to the word. If people were drawn to the word, this place would be packed out, wouldn't it? We'd have to build a bigger building and do other things because everybody is drawn to the word.

But we live in a world where that's not the case. People are not automatically drawn to God's word. It takes the work of God's spirit for that to happen. And when did all that begin? Clear back in Genesis chapter 3 at the beginning. Now God's word makes people uncomfortable. And man's reasoning becomes defensive. Not my fault.

I'm not bad. Somebody else's fault. Somebody else did it. That's the immediate context and that helps us understand the text. But then we can also be helped by picking up three locations in the New Testament that also help us to understand our text. And the first one is in Revelation 20 and verse 2 and it identifies the serpent without any question whatsoever. We read, Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan. So do we have any question who this serpent was in the garden? It was Satan. You say, well, I thought it was an animal, a beautiful animal it was. And Satan commandeered the animal and spoke through the animal and deceived Eve. Because Satan, of course, is a spirit. He doesn't have a physical form. But he took possession of the serpent.

But make no mistake about it. The serpent in Genesis 3 15 is none other than the devil, the identity of the serpent. We also learn about the identity of the seed, this puzzling thing, the woman seed in particular. The serpent's seed is not so clearly spelled out, but I'll give you my answer to that. But the woman seed, this is what we read in Galatians 3 16. Now, to Abraham and his seed, where the promise is made, he does not say, and to seeds, plural, as to many, but as of one, and to your seed, singular, who is Christ. Now, that was true of Abraham. But I think it's clear that it's also true of the woman. It is also true that in our language and in the Hebrew language, the word seed can be understood in its one form as either singular or plural.

So that's where some of the wrestling comes in. How do we understand this word seed? We have the same problem, if it's a problem, we have the same situation in English. When you say seed, when you say I'm going to go out and sow seed, you don't mean one.

Surely more than that. But the same word seed can refer to one. But now we're told that when the seed, the seed is singular, it refers to Christ. And so the woman's seed, singular, followed by those singular pronouns, he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.

Now we can relate those to Christ. The seed of the woman is first and foremost Christ, which we can follow up with Galatians 4, but when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth his son. My translation says born of a woman, born under the law, but that word born could also just as equally be translated made. And in some Bibles it is. When the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth his son made of a woman.

The woman's seed. Rather unusual language, but the insight from the New Testament, I think, makes that inescapable. And finally, one more text, the explanation of the bruised head in Romans 16, 20. And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly.

That is almost certainly a reference to the bruising of the Satan's, of the serpent's head. So with that in mind, what have we learned? We have learned that Satan will be ultimately defeated. We have learned that his defeat is related to Christ's redemptive victory and that Christ's redeemed people participate in his defeat. The God of peace shall crush Satan under, not under his feet, but under your feet, you who are the people of God.

Think about that. You're part of the army that takes part in the victory celebration when Satan's head is crushed, as told us in Genesis 3.15. So now we come to what I will call an explanation that is the text in its greater fullness with this additional information. We learned that they are spiritual adversaries. They are Satan and Eve, but we're really talking about Satan and Christ, Eve and your seed. So the spiritual adversaries are Satan and Christ, but Eve is included. Their spiritual conflict between Satan's seed and that particular phrase has not been explained, but I think we can understand it now. It's not talking about physical seed.

It's talking in spiritual terms. In other words, those people who, as far as their spiritual orientation is concerned, are loyal to Satan, not to Christ, that's Satan's seed. That's Satan's people. That's Satan's progeny. So there's Satan's seed and there's a woman's seed. The woman's seed is singular Christ, but beyond that, all of those who belong to Christ, all Christ's people.

So then we go seeds, plural. And sometimes the word seed in the Bible does refer to progeny in general, not to the literal process that brings about a birth. So the spiritual conflict is sin versus righteousness, and Satan will inflict damage. He will inflict damage to Christ all the way to the cross where he thought he had defeated him. And up from the grave he arose, a mighty conquest or his foes. But Satan inflicts great damage to Christ. He strikes his heel and he inflicts great damage to those who belong to Christ.

We have to recognize that potential, that reality. And therefore Christ and his people must battle Satan. Christ has already done it and he's already sealed the victory, but it hasn't been finalized yet.

There is a spiritual conquest yet to come. The woman's seed, singular Christ, will triumph victoriously. Sin brings destruction. God promises salvation. Christ defeats sin. Christ redeems a people. Christ redeems a fallen world. And then all that's wrong with this world, all the injustices, all the hurts, all the sorrows, all the unexplainable tragedies will be done away with forever. They are all the result of sin, all the way back to the Garden of Eden. If you don't understand that or won't believe that, you can't really make sense of what's going on in this world.

But this explains it. But it also explains the good news of how Christ will win, Christ will conquer. And so the protoevangelium, the first gospel is, think about it, probably the only gospel that God's people had until God called Abraham out of the Ur of the Chaldees and gave a additional revelation. What did Noah know about the gospel? Now, we can't say for sure that there was no other revelation that was given to anybody and was handed down orally.

We don't know that that didn't happen. But for all we know that's written in God's Word, all we know is Job knew, no doubt, knew this message that had been, no doubt, handed down from generation to generation. God said, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between her seed and your seed, and he shall crush your head, Satan, and you shall bruise his heel. And holding onto that promise, God will crush the serpent's head. God will defeat Satan.

God will deal with sin. That very well may be the only gospel that Job had, the only gospel that Noah had, the only gospel that God's people had. But they had that, if no other, and they believed that. They believed in the promise of God, that God had promised salvation. And the details to be delivered later. But the promise is there.

Believe it. And those who believe, those who exercise faith in the promise of God are what? They're saved. They are delivered from sin and from destruction. So that brings me now in closing to cover a few applications regarding sin and temptation. We know this, but we need to be reminded.

Temptation is always based upon deception and lies. This looks enticing. This looks beautiful. This looks desirable.

Desirable to the eyes, probably beneficial. You'll hear people saying, oh, I did this. It's contrary to the law of God, but it was better. Why, my adulterous relationship actually made my marriage better and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You read things like this in the secular press, don't you? Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie.

Wake up. Understand. Temptation is based upon deception and lies. And the worst aspects of temptation is what attempts us to think wrongly about God.

We are tempted to question God's character, his holiness, his goodness. If God were good, he wouldn't allow this. If God were good, he wouldn't do this. If God were good, he wouldn't let this happen to me.

I deserve better than this. And so we're tempted to question the character of God. But that's also a lie, a lie, a lie. We may not understand how all these things work, but we know that God is holy. We know that God is good. In some churches, I understand the pastor is in a custom of saying, God is good. And the congregation answers all the time.

Have you ever been in the church that did that? God is good all the time. God is good all the time.

We need to keep reminding ourselves that, don't we? Because the tempter will deceive us into thinking that God is not always good. To question God's character and to question God's word, has God really said and to reject God's rule. God doesn't really have the right to rule over me and tell me what to do.

Oh, yes, he does. Don't believe that lie, because whether you believe it or not, the day is coming when you are going to give an account to God. You're going to stand in judgment before him.

And he's going to pronounce judgment upon all those who refused his rule and would not trust in his son. Regarding repentance and pardon, we can find application of this text. God is a pardoning God. How soon after Adam and Eve sinned in the garden did God come with his promise of salvation?

It sounds like it was just a matter of moments. That's how quickly God came to extend mercy. Who is a pardoning God like thee?

And who has grace so rich, so free? God is a pardoning God. And repentant sinners receive a merciful God's pardon every time. But blame shifting is the opposite of repentance. And when blame shifting is going on, repentance has not yet occurred. When you are blaming others, honey, I wish you hadn't done that. Well, it's because you did this. Ouch.

Whose toes did I step on? That's just the way we are, isn't it? It happens so quickly, so easily, so subtly, but what does that indicate? That indicates that there's not repentance in that heart. In that instance, not yet. Repentant sinners always receive merciful pardon from our gracious God. But blame shifting is the opposite of repentance. But, and this is so wonderful, Jesus is the friend of sinners. If you excuse your sin, you forfeit his mercy, but acknowledge and repent of your sin and receive his pardon.

Come, every soul, by sin oppressed. There's mercy with the Lord. And he will surely give you rest by trusting in his word. Only trust him. Only trust him.

Only trust him now. He will save you. He will save you.

He will save you now. Come unto me, every soul that's weary and oppressed, and I will give you mercy. Regarding spiritual conflict, the battle is real and the stakes are high. There is an enemy determined to destroy you and me. Your enemy is entice, deceptive, and determined. You are not strong enough to defeat him on your own.

But here's the good news. Christ came. He came to redeem helpless sinners. He saw us in our sin, our misery, our deserved judgment, our helplessness. And Jesus came to rescue us and to do everything that was necessary to make that happen. He is strong, not me. He has conquered, not me. We need to come with the faith of a little child. Jesus loves me.

This I know, for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to him belong. They are weak. I am weak. We are weak.

But he is strong. He crushes Satan's head. And therefore, dear friend, acknowledge your need of Christ and participate in his victory.

Why would you delay another moment? Shall we pray? Father, what a wonderful gospel you have given from the very beginning. This promise of salvation by the coming of the woman's seed. How grateful we are. Apply this truth to every heart by the work of your spirit. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.