A Seed to Crush the Serpent

Introduction

I’m excited this morning to kick off our new sermon series, Promise Kept.

From the moment sin entered the world; God responded with a promise.

As we look forward to Christmas, we are following that promise across the pages of Scripture.

Over these next 6 Sundays we will hear God speak to Adam and Eve in their ruin, to Abraham in his wandering, to David on his throne, and to Isaiah in the midst of national darkness. And in every passage, we will listen for the same heartbeat of redemption: God is faithful. God keeps His word. God will not abandon His people.

Christmas is not an isolated story; it is the moment when all of God’s covenant promises converge in the birth of Christ.

The child in the manger is the promised Seed, the blessing to the nations, the Son of David, the Light of the world, the Savior for all who wait in darkness.

The aim in this series is that we would see the birth of Jesus not as a sentimental scene, but as the climax of God’s ancient promise—and as the beginning of His redeeming work in us.

Our text this morning is mainly Genesis 3:15 but we’ll be in chapters 2 and 3 of Genesis so you can turn there in your Bibles. Let’s pray.

The great promise of the messiah and the gospel starts where our great need began.

Come now to the Garden of Eden. A little background: God has created the world from darkness and chaos has brought order and beauty—creating all things by the Word of His power.

His chief creation is man, Adam and Eve, who are made in the image of God himself. And they are given rule and authority over the creation to work it and keep it. And they had an unsullied relationship with God.

They were also made with the ability to choose for good or choose for evil. In Genesis 2:16–17 God says to them, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.””

The choice is that they would continue to trust God and rely on His definition of what is good and what is evil or that they would choose for themselves. But God warns them that if they turn away from Him and choose autonomy then death would come to them.

What we are seeing here is what theologians call the Covenant of Works: Adam was able to keep the covenant or he was able to break the covenant. If he had kept it relationship with God would have continued unbroken and all the covenant blessings that Adam and Eve had been experiencing would continue. But if they broke the Covenant with God then the curse of death through sin would come.

And right after this warning—after an undisclosed amount of time—Genesis doesn’t tell us—the serpent appears. The serpent is more than just a snake.

The serpent is a creature who is in rebellion against God. He is the picture of what God had warned Adam and Eve about—a created being who chose autonomy away from God. He is in fact Satan himself—Romans 16:20 and Revelation 12:9 both understand the serpent here to be Satan who rebelled against God.

And the serpent lies and tempts Eve. The serpent says to Eve in Genesis 3:1-7

Genesis 3:1–7 ESV

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ”

Genesis 3:1–7 ESV

But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

Okay as we are leading up to the promise in Genesis 3:15 there are 2 things in regard to sin that I want you to notice here:

Notice that the enemy tempts Eve by calling into question what God says. “Did God really say this?” And he adds to what God has said. “Did God really say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden.”

This is still how we are tempted to question the goodness of God now. Did God really say? Did God really mean? And so we should be on guard against any teacher or system when they call into question the teaching of the Word. We should know it well enough, be familiar enough with what God has said that we immediately know whether or not God has said it.

And it almost seems that Eve is familiar enough—-she passes this test just to fail the next. How?

Notice that Eve adds to the command of God. She says, “No we can eat of all the trees but this one—God said not to eat of it—that’s right, but then she says— OR touch it, or we will die.”

Eve corrects the serpent—no God has not withheld from us—we can eat from all the trees but this one. But then she adds to God’s Word by saying “if we even touch it—we will die.”

God didn’t say that—God didn’t say touching the fruit would kill them—God said eating the fruit would kill them—Eve adds to the commandment of God.

And this may seem harmless but let me posit that when Eve reached out and touched the fruit and it didn’t kill her, like she believed God said it would, that when this happened it helped to erode her belief in what God had really said—that eating it would bring death. She may have thought, “Well look I did touch it and I’m fine—maybe the serpent is right eating it won’t bring me death—God lied about this so maybe He did lie about the eating.

And we need to be on guard against this in our own lives—in two ways: We too can add to the word if we aren’t careful and that is not a harmless act. Secondly, like Eve we can flirt with sin and take God’s patience as God’s permission.

If God had struck Eve down as soon as she had touched the fruit or eaten the fruit you better believe that Adam wouldn’t have touched it with a ten foot pole. —and we need to be careful in our own lives of not believing that God’s patience with our sin equals God’s permission for our sin. As we are going to see sin is a very serious deal.

So Eve eats the fruit—Adam eats the fruit (which he too knew not to eat) and God is immediately proven to be true. Death enters the world through sin—their eyes are opened. And we know this opening of their eyes is not good because they are ashamed and feel vulnerable and they hide.

And it is here that humanity’s great need surfaced.

When Adam fell the whole human race fell with him. The Covenant God made with Adam was not just with Adam but was with Adam and all his progeny.

By God’s plan we just happened to be on question 16 of the WSC. Which answers “Did Adam fall in sin alone” when it reads: The covenant being made with Adam, not only for himself, but for his posterity; all mankind, descending from him by ordinary generation, sinned in him, and fell with him, in his first transgression.

God’s Word in Romans 5 says the same thing, Romans 5:12 “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—”

In Adam the whole of the human race fell—where Adam and Eve had a choice to sin or to not sin—the human race has become totally depraved.

The doctrine of total depravity doesn’t mean that every person is as bad as they could be but that every part of us has been touched by sin. We can’t choose not to sin—that is part of the curse of the fall. That is the functional death that entered the world that plays out in the lives of humanity. There isn’t a person alive who can now live a life free from sin.

This is why the virgin birth of Christ is such a big deal—the virgin birth breaks the transmission of sin to the messiah—had Christ been born by normal generation the sin of Adam would have been passed on and Jesus could not have fulfilled the promise that we see in Genesis 3:15.

So that’s the context—the lead up to Genesis 3:15. An enemy strikes, paradise is lost, sin and death are inherited, separation from the God who created us is the new normal. And yet in the midst of human rebellion…

Our Gracious God Speaks a Promise.

Hear now Genesis 3:15 “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.””

This promise comes in the midst of God judging both the serpent, Adam, and Eve for their rebellion. In verse 14 the serpent is cursed, verse 16 Eve is cursed, and in verses 17-19 Adam is cursed.

And in the midst of those curses—as judgment falls for the breaking of the Covenant—God also gives a promise that runs like a silver stream throughout all of redemptive history. In verse 15 we see the grace of God on display: First in how…

God creates enmity

God says “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring;”

It is God’s grace that he doesn’t abandon humanity to their sin completely. When God speaks Genesis 3:15 his is not just predicting conflict; He is creating it.

This a sovereign gracious move of God.

This is not Adam and Eve turning against the serpent on their own. By nature, after the fall, humanity is not at enmity with Satan. The fall aligned us with him. We were “following the prince of the power of the air” (Eph. 2:2). We were “of our father the devil” (John 8:44). We were “children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3).

Left to our own devices after the Fall we do not hate sin we love it—which is why our flesh struggles with it so much.

And it would have been completely just of God to leave us in this state of sin and death.

Don’t miss this: God did not owe us redemption—He would have continued to be just and pure and righteous had every member of the human race entered Hell after the Fall.

But here, God is immediately breaking into the new state of humanity and is saying I will not let it be this way. I will put a wedge between the serpent and the woman—between the serpent’s seed and the woman’s seed. I will create a war against death and sin.

And in this war a messiah will come who is…

The Seed of the Woman

This promise of enmity is not just a broad description but narrows into a singular person when God describes the offspring of the woman as “he”.

The New Testament leaves no doubt that Jesus is the Seed of the woman promised in Genesis 3:15. He is “born of woman” (Gal. 4:4), identified as the promised Seed (Gal. 3:16), and shown to crush the serpent’s power (Rom. 16:20; Heb. 2:14). Revelation 12 and Luke’s genealogy both present Him as the Child born to defeat the dragon. Christ is the promised Seed who fulfills the first gospel.

The promise of the gospel starts here—Genesis 3:15 is called the protoevangelium which means first gospel. Why?

Because God promises that a seed of the woman will come…

This is the moment in history that points to a future moment when a virgin mother would give birth to the messiah of all God’s people across all time.

The cries of infant Jesus reach across history and the pages of scripture and find their first voice here in this promise.

God’s plan to redeem a people unto himself was not the result of God figuring things out as he went—The gospel has always been God’s plan from eternity past.

Genesis 3:15 is the beginning of the Covenant of God’s Grace.

It is by God’s grace that we will be rescued when we could not rescue ourselves. And as Scripture keeps unfolding we see through Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David the unfolding of God’s grace that leads to the God-man born of Mary in Bethlehem.

When Jesus is born there are signs in the heavens, angels cry out in holy worship, Luke 2:9–11 “And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

Christmas reminds us that God is faithful. God keeps His word. God will not abandon His people. God said He would send a savior and God did. The seed of the woman has come—the long promised savior has come just as God said in Genesis 3:15, a long time ago in a garden far far away. (That was a Star Wars easter egg—couldn’t help myself.)

Genesis 3:15 doesn’t just speak about the arrival the messiah but also his work. The seed of the woman will also be the…

The Wounded Victor

Look again at Genesis 3:15 “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.””

The seed of the woman won’t just come but he will do battle with the serpent.

The Hebrew word translated “bruise” here is “shuph” (שׁוּף) and should be understood here as significant damage. The NT looking back to this uses crushing language.

God in the midst of the Fall says, this fallenness won’t last—I’ll send a seed, a savior, and he’ll do battle with the enemy. The enemy will do significant damage to his heel; but he will do significant damage to the enemy’s head.

In other words—the victor will be wounded but he won’t be defeated: in fact by wounding the savior the enemy will have his head crushed.

Friends, these ancient lines point forward to the cross of Christ.

When Jesus was arrested by the Jewish court Satan struck his heel. When he was mocked and struck in the Sanhedrin Satan struck his heel. When a crown of thorns was placed on him in the barracks and Roman soldiers were beating him Satan struck his heel. When Pilate refused him justice and his own people rescued Barrabas who was a murderer instead of Jesus— Satan struck his heel.

All the way to the cross the enemy who revealed himself in the garden believed he was winning—with each nail in the messiah’s hands and feet the enemy struck and believed he was winning.

When Jesus was lifted up on a curse crossed Satan thought that he was winning. At the death of Jesus the serpent believed that the struck heel of the seed of the woman was the final undoing of God’s rule and God’s grace to man.

But friends though our savior was wounded with death—death could not hold Him! The grave could not keep Him!

At the resurrection of Jesus the serpents head was crushed! The work of the serpent to rob from God a people for Himself was obliterated. Forever God’s people would be saved by the work of the Wounded Victor on their behalf.

O death, where is your victory! O death, where is your sting!

Christ has won, Christ has won! God’s people are free! This is the message of Christmas.

And I have to ask you this morning—is this great victory yours in Christ?! Have you placed all your hope in this promised messiah that was promised on the eve of ruin in the garden?

This promise is for you—this promise is for me—this promise is for Hopewell and the ends of the earth. If you have never placed your hope in Jesus don’t leave here today without surrendering your life to Christ! Today is the day of salvation—you only have to come.

Conclusion

Look around this room—look at your own life. Sin entered the world, and death claimed us all.

Yet God, in His mercy, spoke a promise and that promise was Jesus. The Seed of the woman has come. He was bruised, He was wounded, but the serpent’s head is crushed, and his work is undone.

The victory of Christmas is not a story we read about—it is a life we enter by faith.

God who keeps His promises calls us out of darkness into His light. He sent the seed who crushed the work of the serpent.

Christmas calls us to take hold of the promise of the gospel and trust the Wounded Victor who came first in the manger.

God keeps His promises to us—God is faithful. God keeps His word. God will not abandon His people. We have much to rejoice over church. Amen? Let’s pray.