The Wonder of His Promises
Intro: Restoring Wonder...
Treading on the serpent is used in these texts as a means of overcoming or defeating it.
Though God punishes sin, sin does not thwart God’s ultimate, gracious purpose for His human creation. Embedded in the curse was the gleam of a promise that the offspring of the woman would someday lead the human race to triumph (3:15).
This God promises to do with the very first announcement of his redemptive design for a messianic deliverer, a descendant (an “offspring” or “seed”) of the woman whom Satan has deceived—a Seed who will ultimately overcome Satan and his influence (Gen. 3:15). This gracious promise becomes an organizing theme for the rest of Scripture and the rest of human history, as every character and event find their place in relation to the great battle that now unfolds between the conquering Seed of the woman and the resistance of Satan.
In his confounding defiance of what we deserve, God himself undertakes to save his people. He does this in Jesus Christ, the second Adam (Rom. 5:12–19). Jesus was fully obedient to the Father, is the source of life, and triumphs over Satan and death (Heb. 2:14–15). His rule will end all opposition to God’s kingdom (1 Cor. 15:25; 1 John 3:8). Through him believers have access to the presence of God, his wisdom, and eternal life. They are united to Christ, the second Adam, and become truly human again as originally designed, as God’s image is renewed in them once more (Col. 3:10).
Though the corruptions of sin quickly infect humanity, grace is displayed for Adam’s and Eve’s descendants (“offspring” or “seed”): there is a seed despite Adam’s and Eve’s sin (Gen. 4:1); there is a means to relate to God despite sin (4:3); there is protection for a murderer despite sin (4:15); there is warning of the corruption of sin (through Cain’s line; 4:17–19) and at the same time indication of the faithfulness of God to provide the “Seed” for sinners (through Seth, i.e., Abel’s replacement; 4:25–26).
The “offspring” of the serpent includes demons and anyone serving his kingdom of darkness, those whose “father” is the devil (John 8:44). Satan would cripple mankind (you will strike at his heel), but the Seed, Christ, would deliver the fatal blow (He will crush your head).
The “offspring” of the serpent includes demons and anyone serving his kingdom of darkness, those whose “father” is the devil (John 8:44). Satan would cripple mankind (you will strike at his heel), but the Seed, Christ, would deliver the fatal blow (He will crush your head).
In the midst of the curse passage, a message of hope shone forth—the woman’s offspring called “He” is Christ, who will one day defeat the Serpent. Satan could only “bruise” Christ’s heel (cause Him to suffer), while Christ will bruise Satan’s head (destroy him with a fatal blow). Paul, in a passage strongly reminiscent of Gen. 3, encouraged the believers in Rome, “And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly” (Rom. 16:20). Believers should recognize that they participate in the crushing of Satan because, along with their Savior and because of His finished work on the cross, they also are of the woman’s seed. For more on the destruction of Satan, see Heb. 2:14, 15; Rev. 20:10.
4:4 the fullness of the time. In God’s timetable, when the exact religious, cultural, and political conditions demanded by His perfect plan were in place, Jesus came into the world.
Verse 15 still contains a puzzling yet important ambiguity: Who is the “seed” of the woman? It seems obvious that the purpose of his verse has not been to answer that question but rather to raise it. The remainder of the book is the author’s answer.
(“when the time had fully come,” NIV) can be seen in historical factors. It was a time when the pax Romana extended over most of the civilized earth and when travel and commerce were therefore possible in a way that had formerly been impossible. Great roads linked the empire of the Caesars, and its diverse regions were linked far more significantly by the all-pervasive language of the Greeks. Add the fact that the world was sunk in a moral abyss so low that even the pagans cried out against it and that spiritual hunger was everywhere evident, and one has a perfect time for the coming of Christ and for the early expansion of the Christian gospel.
Viewed theologically, however, it may also be said that the time was full because God himself had filled it with meaning.
However, this is no etiology designed to explain why man abhors snakes since the verse indicates there is a future history for the serpent and the woman. That future history of antagonism is not delineated here, yet the conclusion of the matter is made explicit: the serpent has a limited life expectancy that will come to a violent end.
“Between you [serpent]” has the singular pronoun (as elsewhere in the verse), meaning that this hostility begins with the beast and the woman as individuals. Yet their experience is shared by their offspring too; the serpent and woman are distinct from their offspring yet also one and the same with them. Here we have the common case where an individual represents many. Eve and her adversary are the progenitors of a lifelong struggle that will persist until a climactic moment when the woman’s offspring will achieve the upper hand.
“Seed” is a resourceful term for speaking of all human history while at the same time permitting a reference to a specific individual descendant. This explains why the individual offspring of the woman (“he,” “his heel”) can be said to do battle with the progenitor serpent (“your head,” “you”) in v. 15d and 15e.
offspring of Eve through Seth (“another seed,” 4:26; his genealogy, 5:1–32), through Noah’s offspring (9:9), and the seed of Abraham first described in 12:7 (with 12:1–3). Moreover, this promise points to the Mosaic community, which defined itself as the offspring promised to Abraham (e.g., Exod 32:11–14; Deut 11:8–12).
Abraham (e.g., Exod 32:11–14; Deut 11:8–12).
Also this hostility finds immediate expression between wicked Cain and his brother Abel (4:8). God’s forewarning of Cain that “sin is crouching at your door” (4:7) may be an allusion to the struggle that 3:15 envisions. But the adversary wins the first battle when Cain yields to sin and murders the woman’s seed, Abel. This strife between the elect line and the cursed is again envisioned in Noah’s curse and blessing (9:24–27). It also foreshadows the tension between the patriarchs and the nations as they experience an uneasy coexistence in Canaan and Egypt (e.g., chap. 38).
For later Israel this hostility comes to full fury when Egypt instigates a purge of Hebrew children, from which baby Moses is delivered, and climaxes with God’s tenth plague against Pharaoh’s firstborn. It also anticipates Moses’ wars and the hostility Israel faces as it migrates to the land of Canaan.
Christian tradition has referred to 3:15 as the protevangelium since it has been taken as the prototype for the Christian gospel. Historically interpreters have differed about whether “her seed” refers to an individual or is a collective singular indicating all humanity.
Our passage provides for this mature reflection that points to Christ as the vindicator of the woman (cp. Rom 16:20). There may be an allusion to our passage in Gal 4:4, which speaks of God’s Son as “born of a woman.”
Specifically, Paul identified Christ as the “seed” ultimately intended in the promissory blessing to Abraham (Gal 3:16), and Abraham’s believing offspring includes the church (Rom 4:13, 16–18; Gal 3:8). This is further developed in John’s Gospel, where the spiritual dimension is at the forefront. Jesus alluded to our verse when he indicted the Pharisees as children of the “devil” because of their spiritual apostasy (John 8:44), contrary to their claims to be the offspring of righteous Abraham (8:39). John used similar imagery when he contrasted God’s “seed” and those who are “of the devil” (1 John 3:7–10). This is heightened by his appeal to Cain’s murder of righteous Abel as paradigmatic of one “who belonged to the evil one” (3:11–15). Finally, the Apocalypse describes the “red dragon,” who is identified as “that ancient serpent” (Rev 12:9), opposing the believing community (i.e., the woman) and plotting the destruction of her child (i.e., the Messiah). Ultimately, “that ancient serpent” is destroyed by God for its deception of the nations (Rev 20:2, 7–10).
So significant was the advent of Christ for the Christian understanding of time that believers of a later generation divided all the time there is by this seminal event into A.D. and B.C. Elsewhere Paul described Christians as those “on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come” (1 Cor 10:11).
What did Paul mean by the “fullness” of time? Early Christian apologists pointed to the fact that the birth of the Messiah occurred during the Pax Romana, a period of relative peace and stability. Others have pointed to the development of a common language, favorable means of travel, the emergence of an urban civilization that made possible the rapid spread of the Christian message, and so forth. Still others have pointed to the lapse of a definite period of time (cf. Dan 9:24) that had to occur before the appearance of the Messiah. It is sufficient to say with Calvin that “the time which had been ordained by the providence of God was seasonable and fit.… Therefore the right time for the Son of God to be revealed to the world was for God alone to judge and determine.”179
One could hardly find a more succinct summary of the Christian gospel than the expression “God sent his Son.” Implicit in these words are two ideas, both of which are fundamental to a holistic Christological affirmation: divine intentionality and eternal deity.
God sent his Son not just from Galilee to Jerusalem, nor just from the manger to the cross, but all the way from heaven to earth. The full implications of this text can hardly be grasped in human language. In sending Jesus, God did not send a substitute or a surrogate. He came himself.
Adam pointed a treasonous finger at the woman and at God himself and as the woman pointed to the snake.
This view is sustained by the fact that in Galatians 3:16 Paul argues, on the basis of the use of the singular “seed” in God’s promise to Abraham, that the word “seed” refers to Christ: “Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, ‘And to offsprings,’ referring to many, but referring to one, ‘And to your offspring,’ who is Christ.” Here in Genesis 3:15 we have a prophecy of the cross when Satan would strike the heel of Christ (the suffering on the cross), but Christ would strike Satan’s head (through his death and glorious resurrection). All Christians (those who are in Christ) participate in the crushing through Christ, so that Paul could write in the conclusion of the book of Romans, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet” (16:20).
Grace is on display in several ways at this point in the narrative: the man and woman have being and breath through no ability of their own (Gen. 2:7); they have the provision of sustenance and purpose through no power of their own (2:15; cf. the “cultural mandate” of 1:28–30); they have a warning of the consequences of sin (if God did not love, he would not warn; 2:16–17); they have the opportunity for intimacy with God through contact and conversation; and, in their marriage relationship, they each have fellowship with another person made in the image of God (2:18).
This promise anticipates Rev 12 (especially 12:9) and the victory in Rev 19–20 (especially 20:2), where the dragon, “that ancient serpent,” represents Satan, and the woman represents the mother of Jesus, who is her seed. Jesus’ death and resurrection secures the final victory over Satan and death. His victory begins with his coming into the world at the incarnation (John 1:1–14) and will culminate when he returns. In Christian history, v. 15 has been called the Protoevangelium, the first announcement of the gospel. At both the beginning and the end, the Bible pictures Satan as a snake or dragon at war with God for the dominion of the earth and the human race.
“the father of all who believe” (Romans 4:11). The curve of Abram’s faith graphs unevenly. It soars when he hears God’s word and leaves Ur, traveling west across the Fertile Crescent and down its side, south into Canaan. It spikes higher when Abram travels the land, building altars and calling on the name of the Lord. But the curve dives dramatically in his disastrous trip to Egypt. After Egypt, it gently rises when he returns to Canaan repentant and rises more in his generous faith-based dealings with Lot. Then in chapter 14 the faith-curve again sweeps upward with his magnanimous rescue of Lot from the kings of the east and his continual magnanimity as he is blessed by Melchizedek, gives him gifts, and refuses to keep the plunder of the eastern kings. Abram models faith to the entire world.
Next Abram, whose foes now extended from the Euphrates to the Nile, heard God say, “I am your shield” against every enemy (cf. Psalm 3:3; 18:2; 28:7; 84:9; 91:4). And then, in reference to Abram’s magnanimous refusal to have any share of the plunder he secured from the four kings, God said, “your reward shall be very great.” All Abram got for his labors was God. That’s all! God was teaching Abram to be satisfied with him alone. This demonstrates, of course, what God desires to give us as we submit to the disciplines of a life of faith. He teaches us to be satisfied with him as enough—our all in all.
Again God spoke: “And he brought him outside and said, ‘Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be’ ” (v. 5)
Remember here that Abram had been a moon worshiper who had earlier stood atop the ziggurat in Ur topped with the temple of Nanna, the moon god. He was familiar with the planets and the astral trails. Now he was alone in the silence with God Almighty, who spoke. Abram was humbled, awed, and hushed. He said nothing. He was speechless. There were only stars and silence.
Faith” occurs 24 times in the Greek text of ch. 11.
“These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth” (v. 13).
Abraham’s trusting faith in God and his promise is the pattern for all who walk with the Lord. The apostle Paul quotes this verse as he insists on the primacy of faith in God’s promise as the basis of salvation (Rom. 4:1–8; Gal. 3:1–7). This promise to Abraham was given many years before the giving of the law (Gal. 3:15–18). Divine promise is therefore the prior and larger category within which human law-keeping is subsumed (Gal. 3:17). Faith in God’s promise, not human obedience, defines the fate of all who seek his salvation.
Faith as defined by this chapter is the assurance in God’s future promises, an assurance that enables one to persevere (10:32–39).
In form, the chapter is a literary masterpiece. It follows the frequent literary practice called historical retrospective, a summary of Jewish history to make a particular point, as in texts like Acts 7, 1 Maccabees 2:49–69 and Ecclesiasticus 44–50. The retrospective consists of encomiastic biographies (favorable accounts of virtuous lives). (Ancient moralists normally used examples of people who embodied the virtue they advocated, and sometimes wrote biographies for this purpose.) The writer builds the chapter around a literary device called anaphora, beginning each new account with the same Greek word, “by faith.”
The promises the Old Testament believers had expected were coming true in the events New Testament Christians were experiencing (11:39–40).
The Bible clearly teaches that in all ages imputed righteousness (i.e., salvation) comes by faith.
“the father of all who believe” (Romans 4:11). The curve of Abram’s faith graphs unevenly. It soars when he hears God’s word and leaves Ur, traveling west across the Fertile Crescent and down its side, south into Canaan. It spikes higher when Abram travels the land, building altars and calling on the name of the Lord. But the curve dives dramatically in his disastrous trip to Egypt. After Egypt, it gently rises when he returns to Canaan repentant and rises more in his generous faith-based dealings with Lot. Then in chapter 14 the faith-curve again sweeps upward with his magnanimous rescue of Lot from the kings of the east and his continual magnanimity as he is blessed by Melchizedek, gives him gifts, and refuses to keep the plunder of the eastern kings. Abram models faith to the entire world.
What happened within Abram? How did his faith come? Certainly it was not because he suddenly felt potent or that his expectations were raised. He simply rested on God’s promise. In this moment God’s word was not a theory about how things would turn out, but “the voice around which his life is organized” (Brueggemann).
the New Testament itself. The verb hāšaḇ means, as our text has it, “counted [or reckoned or imputed] it to him as righteousness” (cf. Leviticus 7:18; Numbers 18:27; 2 Samuel 19:19; Psalm 32:2; and 106:31, which is the closest parallel). Note that Abram is not described as doing righteousness, but his faith was credited as righteousness. Abram, who was originally destitute of righteousness, was now counted as righteous through faith in God. As Von Rad has said, “But above all, his righteousness is not the result of any accomplishments, whether of sacrifice or acts of obedience. Rather, it is stated programmatically that belief alone has brought Abraham into a proper relationship to God.”
Genesis 15:6 is quoted in full in three New Testament passages—Romans 4, Galatians 3, and James 2.
But for the Christian there is substantial reason for hope in this life and the life to come because of the promises of God’s Word. In fact, 1 Peter 1:3 tells that we have been “born again to a living hope” (NASB). The degree of our experience of hope is proportionate to the degree of our faith. The more profound our faith, the more profound our hope. A deeply intense faith spawns a deeply intense hope.
True faith is neither brainless nor a sentimental feeling. It is a solid conviction resting on God’s words that makes the future present and the invisible seen. Faith has at its core a massive sense of certainty. The great Bishop Westcott says of verse 1, “The general scope of the statement is to indicate that the future and the unseen can be made real by faith.” What is the huge certainty of faith like?
Now faith is a solid sureness, a substantial certitude of what we hope for” (author’s interpretive paraphrase).
The solid certainty is about the future—“what we hope for.” What are the things we hope for?
We hope for Christ’s return—“for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).
We hope for the resurrection because “in his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3).
We hope for glorification—“But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure” (1 John 3:2, 3).
We hope to reign with him, for “if we endure we will also reign with him” (2 Timothy 2:12). “There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever” (Revelation 22:5).
Think of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego (alluded to in 11:34). They had nothing but God’s word to rest on. They had no visible evidence that they would be delivered in this life. But they knew they would ultimately be delivered—they knew it so well that it was a present reality.
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.” (Daniel 3:16–18)
There is no evidence that any of them had
What happened within Abram? How did his faith come? Certainly it was not because he suddenly felt potent or that his expectations were raised. He simply rested on God’s promise. In this moment God’s word was not a theory about how things would turn out, but “the voice around which his life is organized” (Brueggemann).
Christ is God’s yes to all meaningful human hopes. Christ is God’s yes to human longing for life, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification (1 Cor 1:30). But we should be mindful that God also speaks a no “to every selfish and perverted longing of humanity, to every desire to ‘get rich quick,’ to dominate others, or to organize society for selfish advantage.”
In his life, death, and resurrection, Christ Jesus is the Yes to every one of God’s promises. In the life of a believer, the confirmation of this Yes is the “Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee” (v. 22). Having this seal causes the believer to be far more concerned about the witness of God than the witness of men (v. 23). We no longer depend on the fickle approval of others because we have the final approval of God in Christ—a reality Paul asserts to explain why he had put off coming to Corinth sooner: he did so not for his own convenience but to spare the Corinthians the discipline they deserved. His concern was for them, not for himself, because he was confident of the approval of God.
In Christ the promises to Abraham and David are fulfilled (Rom. 1:3; 11:5; Gal. 3:16) and the Law was brought to an end (Rom. 10:4), a truth apparently contested by Paul’s opponents (cf. 2 Cor. 3). Nevertheless this message proclaimed by Paul and his associates resulted in the Corinthians’ salvation and in turn brought glory to God.
All God’s OT and NT promises of peace, joy, love, goodness, forgiveness, salvation, sanctification, fellowship, hope, glorification, and heaven are made possible and fulfilled in Jesus Christ (cf. Luke 24:44). Amen. The Heb. word of affirmation (cf. Matt. 5:18; John 3:3; Rom. 1:25).
“They are ‘Yes’ in Christ,” since he forms the climax and summation of the divine self-revelation. That is why (dio kai), in their corporate worship offered to God through Christ, Christians joyfully utter the “Yes” or “Amen” of agreement and consecration (cf. Rev 1:7; 3:14; 22:20). Such a response enhances God’s glory (v. 20b).
The Corinthians’ “Amen” to the gospel declaration itself validated the apostolic preaching (cf. 1 Cor 1:6; 2 Cor 3:2, 3; 13:5, 6)
Then Paul sums up the glory of Christ by reminding the Corinthians that as many as are the promises of God, in Him they are yes. All of God’s salvation promises—of blessing, peace, joy, goodness, fellowship, forgiveness, strength, and hope of eternal life—are yes, meaning they all come true, in Christ. They are all made possible by His person and work. After His resurrection, Jesus told His disciples, “All things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (Luke 24:44). In 1 Corinthians 1:30 Paul declared that “Christ Jesus … became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption.” To the Colossians he wrote, “For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him.… For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form” (Col. 1:19; 2:9). It was the realization of “the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus [as his] Lord” that made Paul willing to suffer “the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that [he might] gain Christ” (Phil. 3:8).
Because Christ is the grand consummating Yes—God’s unambiguous, ultimate Yes—he is the ground and fulcrum of all Christian ethics. Those who are in Christ and embrace him as the Yes with all their hearts embrace truth—and truth-telling as a way of life. Nothing could be more dissonant and logically contradictory than to accuse the Apostle Paul (whose whole being was dedicated to preaching Christ) of playing with the truth! Paul’s behavior was centered upon and in the character and actions of Christ.
If we say “Amen” to the truth about Christ as Paul calls us to in his conclusion—“That is why it is through him we utter our Amen to God for his glory” (v. 20b)—then we must also live lives of truth, of radical veracity.
Integrity lay at the heart of apostolic ministry. Truth was the medium. Sincerity was the evidence. Power was the outcome.
This still works today. When Billy Graham’s preaching was filling Wembley Stadium, John Stott, then rector of All Souls in London, was asking himself, “why should it be … that our churches are half-empty and yet night after night thousands come to hear Billy Graham, ‘and the answer I gave myself was this: I believe Billy was the first transparently sincere preacher these people have ever heard.’ ”
The power of integrity! This is so needed today. We need preachers whose sermons are like thunder because their lives are like lightning!
Paul’s open-ended description in verse 20 of these promises (“no matter how many promises God has made”) reflects his conviction that Jesus is both the midpoint and climax of redemptive history. There is no event in Israel’s history or promise granted to God’s people that does not find its significance or fulfillment in Christ. God’s unchanging commitment to pour out his grace toward his people by meeting their needs reached its climax in the sending of Christ for their sins (cf. 5:21). So too God’s promise to deliver his people from sin and evil, the ultimate fulfillment of which is their resurrection from the dead, also takes place in Christ (cf. 4:14). And God’s intention to judge the world is likewise brought about by Christ (cf. 5:10). Hence, God’s apparent change of plans in first sending Christ to the cross (cf. Mark 10:45) before he comes to judge (cf. 1:14; 5:10) was, in reality, a consistent fulfillment of his promises to bless the nations (cf. Gen. 12:1–3; Rom. 3:21–26; 4:11; Gal. 3:13–14).
“What course of action best reflects what Christ has accomplished for us in redemptive history, so that the Trinitarian God will be honored for his merciful actions toward us?” (cf. Rom. 12:1).
Its message is not about my future but about the Future. We should read it not to unearth a new message for this afternoon per se, but to get to know the character and purposes of God for eternity. When confronted with major decisions in life, the question is not, “Do I have a personally revealed word from God about this situation?” but, “What does God’s Word say about the God of this situation?”
The Old Testament contains many promises of God concerning the messianic age. Not one of these will fail to find its fulfilment in Christ. There is no equivocation as far as the fulfilment of the promises of God in Jesus Christ is concerned.
It may be observed that it is only as we add our ‘Amen’ to the promises of God which find their Yes in Christ that those promises become effective in our case, and we may on that account then truly glorify God for his grace to us.
Jesus Christ reveals the promises, fulfills the promises, and enables us to claim the promises!
Then he summarizes the matter in a vivid phrase: ‘Jesus is the yes to every promise of God.’ He means this: had Jesus never come, we might have doubted the tremendous promises of God, and might have argued that they were too good to be true. But a God who loves us so much that he gave us his Son is quite certain to fulfil every promise that he ever made. He is the personal guarantee of God that the greatest and the least of his promises are all true.
The Hebrew sense is that he believed and continued believing the Lord. W. H. Griffith Thomas observes, “The original Hebrew for ‘believed’ comes from a root whence we derive our ‘Amen,’ and we might paraphrase it by saying that ‘Abraham said Amen to the Lord.’ ‘Amen’ in Scripture never means a petition (‘May it be so’), but is always a strong assertion of faith (‘It shall be so,’ or ‘It is so’).”7