The Seed of the Woman

Opening Comments:

Please meet me in your copy of God’s Word in Genesis 3 in what is perhaps an odd place for a Christmas sermon. We’ll take our text from vs. 8-24, paying close attention to vs.15. As we continue in our Christmas series titled “The Promised Emmanuel.”

Genesis 3:8–24 NKJV

8 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.” 11 And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?” 12 Then the man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” 13 And the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” 14 So the Lord God said to the 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. 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.” 16 To the woman He said: “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; In pain you shall bring forth children; Your desire shall be for your husband, And he shall rule over you.” 17 Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’: “Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it All the days of your life. 18 Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, And you shall eat the herb of the field. 19 In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return.” 20 And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. 21 Also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics of skin, and clothed them. 22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—23 therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. 24 So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.

Introduction:

Genesis 3 details perhaps one of the most pivotal points in all of human history. It is the recording of the temptation of Eve by the serpent in the Garden of Eden, the fall of man into sin, and the consequences brought into the world as a result of that sin upon the whole human race.

Sin has to be judged and following the fall, God began to execute his perfect judgement upon sin.

We have seen in what we just read that through God’s judgement after the fall that the serpent was cursed to crawl on its stomach. This was symbolic, that the snake would live a detested, degraded and miserable existence. He was cursed to “eat dust”, which in scripture, means to be humiliated and defeated.

Donald Grey Barnhouse “Genesis Vol.1 p.22

“To eat dust is to know defeat, and that is God’s prophetic judgement upon the enemy. e will always reach for his desires and fall just short of them. There will be continuous aspiration, but never attainment.

Satan has been and always will be defeated. His final and ultimate destiny is in the lake of fire.

The woman was cursed in the fall to bring forth children in great pain and to always live in subjection to her husband.

Adam was cursed to work by the sweat of his brow to provide food and they both were cursed to one day taste death.

Our focus for today though, falls upon verse 15. Here we find the first mention of the “reason for the season” we celebrate called Christmas.

This is what scholars call the “protevangelium” which means the first mention of the gospel. The first mention in scripture of a “Promised Emmanuel.”

v.15 is a glorious promise of a messiah to come. One day the tempter (devil) would be crushed by one particular descendant (seed) of the woman. What a wonderful promise in the midst of bad news. That one day this seed of the woman would destroy “that old serpent, the devil.”

That serpent would strike the descendants heel, bruising and injuring him, but the “seed of the woman” would strike the serpent with a final and deadly blow.

This is the first unconditional promise in the Bible, though Adam and Eve were going to feel the full weight of their sin, one day a savior was coming who would destroy the devil and bring reconciliation between God and man.

1.) Who is this seed?

The New Testament clearly tells us who this “promised seed” is, it is Jesus Christ himself.

Galatians 3:16 NKJV

16 Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many, but as of one, “And to your Seed,” who is Christ.

Notice, our text says this seed is the “seed of the woman” not the man. This points us directly to the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus Christ which is primary for Christ to be the messiah.

Without the virgin birth, Jesus would be like any other man.

But notice something, the devil didn't know who this seed was going to be. He is not omnipotent like God, his always left guessing. From this point forward the devil would set out to destroy the seed of the woman.

From this point froward he has tried to destroy the woman's seed by waging a war against the “seed” of God.

⇒ There was the line of Abel, Adam’s Son.

⇒ Satan led Cain to kill Abel, but God gave Adam another son, Seth (Ge. 4:1f).

⇒ There was the early line of the godly seed.

⇒ Satan led the godly line to mix with the ungodly and led them into such vile wickedness that God had to destroy the earth. But God raised up Noah (Ge. 6:5f).

⇒ There was the line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

⇒ Satan led Esau to threaten to kill his brother, Jacob. But God protected Jacob (Ge. 27:41f).

⇒ There was the line of the children of Israel.

⇒ Satan led Pharoah to attempt to kill all the male babies of Israel. But God saved Moses (Ex. 1:8f).

⇒ There was the line of David.

⇒ Satan led several of David’s sons into sin, led them to commit murder and disqualify themselves from the godly line. But God always kept at least one son of David alive (2 S. 13f).

⇒ There was the line of the sons of David.

⇒ Satan led Jehoram, one of Jehosophat’s sons, to kill all his brothers. But God caused sons to be born to Jehoram to carry on the line (2 Chr. 21:1f).

⇒ There was the line of Jehoshophat’s sons.

⇒ Satan led an enemy to come in and kill all the sons but one—Ahaziah (2 K. 8:25f).

⇒ There was the line of Ahaziah.

⇒ Satan led Jehu to kill Ahaziah, and the queen’s mother, Athaliah, took over the throne and killed all the sons but one. God led the wife of the high priest to save one small baby, Joash. At this point the line of the promised seed rested in the saving of this one little baby’s life (2 K. 9:11f).

⇒ There was the line of the chosen people.

⇒ Satan led King Ahasuerus to plan to exterminate all of God’s people. But God gave him a most restless and frightening night of sleep. The king, therefore, spared the chosen line (The Book of Esther).

⇒ There was the line of the Promised Seed, Jesus Himself, at His birth.

⇒ Satan led King Herod to slay all the babies in Bethlehem in an attempt to kill the promised child. But God warned Joseph and told Joseph to flee with the child (Mt. 2:1f).

⇒ There was the line of the Promised Seed, Jesus Himself, at his temptation.

⇒ Satan tempted Jesus to cast Himself down from the pinnacle of the temple, to secure the loyalty and worship of the people by a spectacular sign instead of the cross. But Jesus chose God’s way, the way of the cross, instead of Satan’s way (Mt. 4:1f).

⇒ There was the line of the Promised Seed, Jesus Himself, at his hometown, Nazareth.

⇒ Satan led the citizens of Nazareth to try to cast Jesus off the cliff of a hill, but Jesus escaped (Lu. 4:29).

⇒ There was the line of the Promised Seed, Jesus Himself, in facing the religionists.

⇒ Satan led the religionists to hate Jesus and to plot His death time and again (Jn. 7:1f). But Jesus escaped time and again.

⇒ There was the line of the Promised Seed, Jesus Himself, on the cross.

⇒ Satan led the world to put Jesus on the cross and to kill Him. But God raised Jesus from the dead (Jn. 19:1f).

Satan has attempted to foil God’s plan by doing all he could to devour the woman and her godly descendants through the centuries. He did all he could to keep Jesus from being born. But Christ has come, born of a virgin, born to die to pay for the sins of mankind and purchase our redemption. Satan has lost the war, but now is set out to do all he can to turn people from Christ. Even when people do repent of their sins and turn to Christ for salvation by believing the gospel, he still does all he can to strip them from truly living for Christ to the best of their ability. But try as he may, he will ail every time.

Why because, the Promised Emmanuel has come, Jesus is truly God with us.

2.) What did this seed accomplish?

The Lord jesus accomplished his task of crushing the head of the serpent by doing several things:

A. ) His Incarnation

The very fact that the Son of God came into the world through a virgin birth destroys the works of the devil from the very start.

1 John 3:8 NKJV

8 He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.

B.) His never giving in to temptation and sin.

Christ was the perfect embodiment of righteousness. He lived a life completely free from sin.

Hebrews 4:15 NKJV

15 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Through Christ man can now be made completely acceptable to God by putting on the righteousness of Christ through faith.

Romans 5:1 NKJV

1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

C.) His dying for man.

When Christ died, he bore all of man’s guilt and punishment for sin. He bore all of God’s wrath and punishment for sin in his own body so that mankind no longer has to be condemned.

Men no longer have to go to hell and be separated from God for eternity, you can now be reconciled to God through Christ. Christ took my sins and your sins upon himself and paid their penalty.

1 Peter 3:18 NKJV

18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit,

C.) His resurrection from the dead.

Death could not hold the perfection of Christ, death is the result of the sin curse and Christ being without sin was bound to arise.

When he rose from the grave, he triumphed over Satan, openly showing that death is the work of Satan. Death was not to be the natural experience of man. Death was never the purpose of God; life eternal is the purpose of God.

Colossians 2:11–15 NKJV

11 In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. 13 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, 14 having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. 15 Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.

Conclusion:

To the devil Genesis 3:15 was a declaration of war that would climax in his ultimate defeat, but to Eve it was the assurance that she would be forgiven and that through her God would bring a redeemer into the world.

He did just that when Christ was born that first Christmas in a Bethlehem stable. The message of Christmas was the “Promised Emmanuel” has come. He has come to pay for the sins of mankind with His own blood upon the cross.

Christmas is about the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and his power to set mankind free from the dreadful grip of sin.

Is he your savior today?

Give gospel invitation.