KTC-Redemption Promised (Genesis 3:15)

Introduction

Now to review where we have been so far...

Puzzle Box Big Picture: God as King has created a Kingdom through redeeming a people for Himself and for His glory.

The Story so far: God created a Kingdom and He is the King, but he chose to make human beings to be His representatives. Adam and Eve rejected that call, which led to sin and death.

John Bunyan was an English Puritan in the 1600’s and wrote one of the most famous books that has ever been read known as The Pilgram’s Progress.

The story was an analogy to the Christian life and told a story of a man named Christian who was taking a journey to try and get to the “celestial city,” which represented Heaven.

During his journey, Christian chose to go down an easier path than the way he was going. His choice of choosing the broad path led him to fall into the hands of a Giant who took him to the “castle of despair.”

Because of Christian’s sin, he started to lose hope. His sin had resulted in slavery and captivity and he knew that death would be the eventual result.

Yet, in the midst of his despair, he remembered hope of the gospel that had been sown in his heart. The truth that he was now a subject in the King of the Celestial City’s kingdom and he had been forgiven by the king from all his sin, even in choosing to go down the wrong path.

Once he remembered this promise of redemption, a key fell from his heart that provided the way to escape the dungeon and the castle of despair. Despite His sin and the curse of death, the hope of promised redemption brought him out of his despair and he eventually reached the celestial city.

Christian’s experience reminds me of a hymn by William Cowper known as God Moves in a Mysterious Way. In it, there is a line that says of God: “Behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face.”

Romans 8:28 tells us that God is always working everything for our good and his glory to conform us to the image of his son…so that even in the midst of sin, despair, and death, God’s smiling face is still there…

Tonight we will see that even in the midst of the most awful circumstances, even in the midst of death and being cursed, God gave a promise of redemption to Adam and Eve that would provide eternal hope for the rest of eternity.

Genesis 3:15 is our assurance that God will always seek to make every wrong right and a truth that we can place our hope in no matter what we might be facing in our lives.

The Curses (Genesis 3:16-19)

After cursing the serpent, God cursed both Adam and Eve, let us read Genesis 3:16-19 together.

For Eve, the curse of sin was pain in childbirth and relational conflict with her husband.

bearing children would be painful. The means that God had given for Adam and Eve to fill the earth and multiply would now be extremely painful. The joy and blessing of producing image bearers of God in fulfilling God’s command would now be experienced through extreme pain.

God also said that there would be relational conflict between Eve and Adam. God said “your desire will be for your husband, and He will rule over you.”

We know from Genesis 4:7 that “desire” does not mean a to sexually desire Adam, but to rule over him. Just as God told Cain that sin was crouching at his door and its desire was to rule over and master him, God said Eve would seek to rule over and master her husband…essentially usurping the role of submitting to her husband as his helpmate.

This shows that the root cause of the push for feminism today can be found in the fall of man and woman and the curse of sin as a result. Women will always struggle to want to be in charge and in control over their husband, Yet, God says that Adam will rule over her. This means that despite woman’s attempts, man will always have the leadership role because this has been ordained by God since the beginning of creation.

For Adam, the curse of sin was the earth being cursed, work being difficult, and eventual death.

Because Adam rejected God’s call to lead His family and was passive and complicit in listening to His wife and eating the fruit God commanded Him not to eat from, the ground was cursed because of Him.

This shows that the earth is cursed because of man’s sin. The reason why there are hurricanes, diseases, and all other natural disasters are due to man’s sin.

God said that the role He gave man to work and keep the garden, what was supposed to be his joy, would now be extremely painful and difficult. Work is not a result of the curse, for God made man to work, but work being difficult and labor-some is the result of the curse.

Ultimately, God said that Adam’s life would end in death and that he would return to the dust from where he came.

You may be thinking…hold up Andrew, did you not say that there was always a smiling face in a frowning providence? Where is that smile because all I see are curses and death…but that smiling face is clear in our text…look at the beautiful promise of hope we see in verse 15...

Read Genesis 3:15

The Promise (Genesis 3:15)

God said in verse 15 that there would be “hostility” or “enmity” between the serpent and the woman, between the serpent’s seed and the woman’s seed.

The word “hostility” communicates an ill-will or hatred that normally resulted in warfare and murder. The word communicates a life-and-death struggle between two enemies.

You can think of it like the hatred that lies between the Jedi Knights and Sith of the dark side of the force or even the hatred that existed between the US and Germany during WWII.

Yet in contrast to these examples of strife that ultimately fizzle out, the hostility between the serpent’s seed and the woman’s seed would continue for many generations.

In fact, this hostility between the seed of the Serpent and the seed of the woman can be seen throughout the rest of Scripture.

The seed of the serpent, God said, would strike the heel of the seed of the woman. From this point on in the story, Satan will do everything he can to destroy the seed of the woman.

We see this first in Cain killing Able. Yet, God intervened and allowed the seed of the woman to continue in providing Eve another son, Seth.

We see this again when man’s sin continued to spread and grow rampant throughout the earth. Yet, God intervened again by destroying all of the wickedness and evil in the world through the flood and started anew again with Noah and his family.

Yet, Satan still sought to destroy God’s seed in preventing mankind to fill the earth with God’s image in the tower of Babel. Yet again, God intervened and confuse the language of the people, causing them to disperse over the earth and fulfill his command.

All of these examples of God intervening demonstrate that this is not a good vs. evil battle of equals…NO, God is all-powerful, He is King, and He is sovereign through it all, and He intervenes to allow His promises to take place.

As much as Satan may try, he can only strike the heel of the seed of the woman…every attempt he makes at trying to destroy Eve’s seed is just a confirmation of the promise God made. God will always intervene and keep his promise that the seed of the women would continue…and this is why that is important…because this seed of the woman would strike the seed of the Serpent’s HEAD!

Striking someone’s heel definitely hurts and brings pain, but it is not a fatal blow that brings death, and one can recover from it.

However, a blow to the head is fatal and results in death.

This is what God promised: that in the midst of Adam and Eve’s sin, in the midst of cursing them for their disobedience, in the midst of pronouncing their death sentence, He promised them that one would eventually come from Eve’s offspring that would crush the head of the serpent. This person would destroy the works of Satan, and defeat sin and death.

We know that this seed of the woman finally came in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, who, crushed the head of the serpent when he gave his life on the cross for the sins of the world and rose victorious from the grave.

God gave Adam and Eve a sign of this promise of redemption at the end of chapter 3. Adam and Eve had sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves from their shame and sin, yet God said this was not good enough, it was not sufficient to cover their sin.

God instead, provided an adequate covering for their sin through animal skins. These animals were killed in the place of Adam and Eve…and we see for the first time that forgiveness for one can only come through death and the shedding of blood of another. Instead of Adam and Eve dying, the animals died in their place and their sin was covered.

This demonstrates that God had not left them, despite their sin, he had a plan to redeem them and he gave them the promise that redemption would eventually come through the sacrifice of not an animal, but God’s own Son, the seed of the woman, The Lord Jesus Christ.

Application

All the pain and suffering we face in this world is a result of our own sin.

Satan will do all he can to destroy us and will strike our heal multiple times bringing pain and suffering. These things come not only because of Satan but also because of our own sinful hearts and the decisions we make.

Satan and sin can only strike our heel, yet through faith in Christ, God will enable us to crush Satan, sin, and death.

Satan and sin may win some battles, but they will never win the war…for it has already been won through the person and work of Jesus Christ. We are fighting from victory!

Romans 16:20

Psalm 91