Christ in the Old Testament

Genesis 3:15 – Seed of the Woman

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. (NKJV)

Today’s Reading: Genesis 3, Galatians 4:4-7 and Matthew 1:18-23

We are going to look at the first half of Genesis 3:15 today and the second half tomorrow. In Genesis 3, Satan the serpent convinces Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit and she then convinces Adam to eat as well. This is the first act of disobedience by God’s creation. In Genesis 4:7, God defines sin as not doing what is right. But this was inevitable because God didn’t create robots. He wanted us to have free will. And naturally there would come a time when we would choose to please ourselves over pleasing God.

However, sin isn’t simply doing what God doesn’t want you to do. Sin is relational. When we sin against God we hurt the relationship. We can sin against our friends and family as well. Have you ever done something or said something that hurt your relationship with someone? Of course we all have. That’s also sin – a sin against that person.

So how do you make it right? How do you restore the relationship? You know from past experience that you – the one who sinned – cannot restore that relationship. If you go to that person and apologize or even give them an extravagant gift, does that instantly restore your relationship? No it doesn’t because sin requires forgiveness. And until the person who you hurt decides to forgive you, the relationship remains broken. The relationship will only be restored when you ask for forgiveness and the person forgives you for what you did.

So God knew we would sin against Him. And He had a plan to restore our relationship to Him. And it would require both our acknowledgment of sin and need for forgiveness along with His giving us that forgiveness. Jesus was the plan. And we see here in Genesis 3:15, God tells us Jesus is coming when he refers to her Seed.

Seed is translated as “offspring” in many Bible translations. Every other place in the Bible where seed or offspring is referenced it is always in relation to the father. In this verse, God is referring to “her Seed” which is very unusual. This seems to be the first indication we have that Jesus will be born of a virgin. I could be reading too much into it but I believe when God speaks there is enormous complexity and meaning to His words. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. So it’s certainly possible this is God’s way of telling us that Jesus will be born of a virgin.

What isn’t in doubt is that there will be enmity between Jesus and Satan (the serpent) which we will dive into in more depth on other days. From that point forward, the earth will be full of hostility (enmity). Good versus evil. People who aim to please God versus people who want nothing to do with God. And that leads us back to sin.

God’s plan for dealing with our sin was and is Jesus. From the moment sin entered the world, God tells us that Jesus is coming. Jesus would come to destroy the curse of sin and restore our relationship with God – and each other.

Today’s Prayer: Pray for God to show you a relationship that needs to be restored. Whether you did someone wrong or someone did something wrong to you – what relationship can you begin working to restore?