The Seed of the Woman

Advent: Clues to Christ  •  Sermon  •  Submitted
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3 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’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 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.’ ” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 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. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

8 And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” 11 He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” 13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

14 The LORD God said to the serpent,

“Because you have done this,

cursed are you above all livestock

and above all beasts of the field;

on your belly you shall go,

and dust you shall eat

all the days of your life.

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.”

16 To the woman he said,

“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;

in pain you shall bring forth children.

Your desire shall be contrary to your husband,

but he shall rule over you.”

17 And to Adam he said,

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife

and have eaten of the tree

of which I commanded you,

‘You shall not eat of it,’

cursed is the ground because of you;

in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;

18  thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;

and you shall eat the plants of the field.

19  By the sweat of your face

you shall eat bread,

till you return to the ground,

for out of it you were taken;

for you are dust,

and to dust you shall return.”

20 The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. 21 And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.

22 Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” 23 therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

Cain and Abel

4 Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD.”

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Advent Introduction

Each year we celebrate Advent in the weeks leading up to Christmas. It is a tradition that’s been embraced for centuries with connections as far back as the 4th century. According to one historian, it was first mentioned in written records at the Council of Sargossa in AD 380 that sought to respond to a gnostic inspired heresy (see Ryan Reeves article on Advent on The Gospel Coalition website). Gnosticism embraced a form of Plato’s philosophy in which the body was inferior to the spirit and redemption is to finally escape the body and live in spiritual form in heaven. Advent, in part, draws attention back to the incarnation of Jesus, his physical birth into the physical world. This is still needed today.
Advent is also tied into the bigger story that we find unfolding in the Bible. It comes from the Latin word Adventus, which is translation of a Greek word, parousia, that we find in the Bible referring to both the 1st and 2nd coming of Jesus. Lighting candles for advent can be likened to the parable of the ten virgins that light their lamps in wait of the bridegroom to come. We remember Jesus has come in the flesh and will come again in the flesh. It’s a time of anticipation, repentance, and hope.

Series Introduction

If I asked you what kind of book is the Bible or what is the Bible about, what would you say? How do you answer that question? We find lots of different genre’s: narrative, poetry, legal contracts, prophecy, proverbs, and apocalyptic literature. From the Bible we learn history, theology, songs, wisdom, and about the future. And yet, it’s history is very limited. It’s theology is very limited. It’s revelation of the future is often couched in symbolism and imagery. It’s it primary purpose was to give us a history of the world we have to say it leaves an awful lot out. If it’s primary purpose is to give an exhaustive guide to God, we have to say its not very exhaustive.
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If I asked you what kind of book is the Bible or what is the Bible about, what would you say? How do you answer that question? We find lots of different genre’s: narrative, poetry, legal contracts, prophecy, proverbs, and apocalyptic literature. From the Bible we learn history, theology, songs, wisdom, and about the future. And yet, it’s history is very limited. It’s theology is very limited. It’s revelation of the future is often couched in symbolism and imagery. It’s it primary purpose was to give us a history of the world we have to say it leaves an awful lot out. If it’s primary purpose is to give an exhaustive guide to God, we have to say its not very exhaustive.
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There is one thing that ties all of these together, that makes sense of the entire book, and it is this: the Bible is a story. It sets the stage, introduces a crisis, develops the plot to resolve the crisis, and describes the glory of the resolution. It is the ultimate story that gives the pattern for every other great story that draws us in. The central character of the story is Jesus. How do we know? We know because Jesus himself tells us. In , in a scene following his resurrection, he engages in a conversation with some of his disciples. Luke describes the content of that conversation like this:

And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

What I want to do in this series is show how the whole story of the Bible anticipates the coming of the Lord. While the name Jesus isn’t revealed until the New Testament, the person of Jesus is anticipated all the way back in the opening pages of the Bible, and as God unfolds history, he unpacks his plan to redeem a fallen people, and that plan is built upon the person and work of Jesus. This really is the story line of the Bible. In the next few weeks we will look at some of the key ways we see Jesus in the Old Testament.
What I want to do in the next few weeks is look at how we see Jesus in the Old Testament, beginning with Moses.

The First Gospel

Moses begins in the beginning. He wants the people of Israel to know who they are and why God is rescuing them from slavery and so he starts with the account of creation. He tells them of their first parents, Adam and Eve, created in the image of God, in innocence, who walked in close friendship with God. He tells them of their encounter with the serpent who tempts them to eat of the forbidden fruit. It’s a disastrous meeting and sets the stage for God’s plan of Redemption to unfold. Man, the image-bearer of God, intended to govern God’s creation in righteousness, confirmed by an eternal communion with God eating at the tree of life, instead listened to the words of the serpent who offered another path to God-likeness. It was an act that God had expressly forbidden. Obedience to God’s word was to be their path to a knowledge of good and evil, presumably to the confirmation of God as his image-bearer and ruler of creation. Instead, they chose obedience to the serpent’s suggestions and so discarded one father for another. Jesus understood this when he spoke to the Pharisees,

44 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

When Adam and Eve took of the forbidden fruit, their eyes were open and they suddenly felt exposed. They knew they were naked and they were ashamed. In desperation they tried to hide their nakedness with fig leaves. God was not fooled, however, and gently questioned them. Adam blamed Eve (and God); and Eve blamed the serpent. The consequences were disastrous. They fell under the sentence of death and were cast from the presence of God and the tree of life in the garden of Eden.
And yet, the mercy of God is also on display. For in the judgment that follows the seed of hope is planted. It comes in verse 15, a verse theologians have called “the first gospel.”
And yet, the mercy of God is on display in God’s provision of a covering
is found within their sentence and it comes particularly in midst of the serpent’s sentence, the verse that theologians call the first gospel.

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.”

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God will undo what man has done. In taking the forbidden fruit he had become a friend of Satan and an enemy of God. God will reverse that. Instead, he will work to move that enmity between man and God to man and Satan, and he will do it through the seed of the woman. This enmity between will be passed down between the offspring of each and it will lead to injury on both parties. “he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
“he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise
What, exactly, is in view here? As the pages of Scripture continue, we begin to understand more of what this means and we need to start with the affect of these words on Adam and Eve. In the verses that follow we see Adam naming his wife “Eve, because she was the mother of all living.” Some of you may have a footnote that helps show the depth of Adam’s meaning. Eve comes from the Hebrew word for life-giving. Though they stand under the sentence of death, Adam believes God’s judgment upon the Serpent to result in life rather than death, though at great cost. Verse 21 gives a hint of this cost.

And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.

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Their guilt could not be covered by their own works. God himself must provide them.
Eve too expresses her faith in God’s provision as we consider 4:1.

Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD.”

​
This verse could also be translated “I have brought forth a man: the Lord.”
Some often wonder if it was possible for anyone in the Old Testament to be saved since the New Testaments makes very clear “there is no other name under heaven by which man may be saved.” Here we see, as far back as Adam and Eve, faith in what God had revealed about the coming of Jesus—that seed of the woman who would one day bruise the head of the serpent, for that is what he did ultimately upon the cross. Even as the serpent thought he had the death strike upon the seed of the woman by orchestrating his execution upon the cross, we find it was limited to a “bruise on his heel” as Jesus was raised from the dead and in so rising from the dead, dealing a death blow to death itself. Paul speaks of this as he concludes his letter to the Romans.
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20 The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.

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The Faithful God

The Faithful God

In this first Gospel we also see the stage set for the story of history. It will be a story filled with enmity and tension (and war) between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. Genesis seems intentionally ambiguous with the word seed of offspring as to whether it is singular or plural. There is a sense in which it is singular, as Eve understood it in her faith statement, and as it plays out in the person of Jesus. But there is also a sense in which it is plural in that Genesis shows the progress of two seed lines, one that seems to continually attack and swallow the other. This happens first with Cain and Abel, the first two children identified of Adam and Eve. When God accepts Abel’s offering and not Cain’s, Cain grows angry and kills his brother and Genesis documents the offspring of Cain. But the seed line from whom the first gospel will be fulfilled is not thwarted as Eve has another son named Seth,

for she said, “God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him.”

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The seed line of the promised gospel has been resurrected even here on the opening pages of the Bible. When we come to chapter 5 we are reminded that Genesis is really a book of generations. It is one of the divisional markers in the book that helps us follow the seed line that will eventually lead to Jesus. And along the way we see the enmity of the serpent at work striking at the heel of seed of the woman. Cain kills Abel, but God appoints Seth. Seth’s line is corrupted so that God brings the flood but God finds favor with Noah. Noah’s sons are divided when and the blessing is given to his son Shem. And again, the corruption brings them together to build a city in order to make a name for themselves, something in stark contrast to the line of “Shem” whom God had named as the one through whom the seed of the woman would come. Again this brings judgment and their language is interrupted and they are consequently divided across the land. But God is faithful once again to preserve the line of the seed of the woman as he calls out Abraham from among these nations. Yet again see division between Ishmael and Isaac, and between Jacob and Esau, and again between Egypt and the descendants of Abraham. When the Hebrews grow too fast, the Pharaoh decrees that all male babies be put to death. Another strike against the line of the seed of the woman. But Moses is miraculously saved and called to lead God’s people out of Egypt in such a way that strikes the head of Egypt, the head of the serpent.

This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. 2 Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created. 3 When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.

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We also read about the generations of Noah, of the sons of Noah, of Shem, of Terah (the father of Abraham), and then of Abraham’s sons. From there we find that the history in the Bible details this seed line and the conflict that arises showing this war playing out between the offspring of the servant
The Fulfilled
This battle continues all the way up to the birth of Christ when Herod, like Pharaoh, tries to kill the one born king of the Jews when the wise man tell him about the signs they’ve seen in the sky that point to his birth. But in every case, God shows himself to be faithful to preserve this seed of the woman, the Christ, that he might be the last Adam, as Paul describes him, the one whose perfect obedience will bring life to those he represents just as the 1st Adam’s sin brought death to all who followed him.

The Free Gift

Let’s explore that passage for just a minute for Paul helps us understand that this last Adam was, in reality, the true Adam, the true Son of God. He writes in

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— 13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

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Here we are taken back to Adam in the garden. As the father of the human race we find that we were “in” Adam when he sinned. His sinful nature, his death sentence, is passed to us. We miss the mark of what we were created to be. But mankind stands condemned because of the sin of Adam. This is what this mean: “sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses.”
In the sense that Adam passed on his death sentence to us through his act of disobedience, he was a type of the one to come. But instead of death, Jesus passes life.

15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. 16 And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. 17 For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.

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Application

Application
These clues in the Old Testament point us to the advent of Jesus Christ. They are leading us to understanding who this is and what he came to do. He came to crush the head of the serpent, Satan, the accuser of mankind and thus forever lift the death penalty of all who belong to Jesus.
What do we learn from this? We learn that we are in the midst of a cosmic war, one in which Jesus, the seed of the woman, secures victory on behalf of you who believe. The advent is a time to ask in light of this: whose seed line am I? Who do I follow in order to find life? Have I listened to the words of the serpent, which suggest that I can find life for myself? Or do I trust in God for the life that he brings to those who stand to inherit the righteousness of Christ?
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