Video Transcript: Promised Offspring: The Gospel in Genesis 3:15

Video Transcript: Promised Offspring: The Gospel in Genesis 3:15

The Old Testament begins with God's creation of the world and the sin of our first parents. It was a terrible day, when the old serpent Satan led Adam and Eve to disobey God. But even on that day, when humanity became corrupt and subject to death, God made a promise, which sparked hope in humanity, and struck terror into Satan. That promise set in motion, the drama of all the rest of the Old Testament, and of the Bible, God's people, longing to give birth to the promised Savior, and the serpent, eager to destroy the promised Offspring before the Child could destroy him. The Lord said to the serpent, 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, these offspring would be at war. Now, there's much more to this statement than the fact that women don't like snakes. It's unlikely that Adam and Eve knew fully the deadly devil who spoke through the snake. But they knew that something terrible had been behind the snakes’ words. It’s maybe also unlikely that Adam and Eve knew the full details about the promised Seed, how Jesus would eventually [deceit] defeat Satan. And they may not have known exactly how that would happen, but they had a promise from God. And they could hold on to that promise by faith. 

Now, we can trace this first of all, a little bit in the book of Genesis, and then throughout the Bible of Genesis 3:15, as the first great statement of the gospel and this conflict between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain saying, I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord. Maybe she thought this was the seed of the woman who would defeat the serpent. And again, she bore his brother Abel. Cain spoke to Abel his brother, this is after they grew up, and when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. So, you see that Cain though, in one sense, a seed of the woman is actually a seed of the serpent. He's a murderer from the beginning. The Bible says do not be like Cain who murdered his brother. Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, East of Eden. Scripture says, we should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one, of the evil one, he was a seed of the serpent and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brothers righteous. Do not be surprised brothers, that the world hates you. 

There's a great conflict between the seed of the woman who has given us God's seed and the seed of the serpent who are the ungodly. Now, Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city he called the name of the city after the name of his son Enoch, To Enoch was born Irad and Irad fathered Mehujael, Mehujael fathered Methushael, and Methushael fathered Lamech.  So, we're several generations away from Cain now in the line of the serpent offspring. And Lamech took two wives. Lamech said to his wives, I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain’'s revenge is seven-fold, then Lamech’s is 77 fold. He's our tough guy, he does what he wants. He takes two wives, when you know you're supposed to have one. He kills somebody who has only slightly wounded him. So, he's going to go beyond Cain in his wickedness. 

But then we also read about godly offspring. Adam knew his wife again and she bore a son called his name's Seth, for she said, God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him. To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh.  At that time, people began to call on the name of the Lord. So, you have the Cain line, and the Seth and Enosh line. 

This is the book of generations of Adam. When God created man, He made him in the likeness of God.  Male and female, He created them, and He blessed them and named them Man when they were created. When Adam had lived 130 years he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image and named him Seth. And then Enosh Kenan, Mahalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech all the way up to Noah. Now when you read the book of Genesis, we call it Genesis meaning beginnings, actually in Hebrew, the title of Genesis is “Toledot”, which simply means generations. It's the book of generations. And again, and again, you'll read in Genesis, this is the book of the generations, whether it's of Adam or of Noah, or Cain or what have you, you have these genealogies, these generations. And in all of these generations remember what's going on, there is offspring, offspring of the woman, and of the promise and offspring of the serpent who oppose the woman and want to destroy the Child of promise. 

Now, as we look at this, I want you to notice three things. One is that there is basically an unchanging gospel given already in Genesis three, verse 15.  From the very beginning, God gave the gospel, and salvation has always been through faith, in God's promise of a victorious offspring. Second thing to notice, as we think about this is that God has an intergenerational plan. His salvation plan stretches across history, from generation to generation. And this explains why we see quite a few genealogies in the Bible more than we want to read, more than we'd want to study. Genealogies to us are about as exciting as reading for the phonebook. And maybe we don't need to read carefully and scrutinize and memorize every word in all of those genealogies. But one signal it sends - God has an intergenerational plan that goes from generation to generation to generation. And third, what I really want to highlight most perhaps, in this particular talk is the continual warfare. Something that runs through the whole Old Testament that comes to a head in the New Testament, and then that continues in the lives of God's people. Satan and his offspring, tried to destroy the woman's offspring by exterminating, that is by wiping out or else by adulterating, by corrupting and making them mingle with them and turning them into serpent offspring. 

First of all, the unchanging gospel. Notice what it says in the New Testament about the gospel. Know then, that it is those who have faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all nations be blessed. 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. Now, I'm emphasizing this, because notice also what God said in Genesis 3, verse 15, I will put enmity between your offspring and her offspring. And that can refer to lots of people who are loyal to the devil and others who come from the woman who are loyal to God. But there's also a particular focus on one particular offspring who is going to be the focus of all that promise. And the unchanging gospel is that there is one particular offspring promised to Adam and Eve promised Abraham promised to others as well. This one particular offspring is going to be the key to it all - the fulfillment of God's promises. And Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of that promise to give offspring. 

Now, secondly, having seen that the gospel has always been there in at least seed form, quite literally seed form offspring form. Second thing I want to notice about this is that God has an intergenerational plan for offspring. In Genesis, you read about Adam's offspring, about Seth's offspring, and it keeps on going that God's promises given to a particular offspring. We know that it's going to come from Adam and Eve line to start with, then it's not going to be Cain's line but Seth’s offspring. Then it's going to be Noah’s offspring, and not those of the wicked who perished in the flood. And then one particular son of Noah Shem, it's going to be his offspring. Then Abraham has given that very specific promise to your offspring. And then Isaac and Jacob, the son and grandson of Abraham received the same promise that through their offspring all the world will be blessed. It's not just that their offspring Israel is so special, though it is, but that Jesus, that particular Offspring is coming, and through Him, all the nations will be blessed. And then one son of Jacob, Judah, is identified as one whose Offspring will be the ruling one, the scepter shall not depart from Judah, and to Him shall be the obedience of the peoples. 

So, as you start in Genesis chapter three, you have the offspring of Adam and Eve and by the time you get to the end of Genesis, and 1000s of years have passed, you have it focused on Judah, in particular. And then as we read further in the Old Testament, David is given a promise that his offspring will be the one whom God has promised to bring salvation to the nations and to rule Israel. When you get to the culmination of that intergenerational plan, you open your New Testament, what do you get? A genealogy. The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.  God always had this intergenerational plan in mind, and He fulfilled it, when He brought Jesus. Luke also gives us a genealogy. Jesus, when He began His ministry was about 30 years of age, being the Son as was supposed of Joseph, the son of Heli. And then it goes through a lot of generations, the son of David through some more generations, the son of Abraham, through some more generations, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, some more generations, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. The Son of God, the second Adam, fulfills God's intergenerational plan that the offspring of the woman would come to destroy the seed of the serpent. 

And in that promise, of course, it's not just a gospel promise, it's not just intergenerational, it's a promise that there's going to be conflict, there's enmity, there is war, and this promised Offspring is going to suffer some damage. But ultimately, this promised Offspring is going to bring victory and crush the head of Satan, the serpent. The book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible, gives a [similar division], a similar vision to that which we have in the first book of the Bible. In Revelation 12, verse four, John receives a vision in which he sees a dragon. And the dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her Child, the moment it was born. This is echoing what was going on in Genesis 3:15, that that serpent, that old dragon is wanting to destroy the offspring of the woman, and the woman is wanting to give birth to this promised Offspring to gain victory over the dragon. How's it all going to turn out? 

We have this continual warfare, where the dragon, the serpent wants to exterminate, or else adulterate and corrupt the promised Offspring. You see, at the very beginning, the very first offspring of Adam and Eve Cain, the evil one murders his brother Abel. Then, before the flood, it says, the sons of God intermarried with the daughters of men. And so, the promise of, the line of promise was starting to intermarry with that wicked line of Cain and was becoming more and more godless. But God preserved, believing Noah and his righteous family. 

Then after the flood, we see the serpent trying to destroy again the promise seed. God promises Abraham, that Abraham's family, is going to have this Seed that's going to bless all the nations and what happens, Sarah is infertile, she can't have a baby. And finally, through a miracle of God, she has Isaac, and then Rebecca, the wife of Isaac can't have a baby. And through a miracle of God, then she's able to have offspring, Esau and Jacob. And so, [the,] you see, the attacks always try to prevent this promised Offspring.

At the time, when Israel was in Egypt, the wicked Pharaoh tried to wipe out the baby boys of Egypt. And this wasn't just Pharaoh being nasty and trying to control things. Behind Pharaoh stands the power of the serpent, the dragon trying to wipe out the promised Seed. 

Saul, remember how an evil spirit was troubling him and how he tried to spear David? Even though David was always doing what was faithful and good for Saul, Saul was trying to kill David and trying to spear him. Now at one level, we say, Yeah, well, Saul was a little off in the head. And he didn't want David to inherit the throne. So that's why you wanted to kill him. But remember, there's more to it than that. That evil spirit of the dragon, the serpent was trying to kill David because through David would come the promise of Seed. 

Later on, in the time of wicked king Ahab, there was an intermarriage between Ahab's line, and the line of the God that King David stretching back of Jehoshaphat, who was a godly king, let his son marry a daughter of the wicked Ahab and Jezebel. And that daughter Athalia eventually went on to try to wipe out the whole line, including some of her own grandkids in order to make herself queen. Now you say, boy, that was a nasty nasty woman. Well, yeah, she was. But there's more to it than that. She was doing the work of the serpent in trying to wipe out the Seed of the promise. But God had provided for a godly priest to hide one baby from David's line. And that little baby was kept safe. And when it got a little older, that baby was brought into the open as a boy and announced to be the offspring of David and Athalia was seized and killed. And so, the attempt of the serpent to wipe out the line of promise failed at that point. Athalia tried to wipe out David's royal line, but she didn't get it done. 

Later on, during the book, the time of Esther, a little over 400 years before Jesus, we read about wicked Haman, who was an enemy of God's people. And he was so furious at Mordecai, a Jewish man for not bowing down to him, that he tried to wipe out all of the Jewish people. And he got an order from the emperor of Persia, to wipe out the Jews, but unknown to him, the emperor of Persia, the king, was married to a woman who was a Jew, Queen Esther. And through her, God saved the Jewish people from being exterminated. So again, you see, the offspring of the serpent trying to wipe out the promised Offspring who would bring salvation. 

After the exile and after Haman, there were attempts by people from various backgrounds and with worshipping various gods to try to intermarry with Jewish people, and to get those people to become pagan. And yet, those attempts though, there was intermarriage in the time of Nehemiah and Ezra, they again emphasize we've got to remain loyal to the Lord, we can't just marry these daughters of pagan gods, and then follow those gods. So, you have that again and again, and again. 

And then we find during the time actually, that's not even recorded in our Bibles, but it's a part of history. During the time of the Maccabees, a vicious ruler called Antiochus Epiphanies, it's kind of a foreshadowing of the Antichrist, tried to destroy the Jewish people, by killing many of them and then by intermingling them with a lot of pagan thought. Well, all of this was the serpent trying to wipe out the promised Seed. 

And it came to a head when the promised One was literally about to be born from a particular holy woman, who was the fulfillment of all the dreams of God's people that the Virgin Mary was about to give birth to the Savior of the world. And when she did, Herod tried to kill all the newborn babies, because he wanted to get the newborn Messiah who was born in Bethlehem, the city of David. Now again, Herod the Great was a very vicious evil, wicked, no good, rotten, nasty, man. Okay, paranoid all that. But it's not just a human thing. When you consider the history of Herod, Herod was not just Herod. Herod was somebody who was dominated by the devil. And Herod was doing the devil's work when he tried to wipe out the baby Jesus before Jesus could even grow up and offer himself for the world. 

The devil came to Jesus in the desert and tempted Him again and again, to try to go over to Satan, rather than continue serving God the Father. You see that warfare. The devil can even come to you through a close friend. 

Peter, had just finished confessing that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God. And Jesus talked about, well, I'm gonna have to suffer and die. And Peter said, no, no, no, that that'll never happen. You can't let that happen. And what did Jesus say? Get behind Me, Satan. You see, the serpent was trying to turn Jesus away from His mission. 

But at the end, finally, when Satan was unable to prevent Jesus from going to His mission, Satan in his own frenzy of hatred and anger, and murderousness entered Judas’ heart and got Judas to betray Jesus. He corrupted the priesthood. He corrupted Annas and Caiaphas, he corrupted the government of the Romans, Pilate, and got all of them to have false, no- good trials and convict Jesus of crimes that Jesus never committed, that Jesus was totally innocent, they knew of it, but they still sentenced Him to death. And he struck Jesus with the worst sin and betrayal in the history of the world. The serpent struck Jesus even with death itself. 

And it might seem that the prophecy had not worked that he had, that the serpent had been the one to crush the head of the promised Seed, because he had killed Him. But Jesus paid the full price of sin by His death, and He rose from the dead, and He crushed Satan's head in rising from the dead. He took Satan's own weapons, the worst sin ever committed, and the worst death ever suffered, and He used those weapons which bruised His own heel to crush Satan's head. 

And so, you see, this promise of Genesis 3:15 is really revealing to us, a main thread that runs all the way through the Bible, through the Old Testament, through the life of Jesus Christ, and even up to His death, and resurrection is fulfilled in Jesus’ triumph over Satan. And all that summarized in Revelation, when it says that the woman this, not just Mary, but  the people of God, the one from above, who's our mother, as it says in the Bible, as well. But in particular, Mary too, she gave birth to a Son, a male Child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter and her Child was snatched up to God, and to His throne. There's an awful lot of history. Just in those couple of verses. It doesn't go into all the details of what happened throughout all that Old Testament history of Satan trying to swallow up the Seed. It doesn't go into much detail how Satan tried to destroy Jesus. All it says is, she gave birth to the Son, and He was snatched up to God and His throne. And that set off a victory and a defeat for Satan a victory for the seed and a defeat for the dragon, the serpent, the great dragon was thrown down. That ancient serpent who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world, he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. They're thrown down as a result of what Jesus has done. 

And so, when things get bad, or well, we sometimes think, that means Satan's winning. But the Bible indicates that the devil is filled with fury because he knows he's beaten. And he knows his time is short, he's a defeated dragon. He's a crushed snake. 

Why was Jesus born? When we think about that, we often reflect on a variety of reasons. But one major reason that Jesus was born was simply this. The reason the Son of God appeared, was to destroy the devil's work. Or as it says, in Hebrews, since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity. He was born into our humanity, so that by His death, He might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery, by their fear of death. The Son of God came to destroy the devil. He had other purposes, but that was a major one, to crush the head of the serpent, and in so doing to release us from the serpent’s grip. He was born to defeat a deadly dragon. That's the message of Revelation 12. And it's just picking up on the message of Genesis three, verse 15. 

So, when we think of this promised Offspring, really, in the very first part of the Bible, already, God is giving us the basic outlines of what He's going to do, the unchanging gospel from the very beginning. Salvation has always been through faith in God's promise of a victorious Offspring. God's had this intergenerational plan through the Toledot, the generations and genealogies of Genesis. Throughout all the generations of the Bible, God's salvation plan stretches across history from generation to generation. And so, the genealogies matter. God's generational plans matter. The fact that God's promises for us and our children matters. And thirdly, this continual warfare throughout the Old Testament era, throughout the career, and ministry of Jesus on earth through His death and resurrection, Satan and his offspring tried to destroy the woman's offspring by exterminating or adulterating that offspring. It's important to have the big picture as you're reading the whole Bible. And Genesis 3:15 is one of those big picture verses which helps us to understand what's going on behind the scenes. 

Now, the story continues. The canon of Scripture is closed. The Bible has finished being writing but has finished being written. But God continues to work and Satan continues to do certain things as well. The gospel is unchanging. It's been fulfilled. Jesus fulfills God's promises, and salvation comes through faith in Him. People before Jesus were looking ahead to a promise Seed and receiving salvation through faith in God's promise. We look back, we know the fulfillment, we know all that God has done in Jesus. And what a marvelous salvation it is. We're much more privileged than those who came before Jesus, who simply had this promise of an Offspring but couldn't know everything that God was going to do. We can trust this full unchanging gospel. 

Secondly, the promise is to you and to your children into all who are far off it says in Acts chapter two. God's promises are for believers and for their children from generation to generation. God still has intergenerational plans, He plucks people from the grip of the evil one, and He wants us to believe in Him, and then transmit that faith and that love for Him to our children, and to succeeding generations. 

And let's face it, Satan, though mortally wounded, and doomed to hell, still tries to wipe out God's people, exterminate them. He still tries to corrupt and tempt and swallow them up by adulterating them. And so, we need to be aware of this warfare and live with a full knowledge of it and be ready to resist him, to be able to stand against the persecutions he sends. And those persecutions are very intense in some parts of the world, where Satan still harms and kills people. And also, his temptations, not just persecution, but temptation, and ease and wealth, and wickedness. Those are ways in which he tries to adulterate and corrupt God's people still today. 

The dragon became furious with the woman, he's furious because the woman has given birth to the Offspring and the Offspring has triumphed. And he can't touch Jesus anymore. Jesus has won. Jesus is enthroned with all power in heaven forever. The devil can't do a thing to lay a finger on Jesus anymore, that he's furious. And he's going to take out his fury against Jesus on the rest of the woman's offspring - those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. 

You see, you and I are seed of Abraham, we are children of God. And Jesus, the ultimate Seed of Abraham, the Son of God, is beyond Satan's reach. He can't be touched by Satan. And so, Satan takes it all out on you and on me who belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. And we're going to feel the brunt of his fury and what he can try to do to us. 

There are some special targets for Satan in our world today. One particular target is still the Jews. Satan hates the group, the nationality that gave birth to the Messiah. The children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were chosen by God long ago for that high purpose of living for God and shining for Him and bringing to birth the Messiah. And still Satan hates the Jews, partly for Jesus’ sake. And unfortunately, some foolish and wicked people calling themselves Christian have persecuted Jews from time to time. But that's the work of Satan, not the work of Jesus. Satan hates the Jews. The Holocaust is an attack of Satan. And the anti-Semitism and other attacks on the Jews have been the work of Satan. 

Another group that Satan targets is simply babies. They're in the Garden of Eden before they were even driven out, God had promised an offspring to the woman. And Satan, just plain hates babies, because he knows that the offspring of woman has been the cause of his downfall. And it reminds him of the promised Offspring who was born as a baby. And so, when you see millions of babies being aborted, being murdered before they can even be born. Do not think that this is some great liberation for women, or some great advance in culture. This is Satan's hatred of babies, and his deception of people into thinking their lives would be better off if they would kill their own babies. Babies are special targets of Satan, and millions upon millions of them are being butchered in our world still today, and we must recognize it as the work of Satan. 

And thirdly, of course, a group that Satan hates, above all, he hates God's elect, he hates Christians. He hates those who stand against him, and who carry on in the victory of Jesus Christ. The Bible says they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony. So, we are not going to be defeated by Satan, we Christians, we overcome him by the blood that Jesus shed for us and by the word as we testify to him. 

The world, it'll often excuse attacks on Jews, on babies, on Christians, even when it's trying to be open minded. When it's trying to defend various interest groups, you'll find some of the people who claim the greatest tolerance will let Bible believing Christians be mocked and they'll even do some of the mocking themselves. They claim to be defenders of the weak and there'll be championing the aborting of babies. The world often excuses attacks on Satan's special targets, because as the Bible says, we are the children of God and the whole world is under the control of evil one. Jesus has won the victory. But the worldlings, those who don't acknowledge Jesus’ victory, are still under the control of the evil one. And they have special targets where Satan's hatred flows through them in targeting others. 

So, Genesis 3:15 helps us understand the Bible. It also helps us to understand our own time and understand the hatred of Satan for us. And at the same time, the victory that we have in Jesus.  Jesus said, just before He went to the cross, now is the judgment of this world. Now will the ruler of this world be cast out and I, when I am lifted up from the earth will draw all people to Myself. He said this to show by what kind of death, He was going to die. Jesus's death did not take Him by surprise. He knew the prophecy that His heel would be bruised when He went to the cross. But He also knew the prophecy that He would crush the serpent's head. And He came to bring judgment on the so-called ruler of this world. And He told His disciples that night before He died, in this world you will have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world. Jesus said to them that same night If the world hates, you know, that hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own, but because you are not of the world but I chose you out of the world, therefore, the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they hated Jesus, the Seed of the woman, they will hate the other believing seed of the woman. 

Jesus also gave warnings to those who were the serpent's offspring. Jesus told some people who were religious, who were ethnically Jewish, He said, you are of your father, the devil and your will is to do your father's desires. Jesus would speak to the seed of the serpent, and He'd say, you brood of vipers. How can you speak good when you're evil? For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, and your heart is dominated by serpent seed. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Now Jesus didn't say these things just out of hatred. He was calling many and warning them so that they could repent and become children of God, that they could become seed of the promise by faith in Jesus Christ. 

And still today, Jesus gives these promises and they remain with us through the mouth of Jesus Himself, through the mouth of Jesus’s Apostle Paul. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions. Remember, that serpent whose head is going to be crushed, I've given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. The God of peace will soon crush Satan, under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, be with you. And at the very end of the Bible, it says, the devil is cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, that is the end of the serpent. That is how he will meet his end. And that is the end that awaits all who belong to the devil. Jesus says that at the end of time, He will say, depart from Me, you cursed into the everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. That's the destiny of the serpent, and of his offspring. But the destiny of the righteous is to tread on the head of the serpent, and then to live forever with God in His new creation. And the last two chapters of the Bible, bring us right back to the first two chapters, to Paradise, to the garden of God, to the tree of life, to the wiping away of all tears, and into the renewing of all creation. The Gospel that God reveals already in Genesis 3:15, and then unfolds through the rest of Scripture is a marvelous gospel indeed, and as we study God's Word, the Bible, let's keep that wonderful, victorious, big picture in mind.