Genesis 3:15 “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.
This is the first prophecy of the coming of Christ. Not only is this a prophecy of his birth, but it is a prophecy of his work.”
God has never had an afterthought. He has never been surprised. He has never had to change his mind. All events in the scope of time eternal are to Him as the present moment is to us.
With those thoughts in mind, consider the majesty of God’s plan for mankind, and how He not only humbled Himself to the point of giving His one and only Son to die for your sins and mine, but that He told the world about these plans hundreds of years before they would be fulfilled. Some 70 major prophesies and over 200 others describe the coming of Christ in staggering detail.
To the people of Israel, this plan was so clear that they eagerly awaited the coming of the Savior, the Messiah who would deliver men and women throughout the world from the clutches of sin. The plan was outlined in a way that provided mankind with an exact address in time. Only one Man in all of recorded history could possibly fulfill all those specific requirements. According to historian Peter Stoner, the chance that any one man could fulfill the eight most significant prophesies alone is one in 1017. That’s 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000. It’s equivalent to a blindfolded person finding one marked silver dollar in a pile covering the state of Texas to a depth of two feet! The chance that any one person could fulfill 48 of the prophesies is one in 10157 (one followed by 157 zeros).
Here are some of the most significant prophesies concerning the birth of the Messiah, with a principle and application attached to each one. We suggest that you study them one at a time, giving yourself an opportunity to digest the information provided before moving on to the next.
GOD’S GREATEST GIFT
Part 1
“And I will put enmity”
The context of this verse is the fall of Adam and Eve. God is speaking to the serpent who is a personification of Satan. God desires no coalition between himself and Satan. The two are mutually exclusive.
“Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed.”
God draws a distinction between “your seed” (Satan’s seed) and “her Seed” (Jesus). “Her Seed” refers to the humanity (incarnation) of Christ. Notice that this passage does not say that the “Seed” was of Adam. This is an inference of the virgin birth. The New Testament calls Jesus the “Seed” (Galatians 3:16).
“He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel.”
God is predicting the defeat of Satan by the coming of Christ, the Messiah. God is drawing the battle lines between himself and Satan.
“He shall bruise your head” is a mortal wound. The power of Satan is crushed by the cross of Christ.
Yet even at the moment of the first fall, God promises a solution to their sin. At the fall Satan bruised the heel of Jesus. Sin was the cause of Christ going to the cross. At the cross Christ will crush Satan’s head. One is a non-lethal and the other a lethal act. At the cross Jesus dealt Satan a fatal blow. There he paid for the penalty of sin fully.
Christ not only paid for the sins of the world on the cross but he defeated Satan there (Colossians 2:14,15). Satan was executed at the cross.
“And you shall bruise His heel” refers to the death of Christ. Whether this refers literally to the heels of Jesus pressed against the cross, is not important. Jesus was bruised at the cross (Isaiah 53:10).
PRINCIPLE: The birth of Christ set up the possibility of Christ fully paying for sin by the death of his body on the cross.
APPLICATION: Christ fully paid for our sins on the cross. We are free from suffering for them by ourselves.
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