Introduction
– Just as a tiny seed contains the blueprint for a fully developed tree, Genesis 3:15 is the ‘seed’ of God’s redemptive plan that progressively unfolds from Genesis to Revelation
– Genesis 3:15 promises and foreshadows the grace of God in three ways: 1) The Regeneration of God’s People; 2) The Redemption of God’s People; 3) The Ruin of our Enemy
I. God’s Grace Foreshadowed in Regeneration
- Adam and Eve’s Relationship with God
- Before sin, Adam and Eve enjoyed incredible friendship and intimacy with God and with one another
- After sin, Adam and Eve hid from their Creator
- As a consequence of original sin, we humans have been hiding from God and covering ourselves with fig leaves!
- Eve’s Relationship with the Serpent
- Eve traded her friendship with God for friendship with the serpent/ Satan
- Adam, Eve and their descendents became enslaved to the serpent and his kingdom
- We are born into this world as God’s enemies
- We are by nature “dead in trespasses and sins”
- God’s promise of Regeneration
- “I will put enmity between you and the woman”
- Regeneration = spiritual re-birth (John 3); Before we can turn to God, He must radically transform our desires and overcome the terrible effects of original sin!
- Adam and Eve were the first human beings regenerated by the Holy Spirit as an act of God’s sovereign grace
II. God’s Grace Foreshadowed in Redemption
- Genesis 3:15 contains the first prophecy of Jesus Christ
- One of Eve’s physical descendents will go to war against the serpent and his kingdom
- Jesus is the ‘second Adam’ who succeeds where the first Adam failed! (cf. Romans 5; 1 Corinthians 15)
- The Redemptive work of Jesus Christ on the cross is graphically pictured by the first Animal Sacrifice (v. 21)
- Death reminds us of the horror of sin (Romans 6:23)
- Animal sacrifices in the Old Testament point to our desperate need for a sin- substitute.
- Divine justice was ultimately satisfied in the death of Jesus Christ
III. Grace Foreshadowed in the Ruin of our Enemy
- Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection from the tomb struck a fatal blow to the serpent
- “he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
- Jesus has gloriously triumphed over the kingdom of Satan (cf. Colossians 2:15)
- Because of Jesus’s victory, Satan will soon be crushed under the feet of believers (cf. Romans 16:20)
- God’s activity in defeating Satan demands a response!
- Adam expressed his faith in God’s covenant promises by naming his wife “Eve” (means “life-giver”) before she had given birth to any physical descendent!
- Adam and Eve were justified by faith!
- We too must respond to God’s initiative in our lives by trusting in Christ and repenting of sin.
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