"The Seed of the Woman"

Genesis 3:15 is the first promise of a rescue from sin and death.

15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.’

What does the text mean by 'the seed?'  'The seed of the serpent' are all who are born into this earth, born into Adam.  The fall in the garden meant the male passed on the sin condition to the offspring of a couple's union.  This world belongs to Satan and Jesus never disputed that when he was tempted in the desert (Luke 5:4).  Matt 13:38, John 8:44, 1 John 3, 2 Cor 4:4 are all good for identifying that unsaved people are the seed of Satan, born into this world and needing rescuing.  Peter was rebuked by Jesus (Matt 16:23) where Jesus associates the thoughts of Man with the work of Satan.  So unbelievers are the seed of the sarpent... Satan.

'The seed of the woman' works like this:  Because the sinful nature is carried through to the offspring by the male, who is one after Adam,   Jesus could never be brought into the world by someone who was passing on the sinful nature.   He had to be entirely human though!  So we find Mary inseminated by the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35).  Jesus was thus entirely God and entirely Human.  Jesus is 'the seed of the Woman.'

So we have a conflict between Satan and Jesus.  The picture given in Genesis 3:15  is where the serpent bites Jesus and injects the venom into him.  We know Jesus became sin on the cross.  Let's not forget that Jesus knew this would occur because of his interaction with Nicodemus in John 3:14f. Here he mentions Moses from Number 21.  This was the incident where a snake was lifted on a pole and those looking at it would be healed.  When someone sees that Jesus became their sin, they can be healed of their sinful condition and become adopted into God's Family.  

Satan had tried many times to have Jesus killed but his time was not fulfilled.  This time Satan had him.  The Son of God on the cross, the poison of death was near... Satan must have been ecstatic!  But in this act Jesus was made the sin of the world.  He was not made into Satan, but he was made the very substance of all the fall.  The earth went dark for three hours while the true horror of it fell upon Jesus.  Exclusion from the Trinity to me and you is just information but for Jesus to spend one second away from the perfect, holy, righteous union of the Godhead was beyond all imagination horror.  For some reason it was three hours until Jesus cried 'it is finished.'  The 'books were balanced.'  Price paid!  With having no reason to suffer anymore he gave up his life.  

We now know that this was the destruction of Satan, sin and the fall.  Jesus, having been bitten of the heel, stamps on Satan's head and completely destroys him.  After Genesis 3 we see the way this first promise of our rescue pans out. 

Gary Ward