Latest revision as of 03:13, 24 November 2025

Prophecy: The protoevangelium. The offspring of the woman would bring God's solution to the problem the serpent brought.

Fulfillment: Christ's birth as the long-awaited deliverer who would defeat sin and Satan.

Theme: Even in mankind's darkest hour, God promised a Savior.

Theological Proposition/Focus: Even in mankind's darkest hour, God promised a Savior.

Christ Focus: Jesus is the promised offspring who conquers sin and Satan.

Homiletical Proposition/Application: In every experience of brokenness, cling to the hope of God's promised deliverer.

Introduction

Image: The hope when a seed pushes through soil

I am not really a gardener; I have tried on occasion with varied levels of success, but one thing that I always enjoy watching is the initial growth of a seed. It is fun to plant a few seeds and then wait. You water, wait, repeat day after day, and then one day as you head out to water, you notice something: there seems to be just a tiny, almost hair-like sprout poking up in the soil. As small as it is, you know what it means; the seed has germinated, and you know that it is only a matter of time until you are reaping the harvest of your patience.

The world we live in is a world that is broken, but there is hope.

Need: Humanity is plagued by brokenness — in relationships, creation, and our own hearts — and longs for a solution.

Preview: Today we trace the story of hope from the first sin to the first promise, and from that promise to its fulfillment in Jesus.

Text: Genesis 3:1-7, Genesis 3:15, Matthew 1:21 read with each main point.

Setting the Stage:

The Garden of Eden was the place to be. Take a second and just listen as I read Genesis 2:8: "Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed."

If we expand our lens of Scripture, we read that man was placed in the most beautiful place, the perfect environment. Adam was able to walk and talk with God and had his mate there with him. Everything was just as it should be.

"But into that perfection entered a deceiver — and in just a few moments, everything changed."

Body

Broken — The Fall of Genesis 3 represents everything that is broken in our world (Genesis 3:1-7).

The God of the universe expects obedience to His standard (1-3).

In Genesis 2:16-17, we read, "And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.'" The Creator gave Adam everything he needed, but He included a command: you must submit to the Creator. For Adam, obedience came through a very simple rule — don't eat from this one tree.

It's easy from our human perspective to ask, "Why that tree?" I think we need to take a step back. The tree was real, but it also represented something deeper: creation's proper submission to its Creator. The point was not the wood or fruit; the point was a lesson in dependence and obedience. God needed Adam to learn where the fence was.

Think of it this way: people often enjoy life more when they know the boundaries. Let a child loose in an open field with no guidance, and they can't find good ways to play; give the same child a fenced yard and clear rules, and they flourish. I've seen the same in teaching — students spun their wheels when told "Do whatever you want," but when given clear direction, they engaged and grew. Built into us is a need for a fence. When God said, "Do whatever you want, just don't leave the yard," He was establishing the loving limits that protect our flourishing.

But Adam and Eve put us on a path of sin that each and every one of us walks, autonomy and rebellion (4-6).

In verses 4-6, the situation spirals. The serpent calls God a liar; Eve accepts the serpent's deception; Adam follows. This act of rebellion was catastrophic. From that moment, each of us has been born into a bent toward sin. We call this the Fall and summarize its effect with the theological term total depravity — the damaged relationship between God and humans and the corruption of human nature such that there is within every human an ongoing tendency toward sin.^[1]

"Total depravity" does not mean we are as bad as we could be; it means we are completely incapable of saving ourselves. Consider the witnesses Scripture gives us:

• Genesis 6:5 "The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time." speaks of the evil intentions of the human heart;
• Psalm 14:2-3 "The Lord looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. All have turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one." declares that there is none who does good;
• Ecclesiastes 7:20 "Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins." insists there is not a righteous person;
• Jeremiah 17:9 "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" warns of the deceitfulness of the heart; and
• Ephesians 2:1-3 "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath." describes humanity as dead in trespasses and sins. The bad news is bad indeed. Adam and Eve set humanity on a path with devastating, ongoing consequences.

Not only does that path warrant punishment but life is not the way it is supposed to be (7).

According to Romans 6:23, "the wages of sin is death." Adam and Eve's disobedience warranted death, but it did more than condemn; it changed the texture of life itself.

Genesis 3:7 is a small verse but a profound moment: Adam and Eve realized their nakedness and sewed fig leaves together. Before the Fall, they were naked and unashamed; now nakedness produced shame. Intimacy and trust were fractured. Where there once was transparent fellowship, now there was hiding and blame.

God designed us for deep, unbroken relationships — not the fractured, fragile relationships we experience now. When God confronts Adam, He speaks of toil in the soil and pain in childbearing. Work becomes hard, relationships are marred, and life is more difficult than God originally intended.

Image: An old mirror, but distorted. Humanity still bears God's image, but it's marred by sin.

For a long time, the church had a mirror that was an older mirror. The glass was no longer clear, and while it looked wonderful and decorative, we had a problem. Pretty regularly, I would have people come to me and tell me that we really needed to do a better job keeping the mirror clean. They just could not clearly see in the glass.

Here is the thing: no amount of cleaning was going to fix glass that was clouded. The problem was not dust on the mirror; the problem was the clouded glass. Old mirrors do not reflect the way modern mirrors do. This is the picture of the Fall and really 1 Corinthians 13:12 "For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known."

MTR: Take a second and really reflect on the brokenness you experience in the world.

Think about the fight with your spouse that came from a communication breakdown — that's the Fall at work. Think about the missed deadline, the weeds in your garden, the quiet loneliness — these are effects of the world not being the way it was meant to be.

Protoevangelium — The promise of God is one of redemption and restoration (Genesis 3:14-16).

Pain and division are the result of sin, but not the end of the story.

If we read Genesis 3:14-19, we see how dramatically the Fall altered life. Childbearing becomes painful; work is marked by toil; relationships are fractured. I don't pretend to know how childbearing could have been less painful, only that Scripture suggests it would have been different had the Fall not occurred.

When God first created Eve, He made her to be Adam's partner. Theologically, this matters because God is triune — God is relationship — and so God designed human relationship to reflect that unity. Eve was Adam's complement, intended for companionship without conflict. But sin intruded, and where there should have been harmony, there is now division. If you are married, you know the joy of a Christ-centered marriage and also how sin can wound that intimacy and cause deep conflict.

God made us in His image and made us for deep relationships likely modeled after the Trinity that He Himself enjoys. Sin has marred that beauty.

A spiritual war begins between the serpent and the woman's offspring.

Genesis 3:15 pronounces enmity between the serpent and the woman and between their respective "offspring." Read across Scripture, especially Revelation 20:2, and it is clear the serpent represents Satan. From the very beginning, there is spiritual hostility: Satan attacks God's people and God's purposes. As Paul reminds us, "our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world…" (Eph. 6:12). The Fall introduced a cosmic conflict: Satan sought to undermine God's good creation by destroying the very ones made in God's image.

Satan sought to use Eve to destroy God's creation, and the result of that was conflict.

But there is great hope; the "seed" (זֶרַע, zeraʿ).

Tucked into Genesis 3:15 is the first gospel hint — the protoevangelium. Even in judgment, God promises a deliverer. The verse speaks of a seed of the woman who will strike the serpent's head, while the serpent will strike his heel. The Hebrew word zeraʿ points to offspring — and in God's economy, it points forward to a particular descendant who will effect redemption.

Let me put it plainly: Satan will injure, but he will not have the final word. I'm reminded of a personal wound this summer — plantar fasciitis that was so painful I eventually received a cortisone injection in my heel. The injection hurt, and the bruise afterward was worse. The serpent's strike is like that heel wound: real pain, real suffering. But the promise here is the crushing blow to the serpent's head — decisive victory, not merely temporary relief.

Genesis 3:15 alludes ahead to the cross. The seed of the woman — Christ — would endure suffering (the bruised heel), yet by His death and resurrection, He would crush the serpent's head. On the cross, Jesus bore the pain and penalty we deserved and rose in triumph, demonstrating that sin and Satan are defeated.

Here, at the very beginning of Scripture, God places hope into the story. The Fall is not the final chapter. From Eden onward, God has been working out a plan of redemption. That is the heart of Advent: even when darkness seems deepest, God has promised — and God keeps His promises.

MTR: As you struggle through life, remind yourself that there is hope — because God always keeps His promises.

This season may rush at you with stress and obligations. Instead of succumbing to that hurry, pause and remember God's faithfulness. Christmas points us back to the promise fulfilled: the long-awaited Deliverer has come, and in Him, all things will be made right.

Jesus (יֵשׁוּעַ, Yehoshua) — God is the one who saves (Matthew 1:21).

We've spent time in Genesis, standing in the shadow of humanity's first failure, but now we fast-forward thousands of years to the dawn of redemption — to the announcement of the Savior's birth.

In Matthew 1:21, we read, "She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins." But before that, verse 18 calls Mary "the mother of Jesus." That simple phrase roots this story in Genesis. Jesus is the true descendant of Eve, the promised seed of the woman, born through Mary. The line that began in the Garden has reached its fulfillment in Bethlehem.

Jesus is the true offspring of Eve who crushes sin and Satan.

For centuries, theologians have wrestled with how all the pieces fit together — how Jesus could be both fully God and fully man, how the infinite entered the finite to redeem the broken. While systematic theology helps us see that Christ had to be both divine and human to conquer Satan and reconcile us to God, we must not lose the simple beauty of the story: Jesus is the one God ordained from before time to crush the serpent's head.

Through His life, death, and resurrection, Jesus accomplished what no other could — He reversed the curse. Where Adam disobeyed, Jesus obeyed. Where Adam fell, Jesus stood firm. Where Adam's sin brought death, Jesus' righteousness brought life.

1 Corinthians 15:45 states, "So it is written: 'The first man Adam became a living being'; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit."

Jesus is the offspring, the one who fulfills the protoevangelium.

As Paul writes in Galatians 4:4-5, "When the set time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship." In Jesus, God fulfills every promise ever made — the protoevangelium blooms into the gospel.

His name (יֵשׁוּעַ, Yehoshua) embodies His mission — "He will save His people from their sins."

The angel's instruction to Joseph was not merely about what to call the child; it was a revelation of who He is. The Hebrew name Yehoshua (יֵשׁוּעַ) literally means "YHWH saves." Every time the name "Jesus" is spoken, it declares the gospel: God Himself has entered our story to rescue His people.

Think about that — not "He might save," or "He hopes to save," but "He will save His people from their sins." From the first breath of the incarnation, fulfillment of God's promise was secured. The promise in Eden — that the offspring of the woman would crush the serpent — was being fulfilled in the most unexpected way: through a crying infant lying in a manger. The eternal Word took on flesh not to teach us how to escape sin, but to defeat sin for us.

God is faithful in His promise to provide a solution for our first and biggest problem.

Every longing, every failure, every tear since Eden finds its answer in Jesus. Paul calls Him "the last Adam" in 1 Corinthians 15:45 — the life-giving Spirit who undoes the curse of death. The first Adam brought guilt; the last Adam brings grace. The first Adam's sin shut us out of paradise; the last Adam's obedience opens the way back to God.

Life is possible because Jesus saves. But even more, life is being made new because Jesus saves. There is hope because Jesus saves. Sin is defeated because Jesus saves. The manger and the cross stand as bookends of the same story — a story that begins with a promise and ends with a resurrection. Christmas is special because Jesus saves, the fulfillment of thousands of years of promise.

MTR: Worship Jesus as the God who saves — the promised hope who turns our curse into blessing.

When you say His name this Advent season, let it not be a casual word on your lips but a confession of faith: "YHWH saves." The same God who promised deliverance in the garden has kept His word in Christ. That is why we worship. That is why we hope.

Conclusion

• Recap the movement: Brokenness → Promise → Fulfillment → Hope.

• Emphasize: God's grace was already at work in the Garden.

• Application:

• When the world feels dark, remember the light of the first promise.

• When sin feels overwhelming, remember the name of Jesus.

• When hope feels lost, remember that God's plan began long before you ever failed.

Closing Thought:

1. ↑ Stanley Grenz, David Guretzki, and Cherith Fee Nordling, Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1999), 37.