A City Of Refuge

Christ the Seed of the Woman

January 16, 2020

Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061
866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org;

‘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” (Genesis 3:15).

This is the first gospel message and the first Messianic prophecy. “Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world” (Ac. 15:18). “Then said I, Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me” (Ps. 40:7). “Here was the dawning of the gospel day. No sooner was the wound given than the remedy was provided and revealed” (Matthew Henry).

The coming of the Messiah to crush the serpent’s head is all of grace and mercy. It is entirely undeserved and unearned by fallen man. The man and the woman stood there that day utterly condemned, without any hope to escape the terrible judgment of God which proclaimed, “in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Ge. 2:17). They were facing eternal death, and no amount of sorrow or good deeds or religious works could undo what had been done and take away the just punishment of God. But God loved them, and He Himself planned and provided salvation for them by becoming their Substitute and rising from the dead.
God prophesied that mankind will be divided into two streams: Satan’s family and God’s family, saved and unsaved, and there will be hostility between them. Compare Matthew 13:38. We see this age-long conflict that began immediately in Genesis 4 when Cain hated his brother Abel because he was a believer and a prophet of God. Compare 1 John 3:12.