3-6: God Announces The Coming Of The Messiah To The Serpent

In Genesis 3:15 we come to our first messianic prophecy.

God is speaking to the serpent in the garden after he successfully tempted Adam and Eve to eat of the fruit of the tree.

This is what He said:

“And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: it shall bruise my head, and thou shalt bruise his heel”

A quick word about bible prophecy.

First, prophecy is rarely recognized as prophecy when it is first pronounced.  

It is only AFTER the fact that people realize that a given prophecy has just been fulfilled right before their eyes.

Let’s face it, the above prophecy is actually pretty vague.

I once heard a preacher point out that if that is all he had to go on during Moses’ or King David’s time, he probably never would have even remotely seen Genesis 3:15 as a Messianic prophecy of deliverance.

And I would have to agree with him.

The above statement is vague as all hell.

It is only because the Messiah has come and gone that we can now recognize the prophetic nature of these and other verses in Scripture.

We tend to look down on the early Hebrews for being ignorant and not recognizing or paying heed to God’s prophetic statements.  

However, I tell you the modern church has done the same thing and I think in a very real way have overlooked one of the greatest Bible prophecies of them all concerning the rebirth of Israel as a nation.

The Scriptures tell us that when Israel is reborn as a nation and when Jerusalem is retaken from the gentiles (events that have recently occurred), this is the one sign assuring us that we are living in the last days.

We have been forewarned that the Land of Israel will become a “cup of trembling” for the whole world.

When else in history has Israel been in a position where the events that occurred in their land could destabilize global peace?  

Sure the Jews had their skirmishes with the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Romans and the Greeks.  

But never before in history did they occupy such a pivotal position in world history.  

What I find amazing is that in spite of our generation having had the opportunity to witness these events unfold before our very eyes, many have turned a blind eye to the amazing times we are living in today.

Our disinterest is just like those ancient Israelites who God forewarned disaster was on the way if they didn’t wake up and heed his Word.  

Unfortunately, they decided to go about their lives as usual and the results were devastating for millions of them. 

Genesis 3:15 refers to the fact that in the future there will be two races of people who will war against each other. 

The children of God and the children of Satan. 

Later on in Scripture, we will see this division expressed as Gentiles (or in Hebrew “goyim”) and the nation of Israel.  

In fact, as far as the Bible is concerned, there are only two races of people, the Jews and the Gentiles.

NEXT TIME WE WILL BEGIN GENESIS CHAPTER FOUR