Protoevangelium

And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: 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 3.14-15

I like words and sometimes I like big words. I rarely use big theological words, but I like this one for some reason. Protoevangelium is used to describe the first occurrence of the message of the gospel in an embryonic state. It is not fully formed. It is not detailed. It is still a mystery. But it is there. No one could understand – yet, but the truth is there.

God is speaking to Satan here and He warns Satan of his eventual fate.

But before that we see just a hint of the virgin birth. ‘I will put opposition between your seed and ‘her’ seed.’ We can’t build on a doctrine on it, but this fits right in with the future virgin birth. It was ‘her’ seed, not ‘their seed.’

That is interesting, but it is the rest of the verse that gives us comfort. God told Satan that he would indeed be able to wound heel of Eve’s seed, but in the end that Seed would crush his head.

When Jesus was laid in the tomb Satan must have rejoiced in his supposed victory, but I wonder if, in the back of his mind, he was thinking of that ‘bruise your head’ bit?

As songwriter Andrew Peterson put it his song ‘High Noon’

And the demons, they danced in the darkness

When that last ragged breath left his lungs

And they reveled and howled

At the war that they thought they had won

But then, in the dark of the grave

The stone rolled away

In the still of the dawn on the greatest of days

High noon in the valley of the shadow

When the shadows were shot through with light

When Jesus took in that breath

And shattered all death with his life

Be gone, you wages of sin

Go on, don't you come back again

I've been raised and redeemed

You've lost all your sting

To the victor of the battle

High noon in the valley of the shadow

Jesus, the virgin born Seed of Mary has already bruised Satan’s head through His death, burial, and resurrection. Death has been crushed to death because of the bruising of Jesus’ heel on the cross.

Praise God for this first early hint of the truth of the gospel!