God’s Word for You

Genesis 3:15b The First Gospel

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Sunday, September 20, 2026

... and between your offspring and her offspring. He will crush your head, and you will crush his heel.”

Here is the first proclamation of the Gospel, the protevangel (“first gospel”). Here the Hebrew word zerah “seed, offspring” is a singular form, but an oftentimes plural concept, just as in our words “seed” or “offspring.” It is the context that tells us whether one or many are being talked about. Here the context tells us that there is both a plural and a singular sense. The offspring or “seed” of Satan is not in any respect a physical descendant of the horrid demon. It is, rather, all who follow Satan in unbelief, but especially including Satan himself and those angels that followed him in rebellion against God. For angels do not spawn or have children any more than they marry or take a spouse (Matthew 22:30; Mark 12:25).

The battle lines are drawn. Adam and Eve are forgiven and brought into the conflict by God as combatants. They will be the parents or ancestors of the one Offspring, the one Seed. For in the phrase “her offspring” there is already a difference, set apart by the pronoun “He” in the final sentence. The one offspring of the woman, a man, “He,” will defeat the devil.

The verb shuph means “to crush,” and we see it used this way in Job 9:17, “He would crush me with a storm.” The prophecy of the Lord God is this: Satan and those who follow him in unbelief and rebellion would crush the Seed of the woman with regard to his heel. This means that he would be hurt; hurt so badly, in fact, that he would die.

But the Seed of the woman would also in turn crush the serpent, that is, Satan, with regard to his head. This is a far more serious injury. To crush a head is to completely defeat; to destroy Satan’s power. His hold over mankind would be crushed.

In fact, these two acts would take place at the same time. Just as Satan found what he felt would be triumph over Christ by killing him with crucifixion—and what more deceitful and sinister way of killing an innocent man than with the most gorey and gruesome torture of the cross?—but at the very moment of victory, the blood of Christ was spilled to atone for mankind’s sin, and the power of Satan was in that moment crushed.

This was the way in which the promise to Abraham was fulfilled: “Through your Seed all nations on earth will be blessed” (Genesis 22:18). And it happened in such a way that blinded Satan to what was actually taking place. For the moment that Eve grasped the fruit on the limb of the tree, Christ’s hand was destined to be held down to the branch of the cross. And the moment that she picked the fruit with a flick of her wrist, Christ’s wrists and hands were destined to be pierced with nails. And the moment that she bit and ate, Christ was sentenced to die. The command was to all mankind: “On the day that you eat from it, you will surely die” (Genesis 2:17). The death sentence fell on the heads of our first parents, but Christ willingly and innocently placed himself under that death sentence. “He humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:8). For this is the kind of Judge and King that we submit to! He submitted himself to our death sentence, and took away our eternal death by suffering the agony of hell on the cross. And in this way he made peace through his blood, shed on the cross (Colossians 1:20). He endured the cross for our sakes, “scorning its shame” (Hebrews 12:2), to make atonement for the sins of all people (Hebrews 2:17).

Imagine you are on trial for your life, and the judge bangs the gavel and says, “Death,” but your lawyer, your defense attorney, steps in to say, “I will suffer this death instead.” This is what our Savior Jesus has done for us.

What did this mean for Eve and Adam, standing there in the Garden as the serpent was judged? Suddenly there was hope. And this hope requires nothing from us as to any action at all. “The Gospel,” our Confession teaches, “is the promise of forgiveness of sins and justification because of Christ” (Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Article IV). So our faith, that is our trust in Christ and all his benefits, is what we carry with us every time we confess his name, pray to him, praise him, sing his praises, and teach about him to our children. He is the apron we wear upon which we constantly wipe our hands clean.

Let us confess him together:

I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the virgin Mary, is my Lord. He has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver but with his holy, precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death.

All this he did that I should be his own, and live under him in his kingdom, and serve him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as he has risen from death and lives and rules eternally. This is most certainly true.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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