The Preceding Promise (The Genesis Archives Pt. 4)

By Ife J. Ibitayo

For Part 1, “Let There Be Light”, click here. For Part 2, “Recycling and the Image of God”, click here. For Part 3, “Naked and Unashamed”, click here.

“‘And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will crush your head, and you will strike His heel’” (Genesis 3:15).

I hate making mistakes. You may want to roll your eyes sardonically and say, “Don’t we all?” But hear me out. There’s a difference between striving for perfection and needing it to feel at peace with oneself, others, and God Himself. I often struggle with the latter. A bad day on the job can haunt me for weeks, a bad conversation for months. I still vividly remember the mistakes of my youth, from careless comments to squandered gospel opportunities. I’ve piled them up over the decades, lugging them along in a spiritual trash bag as if they were my cross to carry. That is why this passage from the very beginning of the Bible resonates so deeply in my bones.

The Curse

The greater context of Genesis 3:15 is that Adam and Eve have just eaten the forbidden fruit, and God is meting out the first punishment listed in Holy Scripture. But God does not begin His punishment with Adam or Eve but the Serpent who tricked them. He curses the Serpent, “‘Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly, and you will eat dust all the days of your life” (Genesis 3:14). Then God tells them all the promise listed in Genesis 3:15: “‘And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will crush your head, and you will strike His heel.’” Then the curses on Adam and Eve in childbirth and work come in verses 16 to 19. But notice that the promise precedes the curse.

The Promise

This truth lies at the heart of the gospel. The gospel is not the story of how God makes decent people into perfect saints. It’s the story of how he transforms cadavers into new creations. The Apostle Paul says in his epistle to the Ephesians, “Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins…But God is so rich in mercy, and He loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, He gave us life when He raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!)” (Ephesians 2:1,4-5) God’s response to us does not proceed from our sins. He didn’t wait to see if we’d be perfect then send Jesus to make up the difference. Rather, “Even before He made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in His eyes” (Ephesians 1:4).

Conclusion

Before you cheated on that final exam, God chose you. Before you divorced your wife, God chose you. Before you tried to commit suicide, God chose you to be holy and blameless in His sight.

As I spoke on in “Naked and Unashamed”, sin demands judgment, yet God still desires a relationship with us. And you can’t have a relationship with a dead person. So God sent His Son to die in our place. And through His death, by crushing the Serpent’s head and absorbing his fatal bite, He’s enabled us imperfect beings to be in right relationship with a perfect God.

“Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation.”

(Colossians 1:21-22)