Protoevangelium: Messiah as the Seed of the Woman
I am writing an article each week for our choir that will guide us in meditating on Christ during this Easter season. Below is the first of many to come.
“I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.” – Genesis 3:15
From the very beginning we read in Genesis of how the sovereign Lord of the universe stepped out of His domain to establish a covenant with man and His creation.
Throughout the Scriptures, we read that God is always the one taking the initiative to cut a covenant. This sets the stage in showing that God always seeks out a person instead of vice versa. Nehemiah Coxe explains the covenant transaction by stating,
This is also worthy to be noted by us: that when God has made covenants, in which either mankind in general or some select number of men in particular have been involved, it has pleased him first to transact with some public person, head, or representative for all others that should be involved in them. (Coxe 2005, 39) 1
The first covenant in Scripture is the Covenant of Life (also known as the Covenant of Works) made with Adam as the head and representative of all humanity (Genesis 1:28-30; Genesis 2:16-17; Hosea 6:7). By keeping God’s covenant, he would procure life for himself and his posterity.
Due to Adam’s failure in keeping God’s covenant, death passed from Adam to all his posterity, although, the buck does not stop there. In the midst of darkness shines a ray of light. However, God would have been just in sending these rebels into outer darkness. Nevertheless, He announces a remedy which was a plan that was on His mind before the creation of time.
In Genesis 3:15 we have the first utterance of prophecy concerning a future redeemer. God says, “I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.” Genesis 3:15 is known as the protoevangelium. Protoevangelium is a Greek word which means “first message” or “first Gospel.” We have stated in Genesis 3:15 the first proclamation of the “good news.” Anthony Hoekema calls it the “mother promise” when he states, “This passage called the “mother promise” now sets the tone for the entire Old Testament.” 2
We should take note of two facts found in the protoevangelium. First, is the fact that God speaks of the struggle between the seed of Satan and the seed of the woman. On one hand, it is revealed that there will be a battle between the children of darkness (seed of the serpent) and the children of light (seed of the woman). On the other hand it is ultimately a battle between Satan and the Seed. Coxe concurs:
For the seed of the woman is to be understood collectively of Christ and [His] members (as the seed of the serpent includes all wicked men) though it has a principal reference to Christ personally, who alone has obtained the victory over the infernal power and destroyed the works of the Devil. (Coxe 2005, 55) 3
The redeemer will do for the elect of God what the first Adam was unable to accomplish.
The second fact to note is that the protoevangelium does not give explicit details concerning the character of this redeemer except for the fact that he will be born of a woman. The nature of prophecy in the Old Testament is of a progressive nature. As the utterance of messianic prophecy progresses the identity of the redeemer becomes more evident. We later learn that this Seed of the woman will be a king from the tribe of Judah (Genesis 49:10), a prophet like Moses (Deuteronomy 18:15), and a priest after the order of Melchizedek (Psalm 110:4).
So then, for what purpose did it serve that the redeemer should be born of a woman? For the purpose of condemning sin in the flesh (Romans 8:3). The second Adam had to clothe Himself in the nature of those whom He would set free from the bondage of sin. This is He whom the Old Testament pointed to and in whom the Old Testament saints placed their faith.
