The earthly road to the cross began in Eden. There, in a garden with the sounds of judgment still ringing in the air, the Lord God made a promise. The serpent was the recipient of the words, but God’s image bearers would be the beneficiaries. God told the vile and manipulative creature, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Gen 3:15).

Charles Simeon is right: “Now, as the oak with all its luxuriant branches is contained in the acorn, so was the whole of salvation, however copiously unfolded in subsequent revelations, comprehended in this one prophecy; which is, in fact, the sum and summary of the whole Bible.”[1]

A Scripture-Shaping Hope

Sometimes the promise in Genesis 3:15 is called the protoevangelium, a term which means “first gospel.” From the giving of that promise in Genesis 3:15, the rest of the biblical storyline shows God’s faithfulness to keep those words. A line of descent unfolded unto the Serpent-Crusher, the Curse-Reverser, the Messiah. The Lord Jesus was the promised seed of the woman, and Genesis 3:15 was the fountainhead of messianic prophecy which prepared his way. Even though the words “Messiah” and “messianic” are not used in Genesis 3:15, the continuity of biblical revelation ensures that the hope for a promised son (which begins in Gen 3:15) is deepened and clarified as the Old Testament unfolds.

According to Jim Hamilton, “The Old Testament is a messianic document, written from a messianic perspective, to sustain a messianic hope.”[2] The Old Testament “is a messianic document” (singular), though it consists of 39 books (plural). These books are about many different people and events, yet they serve collectively as a messianic document because of their content. The hope for a deliverer is why the Old Testament exists. The Old Testament is about many things, but none is more significant than messianic hope.

Genesis 3:15 is a fountainhead for waters of hope that strengthen and surge in the Old Testament writings. Throughout the unfolding of Old Testament revelation, the biblical authors do not ignore or forget what transpired previously. They advance messianic hope. Their writings sustain what God promised.

A Son to be Born

From Genesis and Numbers

What can we notice about the promised deliverer when we pay attention to the words of Genesis 3:15? The future victor would be human because the “offspring”—the “seed”—is from Eve, and this human would be a son because of the pronouns. He would bruise, and he would be bruised.

This hope did not remain in the garden. When Adam and Eve left Eden, they took this hope-filled promise with them, and the “first gospel” promise was known in subsequent generations. As evidence of this transference, notice the words of Noah’s father Lamech when his son was born. Lamech had hoped that his son would be the promised victor. He named his son Noah, saying, “Out of the ground that the LORD has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands” (Gen 5:29). Lamech’s words confirmed the awareness and embrace of the hope reported in Genesis 3:15. Someone was coming, and victory would follow. In Genesis 3:15, the promised son would defeat the serpent, and in Genesis 5:29, this victory would have ramifications in a world marked by sin and toil and death (see 3:17–19). He would come to make his blessings flow as far as the curse is found.

As the storyline advances in Genesis, we meet a man named Abraham, and God makes promises to him. In particular, Abraham learned that his offspring—his seed—would “possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” (Gen 22:17–18). Blessing upon the nations through Abraham’s offspring is an allusion to Genesis 12:3. The seed of Abraham would not just be a string of descendants (plural). The seed would ultimately be a son (singular), and the apostle Paul said that this offspring is Christ Jesus (Gal 3:16). This son would be triumphant over his enemies. And by the end of Genesis, we learn that this promised son would be from Judah’s tribe. He would possess the ruler’s staff, and he would receive obedience from the peoples (Gen 49:10).

Balaam’s words in Numbers 24:17–19 confirm what we learn from Genesis. The coming king would rise from Israel and defeat his enemies. In fact, focusing on Balaam’s phrasing, the future king would “crush the forehead of Moab.” Striking the head reminds us of Genesis 3:15. A thread was forming across the biblical storyline, and the subject of this thread was the serpent-crusher and curse-reverser. He would be a king from the line of Abraham, arising from the people of Israel and descending from the tribe of Judah.

From 2 Samuel and Psalms

A thousand years after Abraham, more specificity is given to the promise of a victor. During the reign of David (who reigned from approximately 1010 to 970 BC), Israel’s king received a covenant promise. David learned in 2 Samuel 7 that his royal line would lead to a king whose reign would never end. David would have a son, and this Son of David would be upon the throne forever.

God told David, “When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever” (2 Sam 7:12–13). A ruler was coming—a son. And this son was not only from Judah’s tribe (Gen 49:10), but he would be from David’s line.

The Psalms hold forth hope for such a figure. The Son of David would be the Son of God, and he would inherit the nations and reign with a rod of iron (Ps 2:8–9). Since Israel’s kings were anointed, this future king was an Anointed One—the Messiah. He would be enthroned over heaven and earth and would make his enemies his footstool (Ps 110:1). According to the New Testament, Jesus is the Messiah promised in 2 Samuel 7 and the Psalms. Jesus was the Davidic descendant, and God made him both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:30–31, 36).

From Micah and Daniel

In 1 Samuel 16, we learn that David was from Bethlehem (1 Sam 16:4–13). It was to this village that Samuel went to anoint the king who was from Judah’s tribe. The hometown of David would feature in a prophecy centuries later during Micah’s ministry. Micah said, “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days” (Mic 5:2). The future Son of David would be born in the town of David (see Matt 2:3–6).

The Messiah’s birth in Bethlehem would occur during a particular historical empire. According to the book of Daniel, the promised son—or stone—would come during the reign of the fourth empire, a number counting from the days of the prophet Daniel (Dan 2:31–45). The first empire was Babylon, the second would be Persia, the third would be Greece, and the fourth would be Rome.

During the days of the Roman emperor Caesar Augustus, the Christ was born in the town of Bethlehem (Luke 2:1–7).

A Son Who Would Strike and Be Struck

Victory through Suffering

According to the promise in Genesis 3:15, the future son of Eve was born to achieve victory—but victory at a cost. God told the serpent, “He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” The imagery corresponds to a serpent whose head will be crushed and whose mouth will strike at the crushing foot.

The verb “bruise” is used for the actions committed toward the serpent and toward the son. In each case, the blow is deadly. We should not imagine a harmless snake. We should picture a venomous bite, like those bites that ended the lives of many Israelites in Numbers 21:4–9.[3] When the Lord told the serpent, “You shall bruise his heel,” the action is described from the vantage point of a snake. The snake strikes from the ground at the accessible heel, and the bite is deadly.

The deliverer’s foot is involved in two ways: It is doing the striking, and at the same time, it is being struck. When a foot comes down on a snake’s head, the snake has been defeated. The image of head-crushing is about conquering. But this is a victory through suffering. Indeed, the language in Genesis 3:15 suggests that the promised son achieves victory through his own suffering and death.

The Old Rugged Cross

The seed of the woman would come in the fullness of time, born in Bethlehem and laid in a lowly manger. After Jesus grew up and began his public ministry, he taught his disciples what would happen to him in Jerusalem: “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again” (Mark 8:31).

In the wisdom and mystery of God’s redemptive plan, the old rugged cross displayed the death of the Son of God, but this death was not his defeat. His death had been the plan all along. The seed of the woman would be lifted up on a cross. And as the Romans raised the cross, they thereby raised his feet as well. The grim and sorrowful scene was prophetically perfect because a raised foot is exactly what you need when you are going to crush a serpent’s head.

Through his death, he would satisfy the justice of God on our behalf, he would defeat that ancient serpent who wrought such havoc in Eden, and he would rise to everlasting bodily life. The victory on the cross is made clear by his vindication—his resurrection on the third day.

Conclusion

By the time we reach the end of the Old Testament, the Messiah had not yet come. We must keep reading. The road of messianic hope is long and winding, but the destination is certain, because God does not make promises he does not keep.

When we follow the road from Eden to the Place of the Skull outside Jerusalem, we see the fulfillment of a divine promise that traveled and developed through the writings of the biblical authors. The prophesied victor would be a son from Abraham’s family, from the people of Israel, from the tribe of Judah, and from the family of David. He would be born in Bethlehem during the days of the Roman Empire. He would bear our iniquities after being rejected and betrayed, he would be delivered from the grave, and he would reverse the curse of sin and death. He acted on our behalf as our representative and substitute. The first Adam heard the promise that the last Adam fulfilled. At the appointed time, the appointed Son accomplished the appointed work. On Good Friday, a holy heel took aim with all the power of heaven.

[1] Charles Simeon, Horae Homileticae, vol. 1, Genesis to Leviticus (London: Holdsworth and Ball, 1832), 36.

[2] James M. Hamilton Jr., “The Skull-Crushing Seed of the Woman: Inner-Biblical Interpretation of Genesis 3:15,” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 10, no. 2 (2006): 30.

[3] See Kevin S. Chen, The Messianic Vision of the Pentateuch (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2019), 54.