The History of Redemption Part 7: The First Gospel Promise

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. (Genesis 3:15)”

While the Scripture teach the doctrine of original sin from beginning to end, no mere mortal has ever figured out this doctrine apart from the revelation of the Scriptures. So blind are we by nature and so perverse that we by nature will never recognize or confess the total depravity of our nature.

It is an important doctrine, not least of all because it makes crystal clear from the beginning that we cannot save ourselves, cannot even contribute to our own salvation in the smallest part. Original sin means that if there is to be any salvation at all, it must come from God TOTALLY.

And that’s what the First Gospel in Genesis 3 is all about. Who would claim that Adam and Eve deserved such a promise? Who would be so bold as to say that some slight remaining goodness in them prompted God to give the promise? No, never! The promise of the Savior was from beginning to end a gracious promise.

We must note finally that of the two ways that God has of speaking to man after the Fall, only one of them restores the fellowship with God destroyed by man’s sin. When God came to Adam and Eve and called them to account, God was speaking with the law. But Adam and Eve were spiritually dead. The law did not rekindle their spiritual life. It only brought to light and deepened the hostility of Adam and Eve towards God. Only the gospel promise of the SEED OF THE WOMAN could bring them back into a relationship with God.

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1. Replaces unbelief with faith, with trust in God’s promise and thankfulness for the promise;
2. Forgives original sin but does not remove it from man’s nature; that will not happen fully in the believer until death, until heaven;
3. In the creation of faith and thus a restoration of a loving fellowship with God, the believer has a new will which now fights against the old will; the new will loves God, wants to do what pleases him, fights against sin and temptation. But it is never completely victorious in its struggle with the old will, otherwise called the sinful flesh, the old Adam, the old man. Always the old will manages to some extent to corrupt what the new will wants to do out of love to God. Precisely because of that imperfection, the new man, the new will, clings constantly to the promise of God in the gospel; for it knows that it can never merit grace but will always have new reasons every day to rejoice in God’s grace and mercy.

HT: Daniel Deutschland in Lectures on Genesis 1-3 Conference Paper presented at various WELS Pastors Conferences from 2012-2014.

Prayer: Dear Father. I am well aware that you could have given up on your creatures when they choose to side with Satan and rebel against you. You would have had every right to punish them immediately with the fires of hell and for the fact that you didn’t…I thank you. I thank you that you sought them out in order to restore and redeem them. I thank you that you have not given up on me either and that you sent your son the seed of Eve to seek me out be my Savior. I know that there is nothing good in me that prompted your actions towards me. Even now  I must admit that my desires and decisions are corrupted as they are directed by my old will. Strengthen in me my new man, my new will so that it clings firmly to the promises of the gospel. Lead me each day to rejoice in your grace and mercy. Amen!