Sermon Idea: God’s eternal redemptive plan, a covenant of grace, is revealed to Adam and fulfilled by the promised seed of the woman.
Introduction: Graeme Goldsworthy tells a story about an Australian Sunday School teacher who felt her lessons had become a little too predictable. She feared this predictability would lead to boredom, so she decided on a new tactic.
The following week, she stood before her five-year-old class and said, “Who can tell me what is gray and furry and lives in a Gum tree?”
The children, surprised, said nothing.
“Come on,” she said, “someone must know. What is gray, furry, lives in a gum tree, has a black leathery nose, and beady eyes?
Still no answer.
She repeated herself, nearly giving up until one little girl raised her hand.
The teacher smiled and said, “Yes, Suzie?”
Suzie answered, “I know it’s Jesus, but it sounds like a Koala!”1
One of the challenges of preaching the Old Testament is to do so in a way that is faithful to the text and centered on Jesus Christ without being simple and predictable.
We aim to connect the dots in a way that allows the progressive nature of God’s revelation to be fully felt. That said, when it comes to faithful reading of Scripture, the Sunday School answer is the correct answer: I know it’s Jesus. After all, this is how Jesus himself taught us to think about the Old Testament.
26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. (Lk 24:26-27)
46 For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. 47 But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?” (Jn 5:46–47)
The Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation, from the seed of the woman to the slain lamb on the throne, are about Jesus Christ. As Mitchell Chase reminds us, “Jesus treasured the Old Testament, and at the same time he was—and is—its treasure.”
The promise that God gives to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:15 is known as the protoevangelium. It is the first form, “proto,” of the gospel promise of grace, “evangelium.” At the center of that promise is the seed of the woman who will crush the head of the serpent.
The rest of the Old Testament is about the hope of this promised seed. That is why we are pausing to think about this verse in depth. In just a few words, God prepares us for conflict, foreshadows the cross, and promises the covenant of grace in which we are saved through faith in Jesus Christ.
We might summarize the sermon idea in this way: God’s eternal, redemptive plan—a covenant of grace—is revealed to Adam and fulfilled by the promised seed of the woman.
I.) The gospel promise comes through conflict
As Aaron taught you last week, the first gospel promise is given when God curses the serpent.
14 The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. 15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your
offspring and her offspring (Ge 3:14-15)
We may not think of enmity and conflict as being good news for us, but we need to remember that God promises this as he curses the serpent. The promise of enmity is hard news for us, but devastating news for the serpent.
Sinclair Ferguson helpfully notes that the promise of enmity, “…is an
indication to Satan that he has not actually won. He thinks that because he’s overcome Adam and Eve, that perhaps the whole victory is his. And so, God is forewarning him in this judgment that he has a fight on his hands, that the seed of the woman, those who are faithful believers, will continue to withstand the seed of the serpent…”2
The painful enmity that the seed of the woman must endure is seen immediately in Genesis 4, when Cain kills Abel. These boys share the same biological mother, but one worshipped God rightly and the other opposed God by killing his brother Abel. Cain was the seed of the woman struck down by the seed of the serpent, Abel.
Yet even here, the seed of the woman perseveres despite the enmity with the seed of the serpent.
25 And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, “God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him.” 26 To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord. (Ge 4:25–26)
The Old Testament story is not a record of natural, neutral historical events. It is the record of an ongoing conflict between the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of God. From Pharaoh instructing Hebrew Midwives to murder newborn Hebrew boys to Herod seeking to murder male children in Exodus under the age of two in the Gospel of Matthew, the seed of the serpent attempts to find and destroy the seed of the woman.
Jesus reinforces this to us in the Gospels when he refers to the Pharisees and the Sadducees as “a brood of vipers.” (Matt. 3:7; Luke 3:7). He does so again in John 8, calling those seeking to kill him, saying in verse 44, “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’sdesires (Jn 8:44). These are not random, harsh words by Jesus, but an allusion to the distinction between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent.3
If you’re here this morning and you are not a Christian, how does this resonate with you? How will you reflect and respond to God’s revelation that, apart from Christ, you are the seed of the serpent?
We pray that your reflection will lead you to respond with repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. It is through faith in Jesus that we become children of God.
12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, (Jn 1:12)
It is through faith in Jesus that we are “…called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (1 Pe 2:9)
Beloved saints in the room. Hear this promise of conflict not in fear, but in hope. The church will face persecution, trials, and difficulties. As long as the Lord tarries, we will remain in a cosmic battle.
11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. (Eph 6:11–12)
8sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9 Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. (1 Pe 5:8–9)
We need to hear these words and believe them. Yet, we also need to remember that the promise of enmity in Genesis 3:15 is to tell Satan that he has not won. Jesus tells us in Matthew 16:18, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Mt 16:18)
Beloved, the church may struggle. The church may suffer. The church may be persecuted, but the church will be built, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Paul encourages us in this way: “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.” (Ro 16:20)
The promise of the gospel comes through conflict, but it is fulfilled on the cross.
II.) The gospel promise is fulfilled on the cross
After the promise of conflict comes the promise of victory: he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. (Ge 3:15)
The seed of the woman will bruise the head of the serpent, but will suffer a wound himself, “…and you shall bruise his heel.” You do not need a medical license to understand that a wound to the head is significantly more serious than a wound to the heel.
There is going to be one seed of the woman, the seed of the woman, who will strike a fatal blow on the head of the serpent through his suffering. That suffering is endured on the cross.
As the Old Testament anticipated God’s suffering servant, the Messiah, it told of him being crushed for the sins of his people.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed. (Is 53:5)
10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. (Is 53:10)
The New Testament tells us that it was through the cross that Jesus defeated Satan. The cross was the strike to Jesus’ heel and a crushing blow to Satan’s head.
14 Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. (Heb 2:14–15)
This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him. (Col 2:14–15)
The promised seed of the woman, the Messiah, was the Son of God incarnate who lived in our place, fulfilling the law we could not keep, and then he died on the cross, paying the penalty for sin we could not pay.
In that one, substitutionary sacrifice our sin is paid, Satan is crushed, and death is defeated.
The gospel promise comes through conflict, is fulfilled on the cross, and is mediated through covenant.
III.) The gospel promise is mediated through covenant
Up to this point, you may be wondering how exactly God’s first gospel promise in Genesis 3:15 relates to our study of the biblical covenants. God always relates to his people through covenant, and this is no exception.
” A Covenant can be defined as follows: a covenant is a chosen relationship in which two parties make binding promises (and obligations) to each other.”
If Genesis 3:15 is the first gospel promise, then it is the first promise of a covenant of grace. By the covenant of grace, I mean the covenant under which God saves every believer who places their faith in Christ and applies all the benefits of Christ’s finished work to them.
Moreover, man having brought himself under the curse of the law by his fall, it pleased the Lord to make a covenant of grace,wherein He freely offers unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ…- Second London Baptist Confession 7.2
This covenant is revealed in the gospel; first of all to Adam in the promise of salvation by the seed of the woman, and afterwards by farther steps, until the full discovery thereof was completed in the New Testament;-Second London Baptist Confession 7.3
For those who remember, we said something very similar in our introductory sermon. Let me read what I said then as a reminder.
Adam disobeyed, and all of creation was cursed. However, even as God cursed all of creation, he promised a future covenant, not of works but grace. In Genesis 3:15, God promises that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent.
All the covenants that follow are God’s way of fulfilling that promise, which is not fulfilled or realized until the New Covenant ratified by the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the seed of the woman.
Here is why this is important. The way that you understand how God brings and administers this covenant of grace makes all the difference in determining your understanding of the church.
Many in the Baptist tradition have argued for approximately 400 years that the covenant of grace is promised in Genesis 3:15 and progressively revealed through the subsequent biblical covenants; however, it is only the new covenant, mediated by Jesus Christ, that constitutes the covenant of grace.
The Abrahamic covenant is a gracious covenant of promise, but it is not the covenant of grace.
The Mosaic covenant is a gracious covenant of promise, but it is not the covenant of grace.
The Davidic covenant is a gracious covenant of promises, but it is not the covenant of grace.
These covenants together are what the New Testament refers to as the “Old Covenant.”
The New Covenant is the covenant of grace formalized and mediated by Jesus Christ.
15 Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant (Heb 9:15)
Right now, I merely want to plant that particular seed. As we walk through each covenant in the coming weeks, we will gain a deeper understanding of how God progressively reveals His one plan of redemption, this covenant of grace, and how it impacts our lives as a church.
- Graeme Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000) X. ↩︎
- https://learn.ligonier.org/podcasts/ask-ligonier/what-is-the-protoevangelium Accessed June 15th, 2025. ↩︎
- James Hamilton, “The Skull Crushing Seed of the Woman: Inner-Biblical Interpretation of Genesis 3:15” SBJT 10/2 (Summer 2006) ↩︎
Nathaniel R. Martin 