The Woman’s Seed

Genesis 3:15

            The theme of Holy Scripture is set forth in Genesis 3:15. There the Lord God promised our fallen parents that he would send a man, who would be the Seed of a woman (born of a virgin), to crush the serpent’s head and save his people.

One Book

            The Old Testament is not a mere record of Israel’s history, or of God’s miraculous works among that favored nation. Neither is it merely a book of law and moral ethics. The Old Testament, like the New, is about Christ. We should never look upon the Old Testament and the New as two separate books. The two form one Book, the Word of God. The Old Testament alone is not the Word of God. And the New Testament alone is not the Word of God. The two together are the Word of God.

One Message

            The central, unifying theme of the Old Testament Scriptures, woven into all the laws, prophecies, types, and ceremonies of that life and worship revealed and required by God, woven into all God’s promises, and woven into all God’s dealings with men in general, and with the nation of Israel in particular, was the coming of the woman’s Seed for the redemption of fallen men.

One Hope

            It was the common hope of all believers, from Adam throughout the Mosaic age, that God would break into human history in the form of a man, a man who would perfectly fulfil the three great roles of prophet, priest, and king. In fulfilling all that was symbolized by those three dominant offices of the Old Testament, this man, the Messiah (the Christ), would both make atonement for all the sins of his covenant people and establish righteousness in the earth.

            I do not suggest that they clearly understood the doctrine of the incarnation, or the hypostatic union of humanity and divinity in him. Who does? Yet, there can be no question about the fact that God’s saints in ancient times clearly understood that this man would himself be God. Abraham told Isaac that the sinner’s sin-atoning substitute would be one who is himself God (Gen. 22:8).

            Prophet after prophet spoke of the coming of this promised Redeemer. Some spoke with such unmistakable clarity that no one, looking back, can with honesty deny that they spoke by infallible inspiration. No other explanation can be given for Psalm 22, Isaiah 53, or Micah 5:2. The last Old testament prophet, Malachi, concluded the Old Testament Scriptures with the same promise God gave to Adam and Eve in the garden. "Behold, the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts" (Mal. 3:1). Four hundred years later, Jesus of Nazareth, sitting in the temple at Jerusalem, declared himself to be the God-man of whom all the prophets spoke (Lk. 4:21).

Don Fortner