Is the Gospel in Genesis?

 

The Bible is a huge, cohesive story about human beings’ relationship to God and where that relationship breaks down. 

Like any good story, the conflict comes early on in the narrative. If you’re familiar with the story of the origin of sin in Genesis, you’ll probably remember the bizarre part where God curses the snake who deceived Adam and Eve and makes a strange promise about the woman’s seed. This promise in Genesis 3:15 is a pivotal turning point in the Bible, setting the stage for the redemptive narratives that follow. 

God said to the snake:

“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)

2 Major Views

As is usually the case, Bible interpreters haven’t always been on the same page about what this promise actually means. Over the millennia, two major theories have risen to the top. The first interpretation of this verse is pretty meat and potatoes. It’s just a story about snakes and why humans don’t like those nasty, slithery danger ropes. This interpretation isn’t as simplistic as it sounds, and today many prominent scholars like it more than other interpretations.

Their reasoning is, Genesis is an ancient book from the near east, and in ancient literature, there’s a common literary phenomenon known as “etiology”, or what we might call today, an origin story. It’s a simple literary device found in almost every ancient society explaining why something happens the way it does. If you’re in the ancient near east, you might ask: Why do the crops dry up 6 months of the year? Oh, that’s because Dumuzi, the god of crops vegetation is cursed to stay in the netherworld half of every year.

Or, if you’re in ancient Norway, you might ask: where did the gods come from? Well, there was a giant cow who licked the salty ice of the cosmos for three days until Buri came out and became the father of Burr, and the grandfather of Odin…I couldn’t make this up if I tried. 

In Genesis, some interpreters believe, the author is doing the same thing, explaining a natural phenomenon using a mythical story. This view was popularized in the middle ages by an influential Jewish Rabbi known as Rashi, who was born in France around the time of the first crusades in the 11th century. Rashi’s writings went on to influence many of the early Protestant Reformers on the subject of the Old Testament, including John Calvin who said of this verse,

“I interpret this simply to mean that there should always be the hostile strife between the human race and serpents, which is now apparent; for, by a secret feeling of nature, man abhors them.”

Messianic Prophecy

The other major interpretation of the curse against the snake is that it is a prophetic story prefiguring Jesus’ victory over Satan through His own death and resurrection. In this view, Jesus is the seed (or offspring) of the woman, who will strike the head of the snake (Satan). At the same time Satan, like a venomous snake, will deal Jesus a killing strike.

In Christian tradition, this verse is called the “protevangelium” (meaning: the first gospel) because it is the first time the good news of the Messiah Jesus is prophesied in the Old Testament. This term was coined very early on in the Christian movement in the early first century by Irenaus of Lyons (135-202). He said about this verse:

“For this end did He put enmity between the serpent and the woman and her seed, they keeping it up mutually: He, the sole of whose foot should be bitten, having power also to tread upon the enemy’s head; but the other biting, killing, and impeding the steps of man, until the seed did come appointed to tread down his head, – which was born of Mary”

However, the question for us here is which of these interpretations of this promise in Genesis 3:15 is more likely to be correct.

Although you might not end up in the cool kids club of modern theology for siding with the Messianic interpretation of this verse, I don’t think it’s the worst option. In recent years there has been a movement among many biblical scholars back to this ancient view.

The biggest red flag for most people with this interpretation is that it’s just too Christian. What were Jewish people supposed to make of this verse before Jesus came along? Doesn’t it seem more likely that the Christians just read this meaning back into Genesis 3 later down the road? I was actually surprised to find out that, before the middle ages, the Messianic interpretation of this verse was the dominant view, even among Jewish Rabbis!

Even before the New Testament was written, ancient Jewish interpreters seemed to have no problem seeing prophecies about the Messiah very early on in Genesis. Ancient Jewish Bible commentaries like: targumim Pseudo-Jonathan, Neofiti, Onkelos, and Genesis Rabbah 23:5 all assumed a Messianic interpretation of Genesis 3:15. It was only after the Jesus movement in the first century that Jewish writings began to sponge out some of these long-held Messianic interpretations.

Context 

Okay, so maybe this interpretation of Genesis 3:15 is as Jewish as it is Christian, but does it match the rest of the story in Genesis? Like any Bible nerd will tell you, when interpreting a passage, context is king! So what is the context of this verse in the broader Genesis story?

This verse in Genesis comes after the first major conflict of the book, and tells us it will lead to an ongoing conflict between the snake and the woman, between his seed and her seed. There’s going to be a chosen seed, and a rejected seed locked in combat, continually experiencing similar Fall-like events. As good Bible readers, we probably shouldn’t expect this plot point to fizzle out at the end of this chapter. What we should be looking for is a progression of this plot conflict building throughout the rest of the story to some sort of climax.

•  In the story of Cain and Able, who are the first “seeds” of the woman, we see a similar theme as in Genesis 3.
• God gives clear instructions that must be obeyed.
• Adam and Eve are instructed not to eat the fruit (2:17)
• Cain is instructed to do right and not give in to sin (4:7a)
• God warns the main characters not to give in to their desires. 
• Desires are given a negative space in the curses after sin (3:16)
• Cain is told to master his desire (4:7b)
• The main characters brazenly disobey God’s instructions
• Eve ate the fruit from the tree God forbid (3:6)
• Cain murdered his brother Abel (4:8)
• God interrogates the main characters seeking to know “where” and “why.”
• God asks Adam and Eve, “Where are you?” and “What have you done?” (3:8–13)
• God asks Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” and “What have you done?” (4:9–10)
• Characters are cursed by God and banished.
• Adam and Eve are cursed and driven from the garden (3:23–24)
• Cain is banished from the soil and cursed to wander (4:14–16)
• A “seed” of the woman is highlighted in contrast from an evil “seed.” (in this case, Eve gives birth to another child, Seth who fills the place left by Abel’s death.)
• The seed of the woman is promised (3:15)
• Another seed is given to Eve: Abel (4:17–25)

Another similar story follows close after with Noah and his dysfunctional family in Genesis 9, where Noah’s sons experience their own “Fall” narrative, ending with one being a chosen seed and the other being rejected.

The whole story of Genesis continues through similar plot conflicts, highlighting chosen seeds along the way, leading up to the point of Jacob and his 12 grandsons. At the very end of Genesis, Jacob breaks into song in a huge poetic section of the book where he blesses his 12 grandsons (his seed). We learn in Genesis 49 that the promise made to the seed of the woman all the way back in Genesis 3 is being passed on through Jacob’s offspring, his 12 grandsons who become the 12 tribes of Israel. Jacob talks about the “last days” in this chapter, and prophecies that from out of the family of his son, Judah, a triumphant King will arise, restoring Eden-like peace to the world (Gen. 49:8–12).

If we follow this yarn further, we find the Old Testament prophets all pointing back to Jacob’s prophecy to Judah as being about the coming Messiah, who will be called, as Isaiah says, “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Is. 9:6)

Jumping forward to the New Testament, we learn that Jesus came as the son of God to save the world from the curse of sin by defeating Satan at the cross. While this story might sound to a lot of people today as weird and mystical as a story about a talking snake, even that similarity seems to indicate that these two narratives fit together.

The ancient Christians certainly saw the connections between the promise in Genesis 3:15 and Jesus’ triumphant death and resurrection.  The Apostle John, one of Jesus’ closest friends, didn’t even question Genesis’ 3’s Messianic implications when he wrote: 

“[And he] was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come” (Rev. 12:7–13).

And elsewhere in the New Testament, in Hebrews the author writes:

“Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.” (Heb. 9:14–15).

So, is Genesis 3:15 about Jesus’ victory over Satan? The majority of Christian history and Jewish tradition seem to agree that the Messianic prophecy found here is a cornerstone of the rest of the Bible’s hope in the coming Messiah, who has revealed Himself in Jesus.

While it might feel like a stretch of the imagination, oftentimes that’s exactly what good biblical interpretation feels like.