He Shall Bruise Your Head

the prophecy: be of offspring of the woman; shall bruise the serpent's head

I’m reminded today of the first time I read the following scripture:

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.
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 3:14-15

I was in high school, a pretty devout churchgoer, but still had so much to learn about Scripture. (Still the same today.) Because our grade was so large, we were split into two Bible study classes for the year. We had this very dedicated Bible study teacher named Donald who was very committed to studying God’s Word and just as passionate about teaching God’s Word. I was chosen to be in his class, nicknamed AP Bible study. Admittedly, in my immaturity I wanted to be in the other class because my closest friends were there, but there was one particular Bible study which would have sufficed alone in being worth it to be in Donald’s class.

We read the above Scripture together and although I understood the serpent being punished and Adam and Eve being punished, verse 15 was a mystery to me. And then Donald revealed to us that the pronoun in this Scripture was referring to Jesus, I was hit hard with the following truth. Many, many, many moons before Jesus were to even be born, God had set forth His plan to save us in the same breath as His punishment for the serpent. As a matter of fact, he revealed the plan to save even before He laid down the punishment for Adam and Eve. Ultimately, along with His punishment there was also a promise to crush and in that promise to crush also a promise to save. And though it took many days and nights, generations, some wandering, tribes, priests, prophets, kings, and 400 silent years the thing that tied what seemed like an eternity together was a promise that the Savior would come born of woman to crush Satan.

See the following verses where this Old Testament prophecy is fulfilled in the New Testament. May the word convict you with how deep our Father’s love is for us through Christ, Jesus: