The Final Countdown – Promised in the Beginning

We have seen how mankind fell from their first created state. The Bible tells us that, even at that very first moment, God spoke a Promise that reached forward through history.

The Bible – Really a Library

The Bible is not one single book but a library of sixty-six books written by many authors over more than fifteen hundred years. These writers came from different lands, spoke various languages, and held different social roles. Yet their messages fit together in perfect unity, and their prophecies align with events recorded outside the Bible.

The oldest copies of the Old Testament books (the books before Jesus) that still exist today are from 200 BC, and our earliest New Testament date from 125 CE and later. This long timeline of independent writers yet flawless agreement sets the Bible apart from any other Great Book.

The Gospel Promise in the Garden

Right after the Fall of mankind, God spoke directly to Satan—who had appeared in the  form of a serpent—and gave this Promise, almost like a riddle:

“… and I (God) will put enmity between you (Satan) and the woman and between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head and you will strike his heel.”
^{Genesis 3:15}

Notice how God uses the future tense (“will”): this is prophecy, looking ahead to what must happen. In this single verse we meet five figures:

• I (that is, God)
• You (the serpent, or Satan)
• The woman
• The offspring of the woman
• The offspring of the serpent or Satan

The Promise says there will be hatred (“enmity”) between the serpent and the woman, and between their children. The serpent’s child will wound the woman’s child’s heel, but the woman’s child will crush the serpent’s head. The article includes a diagram illustrating these future relationships:

Who Is the offspring? – a “he”

When you read Genesis 3:15, God chooses the word “he” for the promised child. That choice rules out several possibilities: it cannot be a “she” (so it’s not any woman), it cannot be “they” (so it’s not a group, nation, or religion), and it cannot be an “it” (so it’s not a system, idea, or teaching that might fix our human situation or undo the  corruption in mankind).

Instead, the Promise points to one real man born through the woman. Notice God does not mention a father—only that the child comes through the woman. This detail is striking, because the Bible usually traces descent from a father. Here, by naming only the woman, God makes it clear that this unique “he” will arrive in a way unlike any other in history.

A Much Later Prophet Builds on That Promise

Many centuries later, the prophet Isaiah picked up this Promise and added a sign:

The Lord himself will give you a sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’).
^{Isaiah 7:14, 750 BCE}

Over seven hundred years after Isaiah spoke, the New Testament records Jesus’s birth from a virgin, fulfilling Isaiah’s word and tying back to the first Promise at Eden.

“Strike His Heel”??

The Promise says the serpent will “strike his heel.” One year I worked in the jungles of Cameroon and wore thick rubber boots because snakes there would strike your heel—and often kill you. In the same way, the man (“he”) defeats Satan (crushing his head) but is himself wounded. That “strike” points ahead to the sacrifice of Jesus, where he wins the victory gained over sin and Satan by giving his life.

“The Woman” – a Double Meaning

If the Promise points to Jesus, then “the woman” is Mary, his mother. But there is a second meaning. The prophet Hosea refers to Israel as God’s wife:

O Israel, … I will make you my wife forever, … I will be faithful to you and make you mine, and you will finally know me as the Lord.
^{Hosea 2:17–20, 800 BCE}

At the end of Revelation we see that same woman in conflict with her enemy:

I saw a woman clothed with … a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant, and she cried out because of her labor pains and the agony of giving birth.

Then …I saw a large red dragon … in front of the woman as she was about to give birth, ready to devour her baby as soon as it was born.

She gave birth to a son who was to rule all nations with an iron rod. …

This great dragon—the ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, the one deceiving the whole world—was thrown down to the earth with all his angels…

When the dragon realized that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child… And the dragon was angry at the woman and declared war against the rest of her children… 
^{Revelation 12:1-17, 90 CE}

Because Jesus was a Jew, he is the child of both Mary and of Israel. The ancient serpent is in enmity with Israel, and that hostility began in Eden.

The offspring of the serpent?

If the serpent has a child, who is it? Revelation describes a beast rising to do Satan’s work:

⁸ The beast you saw was once alive, but now it is not. However, it will come up out of the bottomless pit and go away to be destroyed. The people who live on the earth will be amazed when they see the beast, because it was once alive, is no longer living, but will come again. These are the people whose names have never been written in the book of life since the beginning of the world.

“You need wisdom to understand this.
^{Revelation 17:8-9, written by John ca. 90 CE}

This final beast is the serpent’s offspring, set against God’s Son. The battle begun in Genesis continues through all history—truly “His-Story.”

The Biblical Account Continues

The drama does not end with Genesis 3. Immediately after the Promise, God moves to clothe them, a move full of symbolic meaning—showing both judgment and grace. Next follows the cataclysmic flood, which wipes out nearly all mankind in judgment, yet preserves Noah’s family as a new beginning. Then comes the origin of different languages and races, explaining why the Earth is full of nations. Finally, God takes the first step in fulfilling His Promise by calling a man to leave home and follow Him.

Each event builds on that first riddle in Eden and brings us ever closer to the final victory God promised at the very beginning.