[Biblemat] A) "HE SHALL BRUISE THY HEAD"

[J5827Sasser at wmconnect.com]

Brethren and Friends, Jim Sasser here.  A very good Monday
morning to each and everyone.  May God bless you and yours.
Here is an article from my files:

"HE SHALL BRUISE THY HEAD"

     When Moses writes of enmity between "thee and the wom-
an, and between thy seed and her seed," he foresees by God's Spirit a 
conflict between Satan and Eve and between
evil men and men of righteousness (Gen. 3:15).  This enmity
began that day when the woman's eyes were opened and she
saw that she had been "beguiled" and that she and the earth
on which she would live had been cursed (Gen. 3:9-21).  But
the hostility continued in the ongoing conflict between the descendants of 
Eve who walked by faith and the children of
the devil who walked by the lusts of the flesh (1 Jno. 3:5-10).

     But in the grand scheme of God, Who before the world
was made planned to save man from sin, the conflict turned
personal and became a battle between Jesus and Satan.  Something unusual 
ocurs grammatically in the Septuagint
version of the Bible and occurs no other place in the Book of
Genesis.  The last part of Gen. 3:15 begins with "he," a masculine pronoun 
that is preceded by a neuter antecedant.
The "he" refers back to "her seed" and denotes an individual
that would proceed out of the lineage of the woman.

     But why does the prophecy foresee the "seed" of a "wom-
an"?  Lineages are traditionally counted from the male of the
family, which in this case would be Adam and the father of the "he" who was 
to come.  This finds its explanation in the
New Testament when Jesus is noted by Paul to be "born of
woman" (Gal. 4:4).  What is remarkable about this statement
is that it is unneccessary, since all men are born of a woman.
But in this case it is significant because Jesus was "born of
woman" in a unique sense.  He was conceived in the womb
of Mary by the Holy Spirit and had no earthly father (Matt. 1:
18-23).

     What, in the light of the New Testament, Moses foresees
in Gen. 3:15 is not only the virgin birth of Jesus but that this
child would be the Son of God Who would in conflict with
Satan destroy his power over man through sin and death.  This is why Jesus 
came to earth -- to conquer the devil and to
destroy his works (1 Jno. 3:8; Heb. 2:14).  In the language of
Moses, Jesus would "bruise" the "head" of the serpent and in
doing so the serpent would "would bruise His heel."

     The imagery is clear: a man who seeks to kill a serpent by
stomping on his head will not only destroy the serpent but do
damage to himself.  This, again, in the light of the New Testa-
ment, refers to the death of Jesus, which in view of the resur-
rection brought only injury to his own person in death.  But
in that death He bore in His body the sins of the whole world
and suffered God's judgment on their behalf.  Having punish-
ed man's sins in the death of Jesus God's justice was served,
but He, as a result, could also in rightousness forgive men
and deliver them from death, the wages of sin (1 Pet. 2:24; 
Rom. 3:24,25; 6:23).

     Satan has been defeated and bound by Christ, but only for
those in Christ by the "obedience of faith" (Gal. 3:26,27; Rom.
6:3,4; 1:5; 16:26).   ------ L. A. Stauffer in Son Rays, Vol. 29, No. 21, 
August 19, 2007.   </HTML>
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