day one: Christ, the Seed of Woman
/Readings: Genesis 3, Genesis 22, Galatians 3:16
It is the earth’s darkest hour. Paradise, that stunning gem of all God’s creation called Eden, has just been overthrown—stolen away from mankind and thrown into the grasp of one who hates God, one who would destroy all things good to make space for his own exaltation.
It is here, in the aftermath, that God speaks—proclaiming the very first prophecy of the one who would be called the Christ. And He addresses it not to the ruined, shamed, and robbed humans who have lost everything, but to the Enemy himself.
The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you will go, and dust you will eat dust all the days of your life; and I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.”
Genesis 3:14-15
The Christ’s first identifying name in all of Scripture is “her seed”—the seed of woman. This is the One who will, though He suffers in the battle, finally deliver the death-blow to this Enemy.
But what is the seed of woman? In the traditional terminology of a patrilineal society, a woman cannot possess seed—her body has the environment for human growth, but the “seed” itself has to be given to her. A woman who has seed of her own, apart from that process, can only have received it by supernatural means.
So it’s here, in the very first prophecy of the Christ and the declaration of the Enemy’s fate, that we recognize the Coming One as Someone entirely “other.” He is no ordinary man. From conception He was completely unique, completely supernatural, completely God.
There could be no greater threat, no more terrifying condemnation to the serpent than this: One is coming—One born from the power of God Himself—who will forever crush you, and who will forever bless the humanity that you tried to destroy.
