Genesis 3:15

Genesis 3:15

I. The first intention of the work of Christ upon this earth is a declaration of war: His warfare and our warfare; the warfare of persons and the warfare of "seeds"; of the two great principles of good and evil.

II. Christ did bruise and crush the serpent's head his strength, his being, his whole vitality. He fought alone in each great single combat. When the cross was reared against the power of the arch-enemy the crushing was complete; and when He, Conqueror over the conquered grave, rose again, then the crushed head had received its death-blow.

III. The worst possible position in which men can be placed is a state in which there is no inward spiritual conflict. Quiet in the soul is the quiet of the grave. Where there is conflict there is life.

J. Vaughan, Sermons,9th series, p. 53.

I. Notice the fall as a history. The consequences of the fall were: (1) shame; (2) fear; (3) self-excusing; (4) punishment; (5) an exclusion from the original Paradise and from the tree of immortal life within it.

II. Notice the fall in its typical and representative character. (1) Something is presented for consideration. Ponderings of sin, parleyings with temptation these are the things which we must resist, if we would keep ourselves unspotted and pure in the great matter of the soul's life. (2) For see how bold the tempter becomes who has once got a hearing. He ventures upon challenging God's prohibition; says out, "Ye shall not surely die." (3) Sin cannot rest till it has drawn others in. The woman must make her husband eat; the friend corrupts his friend; the brother entices his brother; and so a deluge of misery enters the world in one drop of sin. (4) Man, even fallen man, differs from the evil spirit in this, that he still, at least in the early days, is conscious to himself of his own sin; is but half its friend; has many misgivings and many self-reproaches, even though his life is defiled and spoilt with transgression; and herein lies for man a possibility of redemption, which for fallen angels is not.

III. Notice the fall in its reversal. (1) Read as a reversal of Adam's fall the record of our Lord's temptation. Then did the "strong man armed" meet a stronger than himself, and retire from the encounter foiled and vanquished. (2) Thus has it been in a lower degree with all who in Christ's name have gone forth to the conflict with temptation. (3) Read finally in this light the last Chapter s of the Book of God.

C. J. Vaughan, Christ the Light of the World,p. 112.

This text contains: (1) a promise of Christ; (2) a prophecy of His sufferings; (3) a prophecy of His final triumph.

R. W. Dibdin, Penny Pulpit,No. 1872.

I. The first time Prophecy opened her lips, it was to pronounce these words. To our first parents they were full of hope and consolation. In some mysterious way their loss was to be repaired; a Deliverer was to be provided. This promise was all their Bible. What, in truth, is all the rest of Scripture but the development of this great primeval promise of a Redeemer?

II. Never for an instant was this tremendous announcement absent from the recollection of the enemy of our race. Thoroughly versed in Scripture (as the history of the Temptation proves), he watched with intense anxiety the progress of prophetic announcement to mankind concerning One that was to come.

III. It is not to be supposed for an instant that Satan understood the mystery of our Lord's Incarnation. Caught in the depths of that unimaginable mystery, he did not know until it was too late that it was Very and Eternal God with whom he had entered into personal encounter. Repulsed in the wilderness, he was made fully aware of the personal advent of his great Enemy. At the death of Christ the kingdom which he had been consolidating for four thousand years was in a single moment shattered to its base.

IV. The history of the fall plainly intimates that on the side of the flesh man is most successfully assaulted by temptation, Four thousand years of warfare have convinced the enemy of our peace that on thisside the citadel is weakest, is most easily surprised, is most probably captured.

J. W. Burgon, Oxford and Cambridge Undergraduates' Journal,Feb. 19th, 1880.

References: Genesis 3:15. Phillips Brooks, Twenty Sermons,p. 93; S. Leathes, Truth and Life,p. 14; J. Monro Gibson, The Ages before Moses,p. 98; H. Melvill, Sermons,p. 1; J. G. Murphy, The Book of Daniel,p. 3; Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxii., No. 1326; T. Arnold, Sermons,vol. vi., p. 9; C. H. Bromby, Good Words(1879), p. 169; W. Arnot, The Anchor of the Soul,p. 68; B. Waugh, Sunday Magazine(1887), pp. 351, 352; R. Glover, By the Waters of Babylon,p. 218, A. B. Grosart, Congregationalist,vol. ii., p. 170.