Plumbing the Depths of His Word

David Scott Fields II, Senior Writer • July 20, 2024

If you have been a Christian and studied the Bible for a long time, it can be easy to start thinking you have learned all there is to learn about a passage. However, time and time again the Lord proves it is impossible to fully plumb the depths of His word.

I had such an experience today as I studied Charles Spurgeon’s sermon Christ the Conqueror of Satan. This particular sermon was first preached on November 26, 1876 at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London. The passage under study was Genesis 3:15 which reads:

“And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; [He] shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”

King James Version

I have studied this text many times and know it to be the first gospel message in the Bible – God promises to send a deliverer (the Seed of the Woman) to crush the serpent (the Devil). It seems pretty straightforward. However, today I learned two things about this and the surrounding context that I had never considered before.

The first thing I learned was the timing of this proclamation. It was made before Adam and Eve had received any curse, any punishment. After He had cursed Satan, the Lord immediately promised that a descendent of the woman would ultimately crush the power of Satan and sin. This was huge as God had already told them:

“But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

Genesis 2:17 KJV

If they were to die that day, there could be no descendant – no promised Seed. However, God already had a plan to provide both a Champion against Satan and a Substitution to pay the price for their sin. God showed mercy to the man and woman first, and gave them hope – despite the fact that their sin would bring a curse on every generation of the world that followed. The Lord is a just God and must punish all sin, but He is also a merciful God who loves to quickly forgive if we will only turn back to Him. As it is written:

“Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”

Isaiah 55:7 KJV

This was all made possible by that promised Seed from Genesis 3:15, Jesus Christ, whom, “For our sake [God] made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV). And we have had this promise since the very day sin entered the world. How amazing is that!

The second thing I considered for the first time was Adam’s reaction to all this. A few verses later, after the Lord gives this gospel message and then curses mankind for their disobedience, we read this:

“And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.”

Genesis 3:20 KJV

It is easy to glance over this verse. In fact, the unobservant student might not have realized that Eve did not have a name other than Woman before this. However, her name is profound. Eve comes from a Hebrew word meaning “to live.” Even though at that moment Eve had no children, Adam had faith that she would be the first mother of all humanity. By naming her this (and remember naming things seemed to be his unique privilege at this time), he showed that he believed what the Lord had said and they would not die. He believed the gospel!

Remember that Abraham “…believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness” (Galatians 3:6 KJV). Can anything less be said of Adam and Eve? Though human innocence and righteousness had been lost, through faith in God’s promise, Adam and Eve received the righteousness of God – which can never be lost!

We shortly thereafter see that “…the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them” (Genesis 3:21 ESV). An innocent creature or creatures (it would not surprise me if these were lambs) died for these skins to be procured – fulfilling God’s requirement of death for sin and covering the man and woman in an innocence (righteousness) not their own. Not only did sin enter the world on this infamous day, but so did the first two salvation stories!

Charles Spurgeon said of Adam and Eve in his sermon, “They went on in faith upon this [promise], and were comforted in travail and in toil, and I doubt not both Adam and his wife in the faith thereof entered into everlasting rest.” I do not doubt this either and look forward one day to hearing their testimony of being the first gospel recipients. This was an amazing study plumbing the depths of the Word – though I imagine I still have much deeper to go. Nevertheless I was reminded that I serve a great and merciful God, and as the scriptures make abundantly clear, “Mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:13 ESV). Amen!

References

Scriptures marked KJV are taken from the KING JAMES VERSION (KJV): KING JAMES VERSION, public domain. Note: Charles Spurgeon made extensive use of the King James Version.

Additional scripture quotations taken from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®) copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Spurgeon, Charles H. Christ the Conqueror of Satan. The Spurgeon Library. https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/christ-conqueror-of-satan/#flipbook/ (Accessed July 19, 2024).