The Seed of the Woman: Narratives That Point to JesusSample

The Bible introduces human speech with a serenade to Woman. Adam’s Genesis 2:23 song to his bride are his only words recorded before the Fall. Man was created first, but Woman wasn’t received as an inferior second. On the contrary, she was welcomed as the complementary gift that canceled God’s “not good” pronouncement of Genesis 2:18. The union of Adam and Woman completed God’s work of creation on the sixth day.

God provided bountifully for the first couple. And in Genesis 2:16–17, we read God’s command that Adam and Eve could “surely eat of every tree in the garden,” with the exception of one. Presumably, Woman knew these words. Yet soon after the chapter begins, we find her in conversation with a talking snake and the topic is snack time.

Like a sneaky gossip fishing for news, the serpent probed, twisting God’s command from generous to stingy: “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’” (Gen. 3:1)? The exact opposite was true, the couple could eat of every tree but one. Woman’s answer should have crushed this lie with swift truth. Instead, Woman’s first recorded words in Scripture alter God’s command by adding a prohibition never given: “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die’” (Gen. 3:2–3).

The serpent wasted no time in casting doubts on God’s motives. In Genesis 3:4–5, he slandered God and dismissed his threat as untruthful. We watch as Woman is dragged away and enticed by her own desire, which conceives and gives birth to sin. She looked at the forbidden tree. She took, ate, served some to her husband, and he ate.

Woman swallowed that fruit and looked up to find deception. The meal had opened her eyes, not to wisdom but to the reality of her guilt and shame.

God judged Woman and Adam—but not without mercy. The snake was cursed to crawl on his belly, always eating dust (Gen. 3:14). Woman, whom the serpent sought to convert as an ally, was made his mortal enemy. She would bear a child who would crush his head (Gen. 3:15). Theologians call Genesis 3:15 the protoevangelion (the first gospel announcement). This is the earliest verse that declares a coming Savior.

A Seed of the Woman would come to defeat the deceiving serpent. And from this point onward, Scripture begins to trace the woman’s promised Seed in a line that passes through Seth, Noah, Abraham, Jacob’s sons, and ultimately ends with Jesus Christ, the Son of God (Mt. 1:1–17; Lk. 3:23–38). God was gracious to insert the depraved woman into this glorious drama of redemption!

Woman would die in time, but on that day, she’s named Eve, mother of the living (Gen. 3:20).