15 And I will put enmity
Genesis 3:15
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.”
Today we’re going back even further to the very first prophecy about Jesus. In fact, today’s prophecy is special because it comes from the mouth of God himself.
In the garden, immediately after Adam and Eve had disobeyed God by eating fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, God is telling everyone what’s going to happen as a result of their disobedience.
God tells Adam that his work is going to be hard and that the ground is going to produce thorns. God tells Eve that she will have pain in childbirth. But before that, God curses the serpent to the ground and at the end of that curse, says “He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
It seems surprising that right here at the beginning of the human race that God would already have a plan for redemption. Because our nature is to react to things, we tend to think God would have to react to this situation and then come up with a plan.
But, Ephesians 1:4 mentions that those who put their faith in Christ were chosen before the foundation of the world. 1 Peter 1:20 mentions that Jesus was also known as the lamb of God before the foundation of the world.
While it seems surprising to us that God had a plan for redemption at the first moment of rebellion, God actually had a plan for it all along. He gave us the freedom to choose his way or our own way. He wanted us to make the right choice, but the choice was truly ours. We were free to choose and we did.
Yet, because God is all knowing, he knew that we would choose to rebel against Him and already had a plan in place to redeem us from our rebellious state. So really, when you think about it, the prophecies about Jesus aren’t bound by time. As amazing as it may be that people had predicted hundreds and even thousands of years before that Jesus would be born, the truth is it was God’s eternal plan of redemption.
Galatians 4:45- says: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” Jesus’ coming wasn’t a reaction a few thousand years of people choosing to worship idols instead of the one true God. Jesus’ coming was a part of God’s plan. He came because it was time for Him to come.
The same will be true when he returns. It won’t be because we have finally ticked God off enough that he’s had enough and has to do something about it. He will come because it’s the time God established before time that He was going to come.
We are a part of God’s, eternal story. It’s all planned out. It’s all under God’s control. Nothing that is happening is a surprise to God. So, we can rest in the peace that no matter how strange the times may be, God is always in control.
