Genesis 3 · a question people ask
Is 3:15 really about Jesus?
The New Testament never quotes 3:15, but many hear an echo of it in Paul's "The God of peace will quickly crush Satan under your feet" (Romans 16:20), and Christians have long read it as the first announcement of the gospel. Protestants read it in more than one way. All of them take the verse at its word: the woman's offspring will bruise the serpent's head.
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
The first gospel
3:15 looks ahead to one person. This reading leans on the singular "he" ("He will bruise your head") and on what the New Testament says of Jesus: "born to a woman" (Galatians 4:4), he came to "destroy the works of the devil" (1 John 3:8), and through his death brought to nothing "him who had the power of death, that is, the devil" (Hebrews 2:14).
Genesis 3:15 · Galatians 4:4 · Hebrews 2:14 · 1 John 3:8
A long struggle, won by one
Offspring (seed) can mean one descendant or many. This reading sees a long struggle between the woman's offspring and the serpent's, which Jesus wins decisively and his people share in. It leans on Romans 16:20, "The God of peace will quickly crush Satan under your feet", said to the church, and on Revelation 12:17, where the dragon makes war on "the rest of her offspring".
Genesis 3:15 · Romans 16:20 · Revelation 12:17
Read more fully later
This reading starts from the verse in its own setting: lasting hostility between people and snakes, and the evil the serpent stands for. It then lets the New Testament, reading back (Revelation 12:9 calls him "the old serpent, he who is called the devil and Satan"), show how far the verse reaches.
Genesis 3:14-15 · Revelation 12:9
The verses
“I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.””
“And the God of peace will quickly crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.”