The First Promise of a Redeemer

First Sunday of Advent 2025

 

Today is the first Sunday of Advent. The Season of Advent is the time provided us by the Christian church to prepare ourselves for the celebration of Christ’s birth. The word itself means the ‘arrival of something or someone important.’ Christians gratefully celebrate the Lord’s first advent because He came from His throne in Glory to rescue us from God’s eternal wrath because our sins. And in our celebration, we also look forward to His promised second Advent when He comes to rule on earth with a rod of iron as the Psalmist tells us in the second psalm.

 

Although we celebrate Christ’s birth of December 25, Jesus did not become flesh on that Christmas day. He actually entered humanity nine months earlier – in March of that year – when He was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the virgin womb of Mary, His mother. It was at His conception that Jesus became fully human while always remaining fully God.

 

As I prepared myself for this message, I thought this season would be a good time to remind us of some of the prophecies throughout the Old Testament that promised humanity a deliverer, a rescuer from God’s wrath against us for our sins. Many Bible scholars count more than 300 such promises. Today we’ll examine the first of those prophecies. We find it in the third chapter of Genesis, the context of which takes place in the Garden of Eden, after God created the heavens and the earth in six days.

 

Chapter three tells us of Satan’s seduction of Eve into questioning God’s word about the Tree of Knowledge. His deceptive innuendos about God’s trustworthiness led to her disobedience. Moments later – or so it seems from the text – Adam joined her in eating the forbidden fruit. As a result, Sin entered the world, and with it, incalculable grief and bitterness, disease, terror and murder, loneliness and death spread through all Creation. St Paul tells of the ongoing aftermath of their sin:

 

“For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.” (Romans 8:22-23)

 

After our first parents swallowed the Serpent’s bait, God cursed the Serpent, whom Scripture identifies as the Devil, and Satan (See Revelation 12:9), saying “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.” (Genesis 3:15)

 

Many Bible scholars call Genesis 3:15 the ‘protoevangelium’ – meaning, ‘the first gospel.’ It is in this text that God makes His first of hundreds of  promises to send humanity a Redeemer to rescue us from Satan’s chains of physical, spiritual and eternal darkness; Genesis 3:15 is God’s first promise to send a Redeemer who, although wounded by the Serpent, will ultimately deliver a crushing defeat to the Devil.

 

But before we move further into the first promise of Christ’s advent it’s necessary to first address the challenge many make regarding the literalness and the historicity of those first chapters of Genesis. We do this

because if Genesis One is anything other than accurate history, if Genesis One does not faultlessly describe the six twenty-four hour days of creation, if Genesis one and the succeeding chapters are simply allegory or metaphor to explain Creation and the entry of Sin into the world, then the promise of Genesis 3 – and ALL the other promises of Christ’s first advent melt into what will easily become deadly spiritual confusion.  

 

In other words, if Genesis 3:15 and chapters one and two are allegory, you and I cannot have any confidence that light WILL overpower darkness. Neither can the child of God have confidence that the promise of Revelation 12:11 is our future: “And they overcame [Satan] because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.” (Revelation 12:11)

 

Many scientists believe Genesis One should not be taken literally. They believe the creation days spanned eons of time. They preach their evolutionary theories as if they are undeniable truths.

 

But what they teach should not surprise us because many of them don’t even believe in God. And because their evolutionary theories comprise a huge part of the ‘religion’ of Humanism, even a growing number of seminary students have been – and are being – seduced by their godless professors to scoff not only at the literalness of Genesis One, but to dismiss the idea of Scripture’s full inerrancy, infallibility, and divine inspiration. Therefore, it is no wonder that so many in the pews are also bewitched into believing lies about God’s promises and His immutable commandments.

 

My purpose today is to not go into a great amount of detail regarding the first chapter of Genesis. We don’t have time to do a proper examination of the contrary opinions about God’s word. And besides, with the easy access many of us have to the internet, it’s simple enough for those who are interested to conduct their own research into the debate on both sides of this question. I suggest using key words in your search, such as, “Creation Science,’  ‘Young Earth Scientists,’ and ‘Creation vs. Evolution.’

 

But while I won’t spend a lot more time with Genesis One, I will ask and then answer two important and related questions: Should Christians really care if Genesis One is literal or allegorical? And should Christians care if the earth is young or billions of years old?

 

Yes. We should care. Why? Well, for example, if earth is billions of years old, that would mean there were billions of years of death and disease before Adam and Eve fell. And THAT would directly contradict the entirety of Scripture’s testimony that sin is the cause of death. Furthermore, if sin was not the cause of death, then Jesus’ substitutionary atonement was completely unnecessary, and the promise of Genesis 3:15 is a non-issue.

 

Secondly, at the end of Genesis one, God called His entire creation “very good.” But if the earth is billions of years old, and death occurred before the Fall, then God called death, disease, starvation, and all other kinds of tragedies ‘good.’ And that would render the promise of a Redeemer in Genesis 3:15 pointless.

 

Thirdly: When God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses, the Lord reiterated to Israel: (Exodus 20:11) “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore, the Lord blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.”

 

But if Genesis chapter one is not literal history, then God lied to Moses and to the entire nation of Israel. And if He lied about the six twenty-four-hour days, then what else of the Ten Commandments are untrue? And if God lied to Moses about Genesis chapter one, then we have no assurance that He didn’t lie about Genesis 3:15.

 

And finally, for our purposes today, the Lord Jesus quoted from Genesis chapters one and two when He reminded the Pharisees: “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?” (Matthew 19:4)

 

But if Jesus was mistaken about those first chapters of Genesis, then what ELSE was He wrong about?

 

The last several points I’ve tried to make remind me of what the apostle Paul said during his defense before the Roman and Jewish leaders: "Why is it considered incredible among you people if God does raise the dead?" (Acts 26:8)

 

It was a reasonable question: Why is it considered incredible that the Almighty God could raise the dead? And Christians today should ask a similar question of the naysayers and scoffers: Why is it so incredible among you people if God created the heavens and the earth in six 24-hour days? After all, He is God.

 

Every rational person will immediately recognize that the works of Almighty God extend infinitely beyond any human capacity to understand. And that should not surprise us, because if finite and pathetically limited Man was able to understand the infinite and utterly unlimited God, then God would not be God.

 

Genesis 3:15 is God’s first hint that He had good news for fallen humanity. The horrific and all-encompassing sin of our first parents did not catch God by surprise. Do we not believe the Omniscient God knew what would happen in that Garden? Of course He did. And that’s why Scripture tells us that His plan for Mankind – trapped by our inherited sin nature – that is why His plan for our rescue and redemption from eternal death extends backward into eternity past – long before He created the heavens and the earth.

 

John tells us in the Revelation that Jesus was ‘slain from the foundation of the world.” (Revelation 13:8) And St Paul reminds the Christians at Ephesus that God “chose us in [Christ] before the foundation of the world.” (Ephesians 1:4)

 

In other words, before God spoke the heavens and the earth into existence, and before our first parents brought calamity to planet earth, God, in His omniscience knew what would happen in the Garden. And already knowing what would happen, He’d already planned redemption and salvation for all who wanted redemption and salvation.

 

And, speaking of God’s omniscience, let’s bring that point home to our own lives. Do we not realize that – even before Genesis one – do we not realize that He knew our names and where we would be on this first Sunday of Advent in 2025?

 

And do you not realize that our omniscient Creator directed your steps throughout your life, even to your decision to move into Ashwood Meadows?

 

Don’t let yourself be fooled into thinking you’re here because you or someone else researched the available independent living facilities, and chose this one. No, you’re here because God orchestrated the research, just as He also orchestrated your decision to come to this service today so you would hear this message.

 

Listen to Proverbs 16:9 “The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” Several verses later in this same chapter of Proverbs we read: (Proverbs 16:33) “The lot is cast into the lap, But its every decision is from the Lord.”

 

Which brings us back to the Almighty and Sovereign God’s orchestration of the events in Genesis chapter three that led to that first gospel message of hope and promise for fallen men and women. We need to know in the depths of our souls that the unfolding story of Adam and Eve holds enormous significance for everyone in the sanctuary.

 

Why?

 

Think for a while of the sheer and incomprehensible magnitude of the consequences and the repercussions of Adam and Eve’s sin. Those ripples have spread like tsunami waves throughout the thousands of years since the creation. Their waves of devastation continue to this very moment and will continue to do so until the second advent when the King of kings returns to create a new heaven and a new earth.

 

But – and this is an extremely important point – although their sin, like an overwhelmingly deadly virus, resulted in overwhelming disaster for all creation throughout history – nevertheless, God‘s grace toward them was greater than their sin.

 

I need to repeat that. God’s grace was greater than their sin.

 

I hope you remember the story in Genesis. God covered their naked bodies with the skins of animals He had to slay. And that picture ought to send our thoughts to Calvary, where God – who became a Man – shed His own precious, divine, and eternal blood to cover the naked sins of every man, woman, and child who comes in repentance to the Cross. God’s own blood clothes the penitent sinner with His righteousness infinitely more effectively than the animal skins that covered Adam and Eve’s naked bodies. And so, Scripture assures the Christian: “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” (Galatians 3:27)

 

And “He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness.” Isaiah 61:10

 

Which brings us now to this point of application: What sins have YOU committed in the past – perhaps especially those whose consequences and repercussions extend even to today?

 

This is really an important question because UNLESS we believe God’s grace was greater than Adam and Eve’s sin, and even so His grace is greater than YOUR sins – unless we believe that Biblical truth, we can never hope to find true rest for our souls.

 

Do you see why it is so important for the Christian to accept the literal and historical Biblical record of Creation and the subsequent chapters in Genesis? If it’s all metaphor and allegory, then we have NO reasonable assurance of hope for forgiveness and eternal life.

Once again, we should ask the scoffers and deniers why it seems so incredible for anyone who believes in the God of the Bible – why should it seem incredible that He created the heavens and the earth in six literal days, as He tells us in that first chapter of Genesis?

 

And why should it seem incredible that the God who loves us so passionately would set in those early chapters of Genesis the first of so many promises of a Redeemer who would, at His first advent, set in motion the divine rescue of men, women, and children from Satan’s darkness?

 

The Serpent introduced seeds of doubt into our first mother’s mind – doubts about God’s commandments and His trustworthiness. And Satan still operates by the same playbook, introducing seeds of doubt into our minds about God’s commandments, His trustworthiness, and the inerrancy, infallibility and full inspiration of His written word we call the Bible.  

 

Christian! For good reason, the Holy Spirit warns us today: “Be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith.” (1 Peter 5:8-9)