We have met the Author.
We’ve seen the opening chapter filled with a roaring crescendo of “very good. Adam and Eve literally walked with the Author in the most beautiful place known to humankind. They had everything they needed but it was what they wanted that caused them to fall. Now the lights dim, the music turns sad, and the story takes a very dark turn.
One question starts it all. “Did God really say that?” He know that when you eat it you’ll be like God.
Translation: “He’s holding out on you. He doesn’t actually want your best.”
Our enemy took God’s protection and made it seem like a restriction. One bite. One moment of I know better than the Author and everything changes forever. That which was very good becomes shame, fear, hiding, blame-shifting, pain in childbirth, expulsion from paradise and worst of all…death. From this point forward human history becomes a dumpster fire of destruction. By Genesis 6, God looks at the earth and his heart is broken. He regrets creating man and the great flood wipes the slate clean. However, following the rainbow the cycle starts again.
Tower of Babel.
Slavery in Egypt.
Idolatry.
Exile.
We kept choosing the fruit. We kept grabbing the pen.
If this were a Marvel movie, the screen would fade to black right here and the audience would walk out depressed. But this is not our story. It’s His story and the Author refuses to let it end like this. God hijacks the tragedy and plants the first seed of hope.
“I’m declaring war between you and the Woman, between your offspring and hers. He’ll wound your head, you’ll wound His heel.” Genesis 3:15 MSG
In the ruins of Eden, the first gospel is preached. A son of the woman will come and will struck the serpent’s heel (pain, blood, death). But that Son will crush the serpent’s head (total and final victory). This is the first announcement of the Gospel with the rest of the OT filled with 300+ more prophecies.
From this point forward, every story line, every prophecy, every lamb slaughtered on an annual Passover, every king, every exile, every tear, was shouting the same message: The Promised One is coming.
Satan struck the heel on a Friday but Jesus crushed the serpent’s on a Sunday and proclaimed, “It is finished.” What looked like the serpent’s greatest victory was actually his fatal defeat.
Colossians 2:15 says Jesus “disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in the cross.”
The cross was the heel wound. The resurrection was the head crush and now the entire Bible, from Genesis 3:15 to Revelation 22, is one long victory march of the Promised One reclaiming what was always His. The Author didn’t walk away when we trashed the garden. No, he walked in deeper.
You are not living in the wreckage. You are living in the rescue.
Are you starting to see the tale you’ve fallen into?
Jesus the Author.
Jesus the Creator.
Jesus the Promise.