1.08. Appendix Note 1
NOTE 1
“I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shall bruise His heel.”—Genesis 3:15.
Several references are made in this work to the above passage, and I now give one or two reasons for believing that this promise contains the germs of Messianic prediction and of universal blessing—“the Bible in embryo, the sum of all history and prophecy in a germ.”1 1 H. Grattan Guinness in “The Approaching End of the Age.” In this chapter, we have related the dreadful catastrophe of the fall, when our first parents, in consequence of it, passed from a state of immortality to physical mortality, and from a state of perfect innocence to a consciousness of sin and guilt. The narrative must be treated in the same way as the call of Abraham; the deluge; the wickedness of the Antediluvians; the birth of Seth; the murder of Abel, etc., all which are related as and admitted to be real historical occurrences. There is no more reason for making an allegory of this narrative than of any other one related in the Book of Genesis, of which the fall of man forms an indispensable part. But there ought to be no questioning on the subject on the part of those who are followers of Christ and believe in the inspiration of Paul, for the temptation and fall, and even the creation of Eve, are spoken of in the New Testament in such a manner as to preclude the possibility of allegorical interpretation (Matthew 19:5-6; Romans 5:12; 2 Corinthians 11:3; 1 Timothy 2:13-14). To this it may be added that most Jews and, with isolated exceptions, all Jewish commentators receive what is narrated in Genesis 3. as real history. But supposing for one minute that the account is merely allegorical of the fall of man and the introduction of evil into the world, if the allegory mean anything at all, it still pictures the serpent as a tempter by whom our first parents were deceived, and in consequence brought on themselves a great calamity; therefore the promise that the serpent shall be overcome and have his head bruised must signify deliverance from the evil which he was the means of bringing on Adam’s race. The promise, it is true, was general and obscure, but no doubt clear enough so far as it spoke of a Deliverer and deliverance. That it was well understood by Adam and Eve as a promise of a Redeemer, we have remarkable evidence in Genesis 4:1., where we read that, at the birth of the first child, Eve, in an ecstasy, exclaimed, “I have obtained the Man, even the Lord”—אֶת־יְהוָֽה אִ֖ישׁ קָנִ֥יתִי. What does it mean except that Eve believed that the promised Deliverer had already arrived?
It may be pointed out that the deliverance promised is universal in its character; is of a moral and spiritual nature; that the Deliverer must of necessity be someone more than mere man, since every son of Adam is among the fallen and unable to help himself, much less to save others; and also that from the very first we have it more than hinted that Messiah shall suffer; for He was to have His heel bruised when bruising the serpent’s head.