Genesis 3:15 – “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”
Genesis 3:15 is the first recorded promise of the Messiah, who would come to bring salvation to a fallen, rebellious humanity. The promise is two-fold. First, this man (seed of the woman) would crush the head of the serpent. Second, the promised Messiah would be the seed of the woman. This promise was fulfilled when Christ was born. Galatians 4:4 says, “But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law.”
The story of the Bible is the story of God searching for fallen humanity. Jesus Christ came to this earth to seek and save those who were lost. Luke 5:32 reveals, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” Who is this Messiah? His name is Jesus. He was foretold by the prophets of old. Perhaps the best known of the Messianic Prophets is the Old Testament Prophet Isaiah.
The Old Testament has over 300 prophecies about the first advent of Christ. The Prophet Isaiah contributes many of these. The odds that even ten of these prophecies would be fulfilled by one person is a statistical marvel. Isaiah 7:14 prophecies His miraculous birth, “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel.”
Isaiah 9:6-7 records another prophecy of the Messiah’s birth. “For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will perform this.”
Perhaps the best known of the Messianic prophecies is found in Isaiah 53:1-7, “Who has believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of the dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our grief’s and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, everyone, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not his mouth.”
The world has never been the same since the Christ was born on the first Christmas night in the small town of Bethlehem, Judea, which is called the city of David. Why did Jesus leave the splendor of heaven and come to His creation? He came because God had a plan to redeem His fallen creation. What was God’s plan? To send His only begotten Son in the likeness of human flesh to die as a perfect sacrifice for our sins. John 1:12 says, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.”
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