We have said that the gospel is the fulfillment of the Old Testament. Now we need to ask what the contents of the Old Testament are. We may use three words to express the contents of the Old Testament: promise, law, and prophecy.
The promise certainly covers the dispensations of innocence, conscience, human government, and promise. This includes the Old Testament from Adam until the giving of the law to Moses. The book of Genesis, in particular, is a book of God’s promise.
Do you know what was the first promise given by God in Genesis? The first promise is recorded in Genesis 3:15: “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” This promise was given immediately after the fall of man. Probably Adam and Eve were in fear and trembling because of their disobedience. But God gave them a marvelous promise. This promise was that a seed of the woman would come to bruise the head of the serpent. Although his heel would be bruised, the seed of woman would nevertheless crush the serpent’s head. What a great promise this is!
The gospel is the fulfillment of the promise that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. We know that Christ, the seed of woman, did come. He was born of a virgin as the fulfillment of the promise in Genesis 3:15. This One, the woman’s seed, is the Slave-Savior presented in the Gospel of Mark.
Another promise, also concerning the seed, was given to Abraham. According to Genesis 22:17 and 18 the Lord promised Abraham, “In blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” Here we have the promise that Abraham’s seed would be a great blessing to all mankind, for all nations would be blessed through his seed.
Once again, this seed refers to the Lord Jesus. Concerning this Paul says in Galatians 3:16, “But to Abraham were the promises spoken and to his seed. He does not say, And to the seeds, as concerning many, but as concerning one, And to your seed, who is Christ.” Christ was born as a descendant of Abraham, born of the chosen race. Therefore, He was the seed of Abraham.
As the seed of woman, Christ destroyed Satan and thereby solved the problem of the universe. The universe has been troubled by one thing—the serpent. In the Bible we can see the line of the serpent, or the development of the serpent. The serpent first appeared in Genesis 3. By the time of Revelation 12:9 this serpent, called the ancient serpent, has become a great dragon. According to the book of Revelation, this serpent, the Devil, Satan, will be bound and cast into the abyss during the millennium (20:2-3). After the millennium, he will be released and will rebel once again. Then he will be cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:10).
The crucial point here is that the seed of woman promised in Genesis 3:15 is for dealing with this serpent. We need to proclaim this in our preaching of the gospel. However, rarely do today’s gospel preachers point out that the seed of the woman in Genesis 3:15 is for the destruction of the serpent.
Concerning the Lord as the seed of woman destroying the serpent, Hebrews 2:14 says, “Since therefore the children have partaken of blood and flesh, He also Himself in like manner shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who has the might of death, that is, the Devil.” In John 3:14 the Lord said that as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the Son of Man would be lifted up. The brass serpent lifted up by Moses signified the judgment of the old serpent. When the Lord was lifted up on the cross, He destroyed this serpent. Hence, as the seed of woman the Lord accomplished the destruction of the poisonous serpent by which mankind has been bitten and poisoned. Because we were poisoned by the serpent, his serpentine nature was injected into us. But the seed of woman became blood and flesh in order to destroy this serpent through His death on the cross. This is a great part of the gospel.
Whereas the seed of woman is for the destruction of the serpent, the seed of Abraham is for the blessing of God to be brought to us. The seed of woman terminates the serpent, and the seed of Abraham brings in the blessing of the Triune God. In Galatians 3:14 Paul speaks regarding this blessing: “In order that the blessing of Abraham might come to the nations in Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” According to this verse, the blessing is the Spirit. What is this Spirit? The Spirit is the consummation of the Triune God. When we receive the Spirit, we receive the Triune God and have Him as our blessing. Furthermore, this blessing is our eternal life. The Spirit equals the Triune God, the Triune God is eternal life, and eternal life is the blessing we receive.
Now we can see more fully what the gospel is. The gospel is the fulfillment of two great promises: the promise concerning the seed of woman for the destruction of the serpent and the promise concerning the seed of Abraham for bringing in the blessing of the Spirit, who is the consummation of the Triune God as eternal life to be our blessing.
Before these promises were fulfilled, God gave the law in order to keep His chosen people in custody. During the time God’s people were kept in the fold of the law, God raised up prophets. This means that after the promises, we have the custody of the law, and during the period of this custody God gave prophecies to confirm the promises.
We have emphasized the fact that in Genesis 3:15 we have the promise concerning the seed of the woman. In Isaiah 7:14 we have a prophecy that confirms this promise: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” Other prophecies also are confirmations of the promises given by God during the dispensation of promise.