The Christmas story is the story of mankind being captive to the monsters and ghouls and beasts. Man was under bondage to Satan’s tyranny at every turn. Yet God was not bound by this tyranny. His promised seed would soon be planted, and grow into a new Eden. The Lord raised up godly men at every turn to strive against the serpent, laboring to strike a death blow…But with the coming of Christ, death’s dark shadows were about to be put to flight. This is what the Christmas story invites us to see and believe. 

Introduction

The best stories make for the best daydreams. This is why we enjoy talking about our favorite stories, and theories about sequels or prequels or spinoffs. We love to understand the lore. This is because stories, at least the good ones, enchant us with the longing for the true story. The darkness defeated. The hero triumphant. The characters brimming with hard-won joy. But the lore matters. The OT provides us with all the hints, tropes, tension, and terror that make the arrival of the hero blaze with brilliant glory.

The Text

And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: And 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.
Genesis 3:14-15

The Serpent and the Seed

Adam and Eve, in the midst of the Garden Temple of God, surrounded by manifold trees well-laden with fruit for their joy and refreshment, determined to embrace a lie, to feast upon a shadow, to drink in emptiness. The paradise of Eden was ravaged by a fork-tongued dragon. The God of all goodness came down to them, to judge their folly and sin. But the bitter cup of His judgement was sweetened by a merciful promise. That promise is contained in the Scripture we just read. The serpent became accursed, and though Satan amused himself with the notion that he had gained perpetual rule over mankind, God promised a perpetual rivalry between the serpent’s seed and the woman’s seed. And while this enmity would be fierce, it would be Eve’s offspring who would, though wounded, crush the dragon’s head. 

Sadly, Adam and Eve were banished to the east of Eden. Cut off from the life-giving tree which God had intended for them to enjoy for everlasting days of bliss. Yet though the light of God’s glory was stripped from them, leaving them ashamed of their nakedness, God did not send them out clothed in their makeshift garments of fig-leaves. Instead, they went forth with finely crafted leather tunics, fashioned by the loving hand of God. But these tunics were bought with the blood of a lamb which was slain in order for them to be made.

The world had been formless and void before God filled it with the glory of sky and firmament, land and sea, sun and moon and stars, birds and fish, beasts and man. But now by Adam’s sin, the sorrow must have made the world seem formless and void once more. Yet God had promised a seed, so imagine their great hope when within Eve’s womb a seed sprung to life. When the son is born, she cries out, “The Lord has granted me a man.” The Hebrew language indicates to us that she believed that this man would be the mighty hero who would defeat the dragon and restore them to Eden.

Cain and Abel

Thus, she named the firstborn Cain, which means “gotten”. “Here,” she seemed to exclaim, “Is the one who will renew and restore mankind! I’ve gotten the deliverer!” Yet, as is likely, she gave birth to twins. When the second son was born, she names him Abel, meaning “breath”; the implication is that of fleeting breath. What could this mean?

This firstborn son of Earth, the first prince, applied himself to his father’s trade of gardening, while the younger son set himself to raising beasts. But like his father, the coils of the serpent began to wrap themselves around Cain. And he who would have been a savior to mankind is shown to be a seed of the serpent, and during a worship service to God, seething envy rises up in Cain’s heart against his brother. He who ought to have been a champion for mankind bludgeons his brother with a stone. The dust from which man had been formed and brought to life was weaponized to bring the first brother down into the dust of death. His blood cried out to God for vengeance against such devilish tyranny.

Corrupt Man and Righteous Noah

And so long ages went by, and the population of Earth grew. Likely into the billions. Lifespans were long. All the legends of Númenor and Atlantis are memories of that ancient world. Music, technology, industry, and economy flourished. But deep within mankind was the poison of the snake’s bite. His heart was coiled up with lust, wrath, envy, and lies, ready to strike out at every opportunity. Instead of the world being full of images of God, it was full of men who imitated the serpent. Lying, deceiving, rebelling against God and all that was good. 

All men were like this, with the exception of the tenth-generation grandson of Adam, a man who was named Rest. Noah. God came to Noah and instructed him how to build a boat to save the world. God brought a deluge upon all the corruption of mankind, and in a floating new Eden, full of beasts, Noah and his wife and his three sons and their wives were delivered. 

When they emerged from the boat after nearly a year, a new creation lay before them. Could it be that the world had been delivered from the talons of the dragon?

Babel and Abram

Adding sorrow upon sorrow, as we go through our sad history, it soon became clear that the adder’s poison still infected mankind. The youngest son of Noah, in some grotesque and twisted perversion, resurrected the shameful corruption of the ancient world. It was spiritual necromancy. What God had judged and destroyed, Ham conjured up and reanimated. No sooner had mankind spread out from Mt. Ararat, then one of them, named Nimrod, began a slave trade. This slave trade served the attempt at one world government in the plains of Mesopotamia. These descendants of Noah, instead of walking by faith in God, defied God’s judgement through the flood and sought to build a tower. These ancient dragon worshippers thought that if God was determined to flood corruption then they would build a tower that the waters of God’s wrath could not overwhelm. Their hubris was such that they thought they could avoid God’s judgement by building a great tower for the purpose of the indulgence of their vain-glory and lusts. The ziggurat slowly rose higher and higher, but it was fueled by the blood of human sacrifice, ever the calling card of devil worship. These mighty men convinced themselves they did not need to acknowledge the God who made them. They exalted themselves to heaven apart from God’s blessing, apart from His presence, apart from His promise to deliver them from the serpent’s deadly venom. They thought they could build a tower which would escape any future floods, so God flooded them with a confusion of language. Thus mankind was scattered across the world.

The serpent inspired this building project as a vain attempt to escape from God’s justice, but God had a building project of His own. God hadn’t forsaken His purpose to fill the world with men and women who would bear His image of perfect goodness and righteousness. So, He called out to the tenth grandson of Noah. A man named “Father” (Abram); but he was a father without a son.

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