The River of Sin

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. (Gen. 3:15)

Question 19: Did God leave all mankind to perish in the state of sin and misery?
Answer: God having, out of his good pleasure from all eternity, elected some to everlasting life, did enter into a covenant of grace to deliver them out of the state of sin and misery, and to bring them into a state of salvation by a Redeemer.[i]
 
It is truly amazing that when we look at the fall of man, when we look back at what transpired in the Garden of Eden, God had every right to destroy Adam and Eve and start all over.  They had one law to keep— “Don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil," and they blew it.  God could have wiped them off the planet and he would have been perfectly just in doing so.  Yet, what we see in the midst of God cursing the serpent, cursing the woman, cursing the man, is God making a promise to send a Redeemer to someday deliver humanity from the bondage of sin and Satan and to repair what man had ruined.  In Genesis 3:15, as God is cursing the serpent, he says to him, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”  When God says, “he shall bruise your head,” he is clearly referring to a person.  He is referring to Jesus Christ who would someday destroy the power of Satan, and ultimately will destroy Satan himself (Rev 20:10).  But the amazing thing is that we are told in scripture that out of the mass of humanity that God chose certain ones to be saved, to be the recipients of his amazing grace (Eph 1:4-5).  As a result of the fall, God looked on the mass of humanity and saw that everyone was perishing and on their way to hell, and we deserved it.  We brought this on ourselves.  Yet, in his amazing grace and mercy, God chooses to save some.  He chooses to pluck some from the river of sin which is carrying them to the falls of destruction.  This is what makes God’s grace so amazing!

[i] “A Catechism with Proofs” by Charles Haddon Spurgeon