What Is the Protoevangelium?

The message of the gospel of Jesus Christ is woven throughout Scripture. But where does it first appear? Today, Sinclair Ferguson explains the biblical text known as the protoevangelium.

NATHAN W. BINGHAM: We're joined by the Vice Chairman of Ligonier Ministries and one of our teaching fellows, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson. Dr. Ferguson, what is the protoevangelium?

DR. SINCLAIR FERGUSON: Well, the protoevangelium, strictly speaking, at the foot of the letter, proto, is the prefix that you would get in prototype, the first form of something. So, protoevangelion is the first form in which the gospel appears, and it’s a name that’s been given to Genesis 3:15.

Genesis 3:15 is the curse that’s pronounced on the serpent, which is really very interesting context in which to give us the first preaching of the gospel. And the curse is really this: “There’s going to be enmity between your seed and the seed of the woman, Eve, and there is going to be conflict that will go on until the seed of the woman crushes your head.” And therefore, there are two stages to what’s being said here.

I think probably the first stage, “There will be conflict, enmity between your seed and her seed,” is an indication to Satan that he has not actually won. He thinks that because he’s overcome Adam and Eve, that perhaps the whole victory is his. And so, God is forewarning him in this judgment that he has a fight on his hands, that the seed of the woman, those who are faithful believers, will continue to withstand the seed of the serpent, which seems to be a reference to those who persecute the people of God, generally speaking.

And in a way, that’s a clue to the whole history of the Old Testament and I think a very helpful and important thing to remember when we’re reading the Bible. Events that are described in the Bible are not just neutral events, or there was a conflict between this person and that person, but they all belong to this long story of conflict between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness, so that the story we were all told when we were children, if we went to Sunday school, of the victory of David over Goliath is not just an isolated event. It’s part of this long history of the powers of darkness seeking to destroy the purposes of God, the kingdom of God, and the faithful seed of the woman.

In the second part of the statement, the statement that the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent, the reference seems now to be individual. The first part of the statement has got to do with a whole line of seeds, but the last part of the statement seems to be a personal conflict with Satan. And that’s why Christians throughout the ages—not all Christians have agreed—but I think Christians throughout the ages have understood that this promise in Genesis 3:15 is actually looking forward to the coming of Christ, and that, therefore, the first promise of the gospel is a promise that Christ will come to deliver us from the powers of darkness.

I sometimes put it this way: that Genesis 3:15 is the idea, and Matthew 16:18 is the reality—when Jesus says, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not be able to prevail against it.” And then you could say the book of Revelation is like the movie version because in the book of Revelation, the serpent seems to have grown into a dragon. And when John describes the dragon, he describes him as the “ancient serpent” (Rev. 12:9; 20:2). And what the book of Revelation gives us is this very dramatic picture of the conflict between the Seed of the woman, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the serpent himself, in which the Lord Jesus is victorious. Indeed, an interesting comment that John makes in his first letter, 1 John 3:8, I think it is, he says, the reason the Son of God came into the world was “to destroy the works of the devil.” And that, I think, is an indication that he understands Genesis 3:15 to be the first proclamation of the gospel.

And it’s a reminder to us as Christians that we live the Christian life in a war zone, but it’s an assurance to us as Christians that when Christ died on the cross, having overcome Satan in the temptations in the wilderness, when He died on the cross, He gained a full victory over him, but we are waiting for the day when that full victory will be finally realized. And therefore, the Christian life is a battle, as Paul says in Ephesians 6:10–20.

So, it’s part of a verse that really helps us to understand a whole line of biblical revelation that points us to Christ and the way in which He saves us not only from sin but also from Satan.