The Promise Recorded - 1400BC
According to the English dictionary, a promise is a “statement or declaration of assurance that one will do a particular thing, or that a particular thing will happen in the future.”
A promise produces a HOPE for whatever was promised that it would actually and eventually happen. It is that HOPE which provides motivation and the will to endure.
The plot of just about every romantic movie is the promise of a separated couple that they would wait to be reunited one day in the future, and it is this HOPE of reunification, produced by their promise to one another, that sustains their relationship.
Proverbs 29:18 says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” A vision is a HOPE of something one is looking forward to, a focus a HOPE for what will eventually happen. If a person has nothing to look forward to, or HOPE for, then one’s life shrivels up in purposelessness, depression and isolation. It is the anticipation of a Promise Kept that keeps a person hoping for the fulfillment of that promise until the promise is fulfilled. A Promise helps us keep keeping on!
Long ago Moses, in the book of Genesis, recorded the most life-changing promise God made for the entire human race. It was a promise God provided; a HOPE for all mankind:
“You will strike his heel, but he will crush your head.” (Genesis 3:15).
Most Christian scholars understand this verse to be a Promise or a prediction of a cosmic spiritual battle between Jesus and Satan which ironically ends with the crucifixion-and-resurrection of Jesus as Satan’s defeat. It is a Promise of the defeat of Satan’s rule; a Promise that when fulfilled would end Satan’s captivity of man through the death-and-resurrection of His Chosen Messiah; a defeat that would render Satan powerless and vulnerable to a final destruction at the end of time.
God Promises Satan that even though Satan will strike a temporary wounding blow to the Messiah, through the crucifixion of Jesus, the Messiah will eventually strike a permanent fatal blow to Satan through the resurrection of the Messiah and the Messiah's continual reign into eternity.
With this Promise, God provides a HOPE for each one of us that the writer of Hebrews calls an “anchor for the soul” (Hebrews 6:19). This anchor stabilizes our soul/emotions no matter how much life
throws our way. The HOPE we have, the expectation of an eternal home with God accomplished by what Jesus has done for us through the cross-and-resurrection far outweighs the troubles of this world, and when the world takes-away, we can always be confident that our place with God is secure and can never be taken from us.
If one dates the book of Genesis conservatively at around 1400AD, as the date when Moses wrote those words, then we can count 1367 years as passing before this Promise was fulfilled by God in the year 33AD.
However, in Genesis 3:15, Moses simply is the recorder of God’s words to Satan as God speaks directly to Satan at that time in history. Moses records those words in 1400BC, however God spoke those words around 4000BC before, directly to Satan, during the very beginnings of human existence. So, the Promise was actually made long before the date of Moses’ writing.
The Promise Kept - 33AD
So, it wasn’t until about 4033 years after the Promise was spoken, that God fulfilled his promise of Genesis 3:15. In Colossians 2:15, Paul tells us of this Promised spiritual battle and the defeat of Satan when he writes that Jesus “disarmed the powers and authorities, and made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”
We see in 33 AD, that Jesus triumphed over Satan and His weaponry used in his victory was his crucifixion on the cross.
Even though the time span for fulfillment of this Promise was centuries upon centuries, God was faithful to his promise and fulfilled it “at the right time”, (Romans 5;6) “when the fullness of time came.” (Galatians 4:4).
And it was at that right time that John confirms for us that, “the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.” (1John 3:8)
The Promise Planned – Sometime in Eternity-Past
Not only was God faithful in keeping His Promise through the centuries, but we learn that His Promise of the crucifixion-and-resurrection of the Messiah, as a means of forgiveness into eternity-future was planned from even before the beginning of creation. His Promise provided HOPE of salvation through the crucifixion-and-resurrection of the Messiah, God’s Chosen One. Peter tells us that Jesus was “chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake” (1Peter 1:20). John also tells us that Jesus is the “lamb slain from the foundation of the earth” (Revelation 15:8).
So, it’s clear from scripture that God planned His Promise of HOPE sometime in eternity-past, before the creation of the world.
Our HOPE of the Promise Made - 60AD
Roughly 30 years after the fulfillment of Genesis 3:15 with the death-and-resurrection of the Messiah, the writer of Hebrews provides a practical application to that HOPE of eternity-past and Promise Kept in the still future HOPE; a HOPE that someday Jesus will return and take us with Him to the place that God has prepared for us for all eternity-future.
John confirms God’s original promise of eternity past and reestablishes the HOPE of eternity future in his 1st letter. John tells us, “this is what he promised us—eternal life.” (1John 2:25)
In addition, the writer of Hebrews tells us that Jesus fulfilled God’s Promise of eternity-past by “offering Himself once to bear the sins of many,” and that He now provides a HOPE for eternity-future when He Promises that Jesus “will appear a second time, and not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him" (Hebrews 9:28).
Our HOPE of the Promise Kept which was made in eternity-past provides a daily HOPE for eternity-future.
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