Definition · Webster 1828 · Scriptures · Corruption · Roots · Usage · Related
📖 Biblical Definition
The protoevangelium ('first gospel') is the church's ancient name for Genesis 3:15, the first promise of redemption, spoken by God in the very hour of the fall — and spoken, remarkably, not to Adam but to the serpent, as a sentence of doom: '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.' Before any curse fell on the man or the woman, God promised a Champion. Three things are pledged. First, sovereign enmity: God Himself would break the fatal alliance between man and the devil, setting a war of the seeds in motion — the line of the woman against the offspring of the serpent, traced through all Scripture. Second, a wounded victory: the serpent would bruise the Champion's heel — a real, painful, but not final wound. Third, a crushed head: the seed of the woman would deal the destroying blow. The whole Bible unfolds from this seed-promise: 'when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman' (Gal 4:4), who at the cross was bruised in the heel and in that very bruising crushed the serpent's head, 'that he might destroy the works of the devil' (1 John 3:8). The gospel was preached first by God, in Eden, over the rubble of the fall.
📜 Webster 1828 Definition
Genesis 3:15, the 'first gospel': God's promise in the hour of the fall that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent's head while being bruised in the heel — fulfilled in Christ, born of a woman, destroying the devil's works at the cross.
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PROTOEVANGELIUM, noun. 'The first gospel'; the church's name for Genesis 3:15.
Spoken by God to the serpent in the hour of the fall, before any curse on man.
Promises enmity between the seeds, a bruised heel, and a crushed head.
Sets the war of the two seeds that runs through all Scripture.
Fulfilled in Christ, made of a woman (Gal 4:4), destroying the devil's works (1 John 3:8).
📖 Key Scripture
Gen 3:15 — "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."
Gal 4:4 — "But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,"
Rom 16:20 — "And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen."
1 John 3:8 — "He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil."
⚠️ Modern Corruption
The protoevangelium is corrupted when critical scholarship flattens Genesis 3:15 into a primitive folk-tale about why men dislike snakes, denying the messianic promise that God Himself planted at the head of Scripture.
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Folk-tale flattening. The higher-critical reading calls Genesis 3:15 an etiology — an ancient just-so story explaining snake-loathing — and rules out any messianic sense as later Christian imagination. The text itself refuses the shrinkage: the enmity is set by God's own decree, the combatants are persons ('he... his heel'), and the rest of Scripture consciously takes up the thread — the seed promised to Abraham, narrowed to Judah and to David, until Paul declares the God of peace about to bruise Satan under the church's feet (Rom 16:20). The dictionary reads Genesis 3:15 as the Lord Jesus read Moses: as Scripture that speaks of Him.
Beyond the critical flattening, the entry calls for recovering a principle: grace announced before judgment was executed. God preached the gospel in Eden before He pronounced the curses and before He clothed the guilty pair — mercy had the first word over the ruin. The dictionary commends the comfort: from the first sin onward, God's posture toward His fallen people has been promise; the whole Bible is the outworking of a rescue declared in the moment the wound was made.
🔗 Greek & Hebrew Roots
Genesis 3:15, the 'first gospel': the seed of the woman shall crush the serpent's head while bruised in the heel — the promise that unfolds through all Scripture to Christ.
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Greek protos + euangelion: 'the first gospel' — Genesis 3:15
Spoken by God to the serpent in the hour of the fall
Promises enmity between the seeds, a bruised heel, a crushed head
Traced through Scripture in the war of the two seeds
Fulfilled in Christ at the cross (Gal 4:4; Rom 16:20; 1 John 3:8)
Usage
"The protoevangelium — God preaching the gospel in Eden over the rubble of the fall (Gen 3:15)."
"It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel (Gen 3:15)."
"From the protoevangelium onward, the whole Bible is the unfolding of one promised Seed."