Theological term
Proto-Evangel
2 sermons · All terms
The Promise of the Messiah
Genesis 3:14–24 contains the first announcement of the gospel — the proto-evangel — in which God promises that the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent, though at the cost of his own suffering and death. The sermon traces four observations from verse 15: the Redeemer would be a man born of a woman, would accomplish victory through suffering, through death, and in total victory over the devil. The latter half of the passage is then examined for the hope that extends beyond the fall: Adam's naming of Eve as 'mother of all living' as an act of faith in God's promise, and God's provision of tunics of skin as a typological foreshadowing of blood atonement. The hearer is urged to cast faith upon the seed of the woman — the Lord Jesus Christ — who has done what Adam and Eve, and what every sinner, could not do for themselves.
The Gentiles and the Covenant of Grace, Part 1
Ephesians 2:11–13 presents the former covenantal destitution of Gentile believers and the transforming power of Christ's blood that brought them near to God. The passage shows that Gentiles suffered two compounding liabilities: individual deadness in sin and corporate exclusion from the commonwealth of Israel and the covenants of promise. Against this bleak background, the apostle's 'but now' in verse 13 declares that union with Christ — secured through his atoning blood — has abolished the alienation and incorporated believing Gentiles into the one new humanity. The sermon argues that this covenantal reversal should evoke perpetual humility and gratitude in every believer, and calls the unbeliever to come to the Father through the Son in the Spirit.