It was time for the Deliverer

It was time for the Deliverer. Why was that the right time?  Because that is when God sent Him.  God’s timing is always right.  God only always does everything right and at exactly the right time.

Jesus was born of a virgin.  That is not just a nice aspect of the Christmas story.  It is a connection with what God told Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden when they sinned. 

Genesis 3:14-15  So the LORD God said to the serpent: "Because you have done this, You are cursed more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you shall go, And you shall eat dust All the days of your life.  15  And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel."

God promised that the Seed of the woman would come, and although the devil would bruise His heel, He would bruise the devil’s head.  Three items of note:

1. The Deliverer would be the Seed of the woman.  In God’s Word, the sin nature is passed down to all human beings through the father.  Romans 5:12 says that sin came to all by one man, Adam.  Sin was passed from father to child ever since.  But the Deliverer was to be the seed of the woman—having no human father, and thereby, having no innate sin nature.  It is essential that the Deliverer not be disqualified by sin.  If He had any sin of His own, when Jesus died, He could only die for His own sin.  To die for the sins of another—much less many others, the Deliverer had to be sinless.  He was born sinless and He lived sinless, and He died sinless.
   It is essential that the Deliverer be born of a woman and have no human father.  That is a physical impossibility.  Not for God.  And being unique in all of human history, it establishes Jesus as the Deliverer unlike any other person we might be tempted to look to.

2. The devil would bruise the Deliverer’s heel.  This indicates injury, but not destruction.  The devil bruised Jesus’ heel a number of times, ultimately on the cross, but Jesus overcame even death when He rose from the dead.

3. The Deliverer will bruise the devil’s head.  This indicates a mortal blow.  A fatal injury.  Defeat and ultimate destruction.  This is what Jesus the Deliverer did when He rose from the dead, defeating sin, death, Hell, and the devil, for those He came to save.  (In Romans 16:20 Paul speaks of Jesus “crushing the devil.”)

That Jesus was virgin-born is more than a nice part of the Christmas story, it uniquely qualifies Jesus to be the one and only Deliverer who would be bruised by the devil, but who would destroy the devil and His works.