Genesis 3:15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; it shall bruise your head… 1. Let us mark how God proceeds in His inquiries after sin. He first traces it out step by step, tracks it in all its windings, ere He utters one word of judgment. His dealings hitherto had been with Adam, as the head of creation. Therefore He speaks first to him. Then from Adam sin is traced to the woman, then from the woman to the serpent. By this process it was brought solemnly before the conscience of the transgressors, that they might see what they had done. Even in the order of judgment, how careful to mark His sense of the different kinds of criminality! Such is a specimen of the way in which He will judge the world in righteousness! 2. Let us mark the circumstances in which the sentence was given. It was given in the hearing of our parents. It was not specially directed to them. They were but hearers. Yet the scene was designed for them. This curse on the serpent was spoken in their ears, because "it contained in it God's purpose of grace towards them."(1) That God meant to save them, and not to give them up to the snares of their enemy; (2) That they could only be saved by their enemy being destroyed; (3) That this destruction would be attended with toil, and conflict, and wounds; (4) That it was easy to ruin a world, but hard to save and restore. 3. Let us mark how God hated that which Satan had done. "Because thou hast done this," are the words of awful preface to the sentence. God had no pleasure in the snare or the ruin it had wrought. His words are the expression of deep displeasure against him who had done the horrid deed, and at the deed which had been done. And let us not forget how much of that which Satan has since then been doomed to suffer, as well as of that which be shall hereafter suffer, has its origin here. His sin, by means of which he succeeded in casting man out of Eden, shall be the sin by which he himself shall be cast wholly out of earth, to deceive the nations no more. 4. In undoing the evil God begins at its source. The drying up of the stream will not do; the source must be reached. Sin was the real enemy, and love to the sinner must proceed at once against this enemy, not resting till it is utterly destroyed. 5. God shows that Satan shall not be allowed to triumph. His victory is only temporary and partial. God is taking the sinner's side; and this is the assurance that Satan's victory shall be reversed! 6. God Himself undertakes man's cause. It is not, "there shall be enmity"; but "I will put" it. God Himself will now proceed to work for man. The serpent's malice and success have but drawn forth the deeper love and more direct interposition in man's behalf. 7. God promises a seed to the woman. All that this implied she could not know at the time. But it is evidently declared that she was not to die immediately. The salvation was to come from God, and yet it was to come through man. 8. God is to put enmity between the serpent and the woman, and between the serpent's seed and the woman's seed. (1) The enmity between Satan and the Church. There can be no friendship with him, and no sympathy with his works. Thus the distinction between the Church and the world is as old as Eden; and it is not merely distinction, it is hostility. (2) The enmity between Christ and Satan; between Him who is the representative of heaven and him who is the representative of hell; between Him who is the friend and him who is the enemy of man. (3) The name given to the ungodly — "the seed of the serpent." And it was this expression that Christ took up when He spoke of the "generation of vipers," and said to the unbelieving Jews, "Ye are of your father the devil." By birth we are the serpent's brood, till grace transforms us, and we become the woman's seed; then our friendship with the accursed race is forever broken. (4) The name of the Church — "the seed of the woman." Yes, the seed of her who sinned, who "was in the transgression" — offspring of Eve — of her who was first in apostasy. What tender favour is thus shown to her! (5) The name of Christ. The same as the Church's, the "seed of the woman." Yes, He was indeed "born of a woman" — the Son of Mary — the Son of Eve — the Son of her that had transgressed. 9. There is not only to be enmity, but conflict. That these two parties should keep aloof from each other was not enough. There must be more than this. There must be alienation and hatred; nay, there must be warfare, and that of the most desperate kind. Satan and the Church must ever be at open warfare.The world and the Church must ever be foes to each other. 1. The bruising of the heel of the woman's seed. It is not the woman's heel that is to be bruised, but the heel of her seed; neither is it the woman that is to bruise the serpent's head, but her seed — "it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." It was an inferior part that was to be wounded, not a vital one. Yet still there was to be a wound. The serpent's seed was to have a temporary triumph, and this was fulfilled when Jesus hung on the cross. Then the heel was bruised. Then Satan seemed to conquer. That was the hour and power of darkness. Then "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities." Then that wound was given which defeated him who gave it, and began our victory. 2. The bruising of the serpent's head. It was his most vital as well as his most honourable part that was to be bruised. An intimation this of utter defeat and ruin. He has received many a stroke. His deadly wound was given upon the cross, in that very stroke by which he bruised the heel of the woman's seed. So that from that moment our victory was secure, But the final blow is reserved for the Lord's second coming. Then it is that the great dragon, that old serpent, is to be bound in chains, and shut up in the abyss. (H. Bonar, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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. |
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