A sermon preached at Covenant Presbyterian Church of Fort Smith, Arkansas on December 3, 2023.
I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Gen. 3:15).[1]
Throughout history, man’s bias has been of his own time, a chronological snobbery, as C.S. Lewis called it, affecting how we see both history and the future. Our self-importance seems to breed a deception of self-improvement, a myth of progress leading us to think of the culmination of time as in our purview. Given the variety of modern media, it would be easy to entertain such a view, amusing ourselves with the developing events of the day with titillating speculation. Breaking news seemingly announces more clues of history’s denouement. And yet, today’s newspaper is tomorrow’s fire-starter.
Given our cognitive biases, it’s easy to forget what history teaches. Nations, dynasties, families, even individuals become strong and mighty and then fall and are lost. Nations that once ruled the known world are known today as simply vacation venues. The same can be said of art, culture, and knowledge.
We must not let our so-called smartphones make us dumber:
What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun (Eccles. 1:9),
Solomon says, asking rhetorically,
Is there a thing of which it is said,
“See, this is new”?
It has been already
in the ages before us.
There is no remembrance of former things,
nor will there be any remembrance
of later things yet to be
among those who come after (1:10-11).
Life goes on, history repeating itself with remarkable (almost predictable) accuracy, but this does not mean there was no beginning or there will be no end. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. … And God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good …” (Gen. 1:1, 31a), so it all began. And so it will conclude, “No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. … and they will reign forever and ever” (Rev. 22:3, 5b). The creation and the new creation accounts are beautiful descriptions of what was and will be, but neither describe the era in which we live. We live after the “very good” and before the “No longer will there be anything accursed.” If you wonder why life today is not like it was in the beginning and why it is not like it will be in the new heavens and earth, the answer is found in the third chapter of Genesis, where we learn of the greatest catastrophe in human history: The Fall of man.
The Fall of Man
When Eve and subsequently Adam ate the forbidden fruit, they disobeyed God’s singular command, breaking the Covenant of Works for all and forever. From righteousness and fellowship with God they fell, rendering them dead in sin, wholly defiled in body and soul.[2] As a result, they gifted their posterity the guilt of sin and a fallen nature.[3] We are, as our Confession of Faith describes us, “utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil.”[4] In a word, we are depraved.
But that’s not the worst of it. We are born enemies of the God who created us. Every ancestor of Adam is under the wrath of God without hope but for the grace of God. And since the Fall, we have not progressed in reconciling ourselves to God but repeat the same sins just as those who have gone before us.
As our sins are the same, so is our enemy. The one in the form of a serpent who deceived Eve, continues his crafty deception upon humanity. On and on, he deceives, which is incidentally why history continues to repeat itself, but his success is short-lived, as he is cursed, doomed, and defeated, which God revealed shortly after the Fall of man, pronounced in these prophetic words:
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel (Gen. 3:15).
Enmity since the Fall is a certainty but so is the victory of the offspring of woman.
The Offspring of Woman
That the devil is cursed, doomed, and defeated does not mean that he is powerless or ineffective.
For still our ancient foe
Doth seek to work us woe;
His craft and power are great;
And armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.[5]
He is, as the apostle Paul puts it, “the prince of the power of the air,” his domain “the course of this world,” and his offspring “the sons of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2). But there is within God’s pronounced curse upon Satan a curious distinction between “your offspring” and “her offspring,” or literally seed. There will be, God says, enmity between Satan and the woman and between his seed and her seed.
We do not venture far into Genesis before we see this play out between two brothers, wicked Cain’s murder of righteous Abel (Gen. 4:8), and so the repetitive history of sinful man continued. From Adam’s progeny proceeded not progressive improvement but more of the same, until we reach this summary statement: “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart” (Gen. 6:5-6). Man’s sin grieved God, who destroyed the sons of disobedience and yet preserved righteous Noah. And the world repopulated again, filled again with the wickedness of man and the continual evil intentions of his heart.” But God preserved a seed from Noah to Abraham to Jacob to David, through whom would come a savior, not from the seed of Adam but of a woman, a biological impossibility but for a miraculous conception.
Paul explains it this way: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Gal. 4:4-5). As God promised enmity through Satan’s seed, so he promised hope through the offspring of woman, a promise to be delivered at the perfect time of God’s appointment. It was the fulfillment of this promise that the angel declared to the virgin Mary, saying,
behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. …The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God” (Luke 1:31-32a, 35).
Born of a virgin that he might not sin. Born under the law that he might keep it. Born not at enmity with God but our ancient foe. Born to live, and die, and resurrect from the dead, conquering both sin and death. Born to redeem us from the devil’s dominion, that we might become the children of God.
The Son of Hope
The prophetic pronouncement in Satan’s curse is then, ironically, the greatest news given to man. Theologically referred to as the “protoevangelium,” or first gospel, we hear not only of the promised seed of woman, but also of his certain victory over Satan: he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel (Gen. 3:15b). In this verse, the Hebrew verb translated “bruise” is the same verb used twice, but it may be understood differently in context, as the NIV translates it, “he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” For, what the snake does to a man’s heel is notably different than what a man’s heel does to a snake’s head. Indeed, what Satan did leading his offspring to crucify the Son of God was vile but not victorious, deadly but not defeating. The ultimate victory was won by the One whom death could not hold (Acts 2:24), “that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil” and deliver us from his dominion (Heb. 2:14b -15). As the apostle John puts it, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8), just as God promised.
And while we continue in this age between creation and the new creation, the promise fulfilled in Christ, means that through faith in him we are no longer spiritually “dead in the trespasses and sins in which we once walked” (Eph. 2:1-2a) but alive in Christ. We no longer follow “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2b) but follow the King of kings and Lord of lords, are being sanctified by his Spirit, prepared to reign with him for eternity. We no longer live “in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind” (Eph. 2:3) but walk by the Spirit of Christ that we will no longer gratify the desires of our sinful flesh (Gal. 5:16). We are therefore no longer “by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Eph. 2:3), “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Rom. 8:14).
And so, while time continues, history repeating itself with seemingly endless consistency, there will be a last day, and every person will stand in judgment before the Son of God. On that day, the offspring of Satan will be revealed and readied for eternal, perpetual punishment, the anguish of their suffering even more consistent than their sin upon the earth. But all who look to the promised Son of Hope in faith will be found righteous and right with God.
This is the gospel promised from the beginning, the good news of Jesus Christ that “while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life” (Rom. 5:10). Our hope is in Christ alone, the offspring of woman, the Son of God.
[1] Unless referenced otherwise, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (Wheaton: Crossway Bibles, 2001).
[2] “The Confession of Faith” 6.2, The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms (Lawrenceville: PCA Christian Education and Publications, 2007), 26.
[3] Ibid 6.3, 27.
[4] Ibid 6.4, 27.
[5] “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” Trinity Hymnal, Revised Edition (Suwanee: Great Commission Publications, 1990), 92.
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