Recap of Genesis 3 So Far
In Genesis 3, after Adam and Eve broke God’s word, realize their nakedness, and hide themselves because of shame, God comes to them and draws them out of hiding with grace, rather than driving them out with fear (vv. 8-9). God comes to sinners in their shame and, instead of driving them away with threats, he draws them out with mercy.
Then God continues to draw Adam and Eve out of hiding with questions. But unfortunately, God’s questions lead to more hiding on their part. This time it’s verbal hiding (vv. 11-13). Instead of directly answering God’s questions about their guilt, they run behind excuses to evade their responsibility and minimize their guilt.
Then the Lord turns his attention to the serpent. But he doesn’t have any questions for him. Instead, he goes directly into his punishment (vv. 14-15). This begins a section (vv. 14-19) of divine oracles of judgment against the serpent, Eve, and then Adam. God deals with each one according to the order of the Fall, and their consequences match their respective sins.
Today we’ll look at the judgement of the serpent in verses 14-15, then next week we’ll look at the judgment of Adam and Eve in verses 16-19.
Verses 14-15 say that, because of his sin, the serpent will crawl and be crushed. There will be dust for the serpent (v. 14) and death for the serpent (v. 15).
Dust for the Serpent
In verse 14, the Lord curses the serpent and says he’ll crawl on his belly and eat dust. Notice that there’s no questioning here. The Lord isn’t looking for a confession from the serpent like he was from Adam and Eve. This is a sentencing, not a trial.
Oh praise the Lord that he has not treated us the way he treated fallen angels (Jude 6)! As we’ll see next week, Adam and Eve, despite their sin, continue to receive God’s concern and provision in the midst of their punishment. What grace.
Verse 14 is the first time God curses something in the Bible. Cursing is the opposite of blessing. God’s curse removes creatures from his blessing. There are no curses against Adam and Eve, only on the serpent and the ground, implying that God’s blessing has not been utterly lost.
The serpent is more than a mere snake. Satan himself took the form of this serpent in the garden (Rev. 12:9). So when God curses the serpent, he’s not merely cursing snakes. He’s cursing Satan himself.
When it says that the serpent is cursed “above all livestock and above all beasts of the field,” it doesn’t mean that the other animals are implicated in his crime, that they’re guilty but getting a lesser punishment. It means that there’s now an alienation between the serpent and the other animals. Part of his punishment is alienation from the other animals. As one scholar says, “The most subtle of all animals now becomes the loneliest and oddest of the animals.”[1] When was the last time you saw a snake cuddling up with another animal?
The serpent’s cleverness distinguished it from the other animals (3:1), now the curse for his trickery will distinguish him from them as well. The ill-use of his cleverness resulted in divine cursing and alienation. The lesson for us is this: be careful how you use your gifts. There’s a way to use our God-given gifts that invoke God’s curse rather than God’s blessing.
Because it’s God who pronounces the curse, its effectiveness is guaranteed. Proof that this curse was fulfilled is that snakes do indeed crawl on their bellies, eat dust, and have hostility with men.
The consequences God gives to each involve a life function and a relationship. The serpent is cursed in his mode of motion (v. 14) and in his relationship with the woman and her seed (v. 15).
And each one’s penalty will match their sin. The serpent will crawl on his belly and eat dust because he tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. God’s judgments always match our crimes. God never judges arbitrarily or capriciously. Everyone gets exactly what they deserve, not more or less, because God’s justice is perfect.
We aren’t meant to think that serpents used to have four legs and now don’t, or that they literally eat dirt, because they don’t. If the curse changed the body of the snake, then it also changed its diet. But a snake’s diet isn’t dirt. The intent is that these statements be seen as two symbolic expressions of humiliation and subjugation. Eating dust is the way the Old Testament often describes defeated enemies. The image of the serpent crawling around on its belly eating dust is meant to convey total defeat. God’s curse puts the serpent in its place.
But notice that the serpent doesn’t get killed immediately. God says he will crawl around like a defeated enemy “all the days of your life.” The serpent will live many more days. He is a defeated foe, but his final defeat is delayed so that God’s plan of redemption through the woman’s offspring can start to unfold.
Why Does God Leave Satan Around?
So why does God leave the serpent, or Satan, around? There are several ways the Bible answers this. I’ll just give you one that I hope is the most practical. God leaves Satan around to sanctify his people in each generation. A key text is 2 Corinthians 12:7, “To keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.”
God’s purpose in allowing Satan to harass Paul was to keep his pride in check. In God’s brilliant wisdom, he harnesses Satan’s harassing of Paul so that it serves God’s purposes in Paul’s sanctification. Satan’s attempts to hurt Paul inadvertently humble Paul and make him rely more gladly on the grace of Jesus. He says, “Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (vv. 8-9).
One reason why God leaves Satan around is to allow his self-defeating attacks on God’s people that result in our growth in the grace and gladness and power of Jesus Christ.
This announcement of curses on the serpent shows us that God is in absolute control of what happens in the world after sin, and in absolute control over Satan. He decides what happens in the world, and he decides what happens to Satan.
His decree against the serpent carried the penalty of humiliation (v. 14) and, as we’ll see next, it carried defeat by the seed of the woman in verse 15.
Death for the Serpent
In verse 15, the Lord continues his sentencing of the serpent, telling him that he’ll be defeated by the seed of the woman. The Lord condemned him to crawl and to constant conflict, a conflict that ends in his head being crushed.
God says that there will be enmity, or hostility and antagonism, between the serpent and the woman and between their offspring. This verse isn’t meant to tell us why we hate snakes. But the universal dislike of snakes is meant to point to the ongoing conflict between good and evil, between Satan and God, and between the children of Satan and the children of God.
The entire history of this conflict isn’t given here, only the conclusion: “he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” God tells the serpent that he has a limited life-expectancy and that his existence will come to a violent end. Verse 15 is the ultimate spoiler. The beginning of the Bible tells us what’ll happen in the end.
This is grace and kindness from God, that God’s people have never had to wonder whether evil would ultimately prevail over them.
The word “bruise” (“crush” or “strike”) is the same Hebrew word describing the combatant’s parallel action. But it’s the location of the “bruising” that tells us who wins. A blow to the head is greater than a blow to the heel. The former can kill you, the latter can only wound you. The serpent will be defeated and the seed of the woman will be injured in the process.
The word “offspring” is literally the word “seed,” and it can refer to one’s collective descendants or to a specific individual. There will be conflict between the descendants of the serpent and the descendants of the woman. Those who fought against their Creator will now be fighting one another.
Notice that at the end of verse 15 God moves to the masculine singular pronoun when he says, “he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” Though the conflict is between the two offsprings, “the goal of the final crushing blow is not the seed of the snake but rather the snake itself.”[2] The seed (singular) of the woman will crush the snake (singular). And when you cut off a snake’s head, it’s whole body will die. Enmity will exist between both seeds, but the goal is the crushing of the serpent himself.
In this, a plot is established, a program of redemption is begun. Genesis 22:18 makes the vague promise of 3:15 more specific. God says to Abraham, “In your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” God intends to bless the world through those born to Abraham. God will defeat evil through someone born to a woman in Abraham’s family. The overarching theme of Genesis is that there’s hope for humans.
Genesis 3:15, then, sets the stage for the rest of Genesis, and indeed, for the whole Bible. It says that there will be war. The two sides are the two seeds. It’s the seed of the serpent versus the seed of the woman. And we’re already told who wins! Though wounded in the struggle, the woman’s seed wins.
Moses wants us to feel the surprise of what’s happening here. God said that they’d die if they ate the forbidden fruit, but they didn’t die. Instead, there’s a conflict with the serpent. This means that Adam and Eve haven’t gone over to the serpent’s side. By God’s grace, they’re going to oppose him rather than join him.
What grace! We love evil and follow evil and do evil, and yet God doesn’t give us wholly over to evil – praise his name!
These are life-giving words of hope to Adam and Eve. They’ll live and they’ll fight evil. They’re not surrendered to Satan. They’re even going to have offspring together. And one of them will deliver a mortal wound to God’s great enemy.
We can follow this seed versus seed theme into the New Testament. John the Baptist calls the Pharisees, “You brood of vipers!” (Mt. 3:7) They’re seed of the serpent. Jesus says to his enemies, “You are of your father the devil” (Jn. 8:44). And in 1 John 3, the apostle John says, “Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother” (vv. 8-10). Then John makes the connection with Cain explicit: “We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother” (v. 12).
Genesis 3 establishes patterns that we’re meant to see throughout the Bible: Cain versus Abel, Joseph versus his brothers, Pharoah versus Israel, David versus Goliath – who’s scaly armor was defeated when David crushed his head with a stone. These conflicts from Genesis 3 onward build an expectation of someone yet to come who’ll do this fully and finally.
It must be noted in Genesis 3:15 who instigated this conflict, “I will put enmity between you and the woman.” God did this. Instead of giving them over to Satan, God initiated the ongoing conflict between man and Satan that concludes with Satan’s defeat.
God changes the woman’s affections for Satan to righteous desires to crush Satan. You might say that God restored her religious affections. And Adam’s as he also believes God’s word. We know this because he names his wife “Eve,” or “the mother of all living” (3:20). Adam believes God’s word of promise that he and Eve will have offspring.
Nonetheless, their offspring will war against the serpent’s offspring. No, Satan’s children aren’t the other fallen angels, or demons. The children of Satan, or his “offspring,” are all who follow him in rebelling against God.
We can start to trace the line of the serpent down through those who’re cursed. God curses the serpent, then Cain (4:11), then Noah’s grandson is cursed (9:25), and all those who oppose Abram will be cursed (12:3). The seed of the serpent are those cursed like their father the devil.
Since Genesis 3:15, humanity is divided into two communities: the elect, who love God, and the reprobate, who love self (Jn. 8:31-32, 44; 1 Jn. 3:8ff). Each character in Genesis, in the rest of the Bible, and in the world, will either be of the seed of the woman and have her affections for the things of God, or of the seed of the serpent and have his unbelief. This begs an all-important question: whose seed are you?
A Comedy, Not a Tragedy
Before God banished Adam and Eve from the Garden, he blessed them. Genesis 3 is a comedy, not a tragedy. There’s going to be happy ending. As Arthur Pink says, “By woman had come sin, by woman should come the Saviour. By woman had come the curse, by woman should come Him who would bear and remove the curse. By woman Paradise was lost, yet by woman should be born the One who should regain it.”[3]
The amazing thing about Genesis 3:15 is that it contains judgment for the serpent and a promise to mankind. God folds mercy into the middle of his announcement of judgment. This is why this verse is often called the protoevangelium, or the “first gospel.” This is the first hint that God would send a Savior for mankind.
God’s justice is on display as he judges the serpent; his mercy while he announces a future salvation for humanity, a salvation neither earned nor requested. God’s justice is exacting and his mercy is surprising.
Genesis 3:15 is the first picture of free mercy in the Bible. And it’s a mercy that only arises from God. Out of his goodness, God says that the man and woman will have seed. Death will not come immediately. And their seed will defeat the serpent. God says that mankind will come out ahead in the long battle against evil.
But verse 15 leaves us hanging: who is this seed? Who will crush the serpent? The purpose of this verse isn’t to answer the question but to raise it. The rest of the Bible gives the answer.
In particular, the New Testament tells us that Satan has been destroyed and will be destroyed by Jesus. Hebrews 2:14-17 says that Jesus destroyed the devil through his death. The cross was the suicide of Satan. What he meant for evil, God meant for good. Through Jesus’ death, God rescued those enslaved by Satan to the fear of death. This help he offers to the “offspring of Abraham,” those who trust the promises of God and are declared righteous. His death is for our sins (v. 17) and for our freedom from fear (v. 15).
And then in Revelation 20:10¸ we see Satan’s final demise: “And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.”
Jesus defeated Satan on the cross and will one day throw him into the lake of fire. Until then, those who’ve trusted in Jesus remember his victory over Satan on the cross by observing the Lord’s Supper. The Supper unites God’s people and creates a clear dividing line between those who’re children of God and those who’re children of the devil. The Supper reminds us what Jesus did and what he will do when his children will feast together around his table in his kingdom.
This means that the Lord’s Supper is for Christians, for baptized believers who belong to a local church. If you’re not yet a baptized follower of Jesus who’s part of a local church, we’re glad you’re here, but we’d encourage you to refrain from taking the Supper. If you’re a visitor and you’ve been baptized as a believer and you’re a member in good standing at another gospel-preaching church, you’re welcome to observe the Supper with us.
[1]Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1-17, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 196.
[2]John H. Sailhamer, The Pentateuch as Narrative: A Biblical-Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), 107.
[3]Arthur W. Pink, Gleanings in Genesis (Chicago: Moody Press, 1922), 42.