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Text Comment
v. 14 No question is put to the serpent; only his sentence. The
words do not imply that up to this time the serpents had not been reptiles that moved
along the ground (as if this is some kind of "Just So" story on how the snake
lost its legs). But now its crawling is symbolic (as may be the case with the rainbow in
9:13, i.e. a new significance, not necessarily the beginning of its existence). "Eat
dust" is not a reference to food, but to humiliation.
"protoevangelism"
v. 15 Those who conspired together against their creator will now
be fighting among themselves as well. Sin always effects both vertical and horizontal
relations.
John Calvin says somewhere that a preacher ought to be often in the
third of Genesis, the third of John, and the third of Romans. In the third of John we read
of the new birth, without which no one can see the kingdom of God. In the third of Romans
we read of God's justification of sinners through the righteousness of Jesus Christ. In
the third of Genesis, however, we read of the reason, the necessity for those other two
chapters. The third of Genesis explains why there must be a new birth and why God must
justify sinners. In fact, the third chapter of Genesis, with its account of the fall of
man into sin and the curse pronounced upon mankind because of that fall, provides the
explanation for the whole biblical standpoint. It explains the nature of our world, as
Christians understand it to be, and of the predicament that the human race finds itself
in.
C.S. Lewis put it this way: "Christianity...makes world history in
its entirety a single transcendentally significant, story with a well-defined plot pivoted
on creation, fall, redemption, and judgment." In other words, this past history of
creation and fall explains and gives meaning to our present and our future.
Now all of this is here in Genesis 3 but here in a nutshell, in the most
concentrated form. Not only the fall, but recovery from the fall through Jesus Christ, and
the judgment.
Indeed, we have all of that in just one verse, verse 15. What we have in
this verse is nothing less than an account of human history from the fall to its
conclusion sometime in the future. Now, it is a spartan description. After all, sixty six
books of the Bible remain to elaborate the meaning and the significance of these cryptic
comments. But, nevertheless, in this one verse we have here a comprehensive interpretation
of human history, of world history.
And it is very important for us to see the human story in these simple
terms.
For what we have described in these two verses is a great warfare, a
conflict that begins with the fall and continues to the end of time.
It is surprising isn't it, but it is also illuminating, that the first
announcement of the gospel comes not as a promise of forgiveness or redemption or eternal
life to man but as a sentence pronounced upon the serpent, the Devil. But, as the rest of
the Bible will explain, the one is bound up with and involves the other.
Often in the Bible, salvation is as much a matter of God's rule or the
vindication of God's justice or the demonstration of God's power or the defense of God's
name, as it is our rescue.
How many statements are there in the Scripture like this one in Ps.
106:8:
He saved them for his name's sake, to make his mighty power known.
In Col. 2:15, the Apostle Paul describes the work of Christ for us as a
"disarming of the powers and authorities, triumphing over them by the cross."
[That isn't all the cross was, of course -- e.g. his payment, punishment of our sins in
our place.] By "powers and authorities" Paul means exactly what is meant here in
Gen. 3:15 by "the offspring of the serpent," the fallen angels whose leader is
Satan himself. But it is not only the spiritual powers, it is also the unbelieving world
of men, those remember whom Jesus in John 8:44 called "those who belong to their
father the devil and want to carry out their father's desires."
In other words, the Devil has an offspring in this world, not only the
fallen angels, but the unbelieving world of men that is ranged against God and the kingdom
of Jesus Christ. That company is intractably opposed to and will wage war against the
offspring of the woman.
Now, the offspring of the woman is not here human beings in general.
Indeed, it is at first surprising that we don't have here instead "the offspring of
the man" or "the offspring of Adam" since everywhere else in these early
chapters of Genesis and through the rest of the Bible lineage or ancestry is reckoned
through the father not the mother. It is important that here we have "seed of the
woman."
No this is a reference, as the last two lines of v. 15 make unmistakably
plain, to the seed of the woman, that is Jesus Christ. This becomes clearer and
clearer as we move further and further into the Bible, but, already here at the beginning,
the promise is made of a descendant of Eve who will destroy the Devil and all his works.
[Later of Abraham, Judah, David; in other words, in this very cryptic way, the whole cast
of characters has been introduced.] But, as the rest of the Bible will indicate also, he
will be the firstborn of many brothers, and from this descendant of Eve, the mother of
life, will come a great nation and kingdom, more numerous than the sands on the seashore.
The battle is described in a most summary form here:
their will be ongoing hatred between the offspring of the serpent and
that of the woman and that hatred will be expressed in conflict that will eventually
result in total victory for the woman's seed.
This is exactly how the Apostle Paul takes Genesis 3:15 in Romans 16:20
where he writes: "The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet." He,
of course, teaches everywhere that Satan's doom was sealed in the conquest of sin and
death by Jesus Christ, but the total victory will not be realized until the end, when
Christ returns and vindicates all his people who have trusted in him and fought with him
and for him against the spiritual forces of the evil one and that portion of mankind that
remains in league with him.
Now, I say, this is the Bible's entire philosophy of history in a very
few words. We may wonder why it was put this way and not in some other way; why the
conquest of the Devil featured so largely and the redemption of sinners was not made more
of? But, the Lord saw fit to describe the entire human story in this way: a great conflict
leading eventually to the rout of the Devil and all who do his will, by the Lord's
Champion.
But, then, it is very important to see this at the very beginning, is it
not; to see how much the history of the world will be the history of this war to the
death, this spiritual conflict between belief and unbelief, between truth and falsehood,
between righteousness and sin, and between God and those who have rebelled against him.
For, what is going to be perfectly clear, as we make our way further
into Holy Scripture, this is the character of human life and human history. This
world is a battlefield, and the carnage of that battlefield will be strewn before our eyes
chapter after chapter, as it has been in the world year after year, century after century,
millennium after millennium. [Yesterday on the radio --sneering contempt for creation and
a young Christian trying to maintain his ground.]
You could not tell from v. 15 all the ways in which that battle would be
fought, what its price would be for those who find themselves on one side or the other,
with what weapons they will fight, and for what they will fight, or even all the enemies
that must be fought, but we are told at the outset here, that human history will be the
story of a great war and will be consummated in a great victory won by the Promised One
over the Evil One.
Now I want you to see that there is great encouragement for Christians
here either to get into the battle or to be encouraged in it. For Christians know
themselves to be in a battle, a life-long battle, far more than do those who are the sons
and daughters of the Devil -- as Jesus described all unbelievers to be, however much they
resented that description.
The Devil is a liar and a deceiver by nature; he is the father of liars,
Jesus said. He also, as a liar, disguises himself as an angel of light. The last thing the
Devil wants his subjects to know is that they are in a battle to the death with the Son of
God! That would be tantamount to telling them that he is asking them to spill all their
blood for him in a hopeless cause! No, No. His followers rarely see themselves in any kind
of holy war at all, certainly not a war such as the one described in Genesis 3:15. They
may join in any number of particular battles [they are image bearers after all!] --
against fascism or against second-hand smoke or the religious right; but they do not see
their existence as being defined by spiritual conflict and by their belonging to one or
the other of the two great opposing forces in human history.
But Christians do! Their Master makes no secret of this to them. He
calls them to arms, he asks them to share in his battles, and he permits them, for many
reasons, to taste the bitterness, the pain, the heartbreak, and the bloody-sweat as well
as the exhilaration and triumph of this battlefield on which they must live their lives
every day they are in this world.
So, I say, Genesis 3:15 should we a great encouragement, as well as
illumination and clarification for Christians. Of course our lives are difficult in many
ways; of course our greatest troubles and deepest sorrows are precisely those that bear
most directly on our commitment to Jesus Christ and our hunger for what is pleasing to him
in our own lives and in the world, our desire to see accomplished what he has promised us
and our thirst to see others drink the same living water we have drunk. Of course! It has
been so from the beginning because from the time of the fall this world has been the scene
of a great battle, a battle to the death between the forces of the serpent and those of
the seed of the woman.
What is more, we are encouraged, already here at the very beginning, to
remember that the victory was promised to us from the outset of the war, that it was
guaranteed to us again by the Lord Christ's conquest of death and Satan when he was bodily
in the world -- when he crushed the serpent's head in principle -- and that the Devil's
final destruction awaits only the passage of time and the second coming of the Lord.
You see, in a way, all the fighting that we do -- like the fighting of
the Israelites against the Philistines after David had already bested their champion
and made victory a complete certainty -- is what generals call "mopping up."
The issue has been decided, but the shooting has not yet stopped. Victory is certain, but
the fighting must continue until the conquest is complete.
William Manchester, in his biography of General Douglas MacArthur,
remarks that MacArthur's lieutenants often bitterly resented his announcing that a battle
was over on some Pacific island or another, with only "mopping-up" yet to do,
when that "mopping-up" proved often to be some of the bitterest fighting of the
war -- hopeless enemy soldiers fighting to the last man.
Now, the Lord Jesus never does what General MacArthur did. Though his
was the great battle and his the triumph, though he endured far greater suffering and loss
than any of us does, and though our warfare is only the after-effect and the mopping up
needing to be done after he had won the great victory, still he has too much sympathy for
us, and loves us too much ever to diminish our part in the great battle. Indeed, often in
Holy Scripture, he speaks of it as if our
fighting were the whole battle and he only our helper in it. Such is the
large heart and the selflessness of our Savior and our Warrior King.
And we may be grateful for that. For, though our fighting may be only
the mopping up after Christ's decisive victory, it is bad enough, cruel enough, bitter and
bloody enough fighting for all of that. At least Christians who are faithful to their
Captain and fight his battles as they should have always found it so.
Let me give you an example. Let me take you to but one single engagement
along the front line between the Lord's forces and those of the serpent. One soldier, one
single episode in a long lifetime of battle.
You have heard me refer before to Thomas Shepard, one of the Pilgrim
Fathers and the first president of Harvard. He was a man of great intellect, his works
have been recently republished, and they are vintage 17th century Puritan theology and
spirituality. Much of his spiritual authority as a pastor, an educator, and a writer came
from the depth and quality of his life, a true follower of Christ. But what does such a
life consist of? It consists of constant battle, does it not?
One night, near the end of his life, Thomas Shepard was found lying on
his face in his study in a faint, dripping sweat and tears. He had a copy of the New
England Gazette crushed together in his hands. And what was the reason for that?
Well, Mr. Shepard had a minister friend whose sermons were printed in
the Gazette alternating from edition to edition with one of Shepard's own sermons.
It was well known that the other man's sermons were much preferred to Shepard's, not only
by the magazine editor, but by the readership as well.
We do not know what Thomas Shepard's friend thought about the fact that
his sermons were much preferred to those of Harvard's president, or if that fact sent that
man into battle. But the fact sent Thomas Shepard into fierce fighting in battle after
battle. The copy of the Gazette that night contained an especially beautiful and
moving sermon from Shepard's minister friend. And as he read his friend's sermon, and
sought in prayer to keep the Devil at bay in his own heart, to fight off the envy and the
hatred and the resentment, the struggle worsened until that study had become his Garden of
Gethsemane and until he was sweating as if great drops of blood and until finally he was
lying on the battle field unconscious and exhausted.
Now unless you have yourself come up out of the trenches and faced your
enemies, those that are within your own soul and those that are without tempting and
goading you into sin -- the devil and the world -- until you have struggled in hand to
hand combat with these adversaries -- who are perfectly willing to fight you to the death
because they have nothing to lose -- they have already lost the great war -- you cannot
know how bitter Thomas Shepard's sort of soldier's work is, mopping up though it may be.
But I know many of you know exactly what it is like to find yourself
where the fighting is hottest, the battle fiercest, and how it consumes all of your will,
and energy, and spirit.
Whether it is battle against your own sins, against the Devil's
temptations -- the same kind of temptations with which he undid our first parents in that
long ago garden -- or with unbelievers who, as Paul says, follow the ways of the Ruler of
this world, it would be hard to prove a faithful soldier, for so many years, against such
entrenched and implacable foes, if we were not sure that victory would be ours in due time.
BUT THAT HAS BEEN A CERTAINTY FROM THE VERY BEGINNING, FROM THE MOMENT THAT GOD TOLD THE
SERPENT THAT ONE WAS COMING WHO WOULD CRUSH HIS HEAD.
There are actually many more encouragements for weary soldiers than just
this; or, better, many different ways to state this one grand encouragement. I was reading
the other day one of the letters of Samuel Rutherford to John Gordon, and in that letter
that wise and practiced soldier of the Lord gave his young friend thirteen reasons to
remain steadfast in the struggle, in this last battle that though won already must be
fought to its bitter end. Among those thirteen reasons were these:
1. Weeping and gnashing of teeth in utter darkness, or heaven's joy; 4.
Consider what joy and peace there are in Christ's service; 6. To have mercy on your seed
and a blessing on your house; 7. To have true honour and a name on earth that casteth a
sweet smell; 8. How you will rejoice when Christ layeth down your head under his
chin...and drieth your face, and welcometh you to glory and happiness; 10. Sin's joys are
but night-dreams...and shadows; 11. What dignity it is to be a son of God; 13. That you
enemies should be the tail, and you the head; 9. Imagine what pain and torture is a guilty
conscience; what slavery to carry the devil's dishonest loads.
Do you remember Mr. Valiant for Truth in the second part of Pilgrim's
Progress? When it came time for him to cross the river he told those with him that he
would leave his sword for any who would show himself worthy of it, but his scars he was
carrying with him to show that he had fought his master's battles. Not that he had won the
day, his Prince had done that; but that he had fought his Master's battles. And you will
want scars of your own, a whole body covered with scars and nothing but scars on that day,
when the Prince arrives on the battle field and counts every wound, every ripped uniform,
every muddied face on every one of his warriors as proof of their loyalty to him. Oh,
Rutherford had one reason more for us to be faithful in the fight, no matter how bitter
that fighting may prove: "There is sand in your glass yet, and your sun is not gone
down."
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