The Woman and Her Seed
THE WOMAN AND
HER SEED
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.
(Genesis 3:15).
Reference Reading: Genesis 3:
1-24
The book
of Genesis is very significant in every aspect of the Christian doctrine of
Salvation through Christ Jesus: among others, it sets fort:
1.
the
purpose of God for man in respect to the creation of man;
2.
the
fall of man from God’s original purpose;
3.
provision
for redemption before the fall of man;
4.
the
entire plan of redemption through Christ Jesus;
5.
and
the triumph of God’s children over Satan.
In this
discussion, concentration is on the fifteenth verse of the third chapter of
Genesis to draw out the redemption plan God put in place immediately man fell (even
before the fall) from grace. Indeed, the verse really underscores the fact that
God
infinitely loves man and would always quickly rescue man from
damnation.
But
God commendeth his love towards us,
in
that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom. 5:8)
The
Psalmist, David, said: The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness
thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein (Ps. 24:1). But
interestingly, God put the earth and everything He created in it under man’s
dominion and placed man in the position of glory and honour (Ps. 8:3-7; Gen.
1:26). Man was indeed exalted by God but unfortunately, the devil, having
already fallen before the creation of man (Isaiah 14:12-14; Ezek. 28:11-17;
Luke 10:18), sought to rid man of the glory, which he, the devil, envied and
coveted.
To let
man lose his position of glory and honour with the Father, the devil devised
the only strategy that would summon the justice of God. The justice of God
works through obedience and disobedience. God is immediately moved
by the obedience of his children and of course, troubled by their disobedience.
That is, He rewards obedience and punishes disobedience. He is God and His
creation must submit to what He says. Failure to submit to what He says is like
robbing shoulder with Him or trying to prove more knowledgeable than Him.
Disobedience is therefore the seed of every sin and the prophet Samuel compares
it to witchcraft (1 Samuel 15:22-23).
Satan
was aware that God had commanded man to eat of every fruit in the Garden of
Eden, except the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. However, Satan, entering
the serpent, deceived Adam and Eve and they disobeyed God by eating of the
tree. The justice of God immediately came to play and He;
1.
Cursed
the Serpent
2.
Cursed
the woman
3.
Cursed
the ground because of Adam (He did not curse Adam)
4.
Put
enmity between the woman and the serpent
5.
Drove
Adam and Eve from the garden
God was
hurt because His plans were shattered. But in essence it is impossible for
God’s plan to be shattered. The truth is that whatever and whoever tries to
shatter God’s plan will rather fail; God will always create ways out to put His
original intent back on track.
...But when you are
tempted, He [God] will show you a way out... (1 Cor. 10:13)
This is
what makes Gen. 3:15 one of the most beautiful and dramatic verses in the
Bible. In the whole chapter, God is hurt and is cursing his creation. Yet in the
process, His abundant mercy would not allow his justice to fully operate. Thus
amidst the curse, He declares enmity between the destroyer (Satan) and the destroyed
(man) and states how the destroyer would rather be destroyed by the seed of the destroyed.
Let’s read the verse again:
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.
There
are seven elements in the verse and I will want us to look at them:
1.
The
serpent
2.
The
woman
3.
The
enmity
4.
The
serpent’s seed
5.
The
woman’s seed
6.
Bruising
of the head
7.
Bruising
of the heel
These
seven elements are the characters and actions featuring in God’s drama of
redemption. Thus God is the dramatist who created His world. In the created
world the valiant tries to destroy the hero but the hero would bruise the head
of the valiant while the valiant would bruise the heel of the hero. So;
1.
Who
is the valiant?
2.
Who
is the hero?
3.
Who
is the woman?
4.
What
is the enmity?
5.
What
is the bruising of head?
6.
And
what is the bruising of heel?
7.
What
is the enmity?
These
are important questions for students of the Bible. Our understanding of this
drama is very important for projecting God’s love and salvation to all mankind.
THE SERPENT
Now
the serpent was more subtil than any beast
of
the field which the Lord God had made.
In
trying to know who the serpent is, we need to look both at the literal meaning
and the symbolic representation. Literally, the serpent refers to the animal
called snake. It was indeed a snake that went to Eve, not Satan in physical
appearance.
The fact
is that the serpent only consented with Satan and it was used as an instrument
of the devil’s deception. Mind you, the devil always seeks to invade the best
of God’s creation to carry out his schemes. For instance, in trying to prevent
Jesus from going to the cross, Satan entered Peter and used him as an
instrument to rebuke Jesus but Jesus also rebuked:
...Get
thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me:
for
thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. (Matt. 16:21-23)
It is
thus clear that the devil seeks the best instrument of God to carry out his
plan. He used Judas to betray Jesus and used Paul to persecute the church. In
the Garden, he used Eve to deceive Adam. That is the devil’s scheme. He used
both human and animal instruments to execute his evil plans. So the serpent in
Genesis 3 is actually a real serpent but was only used by the devil. That is
why God cursed it; it consented with the devil and became the latter’s
instrument.
It had qualities it no more possesses. For
instance, the Lord cursed it and said; upon
thy belly shall thou go. This
implies that the serpent was not a crawling creature but used to walk upright. Besides,
the fact that it talked to Eve implies it had the ability to communicate
audibly. The devil therefore used its subtlety and communication skill to
deceive man.
Genesis
3:1 says the serpent was more subtle (also
means, cunning) than any beast created by God. This is very true and evidences are
found in scientific documentaries of wildlife. In hunting for its prey, for
example, scientists agree that the snake exhibits acute cleverness. It is no
wonder that Jesus told his disciples:
...be ye therefore WISE as SERPENTS... (Matthew 10:16).
So the
serpent in Genesis 3 is a snake in the literal sense of the word, which in
Hebrew is nachash. Imagine the effect
of the curse in verse 15; even though man does not co-habit with wild animals
for obvious reason, the relationship between humans and snakes is that of real
enmity. And interestingly while snakes usually bite the heels of humans, humans
also kill it by crushing its head.
On the
other hand the serpent refers to Satan. Referring
it to Satan does not mean, as I have explained above, it was not a real snake.
It was a real snake but Satan entered it just as it entered Peter to rebuke
Jesus and Judas to betray his master. Revelation 12:9 therefore refers to Satan
as the serpent of old, emphasising its cunning and deceptive
characteristics. Jesus also said he (Satan) is a liar, and the father of it (John
8:44).
The
curse, therefore, was also directed towards the devil and this is one of the
pictures created in Genesis 3:15.
There is
enmity between Satan and the woman (we will soon look at who the woman is) as
fully shown in Revelation 12:1-6:
And
there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the
moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: and she being
with a child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. And there
appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great dragon...and his tail
drew the third part of the stars of heaven and did cast them to the earth: and
the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to
devour her child as soon as it was born. And she brought forth a man child, who
was to rule all the nation with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto
God, and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath
a place prepared of God...
THE WOMAN
It is
easy to think that the woman in this
verse refers to Eve. On the surface it refers to Eve but remotely it does not.
In reference to her, it more literally means there will be enmity between
humans and the snake (not Satan).
However,
remotely the woman refers to somebody
who was not yet in existence at the time of the pronouncement. This is one of
the outstanding greatness of God. He is the one and only God who knows the end
from the beginning and can foretell everything and every person before
existence. Before pointing out who the woman is, let’s look again at Revelation
12:1-6.
And
there appeared a great wonder in heaven; A WOMAN clothed with the sun, and the
moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: and she BEING
WITH A CHILD cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered... And she
brought forth a man child, who was to rule all the nation with a rod of iron:
and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. And THE WOMAN FLED
INTO THE WILDERNESS, where she hath a place prepared of God...
One important word here enables
us to relate the woman here to the one referred to in Gen. 3:15. That word is a
child (or, a son).
The Bible says:
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
In the
verse, HER SEED, IT and HIS obviously refer to the child of the woman. IT points us to the
babyhood of the child while HIS points us to the gender of the child. In referring to the babyhood
with the use of the pronoun IT, it means the enmity will not
take place when the child is fully grown but from the very moment of birth.
That is why John saw that the dragon stood before the woman which was
ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.
The
pronoun HIS points us to the fact that the devil will only get access
to bruise the child’s heel when the child is fully grown.
Let us
now look for some verses that talk about a
child or a son, having satisfied
that it is a male child.
ü
Therefore the Lord himself shall
give you a sign; behold, a virgin shall
conceive and bear a son, and shall
call his name Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14).
ü
For unto us a child is born, unto us a
son is given... (Isaiah
9:6)
ü
And the angel said unto
her...behold, thou shall conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son... (Luke 1: 30-31)
ü
And she shall bring forth a son...he shall save his people... (Matthew 1:21)
ü
And she brought forth her first
born son, and wrapped him in a swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no
room for them in the inn. (Luke
2:7)
Obviously,
the above verses refer to the Virgin Mary. If this is accepted, then we should
admit that the woman referred to in
Gen. 3:15 is Mary and not Eve. Thus it was not Isaiah who first prophesied
about Mary but God Himself. Also the
woman referred to in Revelation 12:1-6 is Mary. Just examine what Simeon
the old prophet told Mary:
And Simeon blessed them, and said
unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again
of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against; yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own
soul also, that the thought of many hearts may be revealed. (Luke 2:34-35)
We
indeed serve a wonderful God, the omniscient. Through the Holy Spirit, Simeon
alarmed Mary that she was fully involved in the enmity between her child and
the devil in that sword would pierce her own soul also. Right from the
conception of her child till his death, Mary had many worries, humiliations and
shame. How many women can bear this? She was indeed pierced. Jesus was moved by
intense compassion when He saw Mary standing under the cross, crying. He had begun
the battle with her and both of them, at that moment, were at the climax of being
suffering. But Mary had to be comforted by the
seed of the woman because the cross was not hers to bear but her seed’s. Bible says:
When Jesus therefore saw his
mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he said unto his mother,
Woman, behold thy son! Then he said to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And
from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home. (John 19:26-27)
THE SEED OF THE
WOMAN
So many
verses point us to who the seed of the
woman is. Having discovered that the woman is Mary, not far fetching, we
get to know that her seed is Jesus
Christ of Nazareth, the Messiah. So we can read our opening verse like this:
And I will put enmity between
thee (Satan) and Mary,
and between thy seed and Jesus;
he shall bruise thy head,
and thou shalt bruise his heel
Let’s read the following verses
in full:
ü
Therefore the Lord himself shall
give you a sign; behold, a virgin shall
conceive and bear a son, and shall
call his name Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14).
ü
And the angel said unto her, fear
not, Mary: for thou has found favour
with God. And, behold, thou shall conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shall call his name Jesus (Luke 1: 30-31)
ü
And she shall bring forth a son and thou shall call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their
sins. (Matthew
1:21)
THE ENMITY
Now that
we are certified with who the Serpent is; who the Woman is; and who her Seed
is, we can easily look at the enmity spoken
of in the verse.
Satan’s
Chief enemy is Jesus Christ, and vice versa.
For
this purpose the Son of God was manifested,
that
he might destroy the works of the devil. (1st John 3:8)
It shall bruise
thy head.
I said earlier
that the enmity between the Serpent and
the woman’s seed would not start when
the child is fully grown but rather right from birth. This is confirmed in
John’s revelation:
...the
dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered,
for
to devour her child as soon as it was born. (Rev. 12:4)
Matthew
also sets the record straight in his history of Jesus. It happened that when
Jesus was born, King Herod heard the news and was troubled. Satan was again at work in his usual use of a medium to
achieve his dream. He had entered Herod and sought to kill Jesus. He gave Herod
good reasons to feel bitter about the birth of the child. He said to him: “if
you do not get rid of this child your dominion over the Jews will be broken.” The
father of lie was again lying to Herod for the child Jesus would never be
interested in earthly kingdom. He was already a king whose kingdom surpasses
human knowledge. Isaiah said of the
increase of his government and peace there shall be no end (Isaiah 9:7). He
himself said, My kingdom is not of this
world (John 18:36).
However,
God was on the woman and her baby’s side. John said:
And she brought
forth a man child, who was to rule all the nations with a rod of iron: and her
child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. And the woman fled into the
wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God... (Rev. 12:5-6)
In
Matthew’s history, he wrote:
And when they were
departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying,
Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt; and be
thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to
destroy him. When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night,
and departed into Egypt. And was there until the death of Herod: that it might
be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt
have I called my son. (Matthew
2:13-15)
Thus
both Mary and baby Jesus escaped the devil’s scheme. The woman had to escape
because the enmity is not only between the
child and the serpent but also the woman and the serpent. But the child also escaped because it was never the
time for the serpent to bruise his heel. That was to be the time
the child was fully grown according to God’s purpose. Throughout his ministry,
Jesus escaped all physical attacks until it was time for him to drink of the
cup.
When
Herod failed to lay hands on baby Jesus, Bible says he slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts
thereof, from two years old and under.
The
reason why Satan hated Jesus from birth has to do also with the fact that it
was only Jesus, among men, who would never succumb to the devil and sin right
from birth. All other men are born under the human nature that is controlled by
sin. David said in Psalm 51:5;
Behold, I was
shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Mary
also comes into the picture as being the only woman who did not conceive (refers
only to her first born) in sin. It
was the Power of the Highest that overshadowed her and she became
pregnant. She knew no man until she gave birth to her firstborn (Luke 1:34-35;
Matt. 1:24-25). But from Eve to the last mother to give birth on earth, all
conception is under the weakness of the human nature.
The
devil’s head was bruised from the moment Jesus was born. It was never when he
hung on the cross. The statement, It is
finished, is not the beginning of the battle against Satan but the end of
it. So the cross is the end of redemption, not the beginning of it. If you pick
up the cross of Christ today, be sure that your salvation is complete. That is
why you have to quickly make a decision for Christ if you haven’t done that
yet. Probably you have to pause here and confess your sins in prayer and then
ask Him to come and live in your heart. Jesus is real. There is no coincidence
in what is written in Genesis 3:15 and what happened in the life of Jesus on
earth. He was from the beginning and came to earth for the sake of our fall in
the Garden of Eden.
Thou shall
bruise his heel.
Thou shall bruise his heel simply refers to the suffering of Jesus on the
cross. Isaiah confirmed:
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
Who
bruised him? Satan, the dragon, that old serpent, bruised him. Why? He came to
destroy the works of the devil.
The
Gospel writers wrote:
Then did they spit in his face, and buffeted him;
and others smote him with the palms of their hands...(Matthew 26: 67)
And straight away in the morning
the chief priests held a consultation...
and bound Jesus...and delivered
him to Pilate. (Mark. 15:1)
Pilate therefore, willing to
release Jesus, spake again to them.
But they cried, saying, crucify him, crucify him. (Luke 23:20-21)
...and when they had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. (Matt. 27: 26)
ü
And they stripped him, and put
him a scarlet robe. And when they had platted a crown of thorns,
they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand: and they bowed
the knee before him and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the
Jews! And they spit upon him and took the reed, and smote him on the head.
And after that they had mocked him, they took the robe off from him, and put
his own raiment on him, and led him away to crucify him.... they gave him vinegar to drink mingle with gall: and when he
had tasted thereof, he would not drink. And they crucified him, and parted
his garment. (Matt.
27: 28-31)
When Jesus therefore had received
the vinegar, he said,
It is finished:
and he bowed his head, and gave up the
ghost. (John
19:30)
It is
indeed finished! Yes, the plan of redemption is finally executed. The prophesy
in Genesis 3:15 is fulfilled. The serpent has finished bruising the heel of the seed of the woman. The seed of the woman has also crushed the head
of the serpent. Now, man is free – free from the power of Satan, sin, death
and all other consequences of man’s disobedience right from the Garden of Eden.
Freedom is in no other person but the seed
of the woman, Jesus Christ.
However,
we are waiting eagerly for the very final crushing, the WAR OF ARMAGEDDON.
Thy Seed (the seed of the devil)
It is
important to end this discussion with the issue of the seed of Satan. This is because the seed of Satan is fully involved
in the enmity, perpetuating the works of darkness against Christ and the
children of God. And it is the final destruction of Satan and his seed that
will bring the enmity to very end and
our final victory to full reality.
Fortunately,
in his ministry, Jesus exposed not only the works of darkness but also the
children of the devil who perpetuate the works of darkness. In John 8:44, He
told those who opposed him:
Ye are of your father the devil,
and the lusts of your father ye will
do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because
there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for
he is a liar and the father of it.
Those
who lie against the gospel of Christ, refuse to accept the death and
resurrection of Christ and even deny that Jesus ever walked this earth are the
seed of Satan. Many religions are in the world and their chief purpose is
against the truth of the Gospel of Christ. Some even see Jesus as just a fine
prophet like others. They refuse to accept that Jesus died to save the world
and have no room to accommodate His resurrection. Several individuals also call
the Christian faith a fallacy. They are the seed
of Satan – the antichrist.
Little children, it is the last
time; and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we
know that it is the last time. (1st
John 2:18)
And every spirit that confesseth
not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that
spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now
already is it in the world. (1st
John 4:2)
Also,
there are even several Christian denominations which do not believe Christ’s
true nature as God in bodily form. Yes, Jesus is the Son of God – they agree;
but to say Jesus is God, is a bitter
pill they will never swallow. They also assert that Jesus is God’s first
creature. In fact, they actually throw away the deity of Christ by their false
teachings. Such people are blinded by the enemy from knowing the truth. If you
don’t know the truth, you live with the lie and if you live with the lie, you
are the child of the devil (John 8:44). Listen to the Bible:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)
This
verse introduces us to the beginning of all things and tells us that the Word was
in the beginning. It then goes on to reveal that the Word, which was in the
beginning and was with God was God. Then in verse 14, the writer says: And the Word was made flesh. This Word, which was God became flesh and dwelt among us. It is just
crystal clear that Jesus is the word and He was in the beginning with God, and
was actually God. It was for the sake of redemption that He left his godly
nature and became a man like us. The Book of Philippians 2:5-7 says:
Let this mind be in you, which
was also in Christ Jesus; Who, being in
the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made
himself of no reputation, and took upon
him the form of a servant, and was
made in the likeness of men.
It takes
the Holy Spirit to discover the truth of the Bible. That is why not many can
accept the true nature of Jesus. And such are the seed of the devil, being
blinded from the truth.
But we speak the wisdom of God in
a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our
glory: which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of
glory. (1st
Cor. 2:7-8)
Halleluiah!
Jesus is Lord, the God of creation (John 1:3).
The seed
of Satan are also those who try to destroy the works of Christ by creeping into
the church pretending to be children of God. They are the many hypocrites who
have brought shame to Christendom and thus using their lustful lifestyles to
deter others from seeing the benefits of being in Christ and hungering for
righteousness.
The seed
of Satan are also the so-called prophets of today who use lies and deceptions
to take advantage of desperate souls. In explaining a parable concerning the
kingdom of God, Jesus said:
The field is the world; the good
seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the
wicked one. The enemy that sowed them (the
tare) is the devil; the harvest is the
end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. (Matt. 13:38)
Finally,
but never the least, the seed of Satan is every person who has not given his or
her life to Jesus.
He that committeth sin is of the
devil: for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of
God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. (1st John 3:8)
But if
you give your life to Jesus, you become a child of God and the seed of God will
be in you, not the seed of the devil.
Whosoever is born of God doth not
commit sin; for his (God’s) seed remaineth in him: and
he cannot sin, because he is born of God.
(1st John 3:9). Be born of God, NOW!
COMMITMENT TO CHRIST.
Jesus
came so that you will have life and have it more abundantly. There is no other
name given by which we can be saved except the name of Jesus. For God has made
Jesus both Lord and Christ.
Then Peter said unto them,
Repent, and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the
remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the
promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are far off, even as
many as the Lord our God shall call. (Acts
2:38)
Is God
calling you for salvation in Christ Jesus? Don’t hesitate; the promise of
salvation is for you. Repent and dedicate your whole life to Jesus. Pray this
prayer:
Lord of redemption, I thank you
for your love for me. I thank you for showing a way out of my wretched sinful
life. I am indeed a sinner but forgive all my sins. Cleanse me with your blood
as I dedicate my whole life to you. Jesus, take over my life and let me become
a new creation in you. In Jesus name I pray.
Welcome
into the Paradise of God. You can find a bible based church in your locality or
join us in fellowship:
PARADISE
MISSION GOSPEL MINISTRY
(Senya
Beraku, Hqters)
Evangelist
Abeiku Okai (B.I.C.)
Call:
0249287855/ 0249814599/0548047964
TEXT
LINE/PRAYER REQUEST: 0249924048
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