The Blow That Crushed The Serpent’s Head – Genesis 3:15

EXPOSITORY ARTICLE | Jeremy Diestelkamp | Toronto, Ontario

During the Passover week about 2000 years ago, in a place just outside of Jerusalem, hung a man who was nailed to a cross: Jesus. The Romans frequently reserved this method of execution for criminals who committed the worst types of offenses. What criminal offense had Jesus been convicted of? Nothing! Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor of Judea, declared Jesus innocent on multiple occasions but had him crucified anyway due to his fear of a riot (John 19:1-16). The pain and suffering that Jesus had to endure was immense. Jesus experienced the physical pain of nails being driven through his hands and feet. He likely died because of exhaustion, suffocation, and organ failure (the typical causes of death of crucifixion). Furthermore, he had to endure about six hours of mental agony and rejection by those who watched. Yet, in the end, just before dying, Jesus summoned the strength to yell out, “It is finished” (John 19:30). So, what exactly did Jesus finish, and where did it begin? For that, we have to go back to the beginning, to the Garden of Eden, and the very first sin committed by men and women.

“1 Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; 3 but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.'” 4 Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. 8 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.” 11 And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?” 12 Then the man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” 13 And the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” 14 So the Lord God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, You are cursed more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you shall go, And you shall eat dust All the days of your life. 15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.”

Genesis 3 is often a story that we read to children. Still, adults should not view this as a tale aimed at children, for it tells us where sin came from, the seriousness of sin, and the inability on our own to save ourselves from our sins. The chapter begins by telling us that the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field. Lest we think that God made the serpent evil, though, we must remember that everything God created was “very good” (Genesis 1:31). That means that everything God created was without sin. So what made this serpent tempt mankind in the garden? Well, it was not anything that the serpent did on its own (for animals do not have the ability to know about and commit sin, nor can they tempt man to sin). Instead, we have someone possessing the form of the serpent, someone who does have the consciousness of sin and the ability to tempt mankind: namely Satan. We don’t have to wonder whether this is true, for the Bible says it was true in Revelation 12:9, which says: “So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.” It was Satan that got Eve to doubt God’s faithfulness and truthfulness. Satan aroused Eve’s desire to become like God. It was Adam and Eve who sinned, yes, but it was Satan who tempted them to sin. And so, for his sin of leading mankind away from God, Satan was deserving of punishment, just as mankind was.

The first punishment laid down by God was directed at the serpent itself: that it would crawl on its belly from there on out and eat dust all the days of its life. Now you might ask: if the animal couldn’t sin, why was it just for God to punish the animal? Without judging the actions of God, we can note that frequently, people who didn’t sin still suffer the consequences for others’ sins (i.e., a wife and children have to suffer consequences if the husband sins by gambling away the house). In the case of animals, in Bible times and to this day, animals are punished if they inflict harm on humans (Exodus 21:28-36). The punishment of the actual serpent here was not death; instead, the serpent was made lower than other animals and crawl on its belly rather than walk on feet.

The second punishment is not directed at the animal but rather Satan since he possessed the animal. God says He will put enmity (hostility) between Satan’s seed and the Seed of the woman. Who is Satan’s seed? Those who are evil and walk in the ways of the Devil (John 8:43-47). Since all who can know right and wrong will sin (Romans 3:23), if it weren’t for God’s grace, all men and women would be forever known as Satan’s seed and not have the ability to be saved. However, there would come one who would never become the seed of Satan because he would never sin: the seed of the woman. From biology class, we know that both men and women carry the seed of life, and life cannot begin without the man and woman being involved. However, in Genesis 3:15, God does not say that enmity would exist between the seed of man and woman (even though we know that the Devil is hostile towards all mankind). He says only of the seed of the woman in this verse. This implies that there would come a time when someone would be born where only a woman’s seed would be involved. Does scripture ever record such an event? Yes! It is the birth of Jesus (Luke 1:26-38). Jesus had no earthly father, though it was supposed that Joseph was his father. He only had an earthly mother. Jesus is the Seed of the woman. And when you read about the life of Jesus, all you see is open hostility between Him and Satan and his followers. Satan constantly tried to get Jesus to sin (Matthew 4:1-11). The chief priests, the rulers of the people, and many of the Jews themselves were constantly blaspheming Him and trying to discredit him as the Messiah (Mark 3:20-30, Matthew 16:1, Matthew 19:3, Matthew 22:15-22). There was a real enmity between the seed of Satan and the Seed of Woman. And what would this enmity result in? The crushing of the serpent’s head and the bruising of the Seed of woman’s heel. Let’s deal with the bruising of the Seed of woman’s heel first. When an animal bites your heal, it can sometimes cause you to stumble and fall, but it won’t likely result in an injury you cannot recover from. Satan is described as a serpent here in Genesis 3, one that will bite and bruise the Seed of Woman. How would he do this? By tempting and leading men to kill Jesus. He tempted Judas to betray Jesus, and Judas yielded to temptation (John 13:21-30). Satan tempted the chief priests to sentence Jesus to death, and they yielded. Satan tempted Pilate through fear to relent and have Jesus crucified, and he yielded. It looked like the Devil had won, that he had crushed the head of Jesus contrary to God’s words in Genesis 3. Instead, three days later, when Jesus was raised from the dead, he proved that the Devil’s bite was only temporary and that it wasn’t a bite to the head, but only a bite to the heel that was overcome by the power of God (Acts 2:22-36).

However, Jesus’ death and resurrection brought with it the crushing of Satan, a much more significant bruising because that bruise was to Satan’s head. If you step on the head of a serpent, you will severely injure it and likely kill it by crushing its head. Jesus’ death and resurrection took away Satan’s power over man, the power of death (Hebrews 2:14-18). Satan had this power because Satan knew that God wouldn’t save mankind in sin, and he knew that mankind couldn’t save himself by himself. So without the tree of life to allow us to live forever and without a way for us to escape eternal death on our own, Satan did have power over us. By dying on the cross, though, Jesus paid the price for sin with His blood, once for all. By being resurrected, Jesus proved that God could raise the dead and grant them eternal life, having forgiven their sins (Colossians 1:13-14). God disarmed and defeated the Devil. Jesus crushed his head. And he would never again be able to hold mankind in sin. But that doesn’t mean that the Devil has given up. He still roams this earth seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8-11). But we can overcome him by God’s grace through obedient faith. Salvation was only made possible because Jesus, the Seed of woman, finished the work that began back in the beginning by delivering the blow that crushed the serpent’s head forever.

** All verses are quoted from the New King James Version of the Bible **

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October 2021 | GROW magazine