Blessed Enmity
Notes
Transcript
Genesis 3:14-15 ESV
14 The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. 15 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.”
A reality that is a blessing for the saint but a terror for the non-believer is that God is omniscient, meaning that God knows everything. There is nothing hidden from Him, there is nothing beyond His finding out.
Now, the reason why this is a terror for the non-believer, the one who is in constant rebellion against God is because it lets them know that their sin will not go without being punished.
And the reason why God’s omniscience is a blessing for the believer is because it lets us know that no sin of ours will not merit the discipline of the Lord.
Now, punishment for sin and Paternal discipline for sin are two vastly different things.
For the punishment for sin in the case of the non-believer signifies that God will indeed ensure that the non-believer pays for the sins he commits either in this life or in the Lake of Fire.
But when this punishment is carried out on non-believers in this life the only thing that it accomplishes in the them is that it causes them to be further hardened, indeed, it causes them to hate and rebel against God all the more.
But on the other hand, when the believer is disciplined for his sin, it produces the opposite result. You see, discipline for sin committed is a good thing, for being disciplined by God means that one is corrected by God. In other words, the purpose of divine discipline is that it causes the believer to abhor his sin, repent of it, and be brought nearer to God because of the discipline administered.
In the text that we will be studying this morning, we will be looking specifically at the act of divine punishment. And in our message next week, we will be looking specifically at the act of divine discipline, as we are ever reminded that whoever you are, rich or poor, great or small, believer or non-believer, your sin will find you out.
For after God had listened to the excuses given to Him by Adam and Eve for the sin that they committed, we will see in our reading for next Sunday how God responded to their sin.
But we have to remember that it was not only the man and the woman who were involved in this act of rebellion against God, for we know that at the center of this rebellion was the meddling of the serpent.
And thus, as the sin of the man and the woman found them out, so did the sin of the serpent most certainly find him out, and thus today, we will specifically be looking at how God responded to the sin of the serpent.
We see God’s recognition of what the serpent had done at the very beginning of our reading, at the beginning of verse 14, where we read:
Genesis 3:14a ESV
14a The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,
Now, one thing that I would like to point out is that you will notice that unlike the man and the woman, God did not dignify the serpent by allowing it to account for its involvement in this act of disobedience.
And though the serpent itself did not partake of the fruit as the man and the woman did, what he did do was encourage the woman to question God’s motivation to prohibit she and her husband from eating the fruit, and thus, he was just as guilty as the man and the woman were.
Thus, God says to the serpent, “Because you have done this. Because you have likewise partaken in this sin” and from here we continue in the next part of this 14th verse, where God says to the serpent,
Genesis 3:14b ESV
14b cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field;
“Cursed are you” says the Lord God. Herein do we see the punishment for the sin of the serpent. Remember, I said that those who are not among the elect have no possibility for repentance in that the consequence of their sin only leads to further hardening. And thus, they are cursed with no possibility of pardon. And such is the curse handed down to the serpent by God Whom he had sinned against.
Furthermore, we see in this portion of the verse that as the serpent had been previously described as craftier than any beast of the field, now he is described as cursed above all livestock and beasts of the field. Thus, he goes from the most exalted beast to the most cursed beast.
And then, in the final part of this verse, we see the manifestation of this curse, where we read God declaring to the serpent:
Genesis 3:14c ESV
14c on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.
Thus, the serpent went from being high and exalted to being reduced to traversing on its belly, eating the dust of the earth. Thus, the most exalted beast is now forcefully placed in that most humiliating position, as it is forced to recognize that God is Boss.
But this is not all, for God goes on to further pronounce the curse that He inflicts upon the serpent in verse 15, where we read in the first half of this fifteenth verse, God say to the serpent:
Genesis 3:15a ESV
15a I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring;
Because of the serpent’s hatred of God and recognizing that he is cursed through his tempting a human, the serpent now hates humanity as well and thus there is enmity between the serpent and the woman.
But what is interesting here is the active participation of God that is spoken of. God says, “I will put enmity you and the woman”. This was not a natural enmity; it is a God-induced enmity. In other words, God placed the enmity here between the serpent and the woman.
Now, enmity itself is defined as “the state or feeling of being actively opposed or hostile to someone or something”. Thus, God placed opposition, hostility between the serpent and the woman, so that the two would be at odds with one another.
Therefore, what we see is that there is an everlasting hatred that exists between the serpent, between Satan, and humanity. God has made it to be so that the serpent is the great enemy of humanity. Thus, the serpent, Satan ever hates man who is made in God’s image. And Satan will ever tempt and torment man through this enmity.
But, having fallen into sin with a radical falling, though Satan is the ever-present enemy of humanity, still humanity naturally, though unwittingly sides with Satan, their enemy.
Humanity is naturally all too eager to join the ranks of darkness, though they know it not. And because of the hatred which Satan hates humanity, he ever tempts and torments humanity further so that their destruction will be all the more devastating.
But though Satan is opposed to all of humanity, it is not all of humanity who goes to destruction. The only ones who inevitably go to destruction are the offspring of the serpent, the reprobate. But not all of humanity are of the offspring of the serpent, for as God declares here, the woman too has offspring.
Now, as I said, the offspring of the serpent is in reference to the reprobate, those whom God is pleased to leave to their own damnation by simply letting them do what is naturally in their hearts, and that’s hate God.
But the offspring of the woman, on the other hand, is in reference to the elect, those whom God has graciously chosen to salvation.
And while the elect are also naturally at odds with God and thus are naturally in league with Satan, in the fullness of time, God opens their eyes to their own helplessly sinful condition, and they come to loathe their sins, they come to denounce and truly despise the serpent who has had them in bondage, and they flee to the One Who reconciles them to God the Father and makes them whole.
And the reason why this occurs, as was said, is because God has personally placed enmity, opposition and hostility between the offspring of the serpent and the offspring of the woman.
Now, this in itself reveals to us the unfathomable love of God, for just like the reprobate, the elect were also naturally at odds with God and in league with Satan without even realizing it. But God, in the fullness of time places an enmity between His elect people and the world around them.
This means that in the fullness of time, God will save His elect people from their sins by renewing their hearts, which then causes them to abhor their sin, and turns their eyes towards Jesus, and causes them to desire Him, seek Him, flee to Him, and through their being called to Jesus, they are set free by Jesus.
They are set free as God has removed their enmity with Him and has instead put enmity between the elect and the reprobate and their sin-filled desires.
Thus, the enmity that God places between the offspring of the serpent and the offspring of the woman, between the reprobate and the elect is indeed a blessed enmity. For it is in that enmity that the elect are made in league with God.
Indeed, the sobering reality is that had God never been pleased to place this enmity between the elect and the reprobate, there would be no elect and thus, all we who are saved today would have never been saved.
But because there is this God-ordained, blessed enmity between the people of God and the offspring of the serpent, the battle ever rages.
The serpent and the woman, the enmity between the offspring of the serpent and the offspring of the woman never ceases. But though this is the case, our reading tells us that a Victor will be produced. We read of that Victor in the last half of this fifteenth verse, which reads:
Genesis 3:15b ESV
15b he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
As we finish our reading for today, we notice an interesting shift in the wording. We have been speaking of the offspring of the woman and the offspring of the serpent, the elect, and the reprobate. This is obviously in reference to a plural number. But here, God goes from speaking of the plural to speaking of the singular.
We see the words, “He”, “His”, “you”, and “your”. This shows that we go here from speaking of multiples to speaking of a singular.
Thus, we now speak of One among the offspring of the woman. The representative Head of the woman’s offspring, the elect. And we speak too of one among the offspring of the serpent, indeed, the representative of the serpent’s offspring, the reprobate.
The One Who God speaks of concerning the representative Head of the woman’s offspring, the elect, is Christ Jesus. And the one who God speaks of being the representative of the offspring of the serpent is Satan himself.
And look at what else God says concerning these who represent the two offsprings. God says that Satan, the head of the offspring of the serpent will bruise the heel of Christ, the Head of the righteous offspring of the woman.
Thus, we see it foretold that the devil would do damage to the heel, to the inferior part of Christ Jesus. This bruising is in reference to the offspring of the serpent crucifying the Lord Jesus, the representative Head of the offspring of the woman.
Indeed, this would physically hurt the Christ, but it is something that God allows, that God ordains so that through it, the elect people of God would be made righteous.
But more importantly, we see that Christ, the representative Head of His elect people would bruise not the heel of Satan, but the head of Satan. Thus, while God will ordain it that the devil is successful in hurting the inferior part of Christ, Christ will in turn bruise, hurt, crush the head, the superior part of the devil.
And thus, we see here the very beginnings of God reclaiming what is His. Man had fallen into apostasy; abandoning, rejecting, rebelling against his Creator. The creation which God had made to be very good had now radically fallen into sin. And this sin has affected not only man, not only the primary part of creation, but all of creation, every last bit of it.
And apart from divine intervention, we, and the rest of creation would all be damned for eternity. Thus, we thank God, we praise God that He did intervene! He praise God that He continues to intervene. We praise God that He places enmity between those whom He has willed to save and the sin that would destroy them!
Beloved, blessed is God Who undeservedly loved us so! Blessed is God’s determination to graciously save an elect people through the crucifixion of Christ, through the bruising of His heel! Indeed, blessed is the God-ordained enmity that He has placed between His elect people and the reprobate!
Amen?
