Genesis 3:8-15, “He will crush your head, you will strike his heel…”
Today’s given text, Genesis 3:8-15, is about sin and God’s salvation plan for sinful human beings. We see the results of sin in our text, but before we get to that, we might want to take note of how Satan approaches humans when tempting them to sin. If we read Genesis 3:1-4, Satan approached Eve with lies that have some truth in them, hiding the critical facts. Vs.1, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’” We know that God never said fruits of any tree but only the fruit of knowing good and evil Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat. Vss. 2-3, when Eve repeated how God commanded them, “You must not eat fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden, or you will die.” In vss. 3-4, Satan lies again with some truth in it, hiding the critical facts. “You will not certainly die. Your eyes will be opened. You will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Satan’s temptation was powerful because there was some truth in it. It was true your eyes will be opened, but their eyes were opened to their shame and guilt. Because they listened to Satan, they were to die, as God said, and they did not become like God. When their eyes were opened, they didn’t know good and evil like God does; their eyes were opened only to sin and rebellion. It is as if a deaf person was promised to be able to hear again, but all they could hear was screaming.
A complete lie is rarely effective in temptation. If Satan doesn’t couple it with some truth, his temptation has little power. When Satan tempts people, he comes up with reasoning that is pleasing and strongly appealing to the eyes, ears, and senses of humans. After Eve was tempted by Satan, the forbidden fruit looked good for food, pleasing to her eyes and stimulating her to become like God. Once we have the desire to be like God, we become like Satan. It was Satan who said, “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God… I will be like the Most High…” (Isaiah 14:13-14)
A word of caution here regarding dealing with Satan: with Satan, we are not to converse; we should not spend time with Satan other than rebuking him. We are to refute him always without listening to his reasonings. When Satan tries to talk to us, his only purpose is to tempt us with lies to sin and die. That is why we must repel Satan. Satan, get away from me! Jesus
did not converse with Satan; Jesus only rebuked and repelled Satan. That is a sure way for us to be victorious like Jesus.
When it comes down, there are only two voices in the world: God’s voice and Satan’s voice. We are to discern which is which. Anything that makes you question God’s calling in your life, in your marriage, anything that makes you question the place where God placed you in life or the responsibilities God has entrusted to you, anything that does not lead to a sense of peace but agitation and confusion, then that might very well be Satan’s voice. We are to listen and be obedient to God. To Satan’s voice, we are to repute and repel. Do not give any room to Satan to tempt you.
I have been single all my life; I am married to Jesus. However, there were times in the past when Satan tried to tempt me. ‘How nice it would be to have a husband like him, a handsome and attractive gentleman like him!’ As soon as I was aware of the thought coming into my mind, I loudly rebuked Satan, “Satan, get behind me!” That was how I repel Satanic thoughts. If you start to let the thought creep in and form in your heart, that is how adultery starts: having someone in your heart other than your own spouses, spending time more with that person than your own spouses. Satan is out there to devour you; do not be fooled into thinking that it is God’s leading or God would understand what you do. With God, sin is sin, and you will be accountable for your own sins. Your soul is at stake if you listen to Satan.
When we sin, we hide from God. Our text starts with Adam and Eve hiding from God’s presence when they heard God in the garden after they sinned, as we can see in vs. 8 of our text today. Until then, we can infer that they had full communion with God, talking, walking, and spending time with God without inhibitions. In the holy presence of God, sinful humans cannot stand but hide. Sin separates us from God.
But the good news is that God searches for us. “Where are you?” Do we hear God’s calling us? Where are you? Where are you in your life today? Do you know where you are falling? What’s going on?
Do we hear God’s voice, ‘Where are you in your life of prayer and spirituality?’ ‘Where are you in your friendships, relationships, marriage, and parenting?’ Where are you in your work? Where are you in those things you regret and wish you hadn’t said or done, in your
disappointments, failures? Where are you in your joys and thanksgivings? Do you have joy and an irrepressible moving of heart when worshipping God without inhibitions? Sin separates us from having a full communion with God. Let us come back to God before it is too late.
Another important point is that sinners typically blame others instead of admitting their own faults when confronted. In verse 12, Adam blamed God and Eve for his sin. “The woman you put here with me” implies that if you hadn’t placed her with me, I wouldn’t have come to this point –eating the fruit. I would not have eaten the fruit if it weren’t for her. Eve did the same thing, vs. 13, blaming the serpent. “Serpent (that you created) deceived me, and I ate.”
We have all sorts of excuses for our failings and sins. ‘My husband or my wife drove me away from him/her.’ I do drugs or drink alcohol because of this or that or because of so and so. I don’t go to church because of so and so… I cheat on my spouse because s/he does or doesn’t do this or that, is or isn’t that. We are the ultimate decision-makers; we are the ones who gave consent to Satan’s temptations; we cannot blame others but ourselves for our own sins. That is the first step in repentance when we genuinely admit our sins.
Lastly, verses 14 and 15 reveal God’s plan of salvation. It shows how human separation from God, the ultimate death, will be remedied by God’s redemption, bringing about the ultimate reunion between God and humans through “the Seed of the Woman.” That is why we can say that the Bible is the blueprint of God’s plan of salvation. In verses 14 and 15, one might see it as curses on the serpent. However, the serpent in the Book of Genesis is not just a serpent we can see in nature. The serpent here is a symbolic figure representing Satan, as we see throughout the Bible, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and Book of Revelation. For one thing, the serpent/snake does not eat dust as food. In other words, the curses on the serpent, crawling on his belly and eating the dust, are not the curses on the serpent but on Satan using serpent language. In this sense, “crawling on your belly” is a symbol of Satan’s defeat. During battles, when one conquers an enemy, the enemy submits to the conqueror by being prostrated on the ground before the conqueror. Do we know what is being said here? The defeat of Satan is pronounced already in the garden. How about “eating the dust”? What does “dust” signify here? We humans are made of dust. “The dust you were made
from, to dust you will return” (Genesis 3:19). Satan’s food is humans, in other words. Satan is to live on eating humans, human souls. That is why Satan is out there to devour us like a roaring lion is watching for its prey to devour. (1 Peter 5:8). How dangerous it is to give an ear to Satan. Again, Satan is not a figure we want to converse with or spend time with. If we do, we will be eaten by Satan sooner than we realize.
Verse 15 makes it clear how God’s people are to oppose the followers of Satan naturally. The enmity is put between the offspring of the woman and Satan. Jesus, the born of a woman, and Satan wage war, the war that started with Satan’s rebellion against God. But the victory is God’s as it is prophesied here. “He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” This is the first promise of the Seed, who will reunite all humankind with God by defeating Satan on the Cross. Ultimately, Satan will be defeated, but not without damage to the offspring of a woman. Jesus Christ was crucified; Satan struck His heel, but by His resurrection, Satan’s head was crushed.
Not all, but only those who listen to God and are obedient by defying Satan will be victors in eternity with Jesus our Lord. Again, our life on earth is temporal. Be careful what you are doing when you give consent to Satan’s temptation.