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 3:15)
Left to ourselves, there will be no hope for us. We have fallen to Satan’s strategy. We have sinned against God. We are unable to save ourselves from the consequences of sin.
God has mercifully taken the initiative to provide us the way of salvation. He comes to fallen man with His remedy! His remedy consists of four steps. If you are to be saved, you will have to be dealt with by Him in these four steps.
Exposing your sins
First, God has to expose your sins. He will come to you and search you out, just as He searched out Adam. God called out to Adam, asking, “Where are you?” God knew where Adam had hidden himself. He asked the question only to engage Adam’s attention. He wanted Adam to know that he was being spoken to personally.
In the same way, God searches out His people today. He knows that sinners will instinctively run, and hide themselves from Him. But where can you run to? Where can you hide? Remember that God is God. He is all-knowing and all-powerful. You are merely a creature of His. He knows everything about you, and all that you have done. Nothing is hidden from Him. Then, you must remember that the whole urnverse belongs to Him. He created all things, and everything is under His control. He needs only to say the word and the earth will reveal where you have hidden yourself. He can easily stretch out His fingers to pick you out from any mouse-hole.
It is useless trying to hide yourself from God. God speaks to individuals through their Christian friends, through the reading of a book, or through hearing the Bible explained. In a meeting where many people are gathered to hear the Bible explained, God speaks personally to the hearers. If you are present in such a meeting, God might single you out to speak to you personally. The words of the preacher might be addressed to the many people present at the meeting, but you know that God is speaking to you personally. In the same way, God may be speaking to you now. Not everyone in the world will read this booklet. You are one of those who read it. God is speaking to you through the pages of this booklet. You may replace Adam’s name with yours and apply the words to yourself – “Where are you?”
God asked Adam more questions. In verse 11, we have the questions: “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?” Again, it was not that God did not know. He already knew the answers to those questions. His purpose of asking those questions was to expose Adam’s sin. He wanted Adam to admit his sin. Like any fallen man, Adam was so good at justifying himself, and blaming others. He tried to push the blame to his wife. Of course, God had to deal with Eve as well. That was why He turned to Eve and asked, “What is this you have done?” (v. 13). This only underlines the truth that God deals with each person individually. He dealt with Adam, and He dealt with Eve. It is useless to defend yourself and give excuses for your sins. It is useless trying to hide what you have done. God does not have to wait for a little bird to come and tell Him what you have done. He does not have to wait for a little ant to whisper to Him what it has seen. God is all-knowing. He already knows!
Exposing your useless efforts
Next, God has to expose the uselessness of your efforts at saving yourself. You need to understand the seriousness of your sins. You have sinned against light. You have broken God’s law. You have sinned against God Himself! What can you do to change the situation?
Some people try out religion. Others trust in living a principled life. Yet others try to appease their stricken conscience with good works of various kinds. Some channel their energy to providing their children a good life. In the process, they indulge them with so much that is unnecessary and even harmful. Others bury themselves in their work and become “workaholics”. Some would engage themselves in sports or other recreations to keep happy. But all the happiness they get is only temporary. You know that your basic problems remain unsolved.
Consider how big your problems are. First, there is the fallen human nature that needs to be changed. Can you change the spots on a leopard, or the stripes on a tiger? You know it is impossible to change human nature. We are talking about your nature, not just your body. You can alter how you look by plastic surgery, but you cannot make clean your nature by surgery of any kind.
Secondly, there are your sins to be atoned for. You have caused offence to God. God’s holy anger now rests on you. There is enmity between you and God. How may that state of enmity be removed? How may you be reconciled to Him? How can God be a Friend to you so that you may be received by Him? The fact is that no amount of good works and good intentions can make up for the wrong you have done to God.
Thirdly, you have to have a certain righteousness before you can enter heaven. All of us wish to go to heaven. None of us wants to go to hell. Let us assume for a moment that your sinful nature has been made clean and the enmity between you and God has been cancelled. You are now taken to heaven. You will discover that it is impossible for you to survive in heaven because everything there is righteous but you are not. You will be like a diver who has not the diving suit nor the right equipment to survive in the deep ocean. What you need is the suit of righteousness that God alone can provide, through His Son, Jesus Christ!
Be clear about this – your problems are essentially spiritual in nature. Nothing done in the physical realm, in a physical way, can alter what is essentially spiritual. Unlike a mountain which has dimensions of height, length and breath, your problems are without such dimensions. A high mountain can still be scaled. A thick mountain can still be dug through by modern equipment. But nothing can be done to overcome the problems that we have just talked about. The reason is that your problems are spiritual in nature. They are of such colossal proportions as to be proportionless! It will be easier to scoop out the ocean than to change your sinful nature, or to turn away God’s holy anger, or to weave a cloak of righteousness for yourself.
You are naked before God!
Exposing you to His solution
The third thing God wishes to do is to expose you to His solution to your problems. He reveals to us in verse 15 that a particular Seed, or Descendant, of the woman will be the Saviour of the world. This Saviour was in due time revealed to be none other than Jesus Christ. He would act as the Mediator between God and man.<
You would surely know what a mediator is. In many parts of the world, people still depend on a mediator to help when there is a quarrel. He acts as the middle person, to bring the two parties together so that they will be on talking terms again. The best mediator is someone who knows the two parties well, and is trusted by both parties. In the business world, a middle person is often needed before a transaction is sealed. He acts as a business consultant, who knows the needs of one party and the products of another party. He matches the needs to the products, taking into consideration the use of those products, the budget, the specifications, and various other considerations. You would not want to be swindled in a business deal. You would need a competent and reliable business consultant, a good mediator.
Jesus Christ is the Mediator between God and man. He is actually the second person of the Godhead. He is God, who came to take on human nature. He is therefore God and Man at the same time. He has two natures in one person. Being divine, He represents God perfectly. Being human, and without sin, He represents man perfectly. He is the perfect Mediator between God and fallen man. No better Mediator can be found apart from Christ. No other Saviour there is apart from Him!
Not only is the person of the Saviour revealed, but His work as well. We are told that He will bruise the serpent’s head, while being bruised by the serpent in His heel. This is a reference to the destruction of Satan’s power by the death of Christ on the cross.
The head is the centre of power. When the head is crushed, the whole body is rendered useless. That is why in a war, one party will seek to strike at the enemy’s headquarters, or to kill the commander-in-chief. Satan knew the importance of striking at the head. He struck at Adam, the representative head of the human race. God, however, raised up another Head to save sinners. Satan struck at Him as well, causing Him to die on the cross. Death is the last stronghold of Satan, but it was unable to hold back the Saviour. Jesus Christ rose from death, and defeated Satan. That is what is meant by, “He will bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.” Satan’s head was bruised in his attempt to destroy the Saviour.
All the animal sacrifices offered by worshippers in the Old Testament time, beginning with Adam, were meant to point to the person and work of Christ. A life had to be laid down in order that the worshipper may have eternal life. Blood had to be shed for the cleansing of his sins. A sacrifice had to be offered to turn away God’s holy anger from the sinner. The animal sacrifices of the Old Testament time were, by themselves, unable to accomplish all these. They only pointed to Jesus Christ, who finally came to offer Himself up as the necessary and sufficient sacrifice to God. That is why you are commanded by God to turn from your sins and to trust in Christ alone for salvation.
Exposing Satan’s desire to destroy you
There is a fourth, and final, step in God’s remedy – that is, to expose Satan’s desire to destroy you! Satan knew of God’s intention to provide a Saviour for sinners. God had revealed that there will be enmity between the serpent and the woman, between the serpent’s seed and the woman’s Seed.
That enmity began to unfold itself in the drama of history. The Bible tells us that there are two groups of people in this world -those who are the children of God, and those who are the children of the devil. The children of the devil will always be at enmity with the children of God. The seed of the serpent had always attempted to destroy the seed of the woman with the intention of cutting off the godly line. If the godly line could be cut off there would have been no possibility of the coming of that particular Seed of the woman, Jesus Christ. God’s plan of saving for Himself a people would have been frustrated.
The Bible actually shows that there were a number of occasions when Satan almost succeeded in cutting off the godly line. Each time, however, God ensured that the godly line was continued. At last, when the appointed time had arrived, the Saviour was born into the world. Satan made one desperate attempt to destroy the Saviour. That occasion was when Herod ordered all infant boys of two years and below to be killed. Joseph and Mary, having been forewarned by an angel, brought the infant Jesus to Egypt. They remained there until it was safe to return to Palestine. Jesus Christ grew up, appeared in public, and was killed on the cross of Calvary.
Satan thought that he had finally destroyed the Saviour when Jesus Christ died. Christ, however, rose from death and in that way destroyed the power of Satan. His death was, at the same time, an offering to God on behalf of His people. His blood was shed for the cleansing of their sins, exactly as God had intended! You see now how Satan was outwitted! You understand now why Satan is raging like a roaring lion, intending to destroy as many of God’s people as possible. There was enmity between the children of Satan and the children of God before the time of Christ. That enmity continues after Christ has come. If anything, Satan is more angry than before! He will do his worst before his own doom comes.
This is where everyone needs to take heed. Satan is a defeated foe. Christ has broken his power. He is in his death throes. He can still cause a lot of damage, and is extremely dangerous. He knows that the time will come when he will be thrown into the torments of eternal hell. He will therefore do his utmost to cause Christians to stumble, and deny the faith. Believers will be the target of his attacks.
By the same token, he will attempt to prevent others from coming to faith in Jesus Christ. He will sow doubts into your mind. He will cause dullness of understanding so that you cannot see spiritual truths. He will bring opposition into your life to prevent you from hearing more of God’s word. He will attempt to lure you away by the cults, or in some subtle ways prevent you from coming to faith in Christ. Be warned of Satan’s strategy!
God has revealed His solution to our problems. He has also warned us of Satan’s intention to destroy as many people as possible. Beware of Satan! Do not allow him to hinder you from coming to Christ!