Calvary Road Baptist Church
“THE REMEDY”
Genesis 3.15
Outside the realm of time, before the universe was spoken into existence, there was God; the eternal One-yet-Three. One God, yet three Divine Persons; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is the First Cause. He is the All-Sufficient One, who has no needs. For reasons known only to Himself He began to create. His first creation was an incorporeal being known to us as Lucifer, referred to in Ezekiel 28.12-15. Listen as I read most but not all of that passage:
12 . . . Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
13 . . . every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.
14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created. . . .
Though the focus of God’s Word is on God’s dealings with mankind and not angelic beings, we are given snippets of information about these immaterial creatures. After God had created Lucifer, it seems He next created a myriad of other angelic beings, like Lucifer without material substance. Two of the others are named for us, Gabriel and Michael, the archangel. Being created directly by God and not as the result of anything like our biological reproduction, angels are therefore labeled “sons of God,” in Genesis 6.2 and Job 38.7, where they are also described as “morning stars.” I will now read Job 38.7 to you:
“When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?”
This verse forms the end of a question the LORD asked Job related to His creative work, in response to which the angelic onlookers who comprised God’s audience reacted by singing together and shouting for joy.
What was it that provoked God’s holy angels to sing together and shout for joy? It is almost certainly as they witnessed the great God Almighty speak the universe into existence and all that herein is in six literal days, the record of which is found in Genesis chapter one. Imagine, if you would, the angelic host observing God’s creative artistry and wisdom. They would not remain silent as He did so. As intelligent beings, they had to react to the marvels they observed taking place by God’s spoken Word. And the ways they reacted was to sing and shout for joy. You will remember angels doing much the same thing when the Savior’s birth was announced to the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night.[1]
Back to creation. This angelic celebration went on for six days and nights, and then God rested on the seventh day. He did not rest because He was tired. He rested for the benefit of His creation, particularly His intelligent creatures, I think. He rested for the sake of the angels and especially for the sake of Adam and Eve. After all, our Lord Jesus Christ did say in Mark 2.27,
“The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath.”
Perhaps it was on the eighth day that God announced to Lucifer his assignment, to serve God’s purpose on the planet Earth, where Adam and Eve had been created. I don’t think he liked his assignment. He felt it was beneath him as one so beautiful, so intelligent, and so powerful, to be relegated to so menial and insignificant a place located in a remote corner of the newly created universe as Earth. He became proud and resentful in reaction to his assignment, and he rebelled. As I read Isaiah 14.12-15, take note of where Lucifer begins and then where Lucifer ends:
12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.
Verse 12 informs us where Lucifer ended up, “fallen from heaven” and “cut down to the ground.” Verse 15 shows his ultimate destiny, “to the sides of the pit.” Verses 13-14 suggest that his rebellion began after he had arrived at his assigned post. It was from here that the enraged and rebellious Lucifer pronounced his five I wills:
“I will ascend into heaven”
“I will exalt my throne above the stars of God”
“I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north”
“I will ascend above the heights of the clouds”
“I will be like the most High”
Of course, it didn’t quite work out that way. Almost immediately after his proud revolt against the Most High God, Lucifer was cast down to where verse 12 begins the passage,
“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground.”
That said; do not think Lucifer was not able to do great harm in the interim. It is not until we consider the last book of the Bible that we are given some details about what happened after Genesis chapters one and two, and before Genesis chapter three. Lucifer was apparently able to foment a revolt against God in heaven, persuading one-third of the heavenly host to join his proud defiance. Revelation 12.4 is where this information about the great red dragon is found:
“And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven.”
Thus, by the time the serpent begins to tempt Eve in the Garden of Eden as a useful tool of Satan, the one formerly known as Lucifer has already drawn into his rebellion millions of once holy angels who at his instigation betrayed God. Now foul spirits, they wander this earth in search of ways to oppose the plan and purpose of God as demons, also called seducing spirits. Thwarted by the might of his Creator, Satan turned away from his effort to conquer heaven. So he immediately preyed instead upon the innocent ones, Adam, and Eve. He seduced the woman by first questioning the truthfulness of God and then challenging the goodness of God. I read the words spoken by the serpent to Eve in Genesis 3.4-5:
“Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”
See how he disputed God’s pronouncement and impugned His motive? Satan’s efforts proved to be successful, with Eve being deceived into eating the forbidden fruit and Adam following her in transgressing. The immediate result of their act of defiance was spiritual death, separation from communion with God, two people who had been innocent but who were now dead in trespasses and sins.
What Adam and Eve were immediately aware of following their sin against God is found in Genesis 3.7:
“And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked.”
Though additional consequences are implied, what is declared to the reader is the immediate awareness by both Adam and Eve of their own and each other’s nakedness. Thus, the most immediate conscious consequence of alienation from God and spiritual deadness was their transformation from God consciousness to self-consciousness. Whereas God had been the center of their personal universes before they sinned, they are each of them now the centers of their individual universes. Instead of God first and then themselves, they are now both me first and God later, if God at all.
Thus, what is called the Fall has occurred. Adam’s sin as the federal head of the human race resulted in all humanity falling into a spiritual pit of sin, estrangement from God, and morally defiled. Each biological descendant of Adam would be as spiritually infected as our first human father was infected. Thus, in very general terms, we come to understand from Genesis chapters one, two, and three, along with a bit from Isaiah, Ezekiel, and John’s Revelation, the beginning and the Fall.
In today’s text, which is Genesis 3.15, a passage that is lifted from God’s pronouncement to Adam, to Eve, and to the serpent as Satan’s representative, we are told God’s initial declaration of His Remedy for the problem of not only mankind’s sin and estrangement from God caused by sin, but also the problem that led to mankind’s sin and estrangement from God, namely, Satan. I invite you to join me in standing for the reading of God’s Word, Genesis 3.15:
“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.”
These words are spoken to the serpent, but really to Satan, who made use of the serpent. And what are these words? They are God’s promise to provide a remedy for the problem caused not only by sin’s entrance into the human realm but also the problem caused by sin’s entrance into God’s creation.
Our focus will be on the final three phrases of our text, phrases that suggest to us what God is going to do to solve this sin problem. Notice as we begin that The Remedy that God has designed is, in each instance, none other than the Lord Jesus Christ:
First, THE LORD JESUS CHRIST IN HIS INCARNATION
“And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed”
Two profoundly important truths can be seen here in seed form that are fully developed throughout the rest of God’s Word:
First, notice the enmity that God will place between “thy seed” and “her seed.” Seed, of course, is shorthand for offspring. Therefore, God is speaking to Satan through his representative that was used in the Garden of Eden to orchestrate man’s Fall. What He is telling the serpent is that God is going to deal with this matter sometime in the future. Subsequent to this encounter the Creator of all will bring to an end what Satan has begun. Important for us to note straightway, however, is this matter of enmity. To be sure, when Satan assigned to the serpent the task of seducing Eve and bringing about her downfall as a means of bringing about the downfall of Adam, spiritual warfare was then engaged against not only the human race but against God on yet another front. Lucifer had initiated a spiritual war against God in the angelic realm, and now he has opened a human front of operations. Now the war will be engaged against God by attacking His physical creatures made in His image and after His likeness, human beings. When Adam fell he became sinful, estranged from God, and (surprising to many) God’s enemy.[2] With this declaration in our text, God responds to Satan’s act of war by Himself declaring war. He will put enmity between Satan’s seed and Eve’s seed, with the word enmity translating a Hebrew word that refers to being hostile to someone, and treating someone as an enemy. It refers to personal hostility.[3] What we have here is God openly declaring war on Satan, indicating that He will display open hostility toward him, and will treat him as an enemy. Those God will fight against will include “thy seed,” meaning those who are the spiritual heirs of the Devil. This bears serious consideration. Do you really want God to wage war against you? Because that is what God is stating here.
To complete our consideration of this first truth, we must come to grips with the second truth introduced in this phrase. Please notice once more the reference that is made to “her seed.” Though this is very unusual, the wording here is no accident. Offspring are generally referred to in scripture and in the culture of that time as the sire’s seed, the man’s seed. This not only reflects the nature of biological reproduction but also the proper role of the husband in the family. That understood God is making it very clear here that the enmity He will bring about will be between the serpent’s seed (Satan’s spiritual heirs, those who are of their father the Devil), and someone as yet unnamed who is the seed of a woman. From our perspective, of course, we immediately recognize that this can only refer to the Virgin-born Son of God, born with a human mother but without a human father, and, therefore, being the seed of the woman. God is His Father, and He so addressed Him throughout His earthly ministry. As well, this circle is completed when we bring together this matter of enmity and this promise of the Virgin birth of God’s eternal Son. Most people do not make the connection in their mind between the Lord Jesus Christ and enmity, personal animosity, and being on a war footing against His foes. Therefore, allow me to read Exodus 15.3 and Isaiah 42.13:
Ex 15.3 “The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name.”
Is 42.13 “The LORD shall go forth as a mighty man, he shall stir up jealousy like a man of war: he shall cry, yea, roar; he shall prevail against his enemies.”
Exodus 15.3 is a verse in the song sung by the Israelites following the destruction of Pharaoh’s army by the parted waters of the Red Sea crashing down upon them and drowning them while Isaiah 42.13 is part of a Messianic prophecy.[4] Both verses reveal an aspect of the Savior’s character that is not generally acknowledged. My Lord is on a war footing against His foes.
Thus, we not only see here the first time in God’s Word that the subject of the Virgin birth of Jesus Christ is broached, but we also see something collateral with Christ’s Virgin birth. Born of a Virgin, He is not only sinless by virtue of not being the seed of any sinful man, but He is also quite opposite that foul spirit, the Devil. Hence, His antagonism toward, His status as a declared enemy of, and the reality that He is the personal foe of, Satan. Kind and gentle toward sinners, this same Jesus Christ is on a mission to avenge Himself against Satan.
Though many lose sight of this aspect of our Lord Jesus Christ’s attitude and mission in coming to this sin-sick world, let us be careful that we do not. True, the Savior came as the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world.[5] It will not be the only time He comes, and it will not be the only thing He does. I suggest that we embrace a fully fleshed out understanding of our Savior’s birth in Bethlehem come Christmas Day.
Next, THE LORD JESUS CHRIST IN HIS CRUCIFIXION
The oriental mind is not quite as insistent upon structure and sequence as we in the West are, not so bound to linear thinking. That will explain, in part, why I deal with the third phrase after the first, and leave the second phrase for last. You will see why as we proceed.
“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.”
We now consider the phrase “and thou shalt bruise his heel.”
The bruising of someone’s heel is not a fatal blow. Thus, when one takes into account not only the crucifixion of Jesus Christ on Calvary’s cross, but also His resurrection from the dead three days and three nights later, His death on the cross was not a fatal wound in the same way your death would be, or my death would be. When you and I die we stay dead. When the Lord Jesus Christ subjected Himself to Satan’s connivings and then voluntarily gave up the ghost, it was not a fatal venture in the same way another’s death would be. He did not stay dead.
Therefore, we need to come to grips with what God meant when He predicted “thou shalt bruise his heel.” God is informing Satan through the serpent that He would allow His beloved Son to be assaulted. And He truly did allow the full force and fury of Satan and his minions to fling themselves at His beloved Son, from the attempt made on His life in Bethlehem by Herod when He was a child, to the temptation Christ faced following His baptism, to the ongoing accusations against His character throughout His earthly ministry.
He was even betrayed in the final hours by one of His own apostles, for thirty pieces of silver, subjected to cruel and illegal trials and tortures, and finally stripped naked and hung ignominiously from a cross in front of His own mother, very likely His sisters, and who knows who else? Certainly God’s holy angels were horrified, the Spirit of God was profoundly grieved, and God the Father was outraged.
This was the culmination of Satan’s machinations and conspiracies. This was the height of what he perceived to be victory. In what he thought was his greatest triumph lay his stunning defeat. Do you actually think you can defeat God? Do you actually think you can outwit the Son of God? Can you overwhelm by wickedness and betrayal His sovereignty, His majesty, His holiness, His omnipotence, His omniscience, His mercy, and His love? Impossible. Yes, it was His crucifixion that was foretold by the bruising of His heel. The Just for the unjust that He might bring us to God.[6]
We Conclude With THE LORD JESUS CHRIST IN HIS RESURRECTION
“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.”
Please pay no attention so as to worry about the pronoun “it” in the phrase “it shall bruise thy head.” The Hebrew wording is literally “he shall bruise thee,” with the word being the third person singular personal pronoun.[7] So, all is well.
The important point that is made by this phrase is that contrary to Satan’s wounding of the Lord Jesus Christ not being a fatal blow since He died but rose in victory three days later. On the other hand, the blow landed by the Lord Jesus Christ on Satan is clearly a fatal blow. By fatal, I do not mean that he was struck on the head so as to physically die and after that be inanimate. Such things do not happen to spirit beings that have no physical body to slay.
What is meant by “it shall bruise thy head” is that the Lord Jesus Christ would inflict such a blow on Satan that he would suffer the consequences and be affected by it for all eternity. So, what was Satan constantly trying to accomplish in his warfare against the Lord Jesus Christ? He was seeking to persuade Him to sin, to separate Him thereby from His heavenly Father. So with His temptation in the wilderness, with the opposition of those who were of their father the Devil, with the betrayal of Judas Iscariot, and finally His crucifixion.[8]
Despite the fact that the Lord took upon Himself our sins, and despite the fact that though He was sinless, He suffered the death of the cross as a sinner and was thereby separated from His heavenly Father, yet He conquered sin, death, Hell, and the grave.[9] On the third day, He rose from the dead in glorious and Satan-defeating victory. And from that defeat, Satan will never recover. It was his fatal blow.
To be sure, there is still a lot of fight in the Devil. He still walks about as a roaring lion.[10] He is still a tempter who destroys lives. He is still the accuser of the brethren.[11] He is still a liar and the father of lies.[12] Only a silly fool would deny that he is a dangerous adversary. However, despite these all being true, Satan is a defeated foe and after giving all he had to defeat our Lord Jesus Christ on the spiritual battlefield, not only was he defeated, he was trounced. Will he energize the antichrist and the false prophet during the Tribulation? Yes, after which he will be cast into the great abyss for a thousand years.[13] Will he be loosed for a season to foment yet another rebellion?[14] Yes, but he is doomed, don’t you see? After that, he will be cast into the lake of fire to “be tormented day and night for ever and ever,” Revelation 20.10. Then those who followed him throughout history rather than following the Lord Jesus Christ will get their just desserts at the Great White Throne judgment, Revelation 20.11-15:
11 And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.
12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
Thus, we see God’s Remedy. The Remedy, of course, is not a plan, is not a formula, is not a scheme, is not a doctrine, and is certainly not a profession. The Remedy is a Person, none other than the holy One of Israel, that Prophet, who was promised, the seed of the woman, the Virgin-born Son of the living God, my Lord Jesus Christ. He is The Remedy for every ill caused by Satan’s long war against God. Satan is now a defeated foe, who has a few more skirmishes in him, but will eventually spend eternity in torment for his evil deeds against God, against God’s Son, and against God’s people.
This brings me to The Remedy for what ails you. You are but a bit player in Satan’s long war against God. So far, you are a casualty, a pawn, so much spiritual cannon fodder to be used to accomplish Satan’s work and then cast aside by him when you are no longer useful. Bearing the image of God, you are nevertheless a sinful person who is God’s enemy in this spiritual war begun by Satan but finished by Jesus Christ. You are a pathetic player in a conflict between two beings who are vastly superior in power and might to you. One is the most powerful being ever created, the evil one, the Devil, once known as Lucifer, known to us as Satan. You cannot imagine his nefarious skills and cunning lies to deceive you, with your eternal personal destruction utterly guaranteed so long as you remain his ally. His foe is the invincible, immortal, only wise God, who has dispatched His only begotten Son, the captain of our salvation, to serve as The Remedy for what Satan has done. Having already defeated Satan, it is now time for you to consider The Remedy for your own problem, namely, your sin-stained soul. When Jesus Christ suffered the death of the cross, He shed His blood for the remission of your sins. When He rose from the dead, He rose for your justification. If you turn from your sins and trust Him as your own personal Savior, He will immediately wash away your sins in His own blood and grant you instant forgiveness for all your sins. He will also give you life. Further, He will begin a work in your life sometimes called sanctification, giving you victory and making you ever more Christ-like by the ministry of the indwelling Spirit of God. And eventually, He will come to take you to heaven to be with Him forever.
Perhaps I have covered too much this morning, and you feel somewhat overwhelmed by details. If that is the case, then I urge you to take home with you this one truth: Jesus Christ is The Remedy supplied by God for what ails you spiritually. He is the Savior of sinful men’s souls. And if you come to know Christ as your personal Savior it will be the merriest of Christmases for us all, I promise you.
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[1] Luke 2.13-14
[2] Romans 5.10
[3] Francis Brown, S. R. Driver & Charles A. Briggs, The New Brown-Driver-Briggs-Gesenius Hebrew And English Lexicon, (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1979), page 33.
[4] Hobart E. Freeman, An Introduction To The Old Testament Prophets, (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1968), page 213.
[5] John 1.29
[6] 1 Pete 3.18
[7] John Joseph Owens, Analytical Key to the Old Testament, Volume 1, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1990), page 12.
[8] Matthew 4.1-11; John 8.44; 13.2, 27-30; Mark 15.34
[9] Isaiah 53.6, 10-12
[10] 1 Peter 5.8
[11] Revelation 12.10
[12] John 8.44
[13] Revelation 10.2
[14] Revelation 10.3
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Pastor@CalvaryRoadBaptist.Church