Creator, Father, King #43

[God said,] “I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”

ARE YOU SCARED OF snakes? Does even the sight of them make your skin crawl—like, well, a serpent slithering through the grass?

If so, it’s understandable. Snakes are intriguing and mysterious but also creepy!

Humanity’s uneasiness with snakes dates all the way back to the Fall. After the serpent successfully tempted Adam and Eve to sin, God pronounced curses on man, woman, creation, and the serpent. Check out today’s verse—part of a larger curse that God decreed on the snake in Genesis 3:14-15:

Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all animals, domestic and wild. You will crawl on your belly, groveling in the dust as long as you live. And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.

It’s a powerful, harsh curse that still exists today. But amazingly, this terrible curse also contains a wonderful promise. Did you catch it?

What’s It Mean?

God’s beautiful promise is contained within a conflict. Immediately after the Fall, he foretold “hostility” between Eve’s “offspring” and Satan. Who is this offspring? A group of people? Perhaps. Satan certainly has been fighting against humans since Creation.

But these verses speak to a much deeper, more glorious truth. Ultimately, Eve’s “offspring” here is an individual—a single man who will battle Satan. The devil will wound this man with a nonfatal blow (“strike his heel”), but this man will deal Satan a death blow (“strike your head”).

The mystery man is Jesus! Amazingly, found within the curse of the serpent in Genesis 3:15 is the earliest proclamation of the gospel—the good news of salvation through Christ. The eternal Son of God became Eve’s “offspring” through his miraculous incarnation.

Satan struck Jesus’ heel, so to speak, thousands of years later by inciting wicked men to crucify him (Luke 22–23), but this was all part of God’s sovereign plan to bring lost sinners to salvation. Jesus crushed Satan’s head, so to speak, by defeating the power of sin through his death and resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:55-57), and ultimately, he will throw Satan into hell forever one day (Revelation 20:10).

Amid sin’s curse and Satan’s temporary victory in the Garden, God pronounced final victory through his Son, the coming Savior!

Now What?

Read about Satan’s end in Revelation 20.

Did You Know?

There are almost 3,000 snake species in the world, but only about 375 are venomous.