Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. This is study #18 of Genesis, chapter 3 and we are going to read 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.

Here, God is addressing the serpent, Satan, and He is telling the serpent that there will be enmity between the serpent and the woman and between his seed and her seed. The woman’s seed will bruise the serpent’s head and the serpent will bruise His heel. God is not only prophesying of things to come regarding the cross, but this Scripture is also a good summation of the entire history of the world. It is a verse that describes the battle between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan – the battle between light and darkness. This battle has raged all throughout history. Back in the Garden of Eden when Satan deceived Eve and God pronounced the curse upon the serpent, the Lord spoke of this battle and how there would be enmity between the serpent and the woman.

It is rather interesting that God selects the woman to demonstrate the enmity with the serpent. God did not say it was enmity between the serpent and Adam. Why did God pinpoint the woman and not the man? The man is the figurehead and the authority in the home, so why did God put it this way? The reason is that this looks at the spiritual battle between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of Satan. Primarily, how has God brought the battle to earth? How has the kingdom of heaven “come down” to wage warfare against the kingdom of Satan in this world? Primarily, this has been done through believers, the people of God, as God has used them to proclaim His Word and to send forth His Word into the nations at the proper point in time. The believers are the “woman,” spiritually. They are the bride of Christ. Yes, Jesus would at a later time enter into the world, but that would be 11,000 years from the creation.

Actually, Jesus’ birth in 7BC was 11,006 years from the point of creation. We wonder about that six years because we know that 2,300 evening mornings is a period of about six years and four months, so it is possible that God went exactly 11,000 years to 13BC and then there was a 2,300-day period or about six years and four months until the birth of Christ. It is possible that God inserted a period of desolation in some way before Christ’s birth, but the point is that for 11,000 years of history the “man” or the Lord Jesus Christ was not on the earth, but the bride of Christ (the true believers) was who Satan battled. Then for a short period of time, Jesus was the target or object of Satan’s assault during Christ’s period of ministry, but then the Lord went back to heaven to be seated at the right hand of the Father and, once again, who became the object of Satan’s hostility? It was the true believers or God’s elect that were on the earth throughout the New Testament church age. They are the ones that populated the churches during the 1,955 years of the church age and they were the ones that were alive on the earth during the Great Tribulation and remain on the earth in the Day of Judgment.

We know that Satan comes after the “woman” because it says so in Revelation 12:13:

And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child.

The man child was Christ and the woman is a picture of the body of believers, so Satan, the serpent, began to come after the woman, in Revelation 12:15:

And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood.

Then it says in Revelation 12:17:

And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

The remnant of her seed are just later generations of the elect, but all throughout history Satan is at enmity with the “woman” and it goes back to the curse God pronounced at the time of the fall in the Garden of Eden. Of course, there is a reason that the serpent is at enmity with the woman, the bride of Christ, and the reason is the Gospel. The Gospel that God devised and granted so graciously was the Gospel of salvation and He would form the “woman” through that Gospel, so Satan comes against that Gospel and he comes against those that share that Gospel. That is the reason for the enmity.

The Hebrew word translated as “enmity” is Strong’s #342. It is found in Numbers 35:18-24:

Or if he smite him with an hand weapon of wood, wherewith he may die, and he die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death. The revenger of blood himself shall slay the murderer: when he meeteth him, he shall slay him. But if he thrust him of hatred, or hurl at him by laying of wait, that he die; Or in enmity smite him with his hand, that he die: he that smote him shall surely be put to death; for he is a murderer: the revenger of blood shall slay the murderer, when he meeteth him. But if he thrust him suddenly without enmity, or have cast upon him any thing without laying of wait, Or with any stone, wherewith a man may die, seeing him not, and cast it upon him, that he die, and was not his enemy, neither sought his harm: Then the congregation shall judge between the slayer and the revenger of blood according to these judgments:

We cut in on a chapter where God was speaking about the cities of refuge and the qualifications for a person that has killed someone to flee to one of these cities. Basically, if someone smote a person in hatred or in “enmity,” then they are guilty. If you hated a person, like Cain hated Abel, and you intended to kill them and you picked up a stone and hurled it at him and slew him, then it is a different matter than another man that killed someone accidentally and without enmity – there was no hatred and he did not mean to kill him at all. I think God gives an example of this elsewhere in Deuteronomy where someone is cutting wood and the ax head flies off and hits his friend in the head and kills him. This would be a killing without enmity and that man now can flee to a city of refuge because a revenger of blood (one of the dead man’s relatives) is going to come after him. It is really interesting how God set up these cities of refuge and the congregation in each city has to make a determination: Is this a murderer? Is this a man like Cain that slew his brother with hatred? Or, is this someone who killed his brother or friend without enmity and without hatred? That is what the congregation had to determine.

We know the word “enmity” fits well with hatred and hatred identifies with murder. God tells us in 1John, chapter 3 that anyone that hates his brother is a murderer. The word “enmity” is translated a couple of times as “hatred.” We will look at one place in Ezekiel 35:5:

Because thou hast had a perpetual hatred, and hast shed the blood of the children of Israel by the force of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time that their iniquity had an end:

Here, we see murder and warfare because there was a “perpetual hatred” and the word “hatred” is enmity. There was a perpetual battle concerning the people God is talking about in that chapter.

The Hebrew word for enmity is Strong’s #342, but there is a related word, Strong’s #343, which is translated as “enemy” and that word is used in Esther 7:6:

And Esther said, The adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman…

She was revealing who it was that hated the Jews and wanted to destroy them. He wanted to kill all of them. He wanted to wipe out the Jewish population and kill all the Jews in the kingdom of Ahasuerus in all 127 provinces, including the province of Judea. That is why Haman is such a fitting spiritual picture of Satan, as Esther identifies him as “the adversary and enemy” of the Jews. The serpent Satan is the perpetual enemy of the people of God, the spiritual Jews or spiritual Israel. This is who the “woman” represents: “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed.” Remember what we read in Revelation 12:17:

And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed…

As Mr. Camping used to say, is it not wonderful how we can see the Gospel from the beginning? Here, we are in Genesis and now we read a verse in the last Book of the Bible, the Book of Revelation, and we see the same spiritual picture. They fit together and they harmonize – the serpent is in pursuit of the woman. He is making war with the remnant of her seed. That is exactly what God is saying back in Genesis 3, verse 15 concerning the enmity between the serpent and the woman and it would continue between “seeds,” the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman.

Of course, the serpent is that fallen angel Satan. By the way, I want to make a correction here. I may have referred to Satan as Lucifer when we went to Isaiah 14 because the King James Bible does use the word “Lucifer,” but someone sent me a note correcting me on it. I knew this before, but I apparently forgot it. Lucifer is not a name for Satan. It is a mistranslation. The word translated as “Lucifer” is actually a word that means “praise” or something similar to that and it is not a name, but the Bible does speak of Satan as the serpent, devil and dragon. These are names that God identifies with this enemy, the fallen angel. There was a chief fallen angel that became known as all these names and he indwelt the serpent. He heads up the kingdom of darkness and there are lesser fallen angels called demons.

Anyway, God is referring to the serpent’s seed. Since the serpent (Satan) is a spirit being it is impossible for him to have a physical seed. That is one of the mistakes people make when they read Genesis, chapter 6 where it says the “sons of God” came in unto the daughters of men and some theologians have incorrectly taught or implied that these “sons of God” were angelic beings that mated with human women, but that is impossible. Angelic beings are another kind of creature and altogether different than mankind. They are spirit beings and you cannot mate an angelic being with mankind that has a physical body. When God speaks of the seed of the serpent He has in view a spiritual seed, the unsaved people of the earth. It says in Psalm 37:28:

For JEHOVAH loveth judgment, and forsaketh not his saints; they are preserved for ever: but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off.

Here, God is referring to the seed of the wicked or, we could say, the wicked one. It is Satan, the serpent. His seed will be cut off because they are not saved. God did not save these wicked ones – He only saved a portion of mankind known as the “third part” and the “two thirds” is a figure God uses to refer to the rest of humanity. The billions of people that God did not save fall under the category of the seed of the wicked. Jesus pointed this out in John 8:38-39:

I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father. They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father.

Jesus agreed with them in the sense that they were physically Abraham’s seed, but then Christ continued to say, in John 8:41:

Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.

Now they are getting the idea that Jesus is referring to a spiritual Father. Then Jesus said in John 8:42-45:

Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me. Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.

Talk about some difficult truths as Jesus told people honestly about their spiritual condition. It does not get any more honest and direct than this. The Lord is saying to these people, “Ye are of your father the devil.” In other words, they are the seed of the wicked one; they are the seed of the serpent. Then the dispute continued and the Jews proved Christ’s words to be true because they later turned Him over to Pilot to be crucified. They wanted to kill the seed of the “woman,” who in the first instance is the Lord Jesus Christ. God had said to the serpent, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed.” The “woman” brought forth the Lord Jesus. Again, Revelation, chapter 12 paints that picture of the woman that brought forth the man child. It is the same woman that is in view back in Genesis, chapter 3. Christ came down through the lineage of the line of believers as God brought him into the world and Satan did everything he could to destroy the seed or Christ. It says in Galatians 3:16:

Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.

Christ the Lord is the seed of the woman. He is the seed that is mentioned again, and again, in the promises given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We will just look at one instance, but we could go to several verses. Let us go to Genesis 17:6-8:

And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.

The “seed” is singular and the Bible defines the seed as Christ. However, God also says of everyone He saves, in Galatians 3:29:

And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Christ is the seed and if you are in Christ, then you are the seed, as are all the elect. All the elect were in the Person of Christ as He died for them and paid for their sins. That is what is in view in Genesis 3:15:

And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed…

The serpent and his emissaries brought trouble and affliction against Christ when He was in the world, but it was also against His seed, the elect, all throughout history.