The Defeat of the Serpent (Gen. 3:1-5, 15)

This sermon was preached on Sunday, 30/11/2009

This chapter has been interpreted by liberal scholars as a myth, primarily because they say it gives the impression that a snake could talk to a human about God. I will not give you the reasons for their opinion, except to say that they lower the content of the passage to the level of pagan mythology. In this sermon I want to focus on the verses that deal with the creature called ‘the serpent’ in verse 1 and see what the passage as a whole says about him.

The status of ‘the serpent’
There are different interpretations among Reformed commentators of what is meant by the term, ‘the serpent.’ Robert Candlish, for example, says that what is happening here is that it was not a literal serpent, but the devil in the form of a serpent, and that the devil took this form because the literal serpent was a subtle creature.

A slightly different suggestion is made by James Boice. He suggests that this creature, before it was cursed, stood upright and was probably beautiful to look at. The curse, according to Boice, involved this creature having to crawl on the ground, which would not be a curse if it had been doing so already. Boice points out that this would have been a frightening display of judgement to Adam and Eve, as they watched this cursed creature slither away from them.

As far as I can see, there are problems in accepting that ‘the serpent’ refers to a snake-like creature. To begin with, snakes were made on Day 6 of creation and were described by God as very good. Yet the creature that is described in 3:1 as very subtle is not depicted as being good. Also, with regard to its curse, it is said that it will eat dust. Yet snakes don’t eat dust. The contents of the curse – ‘on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life’ – can be seen as a reference to the judgement that was meted out on a defeated ruler; such were often made to abase themselves before their conquerors.

So who is being spoken about here? Regarding the serpent, it is clear from the rest of the Bible that he is the devil. Twice in the book of Revelation is this identification made. In 12:9, ‘And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world— he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him’, a verse that indicates his rebellion involved more than himself and also included other angels. In 20:2, ‘And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years,’ which is an illustration of the way Jesus has defeated him.

Walter Kaiser suggests that the words ‘the serpent’ are actually a title of the devil and not merely a reference to a particular reptile. It is evident that God is not speaking about a literal snake because he says that its head will be crushed by the Deliverer, which could hardly be said of a snake in the Garden of Eden.

The schemes of the devil
It is obvious from this chapter that the devil’s aim was to deceive Eve by causing her to doubt the statements of God. Paul also refers to this incident in Eden when he writes in 2 Corinthians 11:3: ‘But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.’

The account begins by stressing that the serpent was subtle or cunning, which is a perverted use of wisdom. In Ezekiel 28:12, under a description of the King of Tyre but which goes far beyond him, there is a reference to the devil’s wisdom: ‘You were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.’ Verse 17 goes on to say: ‘Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendour. I cast you to the ground; I exposed you before kings, to feast their eyes on you.’ Two features are identified of Satan before he rebelled: he was beautiful and he was wise. He still retains his abilities, except he always uses them in a perverse manner.

One of his permanent tactics is to create doubt concerning the contents of God’s Word. It is permanent because he has found it to be very successful. In using it, he was able to defeat Eve in her innocence and millions of her descendants ever since. He was so astute in Eden that Adam, who had the ability to discern the nature of lower creatures, seemed not to sense any danger from the words of the devil.

Along with creating doubt about what God had said, he gave the impression that God was denying authentic experiences to Adam and Eve. According to the devil, these experiences would result in a rich reward – they would become like God.

It is not only with ordinary humans that the devil tried these temptations – he attempted the same when he tempted the Lord Jesus in the desert. He tried to get Jesus to doubt the word of God (‘if you are the Son of God) and he tempted Jesus to engage in forbidden activities by promising a rich reward.

So he managed to defeat the original human pair. The situation was dire. The devil had won a victory over Adam and Eve and had caused them to disobey God and as a consequence they had become sinners. Perhaps Satan imagined that he had overturned God’s plans to have a race of human beings who would be devoted to him. The devil knew that God was bound to judge the human race for their sins. Instead he received a big surprise, because God announced to him that one would come, as a Champion of the human race, who would overpower the devil, although he would be wounded in the process (Gen. 3:15). Spurgeon says of the occasion: ‘It was memorable discourse indeed, with Jehovah himself for the preacher, and the whole human race and the prince of darkness for the audience. It must be worthy of our heartiest attention.’

The seed of the woman
What is meant by ‘offspring’ or ‘seed’? God informs the devil that although he had persuaded Eve to follow his advice, the Lord would intervene and ensure that there would not always be this agreement between them. But how will this enmity be worked out? Initially, we might think the verse is describing a permanent conflict between humans (the descendants of Eve) and the devil (him and his followers). But the second half of the verse narrows it down to a conflict between two individuals because it uses singular pronouns to describe the participants. What God is announcing is that a descendant of the woman will crush the devil.

This is the first indication given to fallen man that, although they had sinned, it was not the end of the story. In this announcement to the serpent the guilty pair heard the promise of deliverance. The glad tidings of the gospel were preached in Eden before the sinful humans were evicted. Before the judgement fell, the Lord wanted them to hear the gospel offer.

We don’t know what response Adam and Eve made to this offer. John Bunyan, in a chart he has of the book of life, has his character read it and say that the first clear name in the list is Abel, but there was a space above it but he could not see if there were names in the space or not. This was Bunyan illustrating, in a very graphic manner, the uncertainty there is over the eternal destiny of Adam and Eve.

Partial revelation. This is the first promise of the coming Messiah. This promise was all the antediluvians knew of God’s purposes, as far as the Bible says, until Enoch, the seventh from Adam, made his prediction that ‘the Lord would come with thousands of his holy ones [angels], to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him’ (Jude 14-15). By that time, there were many sinners on the earth and the Lord gave a warning of future judgement. But his first revelation was about mercy.

Progressive revelation. As biblical revelation progressed, more and more details were given of this future deliverer. From the three sons of Noah, it was specified that he would come from Shem; from the descendants of Shem it was narrowed down to the line of Abraham. Then it was narrowed down to the tribe of Judah, and within Judah it was narrowed to the family of David.

Miraculous prediction. As we consider this prediction, we should note something unusual about it, which is that this future deliverer is called ‘the seed of the woman’. Looking back from the birth of Jesus we see in this ancient prediction at least an allusion to the virgin birth, of God bypassing the contribution of the male and miraculously conceiving the human nature of his Son in the womb of the virgin Mary.

The verse says three things about the predicted Deliverer: first, he will be a human, the seed of the woman; second, he will defeat emphatically the devil; third, he will be hurt in the process. This inevitably indicates that there is going to be an age-long conflict between the Deliverer and the devil.

As we think of this conflict, we should note that it began before the Deliverer was born. We see aspects of it in the attempts to destroy the nation of Israel, first by Pharaoh attempting to eliminate the male babies, and second by the Assyrians and the Babylonians attempting to merge the people of Israel into other nations. Both Pharaoh and the later empires had their own agendas, but behind the scenes was the serpent trying to prevent the coming of the Messiah. He failed on both occasions, because in this conflict he does not even win a battle.

But we see the conflict become more intense when the Saviour is born. Almost immediately, we have the incident of Herod killing all the babies of Bethlehem. Like the others before him, he had his own agenda, but like them he was fulfilling the wishes of his controller behind the scenes.

Things seem quiet for the next thirty years. Then one day, Jesus appears at the River Jordan and reveals his calling as the Messiah by being baptised. Straightaway, the Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness to confront the devil. It is important to note who is taking the initiative here – it is Jesus. This is the first skirmish, we might say, in the personal, one-to-one fight between Jesus and Satan. As we alluded to earlier, in the desert Jesus resisted the temptations that overcame Adam and emerged victorious in his campaign to return the wilderness to the state of Paradise.

This was the beginning of three years of conflict between Jesus and the powers of darkness, displayed in the Saviour’s deliverance of many individuals from demon possession. It seems that the powers of darkness had amassed their forces in a special way at that time, but they discovered that Jesus would defeat them again and again. This was the Seed of the woman destroying the power of the devil.

The climax of the battle took place at Calvary. We see its build-up in the Upper Room as Jesus bids Judas go and betray him. Jesus realised that this was the hour of the power of darkness. Satan’s fury was to be unleashed against him. The devil’s infernal wisdom was seen in his ability to get Pilate and Herod to agree about unjustly condemning Jesus, to get Jewish leaders and Gentile rulers to combine in attempting to destroy the Messiah. On the cross, the powers of darkness attempted to destroy Christ by bringing his existence to an end. There he bruised his heel of Jesus, but discovered that the bruised Heel was about to crush his head.

God ‘disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him’ (Col. 2:15). Their weapons against sinners was the punishment that they were due. But Jesus, having paid that penalty, removed from the evil powers their strongest weapon. In the process he also removed from them the demand that they could make concerning the death of sinners. By paying this penalty, Jesus destroyed ‘the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and delivered all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery’ (Heb. 2:14-15). John Calvin described the victory of the cross in this way: ‘For there is no tribunal so magnificent, no throne so stately, no show of triumph so distinguished, no chariot so elevated, as is the gibbet on which Christ has subdued death and the devil, the prince of death; nay more, has utterly trodden them under his feet.’ The risen Christ rose in triumph and ascended as man to the throne of God, ‘with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him’ (1 Pet. 3:22).

But the Seed of the woman is engaged in other activities in order to crush the head of Satan. These are connected to the preaching of the gospel as he delivers sinners from the spiritual blindness imposed upon them by the devil. A conflict takes place because the devil tries to destroy the church by persecution and other means. But believers are promised that the ‘God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet’ (Rom. 16:20). This will take place when Jesus returns and the devil and his followers are banished to the lake of fire.

The apostle John tells us concerning this conflict: ‘Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil’ (1 John 3:8).