"The Warrior Seed And The Way We Live" (Audio) - Oct 17, 2004 Text: Genesis 3:13-20
Title: “The Warrior Seed and the Way We Live” Text: Genesis 3:8-15
October 17, 2004 Larry Kirk
THE WARRIOR SEED AND THE WAY WE LIVE
In his popular book The Road Less Traveled, Scott Peck writes that life is difficult and that the fact that life is difficult is one of the most important facts of life.
He says:
Most [people] do not fully see this truth that life is difficult. Instead they moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy. They voice their belief, noisily or subtly, that their difficulties represent a unique kind of affliction that should not be and that has somehow been especially visited upon them, or else upon their families, their tribe, their class, their nation, their race or even their species, and not upon others. I know about this moaning because I have done my share.
He quotes a psychiatrist who says that all neurosis stems from an unhealthy attempt to avoid legitimate suffering. In other words, people develop psychological problems just by trying desperately to avoid what is really a certain amount of inevitable struggle in life.
Many of you here today have been through some very hard times. Some of you may be going through hard times now. Maybe you feel that for you at times, life is a battlefield.
The Scripture we're looking at today in Genesis 3 tells us something about the inevitability of struggles in this present world and how to face them with strength and hope. It's Scripture that enables us understand what is going on in our world, what we need to do because of it, and where our true hope is found in the midst of it. The first thing we learn from this Scripture is that . . .
Because of the Presence of Sin in the World, We Must Be Prepared to Face Life's Struggles
Adam and Eve had turned away from God. They didn't trust His goodness. They did not obey His commandment, and there was a spiritual death that they immediately experienced. You see the effects of that right away.They are suddenly uncomfortable in their own skin, they are ashamed of themselves, they are hiding from God and blaming each other. God comes into the Garden, seeking them, calling them. But when He comes, He comes not only with grace but also with judgment. The judgment begins with the serpent in verse 14, then it touches the woman, the man, and even the earth itself. It is ultimately a judgment that affects all of us.
The Judgment on the Serpent Is Both Symbolic and Real at the Same Time
Verse 14: “So the Lord God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.” The snake would be a symbol of the real Serpent's ultimate defeat. That's what it means to “eat dust.” In the Bible to eat dust is symbolic. Psalm 72:9 talks about the triumph of God's king, saying, “The desert tribes will bow before him and his enemies will lick the dust.” It pictures total defeat.
The Judgment on the Woman Affects Her Most Important Relationships
Verse 16: “To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." Even the greatest blessings will be accompanied by pain, and the most intimate relationship will be wounded by power struggles in which “to love and to cherish” becomes “to desire and dominate.” (Derek Kidner)
The Judgment on the Man Affects His Most Basic Responsibilities
Verses 17-19 describe the judgment on the man. This judgment is the most far-reaching because it affects the earth itself. “To Adam he said, ‘Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, “You must not eat of it,” cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.’"
There was meaningful work to do before the Fall, but now there would be painful toil and a perennial battle with thorns and thistles until life is over. These are not just natural consequences but God acting in judgment, changing the way things are.
Human Experience from This Point on Is Marked by Dignity, Depravity, and Difficulty
Human beings still have great dignity; we are made in the image of God. But human beings from this point forward also have had to struggle with radical depravity. Radical depravity does not mean that we are all as bad as we could be, but it does mean that all of us are affected by our sinfulness in every area of our lives and in every part of our being. Later, Paul reflects this reality when he writes that “there is no one righteous, not even one” (Romans 3:10). So we have difficulties in life with which we have to deal, and we have difficulty dealing well with life.
Every time we experience a struggle in life, we should realize this struggle is the result of the presence of sin in the world. Not every struggle is the result of some particular sin for which there is someone to blame A lot of suffering is the consequence of individual sins, but the whole struggle of life itself is due to the tear in the fabric of mankind's relationship to God and the judgment that came because of that sin. Because of that, the Bible says whenever we experience the struggle of life in a fallen world, we ought to be strengthened in our hatred of sin and unbelief. That's what caused our struggles to start with. Sin and unbelief are the cruel trick of an evil being, the Serpent. Both are deceptive and destructive. It has always been that way. It will always be that way.
God gave Moses the book of Genesis and its truths to strengthen God's people as they were about to go into the Promised Land, where they would face all kinds of temptations. He wanted to remind them of the nature and consequences of sin and judgment so that they would stand for God against those things.
Don't say, “Since I live in a broken and sinful world, I don't need to try so hard to be devout and God-centered.” God wants you to say, “I live in a broken and sinful world, and all the struggles I experience and see in it are because of sin and unbelief. Therefore I do not want to have anything to do with sin and unbelief. I want to stand for God and live a life of faith and devotion.” The presence of sin has turned our world into a battlefield in which the only salvation is to receive God's grace and stand with Him.
We need to stand with spiritual purity in life's struggles, and we need to stand strong. One of my favorite Scripture verses is a sort of all-purpose prescription for dealing with everything in life, but it only makes sense in light of the struggles life brings. It's Romans 12:12. My wife has it on her desk, and I see it just about every day. It says: “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” That's it. Romans 12:12. “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” That verse makes sense and gives strength because we are in a struggle. In this struggle God wants us to stand with Him and for Him.
In Spite of the Presence of Sin in Our World, God Will Create a People to Stand with Him
At first glance, Genesis 3:15 may seem hard to understand. But it is a verse that is full of significance. Notice that God says to the Serpent. “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers.” What God is saying in effect is, “Satan, you may think that you have won this woman and her offspring over to your side. But I'm not going to let it end that way. I am going to change her heart and set within her heart a deep-seated hostility to you.” “Enmity” is opposition. God is saying He is going create a people who will stand with Him against Satan.
God was announcing that from this point on there would be two streams of humanity.
There Will Be a Stream of Humanity That Is Referred to in the Bible as the Offspring of Satan
I know that is disturbing, but consider what Jesus teaches. If there is anyone who can shed light on this issue it is Jesus Christ. Listen carefully to what Christ says. In John 8:43-44, Jesus says: “Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” Jesus said to these men, “You belong to your father, the devil.”
That indeed is a strong statement, but numerous places in the Bible tell us that people who have bought into Satan's lie, people who will not trust in God's goodness or submit to His authority, are not only under the deception and oppression of Satan but are also in some real sense are his children, not God's.
Do you know what happens in the very next chapter of Genesis? Adam and Eve have children, two boys, Cain and Abel. Cain becomes jealous of Abel. And God comes and talks to him. There has been no violence. It's just that Cain's expression has changed; his emotions have hardened. But God hasn't written him off. God comes and counsels him, saying, “Cain, sin is just crouching at the door of your tent. It's deceptive, and it is dangerous. You must master it, or it will dominate you.” But Cain doesn't listen to God. He murders his brother..
Listen to how one of the last books in the Bible describes what happened with Cain and Abel. First John 3:9-12 says, “No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are.” There are the two streams of humanity, two families. Verse 10 continues: “Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother. This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother's were righteous.”
It's very popular today to talk about everybody being God's children. The Bible has a different approach. The Bible does say that every human being is God's creation and every person has dignity and value because of that. But it never says we are all God's own children. That's different. The Bible reserves that language for people who have experienced a spiritual rebirth. This may be hard for some to swallow, but it isn't hard to understand. There are two streams of humanity: those who through a God-given new birth belong to Him and those who do not. Those who do not belong to God are under the oppression and deception of the enemy of God, the tempter, the Serpent, Satan. This becomes one of the major themes of the whole Bible. It starts in Genesis 4, with Cain and Abel representing the two streams of humanity. It continues today.
But in the curse that God placed on the Serpent, there is a promise to mankind that God will not let everyone remain under the deception of evil.
God Will Give the Woman a Heart to Stand with Him in Life, and She Will Have Children Who Will Share Her Stand with God
The Bible says whenever God's Spirit works in the human heart to create a new birth and to bring about faith in Christ, that person who turns to Christ is transferred out of one stream of humanity and into the other. Colossians 1:13-14 puts it this way: “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
In Acts 26:18 God tells the apostle Paul that He is sending him to tell people about Christ and in doing so “to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.”
In his commentary on Genesis, our friend Bruce Waltke writes that from this point on in Genesis every character in the book will be either the seed of the woman that reproduces her spiritual propensity, or the seed of the Serpent that reproduces his unbelief. And, he adds, the unspoken question to the reader is, “Whose seed are you?” ( Bruce Waltke, Genesis, p. 94).
God is going to create a people who will stand with Him. Are you one of those people? How can you know if you are? By your faith in Christ and by an affection for God that expresses itself in hatred of evil. First John 3:9-10 says: “No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are.” Now the apostle John is not saying that true Christians never sin. In the first chapter of the same book he says we all do and that we're lying to ourselves if we deny that. But he is saying that a true Christian has received a new birth from God and that new birth produces a real change of direction in life. He is also saying that the reality of our lives says something important about whether or not we really are the children of God. Where and with whom do you stand in this world?
If you stand with God, you can stand with confidence throughout the ongoing struggle. Look at the promise He gives us as part of His judgment on the Serpent. Verse 15: “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel." What this tells us is that . . .
To Conquer the Presence of Sin in Our World, God Will Send a Savior to Crush the Serpent
To clearly understand the meaning of this promise for the whole story of the Bible and its implications for our lives, we have to look at it carefully. Verse 15 talks about enmity at three levels.
The first focus is narrow. God says He will place enmity between the Serpent and the woman.
Then, second, the focus broadens. God says: “And between her offspring [the Hebrew word is “seed,” and it is plural] and your offspring.” This is also plural. These are the two streams of humanity that we've spoken of.
But notice that at the end of the verse the focus narrows again. In a sudden shift of emphasis, God speaks about a single male individual. “He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel." The struggle between good and evil, God and Satan, which will go on through all human history will end when the seed of the woman becomes identified with a single champion who will represent that entire stream of humanity. This single saving hero will be the one who crushes the Serpent and secures the victory.
That's the plot to the story that you have stepped into.
The One Who Crushes the Head of the Serpent Is Jesus Christ
This is the reason Christ came into our world. First John 3:8 tells us, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work.” The one who crushes the head of the Serpent is Jesus Christ.
In Crushing the Head of the Serpent, the Savior Will Be Wounded
Verse 15: “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."
First Peter 2:24 says:”He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.” Christ delivers a mortal wound to the Serpent. He crushes his head. But He is not unscathed. He has to be wounded to win our victory for us.
This wounding is the suffering of Christ in our place on the cross. This was all powerfully pictured in the movie The Passion of the Christ. Jesus was beaten, mocked, crowned with thorns, nailed to the cross, and brutally murdered. But through His suffering He defeats the devil. In His death He pays the penalty for all of our sins. In the very moment of His wounding, He wins, because by His sacrifice He saves His people from their sins.
The Bible tells us the decisive battle between God and Satan has already been won in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We're living in this unique period in history in which the victory of God has been won, but the Lord is still calling people to Himself, giving time for them to come to Him, and waiting for that moment of His own choosing when He will say “enough” and will begin that cluster of events that will bring the struggle to an end and establish His kingdom forever.
In this present time He invites us to come to Him and become His people. We don't have to establish our goodness. In fact what we have to do is admit our sinfulness, acknowledge His lordship, and trust in Him as our Savior.
At the end of the story in Genesis 3, God sent Adam and Eve out of the Garden. This is how humanity was going to have to live until the final defeat of the Serpent.
They had experienced the Kingdom of God on earth:
• They had been God's people
• in God's place
• enjoying God's presence
• under the guidance of God's precepts
Has all of that been lost forever? No. What God shows us at the end of Genesis 3 is that though we cannot go back and recreate the innocence that was lost in the Garden of Eden, He will not forsake us either. He comes to us with amazing grace.
God will still have a people. Not everyone will belong to God. There will be two streams of humanity, but God in His sovereign and amazing grace will see to it that there is a people who will belong to Him.
God's place will simply be with his people. At this point in the history of the Bible, God's place is not a sheltered Paradise. God's place is with His people wherever they go outside the garden east of Eden.
The enjoyment of God's presence will still be the privilege of God's people. Something has been lost. Mankind lost the perfect enjoyment of His presence in the Paradise of his creation. But outside of Paradise, God's people will learn to enjoy His presence even in the midst of struggling with life's problems.
At the end of Genesis 3 there is a sadness in the story, but it's not all sadness. There is also great sweetness. God comes down and clothes Adam and Eve Himself. He covers their shame and cares for their needs. Verse 20 says, “Adam named his wife Eve.” Every scholar I consulted said this is an important and tremendous expression of faith in God, because Eve means “life.”
So things will be different, and the shape of God's kingdom will change, but God's kingdom will continue, with God's people, in God's place, enjoying God's presence.
God will still offer His people the guidance of His precepts. At this early point in the story His precepts were simply these: Go into the world to face problems with a commitment to stand with God in the struggle and draw strength for the struggle from faith in the promise of a Savior who will crush the Serpent's head.
We stand at the other end of history from Adam and Eve. And yet, we still have a lot in common with them. The most important thing we have in common is this: The presence of sin has turned our world into a battlefield in which our only salvation is to receive God's grace and stand with Him.