Genesis 3:14–24
14 The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. 15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”
16 To the woman He said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.”
17 And to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
20 The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. 21 And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. 22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever,” 23 therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden He placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
Do you ever feel as though life is a battlefield? Sometimes life is just great, and we really do need to enjoy those times, because as we all know, the good days don’t seem to last long enough.
The Bible tells us something about the inevitability of struggles in this present world and how we are able to face them with strength and hope.
In John 16:33 Jesus tells us that we will have troubles in this life.
It never ceases to amaze me that there are people who will argue that the Bible is no longer relevant in the modern world, because it is through the words of Scripture that we are able to understand what is going on in our world, what we need to do because of it, and where our true hope is found in it.
Of course, there will be many things that we simply cannot find answers to, but the truth is that in the Bible, we have a lot of answers to a lot of questions.
Hebrews 4:12 says, “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”
Those words are as valid today as they were when they were written nearly two thousand years ago.
So let’s look at the first battle found in the Bible, and you will see that there is so much we can learn from Genesis 3 on how to face the battlefield of life.
We need to be prepared to face life’s struggles, because whether we like it or not, they’re real and we’re involved.
Today we’re going to look at the source of all our struggles, and the hope that we have in Jesus as we face up to the inevitable hard times.
Adam and Eve had turned away from God. They didn’t trust His goodness or obey Him, and because of this they immediately experienced spiritual death. When God arrived in the garden that day He came with judgment, but we must never forget that He also came with grace.
Banishing Adam and Eve from the garden was judgment, but in that judgment, there was grace. God not only clothed them - a picture of us being clothed in the righteousness of Jesus - but He removed them from the garden, preventing them from having access to the tree of life.
Had Adam and Eve eaten from the tree of life as well, they would have lived forever, but in their sinful state.
What that means for us is that physical death would be avoided, but the greed, the heartache, the aches and the pains of this sinful world would never end.
We’ve all heard the saying “hell on earth.” By God’s grace, we will never experience hell on earth, although some might dispute that. True hell on earth would be to live with all of the sin, suffering, hurt and tragedies with no end in sight. But God, because of His grace, prevented access to the tree of life in our fallen state.
That is why for the Christian, physical death is a blessing. It is the ultimate healing.
We have all experienced the pain and anguish of losing those we love. Others will know that pain when each of us dies, but as Christians we are able to see death “from the other side” if you like. Psalm 116:15 says, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.”
The Bible teaches that something far better awaits us, but until such time as we enter the glory of God for all eternity, the consequences of the Fall still affect us during our lives on Earth.
As Adam’s life partner, Eve’s primary role was to be the nurturer and carer in the family. That role did not change, but the judgment as a result of their sin would now affect even her most important and intimate relationships. Parenting is such a joy, but as we well know, it can also be full of hurt and heartache.
The other important relationship which has been affected by sin is marriage. Because of the way that sin has infiltrated and twisted God’s design for us, marriage, instead of being a perfect partnership, has been tainted. As with parenting, marriage can be full of joys and blessings, but it can also be the source of some tremendous suffering and heartache.
Our God-given urge to work and be productive was also affected by the Fall. Adam was told in verses 17 and 18, “Cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.”
For so many of us, work is a curse.
What we sometimes miss though, is that work was given to us before the Fall, so work in itself was never meant to be a curse.
In other words, work is meant to be a blessing as we co-labour with God, while we utilise our gifts and talents for His glory. We were created to work, and if you think about it, one of the most fulfilling things in life is a career or job where you just love what you do. But even a so-called dream job has its struggles. No-one can honestly say that every morning they bounce out of bed and just can’t wait to get to the office!
Because of our sin, work has become cursed and can be a struggle.
Work has become something we do just to make it to Friday afternoon or to payday, but that was never part of God’s original plan.
So – be prepared for life’s struggles, because they are a reality.
Marriage, family, and our careers. The three most important aspects of our lives were directly affected and tainted the moment sin came into the world. Every time we have a disagreement with our spouse, every time one of our children disappoints us, and every time we’re annoyed by a grumpy boss or a work colleague. Every single struggle, big or small – we can trace the root cause all the way back to what happened in Genesis chapter 3.
However, we are not alone, because as we have already seen, God has never stopped loving us, and His grace has never changed either.
There is always hope.
Verse 15 is significant, because it reminds us that God will never completely abandon us.
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring.”
There are two offsprings spoken about here.
“Enmity” is opposition. God is saying that He is going create a people who will stand with Him against Satan. In effect, He was announcing that from this point on there would be two streams of humanity.
The first one is the offspring of Satan.
I know this sounds disturbing, and it should. This is how Jesus puts it in John 8:43-45 – “Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.”
Those who do not yield to the Word of Christ are ultimately the offspring of Satan.
The second stream of humanity is the offspring of God’s promise.
Paul wrote in Colossians 1:13–14, “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
It takes a rebirth from above in order for us to be brought into the Kingdom of God. Jesus said it best to Nicodemus in John 3:3-6. “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again. No one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, (that’s the first sin-infected stream, the first offspring we are born into), but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.” (The second offspring, born from above and cleansed by the blood of Jesus.)
This is the gift of salvation that God has so graciously given us. He is the one who has sent a Saviour to crush Satan and has made it possible for us to be children of God once more, rather than children of the devil.
“He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”
Not only would there be enmity or hostility in a broad sense, but God speaks specifically about a single male individual: “He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”
The one who will crush the head of the serpent is Jesus Christ.
However, there was an incredible price that Jesus paid for this.
When verse 15 says that Satan will bruise His heel, God was talking about the suffering that Jesus was to endure on the cross.
Genesis 3 gives us a clear picture of the coming struggle between the people of Satan and the people of God, but despite being wounded, despite His heel being struck, the Saviour will win the battle.
The Bible tells us the decisive battle between God and Satan has already been won in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Total and complete victory will come when Jesus returns for the second offspring - His bride, the Church, and Satan will be cast into hell forever.
That’s the hope and the promise we have in Jesus.
Until such time, every struggle in this life can be traced back to that day when we chose to ignore God.
Paul says in Ephesians 6:12, “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
But as Jesus said in John 16:33, “Take heart! I have overcome the world.”
So again, do you ever feel as though life is a battlefield? Of course, the answer is yes. We all struggle and suffer at times. That is the curse which has its roots in the Garden of Eden.
But we also have the promise of the Saviour, the one who bought us back through His blood on the Cross of Calvary.
Jesus came to destroy the works of Satan and to free us from the punishment for our sins. We are reluctant participants in the spiritual battle that has been going on since Adam and Eve’s days. But we are participants nonetheless.
We stand at the other end of history from Adam and Eve.
Life in the 21st century is so different to the life our first parents experienced, and yet we still have so much 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 hope of victory and salvation is to receive God’s grace through Jesus Christ.
14 The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. 15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”
16 To the woman He said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.”
17 And to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
20 The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. 21 And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. 22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever,” 23 therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden He placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
Do you ever feel as though life is a battlefield? Sometimes life is just great, and we really do need to enjoy those times, because as we all know, the good days don’t seem to last long enough.
The Bible tells us something about the inevitability of struggles in this present world and how we are able to face them with strength and hope.
In John 16:33 Jesus tells us that we will have troubles in this life.
It never ceases to amaze me that there are people who will argue that the Bible is no longer relevant in the modern world, because it is through the words of Scripture that we are able to understand what is going on in our world, what we need to do because of it, and where our true hope is found in it.
Of course, there will be many things that we simply cannot find answers to, but the truth is that in the Bible, we have a lot of answers to a lot of questions.
Hebrews 4:12 says, “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”
Those words are as valid today as they were when they were written nearly two thousand years ago.
So let’s look at the first battle found in the Bible, and you will see that there is so much we can learn from Genesis 3 on how to face the battlefield of life.
We need to be prepared to face life’s struggles, because whether we like it or not, they’re real and we’re involved.
Today we’re going to look at the source of all our struggles, and the hope that we have in Jesus as we face up to the inevitable hard times.
Adam and Eve had turned away from God. They didn’t trust His goodness or obey Him, and because of this they immediately experienced spiritual death. When God arrived in the garden that day He came with judgment, but we must never forget that He also came with grace.
Banishing Adam and Eve from the garden was judgment, but in that judgment, there was grace. God not only clothed them - a picture of us being clothed in the righteousness of Jesus - but He removed them from the garden, preventing them from having access to the tree of life.
Had Adam and Eve eaten from the tree of life as well, they would have lived forever, but in their sinful state.
What that means for us is that physical death would be avoided, but the greed, the heartache, the aches and the pains of this sinful world would never end.
We’ve all heard the saying “hell on earth.” By God’s grace, we will never experience hell on earth, although some might dispute that. True hell on earth would be to live with all of the sin, suffering, hurt and tragedies with no end in sight. But God, because of His grace, prevented access to the tree of life in our fallen state.
That is why for the Christian, physical death is a blessing. It is the ultimate healing.
We have all experienced the pain and anguish of losing those we love. Others will know that pain when each of us dies, but as Christians we are able to see death “from the other side” if you like. Psalm 116:15 says, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.”
The Bible teaches that something far better awaits us, but until such time as we enter the glory of God for all eternity, the consequences of the Fall still affect us during our lives on Earth.
As Adam’s life partner, Eve’s primary role was to be the nurturer and carer in the family. That role did not change, but the judgment as a result of their sin would now affect even her most important and intimate relationships. Parenting is such a joy, but as we well know, it can also be full of hurt and heartache.
The other important relationship which has been affected by sin is marriage. Because of the way that sin has infiltrated and twisted God’s design for us, marriage, instead of being a perfect partnership, has been tainted. As with parenting, marriage can be full of joys and blessings, but it can also be the source of some tremendous suffering and heartache.
Our God-given urge to work and be productive was also affected by the Fall. Adam was told in verses 17 and 18, “Cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.”
For so many of us, work is a curse.
What we sometimes miss though, is that work was given to us before the Fall, so work in itself was never meant to be a curse.
In other words, work is meant to be a blessing as we co-labour with God, while we utilise our gifts and talents for His glory. We were created to work, and if you think about it, one of the most fulfilling things in life is a career or job where you just love what you do. But even a so-called dream job has its struggles. No-one can honestly say that every morning they bounce out of bed and just can’t wait to get to the office!
Because of our sin, work has become cursed and can be a struggle.
Work has become something we do just to make it to Friday afternoon or to payday, but that was never part of God’s original plan.
So – be prepared for life’s struggles, because they are a reality.
Marriage, family, and our careers. The three most important aspects of our lives were directly affected and tainted the moment sin came into the world. Every time we have a disagreement with our spouse, every time one of our children disappoints us, and every time we’re annoyed by a grumpy boss or a work colleague. Every single struggle, big or small – we can trace the root cause all the way back to what happened in Genesis chapter 3.
However, we are not alone, because as we have already seen, God has never stopped loving us, and His grace has never changed either.
There is always hope.
Verse 15 is significant, because it reminds us that God will never completely abandon us.
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring.”
There are two offsprings spoken about here.
“Enmity” is opposition. God is saying that He is going create a people who will stand with Him against Satan. In effect, He was announcing that from this point on there would be two streams of humanity.
The first one is the offspring of Satan.
I know this sounds disturbing, and it should. This is how Jesus puts it in John 8:43-45 – “Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.”
Those who do not yield to the Word of Christ are ultimately the offspring of Satan.
The second stream of humanity is the offspring of God’s promise.
Paul wrote in Colossians 1:13–14, “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
It takes a rebirth from above in order for us to be brought into the Kingdom of God. Jesus said it best to Nicodemus in John 3:3-6. “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again. No one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, (that’s the first sin-infected stream, the first offspring we are born into), but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.” (The second offspring, born from above and cleansed by the blood of Jesus.)
This is the gift of salvation that God has so graciously given us. He is the one who has sent a Saviour to crush Satan and has made it possible for us to be children of God once more, rather than children of the devil.
“He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”
Not only would there be enmity or hostility in a broad sense, but God speaks specifically about a single male individual: “He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”
The one who will crush the head of the serpent is Jesus Christ.
However, there was an incredible price that Jesus paid for this.
When verse 15 says that Satan will bruise His heel, God was talking about the suffering that Jesus was to endure on the cross.
Genesis 3 gives us a clear picture of the coming struggle between the people of Satan and the people of God, but despite being wounded, despite His heel being struck, the Saviour will win the battle.
The Bible tells us the decisive battle between God and Satan has already been won in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Total and complete victory will come when Jesus returns for the second offspring - His bride, the Church, and Satan will be cast into hell forever.
That’s the hope and the promise we have in Jesus.
Until such time, every struggle in this life can be traced back to that day when we chose to ignore God.
Paul says in Ephesians 6:12, “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
But as Jesus said in John 16:33, “Take heart! I have overcome the world.”
So again, do you ever feel as though life is a battlefield? Of course, the answer is yes. We all struggle and suffer at times. That is the curse which has its roots in the Garden of Eden.
But we also have the promise of the Saviour, the one who bought us back through His blood on the Cross of Calvary.
Jesus came to destroy the works of Satan and to free us from the punishment for our sins. We are reluctant participants in the spiritual battle that has been going on since Adam and Eve’s days. But we are participants nonetheless.
We stand at the other end of history from Adam and Eve.
Life in the 21st century is so different to the life our first parents experienced, and yet we still have so much 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 hope of victory and salvation is to receive God’s grace through Jesus Christ.