Genesis 3:15–21

Believers have long called it a "promise," but Scripture never does. God did reveal endless blessing for man here, but that is not quite a promise. He spoke the words to the serpent. If they promised anything to anyone, it was to the woman's Seed, the last Adam — not to the first Adam, whom God had just sentenced along with Eve.

The question here is really between the serpent and the second Man, not the first. This is not a promise to Adam and Eve from God, nor a hope that their children will improve. God passes judgment on the enemy. In the same breath He reveals the Saviour — the child of the very woman who had drawn the man into ruin at the devil's hand. The woman's Seed will bruise the serpent's head, but He Himself is bruised first. What grace, yet what righteousness! What humiliation, yet what victory!

Everywhere in creation, from man downward, the seed belongs to the male and not the female. So the seed of the woman is not according to nature as we know it. It stands outside what God had just made, and it points forward to a new creation. The Lord Jesus was born of a virgin, and here we have the first hint of that fact, which is a vital one. No taint of the fall attached to Him. He was not just innocent, as Adam was at the start — He was holy.

This is not a repair of the place Adam lost. It is a new and mysterious beginning. In it God's power takes up the weakness and instability of the creature — seen most clearly in the woman — to display His grace. The victory over the enemy costs something. The Conqueror bruises the serpent's head, but His own heel is bruised.

A double meaning runs through this verse, one literal and one deeper. Everyone knows that people hate snakes more than any other creature. So the sentence is literal. In the deeper sense, the seed of the woman is Christ. The words "between your seed and her seed" then cover two sides. On one side are all who belong to Christ. On the other are the children of the devil, whether wicked spirits or wicked men. The hostility would not come from the children of God toward others. It would come from the wicked toward the righteous. Cain murdering Abel showed this at once.

This overwhelming victory would also cost the Victor some suffering. During the conflict the serpent would bruise His heel. In walking, the heel is the first part of the foot to touch the ground. The picture is striking. The Victor suffered when He first touched the earth in His holy Manhood. God made Him a little lower than the angels so that He could suffer death — the death that Satan's cunning brought about.

Christ suffered at the cross, and this Scripture came true there. It had announced what would happen to Christ, the woman's Seed. It was also a partial fulfilment of what He would do to Satan. "Through death" He destroyed "the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil." The crushing of the serpent's head will be complete when the Lord casts the devil into the lake of fire.

The church is joined to Christ. It will then be with Him who, as the woman's seed, will bruise the serpent's head. But the power is in Christ, not in the church.

True and righteous indeed are His judgments! Where she had sinned, there she was punished. Her lust had conceived and brought forth sin. So her sorrow and her conception were to be greatly multiplied, and she was to bring forth children in sorrow. She had forgotten her place as Adam's "helper." Taking the lead, she misled him into that terrible first sin of disobedience against God.

As with the serpent, Jehovah Elohim speaks to the woman of the present governmental effects of her sin. Woman, more than any other female, was to have sorrow multiplied in pregnancy and in giving birth. Woman, not man, is the one who suffers this sorrow again and again. It was righteous, however sad. She first listened to the enemy, despising God and His word; then she drew her husband after her into the ditch. From now on she was to be subject. Like a younger brother to an elder, her desire was to be to her husband, and he was to rule over her. The fall would make this hard. How different the original position of companionship! Sin made God a judge: before it, He simply blessed.

But this sorrow underlines that every child is born with a sinful nature. David says in Psalm 51:5, "I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." Her desire would be to her husband, and he would rule over her. This is the normal condition of the marriage relationship now. Many people have tried, and still try, to change this. The result is a state of things that is not normal, and it only causes more confusion and dissatisfaction everywhere… When people ignore God's word, no wonder the troubles of the world multiply. People cannot sidestep the consequences of sin so easily as they think.

Genesis 3:16 is explicit in naming two results which were to follow for the woman as a consequence of her sin. The second of those two results is alluded to in the verses we have been considering, while the first result is alluded to in verse 15 of our chapter, and in connection with that a gracious proviso is attached, no mention of which is found in Genesis 3.

Part of the curse pronounced on the woman at the fall was, "Your desire shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you." Christianity confirms this order, but so remodels it that all trace of the curse disappears. When a believer submits to the Lord, or the Church to Christ, that is no curse and no bondage. These are now the patterns for a wife's submission… How beautiful to see a human relationship — one that takes part of its character from the fall — turned into a picture of the mystery in which God displays His "manifold wisdom."

In her sorrow and pains the woman is always reminded of her sin. She is also reminded of Him who will deliver her from the results of her evil, through a deeper sorrow and pain. So from the very beginning, the desire for the promised Deliverer is planted in her heart.

Self-will had brought forth its full harvest of sin and sorrow. To the woman He says, "I will surely multiply your pain." But now, to the woman, "Woman, why are you weeping?" Sorrow has taken the place of joy in this world, because self-will came in, and death followed it. But now the old things have passed away… death has given place to life, and sorrow to joy.

Was Adam's guilt lessened by his wife's sin? Far from it! He offers his wife as an excuse: "the woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate." God declares that very thing to be the reason for Adam's judgment: "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife… cursed is the ground because of you" [not because of her].

Man was not cursed. The curse fell on the serpent and on the ground. In sorrow man was to eat of the fruit of the ground all the days of his life, and in sorrow the woman was to bring forth children (Gen. 3:17). After the flood, the Lord smelled a sweet aroma from Noah's sacrifice. He said in His heart, "I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth" (Gen. 8:21).

Scripture says nothing here about his soul and spirit. The consequences in view belong to God's government of this life, not to eternity. Men scheme to get rid of the sweat and toil, and they may think they are going to achieve it. But already we have heard the slogan, "We work or we want." To that we may add, "We sweat or we starve." We can no more dodge that part of the curse than we can escape death.

That there was no "work" before his fall is not stated. Man placed in the garden "to work it and keep it" shows it was not God's will that His creature should be idle. But there was no "toil" or "sorrow" connected with such occupation. Now thorns and thistles were to appear, and man was to eat bread by the sweat of his face… Labour here is good for all, and there is profit in it. Out of evil God can and does bring good.

In a certain sense mercy mingles with these consequences too, as usually happens, I think, in God's government. Man in his present state is just that much less happy when he does not know what it is to work in a world like this. It is not only what he is doomed to, but the wisely ordered place for fallen man here below. There is no one more miserable than the man who has no object before him.

The world belonged to Him, for He made it… but it was under the curse. Man's disobedience had brought the curse upon it, and thorns were the product and lasting evidence of the curse. He had come to redeem the world, to remove the curse and bring in the blessing, and to do this He must bear the curse… the original curse fell upon Him, and the sign of this was the crown that He wore.

Creation was made subject to emptiness, not by its own choice, but because of man when he fell. It groans and waits for the day when it will be set free from its bondage to decay, into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. We read in Genesis 3, "Cursed is the ground because of you… thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you." But of the day of its renewal: "instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress, instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle."

Because of the man the ground is cursed. His higher place brings wider and more serious results. He too must face sorrow here below all his days. Thorns and thistles fight against the food he needs and looks for. Hard work must be his lot if he is to eat bread. The plants of the field were given to him just as they were given to the animals under him — to the man who had lost, through rebellion, the beautiful and rich garden which the LORD God had planted.

Scripture plainly states that the ground was cursed because of Adam's sin. It does not say that there was no "work" before his fall. Man placed in the garden "to work it and keep it" shows that it was not God's will that His creature should be idle. But there was no "toil" or "sorrow" connected with such occupation. Now thorns and thistles were to appear, and man would eat his bread by the sweat of his face.

Since Adam's fall, the curse of God rests on the earth. It brings forth "thorns and thistles." They bear witness to man's fallen, ruined state, not to God's glory.

What should we do without the thorns and thistles which grow out of the ground cursed for man's sake? What should we do without the need of the sweat of the brow? What, without the work that death itself does? Surely a blessing is in this curse; it is an evil which is good; the discipline of the Father of spirits for our profit.

Cain offered to God what cost him more. He was not a completely irreligious man. He offered to God, he worshipped God, and God rejected him completely. He was not an unbeliever or an irreligious man. He was a worshipper — and a rejected worshipper. His worship was founded on unbelief. A sinner, one out of paradise, he thought to go to God as though nothing had happened! And what did he bring? The very thing that had the stamp of the curse upon it.

The world belonged to Him, for He made it. As the eternal Son He was the Heir to it. But the world was under the curse. Man's disobedience had brought that curse upon it, and thorns were the product and lasting evidence of it. He had come to redeem the world, to remove the curse and bring in the blessing. To do this He must bear the curse… The original curse fell upon Him, and the crown He wore was the sign of it.

By his sin, man has not only brought ruin on himself. He has spoiled his home and dragged down all the creatures that depend on him. Thorns and thistles are marks of man's sin… The whole of this lower creation either suffers or rejoices with its head. This is its time of suffering. "For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now" (Rom. 8:22).

Then Adam came up for judgment, and the governmental effects of his sin are more clearly seen. He had listened to the voice of his wife instead of listening to what God had said, and now he must face the fruits of it. God cursed the ground because of him. He must earn his living from it with sweat and sorrow until death overtakes him, when his body should return to the dust out of which it was taken. Men scheme to get rid of the sweat and toil, and they may think they will manage it. But we have already heard the slogan, "We work or we want." To that we may add, "We sweat or we starve." We can no more dodge that part of the curse than we can escape death.

It is not merely "your brow," as people usually misquote it. The "face" gives a larger and more graphic picture of the fact.

Nothing is clearer than that Adam was not simply a lower organism raised to a higher form, but the subject of special creating power. Scripture states one of the sad results of his fall: his body must return to the dust of the ground he came from. He was therefore a true creation, and moreover created for life, and not for death; since death came in by sin.

How clearly the body only is in view here, and the end of life on the earth! Yet chapter 2 carefully showed where man's soul came from: God breathed it into him, unlike every other creature on earth. … The theme here is God's present government, not hades or the lake of fire. … The body alone returns to dust. The soul did not come out of dust, but, as we are told elsewhere, the spirit returns to God who gave it. All the notice taken of man here is to humble the one who did not look up to God, nor obey Him: sorrow and toil, death and dust.

The sentence on Adam was not a final sentence, but one in which the mercy is evident amid all the severity of righteous judgment. Without the ministry of death, sad as the history of the world has been, it would have been much sadder… The sentence passed on Adam after his sin is clear enough, and no one can doubt what it means. Of the second death it may be, and is, a type, and a warning: but no more.

When our first parents fell, we read of no "curse" pronounced on them personally, though we do read that God cursed the ground because of them. The very penalties He pronounced on them were morally necessary, and had mercy in them. For example, Adam was condemned to toil, and what would men be, what would the world be, without such a necessity?

Grace forgives; but the wheels of government roll on in all their terrible majesty. Adam was perfectly forgiven, but his sin produced its own results. The guilt of his conscience was removed, but not the sweat of his brow. He went out pardoned and clothed; but it was into the middle of thorns and thistles that he went.

The world belonged to Him, for He made it. But it was under the curse. Man's disobedience had brought that curse on it, and thorns were the product and lasting evidence of it. He had come to redeem the world, to remove the curse and bring in the blessing, and to do this He must bear the curse. The original curse fell on Him, and the sign of this was the crown He wore.

The Lord had to go into the grave and enter into the full extent of God's judgment on man. It is important to keep the grave in mind as part of the sufferings Christ bore in our place under the judgment of God.

In chapter 2 the man gave his wife a name from himself. He was Ish; her he called Isshah. But here sin had brought in disorder and ruin: our first parents were fallen. Nothing, however, is too far gone for grace. God's grace revealed enough even from the fall to instruct and comfort faith. So it was with Adam now. He did not look at the things he could see, temporary as they are. He looked at the unseen and lasting intervention of the woman's Seed.

A name given by Adam to his wife after they had fallen, and after God had spoken of "her seed," and had told her that in sorrow she would bring forth children. The Hebrew name is chavvah, which means "life," Adam adding that she was "the mother of all living."

There is evidence that Adam and his wife both welcomed the testimony of God into their hearts. Why else should Adam call his wife's name Eve "because she was the mother of all living," when in fact she was not the mother of anybody? Speaking of "life," at the very moment of his expulsion — what was this but faith?

He calls her not Death but Life, or Living! The divine assurance that the woman's Seed should bruise the serpent's head — can we doubt it? — led him to the new name. It was faith, founded on the word he had heard; faith real, if not explicit. He confessed what no created eye had yet seen. It rested only on the divine word: that she was "mother of all living." Mother of all dying would have been the natural sentiment.

So Adam, in his faith, talked only of life, though surrounded by death. He himself had brought that death in, and it stood as a witness against him... In the very place of judgment — from among the trees of the garden, where conscience had driven him — his ear had caught the sound of the sweet gospel. It spoke not of mercy only, but of propitiation and victory. And out he comes talking of life. All life was in the promised Kinsman-Redeemer.

How beautiful that faith can rise into the thoughts of God like this and see life given to the very one through whom death had come in! She is the "mother of all living" — not only of the entire human race, but especially of Him who was "born of woman." He is the true Seed of the woman. He has life in Himself, and He gives life to everyone who believes on Him.

Adam's faith bows to the divine word. He names the woman — the one through whom death had entered — Havvah (Eve), or "life." Then we read, "the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them." So the shame and the fact of their nakedness were together put away. It would now have been unbelief for Adam to say, as with his fig-leaf apron he still had to say, that he was naked. God's own hand had clothed him.

I consider that Eve is called "living" there as being Adam's faith, though you may not lay it down as a dogma. It is remarkable, coming just after the curse and after the judgment on Satan too. After death has come in, she is called the mother of all living, not of the dying. But it was no purpose of God to tell us whether Adam was saved or not.

They had fallen. They knew good and evil, and they knew they were naked. They are under the shame of sin. Then we learn how powerless all human means are to hide sin. Then they hear the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. At that moment all the fig leaves are nothing. The leaves covered them from one another. But the moment God was there, they say that they are naked. Afterwards God made them coats of skins; it was a very different thing when God did it.

God had promised that a Deliverer would come and break the power of the enemy. To that promise God added an act, and the act shed light on how the deliverance would come. The Lord God covered Adam and his wife with coats of skins. Now skins are not a plant product but an animal one. They can clothe a man only after the animal that produced them has died. Here then we find the first revelation that man can only stand clothed before God on the basis of death. He must admit that another has taken his place and borne the death sentence that justly rests on him.

When our first parents fell, their conscience woke up to their fallen state. So they tried to cover themselves with fig-leaf aprons. They tried at-one-ment, but it did not succeed. How did the Lord God cover them? He had passed the sentence of death on them for their sin. Death ALONE then could meet their case. Here is a moving thought. The first death after the fall was not the death of the sinner who deserved it. It was the death of the sacrifice that provided the covering.

The word atonement, which occurs so often in the Old Testament, means in the original Hebrew to cover. These coats of skins covered our first parents. How did they get these skins? It must have been by the sacrifice of innocent animals. It must have been that blood was shed. Centuries roll by, and David throws fuller light on the subject. "Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered" (Psalm 32:1)... So atonement exists to bring forgiveness of sins and to cover wrongdoing — to put it out of God's sight for ever.

Eve is named the mother of all living in a world where death had come in. And the Lord God clothes them with coats of skins before they are driven out of Paradise. Grace met their need by God's act, before judgment drove them out from natural blessings they had forfeited — blessings they could no longer enjoy in the same way.

But what did God do for those poor naked sinners? He made coats of skin and clothed them. The coats were obtained by death. God has found us righteousness through the death of Christ... It is all God's work — He made the coats of skin, He clothed them. I had nothing to do with it, just as Adam and Eve had nothing to do with the coats of skin. They made the aprons of fig-leaves; God made the coats of skins. He had no hand in their work; they had no hand in His. Had I had a finger in the work of God I should never have had peace; I should always have been wondering whether I had done my part right.

We have here, in figure, the great doctrine of divine righteousness set out. God provided the robe, and it covered them because He provided it. Man made the apron, and it failed because man made it... When Adam stood clothed in the coat of skin he could not say, "I was naked," nor had he any reason to hide himself. To know that the dress I wear, and in which I appear before God, is of His own providing, must set my heart at perfect rest.

As soon as they discovered that they were not fit for the presence of God, He made coats of skin and covered them. The skin meant, of course, that the animal's life had to be given up. There is the gospel at Eden's door. It pointed on, ever clearer and clearer, to the Lamb of God. He gave up His life so that we could have a perfect covering for the shame of our nakedness.