The Devil Made Me Do It!

Yet, God calls us to follow him, without excuse. And when we fail, he doesn’t condemn us; he calls out lovingly, “Where are you? Why are you hiding from me?” And he calls us to be accountable for our sin, to bring it to him.

In the Garden story, as bad as the punishments got, if you read the rest of the story, God only cursed the serpent and the ground. The man still would make a living, although weeds would make it hard. The woman still would be blessed through childbirth, although it would be painful. (They don’t call it “labor” for nothing!) And the two still would have each other, although some control issues would enter the relationship: welcome to marriage after the fall!

Yet, there is so much grace here, so much forgiveness. God had told them, “If you eat of this fruit, you will surely die.” But they didn’t die! They began to age; but they had many more years ahead of them. If you read the rest of the chapter, even though God evicted them from the Garden, he still provided for them with animal skins: the first time in the Bible we see an innocent die to cover the sins of the guilty. And all of this happened even though Adam and Eve didn’t bring their sin to God. How much quicker the process when we become quick confessors and quick repenters. And when we do, we move to step 3, which is to ....

3. Receive God’s forgiveness (v. 15b)

Right here in the third chapter of the Bible we see God’s forgiveness plan for the entire human race. It is wrapped up in verse 15 where God says, “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.”

This little verse is nicknamed the “Protevangelium,” which means the “first gospel,” because it promises a Savior, a descendent of Eve who will deal the serpent a death blow. If someone strikes your heal, it will slow you down; but if someone crushes your head, you’re dead!

Note the word “offspring;” some English Bibles translate it as “seed.” It’s singular. The verse is talking about one specific member of Eve’s family tree. “HE will crush your head.” Although there will be enmity between women and serpents in general (my wife can vouch for that), there will be one particular descendent who will strike a death blow, not on the serpent family, but on this one serpent in particular: “He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”

So who or what is this serpent in Genesis 3? The Apostle Paul had an opinion. In Romans 16:20 he writes, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.” Who? Satan, that great deceiver, that fallen angel, the head worship leader in heaven who thought he was better than God. Listen to what the Apostle John foresaw, in Revelation 12:9: “The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.”

The New Testament writers had no doubt who the serpent in the garden was. And they had no doubt who this descendent of Eve’s was. This “God of peace,” as Paul described him is Christ our Lord, the Son of God, descendant of David, born a human by the Virgin Mary, tracing his lineage all the way back to ... Adam and Eve! He is our source of forgiveness and our way to eternal life. Let us pray: