A Curse and a Promise
Osby Weaver
Canoga Park, California
After Satan had employed the subtle serpent in his deception of mother Eve and induced her to eat of the forbidden fruit in disobedience to God, she in turn influenced her husband Adam to eat, then God pronounced a curse upon the trio. But couched within the curse was an exceeding precious promise that means much to us today, because it has to do with our eternal destiny. God said to the serpent: "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel" (Genesis 3:15).
This is a significant picture. It portrays one stamping the head of a snake with such force that the heel is bruised. Here in the very beginning, the battle lines were drawn between the forces of righteousness and the forces of evil with righteousness being victorious but carrying its battle scars and bruised heels.
It was the "seed of woman" untouched by man that was to bruise the serpent's head. This "seed" was spoken of as "he" --masculine gender. Only one man has ever lived that met this qualification. The word of God that was made flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14) with an earthly mother but not an earthly father (Matthew 1:20} is that "seed."
"Adam was not beguiled, but the woman being beguiled hath fallen into transgression: but she shall be saved through her childbearing..." (I Timothy 2:14, 15). Not that women generally would be given some special advantage because they bore children, but that through woman (Eve) sin entered the world and by one woman (Mary) a Savior was born that would enable mankind to be loosed from the bondage of sin. So, "when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman" (Galatians 4:4) to "bruise the serpent's head."
The foot on the head or neck has always been symbolic of complete victory over an adversary. This is demonstrated when Joshua has his chief captains to put their feet upon the necks of the vanquished kings (Joshua 10:24). "To this end was the Son of God manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil" (1 John 3:8}. The word "destroy" in this passage is from a Greek word which means "to loose, dissolve, sever, to break." Christ came to break the hold which Satan exercised over humanity. He did this by providing us a plan by which to be forgiven of our sins through obedience to his will. Satan can no longer hold one against that one's will. Whoever serves the devil today does so as a willing servant. He does not have to do it.
TRUTH MAGAZINE XIV; 41, p. 2
August 27, 1970
