When we speak of God becoming incarnate as the man Jesus Christ, it naturally brings the question- “Why?” Why did God have to become man? Of course we know that He came to obey the law perfectly as our representative, offer himself as the perfect sacrifice, and be raised again to give us eternal life with Him. This is a wonderful, almost incomprehensible truth. Yet there is more.
The very first promise of salvation is found in Genesis, as God pronounces judgment for the fall.
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.
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.”(Genesis 3:14-15)
God deals with Satan, and his role in tempting Eve in the garden before he deals with Adam and Eve. When God created the living creatures, he called them good, and blessed them to multiply and fill the earth. Now he reverses this blessing to a curse for the serpent. Crawling on his belly and eating dust are showing humiliation. Then God says he will act to put enmity between Satan and the woman. Webster’s 1828 Dictionary defines enmity this way:
EN’MITY, n.
1. The quality of being an enemy; the opposite of friendship; ill will; hatred; unfriendly dispositions; malevolence. It expresses more than aversion and less than malice, and differs from displeasure in denoting a fixed or rooted hatred, whereas displeasure is more transient.
I will put enmity between thee and the woman. Gen.3.
The carnal mind is enmity against God.Rom. 8.
2. A state of opposition.
The friendship of the world is enmity with God. James 4.
Did you ever wonder why Eve talked to the serpent in the garden in the first place? I am a biologist, and I find snakes fascinating, but when I found one in my living room when we lived in Texas, I freely admit that my first thought was not, “how amazing this creature is,” but rather “Ahh, get it away from my children and out of my house before it hurts someone!” But in the garden, before the fall, all creatures that God made were good. There was no fear or distrust in any of them. In the post fall world, God ordained the fixed and rooted hatred. And this is more than just an innate fear of snakes- it is an affection for God himself over the lies and promises of Satan.
Then come the words that are the first mention of Christ’s work on our behalf- “he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.” This verse is known as the proto-evangelium, or the first gospel. Notice the promise does not say God will forgive Adam’s sin, but that He will overcome Satan. This is why the writer of Hebrews tells us “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.(Hebrews 2:14-15).
Satan is defined here as the one who has the power of death. This is not to say he could take our life from us against the will of God. It rather looks to his role as accuser. Satan knows God’s law and his holiness and righteousness. He knows our sin and he reminds God that He has declared that “the wages of sin is death,”(Romans 6:23a), meaning that to remain just, God must punish sin with death. Therefore, if we die without being joined to Christ, our sin would have to be punished by eternal punishment as God pronounced. But Jesus, by taking on our humanity, living a life that perfectly kept God’s law, dying and paying the death penalty, and rising again, took away Satan’s power to call God out on his demand for righteousness. Jesus Christ was righteous, and he paid the penalty for our sin in full.
The fear of death is broken by Christ. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1) That is why the conclusion of Romans 6:23 starts with the beautiful conjunction “but”. “The wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23) This is the bruising of Satan’s head, his defeat.
Paul puts it another way in his letter to the Colossians “and you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.”(2:13-15) Satan is called the ruler of this world, and triumphing over him was part of Christ’s work on our behalf.
soli deo gloria,
Diane