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."
When Jesus said to “love your enemies” he was not saying
that you couldn’t or shouldn’t have enemies.
The very statement to “love your enemies” admits and accepts and even
expects you to have enemies. Jesus said
as much when he told his disciples that during the End Times, “you will be hated by all nations because of
me.” (Matthew 24:9) So
when we see the life and ministry of Jesus, the disciples, and Paul – it is
quick to see that they had their clear cut enemies. Jesus and the disciples had the Pharisees and
Sadducees. John the Baptist had Herodius. Paul had
Alexander the metalworker and his fellow Jews.
Having enemies is a natural part of being a child of light in a world of
darkness.
What does this have to do with Advent? The first candle that is lit during Advent is
called the Prophecy candle. The very
first prophecy of the Christ is found in Genesis 3:15. We usually associate the coming of Christ
with peace. Yet this prophecy of Christ
starts with enmity. Enmity means “to be
or treat as an enemy.” In the Hebrew it
takes the first and foremost position in the sentence – it is the highlight and
focus of the prophecy – enmity. Today
we’ll take a close look at
-
The Prophecy Candle: The Advent of Enmity
It is strange to think of the first prophecy of Christmas
as one that disrupts peace. Yet look at
what God says to Satan, “I will put
enmity between you and the woman.”
This insinuates and proclaims that there was a sort of peace between
Satan and man at that time. They had a
common experience that they could both talk about – what it was like to live
outside of the jurisdiction of God – on your own – doing your own. Perhaps there was even a sense of
exhilaration running through Adam and Eve at the consumption of the fruit – at
the freedom of being able to design and make their first clothes – a thankfulness to Satan for how he had advised them. One way or another God’s Word insinuates that
Adam and Eve seemed to have no ill will towards Satan. And think about this - if God hadn’t come –
perhaps Adam and Eve would have lived for hundreds of years in the Garden
without hardly any problems whatsoever – it was a beautiful garden after all –
perfectly designed in every way. The
eating of the Tree did not change the design or beauty of the
The only enmity that we see is when God enters the scene
and disrupts their peaceful eating of the fruit. It was God’s arrival that seemingly messed everything
up – which made them feel guilty and see the need to go running. When God then confronts them for what they’ve
done – Adam shows how corrupted he had become – as he doesn’t lash out at
himself – or Satan for that matter.
Instead, he lashes out at God and also the woman. He says, “the woman YOU PUT HERE with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree –
and I ate it.” It seems as if Adam
is saying, “God – if you had never put this woman here with me – this wouldn’t
have happened. You are to blame for my
disobedience.” Paul explains what
happened to them and us as he writes in Ephesians 4:18, “They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of
God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their
hearts.” Man in his core had become
completely blind to who he was, Satan was, and God was. So with his darkened heart he looked at God
as the enemy – the disrupter of peace.
You can still see the results of this sin in our world
yet today. God is the one who is the
brunt of man’s enmity. Think of how the
world responds to God at the Tsunami – “how could GOD do this!” When God’s Word talks about people being
sinful and threatens sinners with hell, then God is blamed as the anarchist –
Christians are blamed for being mean hearted and judgmental - the disturbers of peace for not letting people
be who they want to be. Now we are being
told that the Wiccan witches really aren’t that evil,
that those who speak to dead really aren’t to be feared at all, and that free
sex and divorce is to be accepted as a higher way of life. According to the media, these blatant sinners
have just been vilified by self righteous and judgmental Christians. Do you see what is happening? God is made out to be evil for entering our Garden
and confronting us with his holiness – not letting us live the lives that we
want to live. Christianity is made out
to be the disturber of peace by talking about sin and guilt and hell. The unholy alliance with Satan wants God to
stay out of our world and leave us alone to live our own lives – eating from
whatever trees we want.
At the point of such rebellion and sin – we would expect
the holy God to come down with His own enmity and wrath on all three of them
for coming into this unholy alliance. At
the least we might expect God to allow us to live here with Satan – living on
earth and enjoying it in peace – and then completely surprising us at the time
of death by silently consigning us to an eternity of hell. Yet here is where God does something
completely unexpected and completely undeserved. He says, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring
and hers.” God did something
incredibly gracious. He decided to
create an enmity that didn’t exist - and put it in between man and Satan. He had to create a new attitude in mankind
toward Satan –one that recognized Satan to be the enemy – not the friend of
man. He had to create in our mind the
concept that living our own lives is not right – that those who want us to live
apart from God are not our friends and not God’s friends either.
This
is what God has done for us – the offspring of Adam and Eve. He has given us enmity. What a blessing from God – that we see the
deterioration of our society as something evil.
It is a blessing from God if you cannot seem to hang out with your
classmate who likes to smart off to the teacher and disobey his parents. It is a blessing from God if you are not willing
to date the man or woman who – although good looking and friendly – has no
morals and no faith. What a wonderful
blessing if you hate it when you find yourself thinking thoughts that you know
are against God’s Word. When you become
angered at the free sex and greed promoted on the television and the Internet –
this is a good thing. If you didn’t have
a God created enmity – you would laugh at these products of Satan and look at
these as minor imperfections and indulgences – no big deal. But with the enmity God gave you - you
recognize evil in its many varieties for what it is – a sin against the Holy
God - and you do not like it. You hate
it.
II. Culminates in Christ
God
created this enmity in a very interesting way.
He didn’t do it by talking about how evil Satan was or by explaining
about how much better life would be if man lived the way God wanted. He did it by introducing a New Person to look
up to and listen to and by showing them the future of the Snake. 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. With this promise God showed that Satan was
not the future. He would not be in
control. The offspring of the woman
would be. Eve was so excited about this
that it is speculated that she thought Cain was actually the Messiah to
come. (Genesis 4:1)
Let’s
take a close look at what this promise involved. God promised a war between her seed and
Satan’s seed. Seed is a singular
noun. Paul makes mention of this
singular noun in his letter to the Galatians – when looking at a familiar
promise to Abraham. Galatians
If
you think about it – Christmas and the coming of Christ – which shows that tiny
baby in the crib – is about the culmination of a war between God and
Satan. That little baby was not being
born just to be held and cuddled and cooed over. He was being born as a Warrior – a Samson –
to smash the gates of hell. In the
Gospels you see this warrior chase out the demons. You see Him turn over the money changers
tables. You see him mourn over
Don’t
you think Satan knew this – as he influenced Herod to try and put God’s warrior
to death? Satan knew it was a war as he
went to battle with Jesus in the desert.
He gave Jesus everything he had – and Jesus never once backed down. He fought Satan in the desert. He refuted Satan through his false teachings
of the Pharisees and Sadducees. He
warned Judas of his treachery. He told
Peter to get behind Him on the way to the cross. Throughout all of this – Satan was
mismatched. Jesus – the Holy God - remained
steady – went on to war – and fought the battle – and He WON. With a holy rage He would not be dissuaded
from going to the final destination – through hell – for our sins. With those final words on the cross – Jesus
declared to Satan and to us, “it is finished.”
The battle was over. Hell had
been paid for. When Jesus was raised
from the dead, God declared His victory to the world. The first people that knew about Jesus
victory were Satan and the unbelievers in hell.
(1 Peter 3:19) Jesus went down there to tell them He had won the
victory.
Moses
described this battle by predicting that Jesus would crush Satan’s head – and
Satan would strike Jesus’ heel.
Actually, in the Hebrew the verb that we say “crush” and “strike” are
the same. The King James accurately uses
the same verb. The key difference in
this verse is not in the verb – but in the object of the verb – and the
position from which they strike. The
Messiah strikes the snake’s head, while the snake is only able to strike the
Messiah’s heel. As a man towers over a
snake – so the LORD God would tower over Satan – only an angel. Since the offspring of Eve would be God
Almighty who had taken on flesh – he would have a towering advantage – even
over one of the most powerful angels –turn him into nothing but a biting viper
– and stomp his head.
So
the war would come to a head in Christ. Whereas
Jesus was stung in the heel by going to the cross – it was not a permanent
blow. He rose from the dead. In his death and resurrection however, Jesus
struck Satan’s head. His reasons for
accusing us – his mouth of accusation – would be silenced by the same feet that
were nailed to the cross. Satan would have
nothing to say – nothing to accuse us of – because Jesus went to the cross to
pay for our sins. His leadership of us
would be finished – as Jesus smashed Satan’s head. Imagine how frustrating it will be for Satan
to have a whole laundry list – ready to accuse us of all kinds of sins that we
have committed – and for Jesus – the judge and defense attorney – to give him
no opportunity to speak – to declare to the world – “THEY ALREADY PAID FOR
THEIR SINS – your evidence of their sins is inadmissible! You are no longer their head – Satan. I am now their Head.” What a wonderful victory this is.
III. Continues beyond
Christmas through Christians
So
it’s Jesus – the heel of God – that creates enmity toward Satan. Satan is like that big bully who tries to
force you to be his friend – or the cunning con-artist who convinces you he’s
on your side and robs you blind - or the abusive husband who threatens to kill
you if you ever leave. He’ll use fear or
lies or flattery to try and keep you on his side. But then Christ comes and stomps on His
head. It’s this victory that gives us hope
– that creates that enmity – and gives us courage to hate Satan.
You see, this prediction also refers to us. Listen to it again. 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. Moses
simplifies life down to two paths – you are either offspring of Satan or
offspring of the woman. 1 John
This
has immediate consequences for us. Don’t
think that Satan is just going to give up on you – now that you’re
baptized. If he was willing to still try
and fight against Jesus to try and get him to fall – will he not try all the
harder on you – since you also still have a sinful nature? Satan still has influence over many of your
friends and classmates and co-workers. They
will try to get you to leave Jesus – and you won’t like it. So Moses’ prediction of enmity has to come
true. You recognize that the only way to
love your enemy is to warn them of sin and hell, and they will not like you
because of it. There has to be war and
there must be enemies. It’s not a matter
of if – but when. It is the nature of
living in a sinful and unbelieving world.
If there is no enmity – there is no faith. Satan tries to convince you that there needs
be no war – that we can live at peace with him and his offspring – that it is our right as humans to live however we want to
live. Yet Jesus says otherwise. Matthew
The
good news is that although this is a difficult and life long battle – we have
the promise of victory. Paul wrote to
the Romans in chapter 16:20, “The God of
peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.”
Notice what a wonderful promise this is.
It connects peace with the crushing of Satan – under YOUR feet. God includes us in this war. He puts not only the enmity in our hearts –
but also the sword of the Word in our mouths – and says, “onward
Christian soldiers!” With a holy hatred
of Satan – we fight not with metal swords or bombs strapped to our chests – but
only the explosive power of the Gospel.
We fight with the Word of God – the Law and the Gospel. The enmity continues beyond Christmas through
Christians – and the powerful God promises victory.
As Christmas approaches most of us tend to visit friends
and family. We look forward to opening
gifts with them, listening to the children sing at Christmas Eve – and having
some time off of work. We hope and pray
that in our visiting with family there won’t be any major arguments and that we
can manage to get along for a few days to a week. That’s ok.
The point I’m not trying to make is that you need to look to be at war
with everyone. Live at peace as far as
it depends on you. But recognize also
that sin and Satan need to be fought against.
Don’t sign a peace pact with the devil.
Don’t try to have the best of both worlds – living at peace with God and
Satan – because Satan will win every time.
Don’t be afraid of war. Enmity is
a gift of God. Don’t shy away from it. It is the only way to true peace.
Peace
on earth. It’s a refrain we usually sing
at Christmas. The greatest message of
Christmas is one of an eternal peace that the Savior came to bring us between
God and Him. The first prophecy of Christ
in Genesis 3:15 shows us how this peace came
about. It came because of God’s enmity. God
could not stand to see us at peace with Satan – at peace with our sin. In enmity the Savior had to come in the flesh
to crush Satan’s head. The LORD had to
create enmity in us towards Satan. He
had to reveal Satan for who He is. He is
not our friend. He is our enemy – who
has been crushed by Christ. That’s why
Christ the Savior was born. Let us like
God always hate Satan and always cling to Christ. This is where our true peace is found. This is how the advent of enmity – like the
Prophecy candle - comes to shine brightest.
Amen.